Free Republic

Russia launched plans to sharply raise taxes on high earners and companies to fill state coffers and fund what it sees as a long war in Ukraine. A government commission on Wednesday approved a Finance Ministry plan to introduce a new progressive income tax as well as raise corporate tax rates. The proposed amendments, which would come into force from next year, are expected to bring an additional 2.6 trillion rubles, or around $29 billion. -snip- Per capita household income is around $7,100, according to data provider CEIC. Russia’s military expenditures are already running at over 6% of gross domestic...

A Russian victory is an Iranian victory. Moscow and Tehran have formed a military bloc with the aim of defeating the United States and its allies in the Middle East, Europe, and around the world. Russian and Iranian military forces have been fighting alongside one another in Syria for nearly a decade.

Russia went to war in Ukraine in February 2022 with no more than nine flyable Beriev A-50U/M radar planes, which extend sensor coverage over the front line. The four-engine A-50s and the 10 or 15 experienced officers who crew each of them are critical and hard-to-replace assets. Which is why the Ukrainians have devoted scarce resources to finding and striking the $300-million planes. A Ukrainian drone damaged an A-50 on the ground in Belarus last year. On Jan. 14, a long-range Ukrainian missile shot down an A-50 over the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine. Six weeks later on Feb....

CONFIRMED: Russian forces send an American Abrams tank up in flames in Ukraine!

Around the world, corrupt political regimes are weaponising the courts to go after political rivals. In one country, a prosecutor is trying to persuade a court to impose a prison sentence of up to hundreds of years on a former national leader on the basis of technicalities about handling official documents. In another lawless, illiberal regime, a partisan prosecutor is using a law intended to prosecute organised crime to destroy a politician of the other party. In a country in which the rule of law is at risk, a prosecutor and a judge seek the financial ruin of an opposition...