Free Republic

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that he has survived multiple Russian assassination attempts on his life and that there is an ongoing Kremlin plot to take him out before the end of the year. Speaking with Britain’s largest circulation newspaper, The Sun, Zelensky said that there have been at least “five or six” assassination plots against him by Moscow since the Russian invasion of his country last year that have been foiled by Ukrainian intelligence services. “The first one is very interesting, when it is the first time, and after that it is just like Covid. First of all people...

The Russian navy has withdrawn from around Ukraine over the past month, but it still isn’t safe at its new anchorage in the eastern Black Sea warns President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying they will still be in range of the country’s newly acquired long-range missiles. The Russian Black Sea Fleet — “functionally” defeated by Ukraine already, according to a British reckoning — has been repositioned to a new base in Georgia to escape strikes by Ukrainian forces, but even this won’t save them, a warning states. Making an address on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed his forces would continue to...

Ukraine has used U.S.-made cluster-bomb-tipped rockets from the ATACMS system for the first time, it is claimed, with the weapon said to have taken out nine Russian helicopters while they were still on the ground. Ukraine claims to have taken out nine helicopters and associated support equipment on the ground in a series of coordinated strikes against Russian-occupied airfields overnight. Per a statement from the Ukrainian government the strikes in the early hours of Tuesday morning were against airfields in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine including Berdiansk and Luhansk and as well as the nine military helicopters Ukraine says ammunition stores...

The Russian Black Sea Fleet has scattered to escape repeated Ukrainian strikes and consequently is now too far away from the war to be able to engage in it, a functional defeat, the British Armed Forces Minister said on Tuesday. While Ukraine had considerable successes in the land war in 2022 these were not forthcoming in 2023, but that doesn’t mean they are without progress in pushing Russia back, the British Armed Forces Minister told a conference. James Heappey pointed to Ukraine’s strikes against the Russian navy as a clear measure of their progress at the Warsaw Security Forum on...

Emil Cosman

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went back to a favourite playbook of his neo-liberal government, warning of the perils of “Russian disinformation” as his government is facing an international scandal over the invitation of a 98-year-old Ukrainian soldier who fought for Nazi Germany in World War II to a reception for President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Canadian parliament last week. Continuing to refuse to acknowledge any guilt or involvement in the incident, in which he and President Zelensky gave former Waffen SS soldier Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation, Justin Trudeau told reporters in Ottowa on Monday that it was “extremely...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday questioned why the United Nations still allows “Russian terrorists” a seat at the table, expressing a renewed determination to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the General Assembly meeting this week. “If in the United Nations there is a place for Russian terrorists,” Zelensky said, “it’s a question to all the members of the United Nations.” Zelensky made the comments during a visit to meet wounded Ukrainian soldiers at New York’s Staten Island University Hospital. There are 18 Ukrainian military members at the hospital who lost limbs while fighting in Ukraine.

An opposition MP has been arrested and detained on suspicion of treason in Ukraine, with the nation’s security service claiming to have collected evidence of him spreading Russian propaganda. Nestor Shufrych, a member of the Opposition Platform — For Life party that was banned by President Volodymyr Zelensky through martial law measures last March following the Russian invasion, is facing 15 years in prison on suspicion of high treason. He is alleged to have spread the “Kremlin’s false narratives that the Ukrainian state is ‘an artificial entity’, that Ukraine and Russia ‘have one history’, and that Ukrainians and Russians are...

Former Vice President Mike Pence warned this week that if Russian forces are not repelled in Ukraine, U.S. military service members may have to step up to the fight. "I’m convinced that if the Ukrainian military doesn’t stop and repel that Russian invasion, it’s not going to be too long before that Russian army crosses a border that our men and women in uniform are going to have to go and fight under our NATO Treaty," Mr. Pence said during a town hall-style interview with NewsNation on Wednesday. "I truly believe it. Whether that's Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, ... Poland, I...

