Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hands are starting to look black on top, said a former British army chief who doubled down on claims that the leader is receiving injections to battle serious illness. Lord Richard Dannatt highlighted the sign that Putin is getting injections in a discussion about leaked Kremlin emails allegedly confirming that the 70-year-old warmongering leader has Parkinson’s disease and pancreatic cancer. Recent photos also appeared to show signs of numerous IV marks on Putin’s hands, which he often covers up at official engagements. “Keen observers now are noticing that his hands are looking pretty black on top,...

Not long after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, soldiers broke down the office door of Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov. They put a bag over his head, bundled him into a car and drove him around the southern city for hours, threatening to kill him. Fedorov, 34, is one of over 50 local leaders who have been held in Russian captivity since the war began on Feb. 24 in an attempt to subdue cities and towns coming under Moscow's control. Like many others, he said he was pressured to collaborate with the invaders. “The bullying and threats did not stop for...

Eight months after Russia captured Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city to fall when Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded in February, Moscow’s grip on the city appears to be slipping as many of those who have refused Russia’s calls to evacuate anxiously wait for their city to be liberated. “The city feels somewhat abandoned. Everyone who sympathised with Russia has fled, and the rest are stocking up on food,” said Anastasya, an elderly woman who evacuated her son at the beginning of the war but decided to stay in Kherson to take care of her three cats and two dogs. The...

Natalia Chorna had warned her more outspoken twin sister to be careful after Russian forces occupied their home town of Skadovsk near Kherson, southern Ukraine, in February. But Tetyana Mudryenko found it hard to keep her anger about the war to herself. Last month, Mudryenko paid the ultimate penalty for proclaiming Skadovsk Ukrainian territory. According to several witnesses, she was dragged into the street by the self-appointed pro-Moscow authorities and hanged in a public execution. “In occupied Skadovsk, you can’t have your own opinion,” said Chorna, 56. As Ukraine pursues its counteroffensive in Kherson and Russia forcibly relocates tens of...

Xi Jinping issued rebuke of Putin's war in Ukraine during summit in Beijing Chinese leader warned Kremlin not to use nuclear weapons in the conflict Xi also urged Germany's Olaf Scholz to push for peace talks as pair met While Xi did not name Putin directly, call for Russia to withdraw, or blame Moscow for the war, it is none-the-less his strongest criticism so far Xi Jinping has issued a direct warning to Putin not to use nukes in Ukraine in China's bluntest rebuke yet to the Kremlin. In the early days of the war, China's foreign ministry repeated Russian...

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday cast Russia's war in Ukraine as a sacred conflict with Satan, warning that Moscow could send all its enemies to the eternal fires of Gehenna. -snip- Medvedev, who once cast himself as a liberal moderniser as president from 2008 to 2012, said Moscow was fighting "crazy Nazi drug addicts" in Ukraine backed by Westerners who he said had "saliva running down their chins from degeneracy". -snip- In a message marking Russia's Day of National Unity, Medvedev said the task of the fatherland was to "stop the supreme ruler of Hell, whatever name he...

Vladimir Putin's conscripts have been filmed drunkenly battering each other in an alcohol-fuelled brawl at a training barracks ahead of their deployment to the battlefields of Ukraine. An extraordinary leaked video shows the 'drunk' soldiers punching each other, with some ending up unconscious on the floor during the fight at the barracks in Yurga, Siberia. The video shows Putin's army intelligence and military police dragging the unconscious troops, who are from the 74th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, along the street and away from the bloody brawl. The footage tallies with reports of low morale and drunkenness among Russian recruits and...

Nearly 1,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in one day in Ukraine, Kyiv has claimed, marking the deadliest day for Vladimir Putin since his troops invaded eight months ago. Ukrainian forces have been making gains across Russian-occupied areas, with fighting intensifying in the country's east and in the southern city of Kherson. -snip- And in yet another example of his forces' incompetence, video shows panic-stricken Russian soldiers fleeing a Ukrainian attack on an armoured vehicle - only for it to flip over and fling the troops into the air. Footage, apparently from Kherson, shows Russian soldiers running towards an armoured...