Free Republic

An oil depot in Russia exploded in a towering inferno this morning after a drone attack thought to have been orchestrated by Ukraine. Three tanks containing thousands of tonnes of diesel fuel caught fire around 6am local time at a site in Bryansk, a Russian region that borders Ukraine to the north. The fire began after a drone dropped explosives into one of the fuel tanks, according to Russian media. Nobody was injured in the attack. Videos taken shortly after the strike showed two fuel tanks spewing smoke and flame with at least one showing signs of blast damage, with...

... With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that Putin’s gamble is failing. The Ukrainian people are resisting with all their heart, winning the admiration of the entire world – and winning the war. Many dark days lie ahead. The Russians may still conquer the whole of Ukraine. But to win the war, the Russians would have to hold Ukraine, and they can do that only if the Ukrainian people let them. This seems increasingly unlikely to happen. Each Russian tank destroyed and each Russian soldier killed increases the Ukrainians’ courage to resist. And each Ukrainian killed deepens the...

The Biden administration on Monday notified Congress it has approved a possible $323 million arms sale to Finland as the country seeks to join NATO. The administration approved the potential sale of 40 tactical missiles and 48 Joint Standoff Weapons, made by Raytheon, in addition to accompanying equipment, training and support, the State Department said in a release. Finland, which shares a border with Russia, is in the process of joining NATO along with Sweden. Both countries sought to enter the alliance earlier this year. This State Department said the proposed sale “will support the foreign policy and national security...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

THIS is the moment Vladimir Putin's feet appeared to twitch and spasm during a meeting in a possible sign of Parkinson's disease. The Russian president, 70, who is reportedly "critically ill", met with Kazakhstan president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, 69, on Monday. During the tense talks in Moscow, Putin's feet twitched and spasmed - a symptom of Parkinson's disease. Footage showed his legs jolting and his feet tapping as he spoke to the cameras about the "special significance" of the meeting. He was also seen gripping his right arm with his left hand throughout the talks - months after he was pictured...

Video LinkYesterday a real information bomb exploded. Russian billionaire, Putin's authorized person and founder of ''PMC Wagner Group'' Yevgeny Prigozhin made a sensational statement. In an interview with journalists from the Finnish newspaper 'Helsingin Sanomat', Yevgeny Prigozhin said that many professional army men from NATO countries, including the US Marine general are fighting on the Side of PMC Wagner Group. At the same time, He also stated that a large number of Finnish citizens are fighting in the so-called British battalion as part of the PMC Wagner Group, the commander of which is a US citizen - retired U.S. Marine...

Now, following the liberation of the southern city of Kherson, the Ukrainians say they have found four Russian torture chambers where abuses were perpetrated against the civilian population on a “horrific” scale. Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General said the Russians had “illegally detained people and brutally tortured them” using a variety of despicable methods, including “a device with which the occupiers tortured civilians with electricity.” The abundance of evidence accumulated by Ukrainian and international investigators illustrates the industrial scale on which Russian President Vladimir Putin and his henchmen are today committing war crimes in the heart of Europe..... To...

The reports come as Russia faces mounting outrage from the international community for numerous alleged human rights abuses in Ukraine Ukrainian citizens have reportedly been tortured, raped and summarily executed by Russian soldiers during the country's invasion of Ukraine, United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack claimed last week. The reports come as Russia faces mounting outrage from the international community for numerous alleged human rights abuses, including possible war crimes, during its invasion of Ukraine. For instance, Russian soldiers are believed to have murdered residents of Bucha, where dozens of bodies were found in the streets,...

Update from Ukraine | Ruzzia tries to encircle the Bahmut city | Ukraine fights back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2_RlDLp2_Y&list=RDCMUCpr-NNORb2UQYDD3k-w-OFg&start_radio=1 Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ Military maps & Comment here: https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-274-summary/ SUMMARY & MAPS https://militaryland.net/maps/invasion-maps/

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has postponed a planned visit to Minsk following the death of his Belarusian counterpart Vladimir Makei, according to Russian media reports quoting the foreign ministry. Belarus's state news agency Belta reported on Saturday that the long-standing foreign minister and associate of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko had died suddenly. The cause of death wasn't given and Makei wasn't known to suffer from any chronic illness. Makei, 64, was due to meet Lavrov on Monday. Last week he attended a conference of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) -- a military alliance of several post soviet states...

