Free Republic

A huge storm in the Black Sea has wrecked Russian defences in Crimea and devastated Sochi, an important port city on Russia’s wester coast. Trenches, coastal barriers and firing position were washed away from Yevpatoriya, on the western coast of Crimea, close to Sevastopol. Local reports said winds gusted up to 80mph, with waves of up to 30ft. Meanwhile in Sochi, Russia’s largest resort city, similar scenes played out. Footage showed huge waves washing ashore, damaging buildings and inundating promenades along the sea front. Crimea’s west coast is an important front in Russia’s war with Ukraine and was vulnerable to...

Russian troops 'ran as fast as they could' as they fled their positions on the frontline in Ukraine, the head of the Wagner mercenary group has claimed in his latest rant targeting the Kremlin's military chiefs. Yevgeny Prigozhin - until now a close ally of Vladimir Putin - savaged the tactics of Russia's war commanders and compared Moscow's forces with a fish that was rotting from the head. And he even threatened to ignore Moscow's warning that he and his men would face treason charges if they abandoned their frontline positions - blaming Russia's defence ministry for failing to supply...

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia's mercenary group Wagner, accused unspecified officials of deliberately denying his fighters sufficient ammunition as part of an ongoing rivalry between himself and parts of the Russian elite. A onetime catering entrepreneur who once shunned the public spotlight, Prigozhin has assumed an ever more public role in Russian politics since the start of the war in Ukraine a year ago, with his Wagner Group spearheading Russia's months-long battle for the town of Bakhmut in Ukraine's Donetsk region. In a seven-minute long audio message published on Monday by his press service, an apparently angry and emotional...