Free Republic

Moscow nearly triggered a collective response from NATO by firing a missile that reportedly struck close to a convoy transporting the Greek prime minister and Ukraine's president, former U.S. representative Adam Kinzinger has said.The Illinois Republican was responding to reports of the proximity of a Russian missile strike to Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Volodymr Zelensky on Wednesday when they met in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa.

A pro-war Russian military blogger died on Wednesday, his lawyer said, after the blogger wrote the country’s military pressured him to remove a post exposing the scale of its losses in a recent battle in Ukraine. The blogger, Andrei Morozov, claimed in his post that Russia had lost 16,000 men and 300 armored vehicles in its assault on the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, which the Russians captured last week. He deleted the post on Tuesday after what he said was a campaign of intimidation against him. The following morning, Mr. Morozov published a series of posts on Telegram outlining the...

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team declared his death a murder Saturday as authorities claimed his life ended because of a medical condition called “sudden death syndrome.” Navalny, 47, died Friday in Russia’s brutal IK-3 penal colony in remote Kharp, about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow. “Alexey Navalny was murdered. His death occurred on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to the official message to Alexey’s mother,” Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh wrote on X early Saturday. Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service originally claimed “the convict” collapsed and died after he “felt unwell” during a walk. “When Alexei’s lawyer and...

A Ukrainian “coup” in 2015 that ousted the country’s pro-Moscow president put Russian and Ukraine on the path to war, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a much-touted interview with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson released Thursday. The Russian president in the two-hour interview also said peace talks with Ukraine early in the conflict had been “almost finalized” in 2022 before the U.S. and its European allies blocked further progress. ... Peace negotiations were “almost finalized after we withdrew our troops from Kyiv, but then the other side threw away all the agreement and obeyed the instructions of European countries and...

Russia said today that the European Union's decision to open membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova was a politicised decision that could destabilise the bloc. 'Negotiations to join the EU can last for years or decades. The EU has always had strict criteria for accession and it is obvious that at the moment neither Ukraine nor Moldova meets these criteria,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. 'It is clear that this is an absolutely politicised decision, the EU's desire to demonstrate support for these countries. But such new members could destabilise the EU.'

MOSCOW, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, during a rare trip abroad, to discuss oil production, OPEC+ and the wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine. Putin's meeting with the prince, known as MbS, comes after oil prices fell despite a pledge by OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, to further cut output.

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was hit with new charges by Russia Friday, according to reports. Navalny, 47, is already serving more than 30 years in prison after he was found guilty of charges that he and his supporters say were politically motivated. This time, he said in social media posts shared by his spokesperson that he has been charged under article 214 of Russia’s penal code, which covers crimes of vandalism. Navalny, a longtime critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that the Kremlin wants to “initiate a new criminal case against me every three months.” “I don’t...