Ukrainians’ mass exodus from their recently liberated city of Kherson continued Sunday as Russia’s sustained shelling on the area has made it virtually unlivable. The city, which was freed by Ukrainian forces more than two weeks ago, has faced intense attacks by nearby Russian soldiers as Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor reaches the nine-month mark. Residents facing awful conditions and fearing imminent strikes kept fleeing the city over the weekend. One resident said he was devastated he had to leave especially since the city had just regained its freedom from Russian occupation.

Russia's attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure amount to genocide, a top Ukrainian official says. Strikes on key facilities targeted "the full Ukrainian nation" and were an effort to force Kyiv to surrender, the prosecutor-general told the BBC. The term genocide refers to an effort to wipe out a group of people. Russia denies having any such aim. Millions of people across Ukraine are facing power cuts in freezing weather, following sustained Russian attacks. Efforts are ongoing to reconnect homes cut off from electricity. Officials say Kherson has now been fully resupplied, following the city's recapture by Ukrainian troops earlier this...

Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation, has pretended he has nothing to do with the deaths of Russian soldiers in the war he had waged, comparing losses on the front line to deaths from road accidents and alcohol. Source: video recording of Putin’s conversation with "soldiers’ mothers" Quote from Putin: "Of course, this is a huge tragedy [the death of a relative - ed.]. It is a void that cannot be filled with anything when a loved one is gone, especially a son. But you know what comes to my mind: in our country, about 30,000 people die...

The Ukrainian army has deployed some of its best brigades to eastern Ukraine, including the 92nd and 93rd Mechanized Brigades and the 1st Presidential Brigade. But these elite Ukrainian formations might not be the biggest killer of Russian troops in the east. Under-trained, under-supplied and ambivalently led, Russians in the region are freezing to death by the dozen. Shocking videos that have circulated online in recent weeks tell a tragic story. The videos, shot by the Ukrainian brigades’ hovering drones, depict Russians in the late stages of hypothermia, so cold and sick that they barely react when the drones drop...

Update from Ukraine | Ruzzia expected to lose 100k more soldiers | Ukraine cancelled their attack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mifc4aAD1KY&list=RDCMUCpr-NNORb2UQYDD3k-w-OFg&start_radio=1 Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ Military maps & Comment here: https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-274-summary/ SUMMARY & MAPS https://militaryland.net/maps/invasion-maps/

ITALIAN police have arrested several neonazis affiliated with the Ukrainian Azov Battalion fighting against the Russians.The police arrested five members of the Italian organisation called the Order of Hagal on Tuesday while another member of their gang is still wanted by the authorities.The remaining gang member, Ukrainian national, Anton Radomsky, is in Ukraine fighting the Russians alongside the Azov Battalion — a neonazi unit within the Ukrainian army.The group is accused by the Italian authorities of stockpiling weapons and planning to conduct terror attacks against civilian and police targets in the country.

Intel Slava Z 🤡 “Ukrainians are ready to live without light and heat for two or three years,” - Olena Zelenskaya. Granted being Superman and not needing heat or light might be fun... Most people would not want politicians making that kind of decision for them.

Col MacGregor: The military establishment that Putin and his government built in the last 15 to 20 years was designed preeminently to simply defend Russia. It was not designed for any offensive warfare against any neighbors. And I think that we failed to see that the reduction in the size of the force and the change in its orientation meant something very different from what it meant in Soviet times or even in the Tsars period. Mr. Putin went in to Eastern Ukraine with a set of assumptions that were not valid, but at the time he thought they were....

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former KGB mentor and one-time crony, who later became an outspoken critic, has died from an unexplained “serious illness,” officials said. Viktor Cherkesov, 72, died in St. Petersburg Tuesday night, according to a Telegram post by Alexander Khinstein, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy. “Victor Vasilyevich was a wonderful person and a true statesman. Eternal memory to him!” Khinstein wrote. No cause of death was released, but Russian media reported that it followed a “serious illness.” Cherkesov was a former chief of the now-defunct State Drug Control Service (FKSN) and presidential envoy to...

A RUSSIAN commander closely involved in Vladimir Putin's war effort has been found shot dead at his office. Colonel Vadim Boyko, 44, who had been involved in the mobilisation campaign, reportedly had “multiple bullet wounds”. Colonel Vadim Boyko was found with 'multiple bullet wounds' He was deputy head of the prestigious Makarov Pacific Higher Naval School in Vladivostok. It was reported he came to work, entered his office, and soon afterwards five shots were heard. Another officer heard the shots and then rushed to find Boyko - only to find his corpse. Russian reporting initially said it was "suicide" -...