Free Republic

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Wednesday appeared to back allowing Ukraine to use American-provided weapons to strike Russia or Russian-controlled territory. One reporter asked Johnson about a House Intelligence Committee letter calling on the Biden administration to allow Ukraine to strike Russia with American-supplied weapons. The letter stipulates that this would allow Ukraine to strike “Russian-controlled territory” as well as Russian territory and represents a significant escalation in America’s seemingly endless proxy war against Russia.

They say one week is a long time in politics. Those same people have never been to war.Six days ago, Ukrainian forces were just about hanging on across the near-1,000 kilometre front. Recent territorial losses to Russia – most notably the town of Avdiivka – in addition to recent delays in both US and EU military aid packages, had caused mounting concern for Ukraine’s fate in 2024.Despite these recent battlefield set-backs, and delays in aid, it still felt as though Ukraine was buying time to rearm, reorganise, and redeploy an offensive counter-attack this summer.That was six days ago, before up...

A divisive mobilization law in Ukraine came into force Saturday, as Kyiv struggles to boost troop numbers after Russia launched a new offensive that some fear could close in on Ukraine's second-largest city. The legislation, which was watered down from its original draft, will make it easier to identify every conscript in the country. It also provides incentives to soldiers, such as cash bonuses or money toward buying a house or car, that some analysts say Ukraine cannot afford.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia could increase its attacks in Ukraine's north east following its recent gains near the city of Kharkiv. Mr Zelensky admitted that there were issues with military staffing and morale, saying a number of existing brigades were empty. He also told the AFP news agency the country's air fleet was lacking and renewed calls for allies to send more air defence and fighter jets. "Today we have about 25% of what we need to defend Ukraine," Mr Zelensky said of Ukraine's air capabilities.

“NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, a move that would be another blurring of a previous red line and could draw the United States and Europe more directly into the war,” the newspaper wrote. Journalists add that Ukraine lacks the resources to train its troops, and the situation on the battlefield has worsened due to the Russian offensives. Consequently, Ukrainian officials have asked their U.S. and NATO counterparts for help in training 150,000 soldiers closer to the front lines for quicker deployment. The United States refused to send even military advisers to...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian troops are locked in intense battles with the advancing Russian army in two border areas, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, while the death toll from a Russian apartment building collapse blamed on Ukrainian shelling rose to 15. Zelenskyy said “fierce battles” are taking place near the border in eastern and northeastern Ukraine as outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers try to hold back a significant Russian ground offensive. “Defensive battles are ongoing, fierce battles, on a large part of our border area,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Sunday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russian forces were improving their positions every day along the front in Ukraine in all directions and that the advance was going to plan.Russia has been pushing Ukrainian forces back at various points in recent months despite hundreds of billions of dollars worth of aid from the United States and its allies.Putin, at a meeting in the Kremlin with new Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, Secretary of the Security Council Sergei Shoigu, and top generals, said the work of the military was "proceeding according to the plan" approved by the General Staff."The...

What amounted to a probing attack or skirmish on the part of Russian forces has caused chaos amongst the ukies

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces began a renewed ground assault on Ukraine’s northeast, killing and injuring several and forcing more than 1,700 civilians to evacuate from the Kharkiv region, local officials said Saturday. Artillery, mortar, and aerial bombardments hit more than 30 different towns and villages, leaving at least three people dead and five others injured, said Kharkiv governor, Oleh Syniehubov. Ukraine rushed reinforcements to the Kharkiv region on Friday to hold off a Russian attempt to breach local defenses, authorities said.

Russian forces have attacked across the Ukrainian border to the north of Kharkiv in a potential effort to open a new front in the war and intensify the pressure on Ukraine’s second city. Ukraine’s defence ministry said there had been “an attempt by the enemy to break through our defence line using armoured vehicles” at about 5am on Friday near the town of Vovchansk, and the initial attacks had been repelled. There were also reports of fighting in the border villages of Strilecha, Pylna and Borysivka farther west, and that Russian forces had advanced by about 1km around Vovchansk, though...