The United Kingdom should keep handing over its stocks of advanced cruise missiles, former Prime Minister and key Zelensky ally Boris Johnson has said, as Ukraine continues to strike Russia’s navy. The West needs “strategic patience” and a “far greater sense of urgency about our programme of military assistance” towards Ukraine, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has written for a British news magazine, as he urged more missiles for Ukraine, and as soon as possible. The shopping list of missiles he has in mind is broad, from UK Storm Shadow cruise missiles, ‘ATACM’ tactical missiles, man-portable air defence missiles,...

Vice President Harris said that a meeting between North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin would be a mistake, saying it would further isolate both countries. North Korea is considering supplying Moscow with artillery rounds and rockets in return for critical technology and food. The deal could be made later this month when Kim is planning to go to Moscow.

Retired Army Gen. David Petraeus complimented the Ukrainian military for a long-awaited counteroffensive that has disappointed some Western allies, saying the Ukrainian army has “adapted very impressively” to defenses that were more formidable than expected. “No plan survives contact with the enemy and that has been true in this case,” Petraeus said in a CNN interview Tuesday. “Certainly there were hopes… that they might be able to mount combined arms operations that could penetrate the Russian defenses, but that was before we all learned about the depth of these defenses, about the sophistication of them.”

Members of the United Nations commission investigating allegations against Russia of human rights abuse are traveling Monday to Ukraine for the group’s third “fact-finding mission.” The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine will travel to several locations in Ukraine, including Uman in Cherkasy Oblast and Kyiv, departing Aug. 28 and returning Sept. 4. The trip is part of the ongoing effort “to investigate alleged human rights violations and abuses, and international humanitarian law violations and to meet with victims and witnesses.” The commissioners will meet with government officials, members of society, UN agencies’ representatives and international groups and...

President Biden on Wednesday suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin could be behind the plane crash in Russia that had Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin listed as a passenger. “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind,” Biden told reporters. President Biden on Wednesday suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin could be behind the plane crash in Russia that had Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin listed as a passenger. “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind,” Biden told reporters.

Russian scientist Dr. Dmitry Fedyanin seemed to die doing what he loved. German officials say the 34-year-old expert in ultra-violet light and a senior research fellow at the Nanooptics Department of Siegen University in Germany fell to his death Berchtesgadener Alps National Park after following his hiking app over a cliff. Fedyanin’s body was found at the bottom of Hoher Laafeld peak, which sits at about 7,000 feet. Fedyanin was using his hiking app to make his way down the mountain but the route he was taking didn’t have paths and the app “sent him over mountain precipice.” “Our investigators...

Ukraine, Denmark, and the Netherlands appeared to reach a milestone agreement to give the invaded nation F-16 jets, with the first delivery coming as early this year but it comes with a condition of no strikes beyond Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders. President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the progress on the F-16 deal during an in-person visit to Denmark and the Netherlands at the weekend, enthusiastically claiming the Dutch government was going to hand over 42 F-16s, the nation’s entire stock of the aircraft. The Dutch were more circumspect and didn’t put a specific number or even timeline for delivery at the...

Russian RAMBO, YOU BE THE JUDGE. go to 4:25 to see video

Here’s hoping you have a very unhappy holiday! Ukraine is so eager to spite Russia, it passed a law changing when it celebrates Christmas. The country will now mark the holy day on Dec. 25, dropping the Russian Orthodox Church’s tradition of celebrating the holiday on Jan. 7. The bill’s sponsors believe the change will help Ukraine “abandon the Russian heritage of imposing the celebration of Christmas on January 7,” while helping Ukrainians “live their own life with new traditions [and] holidays,” The Guardian reported. The change was passed by Ukraine’s parliament earlier this month and signed into law Friday...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS” that Ukraine has retaken about 50% of the territory that Russia initially seized. Partial transcript as follows: ZAKARIA: Tell us what you can sense of what is going on in the counteroffensive that Ukraine is manage– attempting with Russia. The – so far, the reports seem to be it is very slow and very tough going.

Ukraine's air force has appeared to confirm that a U.S-made Patriot missile system was behind the downing of five Russian aircraft in one day in May 2023. A video posted on Monday shows "kill" markings on the side of a Patriot air defense system that indicate it claimed three helicopters and two jets on May 13. If accurate, this would be a record for a Patriot system in a single day.