Two hydropower plants in Ukraine were severely damaged and were no longer in operation after Russian bombardments earlier this week, the state energy company Ukrhydroenergo said Thursday. "As of today all hydro generation has suffered devastating damage," it said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app, adding that significant financial resources and efforts would be required to repair the damage and restore the plants' operations. Ukraine plans to double electricity imports Thursday after the powerful Russian attack on Ukraine's energy system, the energy ministry said.

Missiles from North Korea, drones from Iran, and a massive amount of technical assistance from China. Russian President Vladimir Putin may complain about the backing Ukraine is receiving from Nato allies, but it is doubtful that Russia would be able to maintain its military offensive without the help it is getting from its motley collection of autocratic friends. In the latest indication of the support Moscow is receiving for its war effort in Ukraine, a team of UN investigators has concluded that debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on January 2 was from a...

Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones targeting energy and military-industrial facilities across Ukraine in the early hours of May 8. The strikes reportedly targeted five Ukrainian regions – Poltava, Kirovograd, Lvov, Ivano-Frankovsk, and Vinnitsa – as well as part of the Zaporozhye region currently under the Kiev regime’s control. Air defense systems were also operating in Kiev and the capital’s environs.

The ink was barely dry on President Biden’s signature transferring another $61 billion to the black hole called Ukraine, when the mainstream media broke the news that this was not the parting shot in a failed US policy. The elites have no intention of shutting down this gravy train, which transports wealth from the middle and working class to the wealthy and connected class. Reuters wrote right after the aid bill was passed that, “Ukraine’s $61 billion lifeline is not enough.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went on the Sunday shows after the bill was passed to say that $61...

As the West struggles to define its strategy in Ukraine, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have long insisted that the only path to a “just and lasting peace” is to support Ukraine until Russia unconditionally admits defeat. They dismiss calls for a negotiated settlement as naive, dangerous and futile, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not relent unless stopped by force of arms — Ukrainian or otherwise. More than two years into the conflict, Western leaders remain unfazed in their commitment to Russian military defeat, even as the fighting tilts decidedly in Moscow’s favor. The West’s continued...

A senior Ukrainian intelligence official warned about the threat Moscow poses on other nations in Europe, saying "the Russians will take the Baltics in seven days" if allies don't stand up to Russia now. The comment was made by Major-General Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine's military intelligence directorate (GUR), during an interview with The Economist published on Thursday. The alarm has been sounded before about the potential of Russian President Vladimir Putin looking to start conflicts in the Baltic states. Earlier this year, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote that the Russian leader appeared to...

(Kyiv, May 2, 2024) – Russian forces appear to have executed at least 15 Ukrainian soldiers as they attempted to surrender, and possibly six more who were surrendering or who had surrendered, since early December 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. These incidents should be investigated as war crimes. “Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its forces have committed many heinous war crimes,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “The summary execution – or murder – of surrendering and injured Ukrainian soldiers, gunned down in cold blood, expressly forbidden under international humanitarian law, is...

A very sobering @olliecarroll interview with Ukraine’s deputy mil intel chief. He says Chasiv Yar will fall eventually, that Ukraine is far from stabilising the front and that Russia is “generating a division of reserves” & wants to strike at Sumy/Kharkiv. ‘Right now, both sides are jockeying for the “the most favourable position” ahead of potential talks. But meaningful negotiations can begin only in the second half of 2025 at the earliest, he guesses

Ukraine’s population collapsed to 29mn souls last year, according to Ukraine Business News, with just 187,000 births recorded (including in Russian-occupied territories). This is the lowest annual figure in recorded history over the last 300 years, exacerbating an already dire population catastrophe facilitated by economic turmoil and war. Ukraine's demographic crisis dates back to the Soviet collapse in 1991, when the country’s population stood at 51.9mn. Economic crises and labour migration saw the country’s total fertility rate plummet to 1.4 births per woman (well below the replacement level of 2.1) by 2022 and possibly as low as .7 by the...

Well, as suspected, the war in Ukraine isn't about Democracy. It is about business and appeasing investors, the same investors who are also donators to the political parties. Col Douglas MacGregor talks about BlackRock and other investors who wanted to carve up Russia & Ukraine.