Free Republic

Fox News host Tucker Carlson's long-running quest to blame the Biden administration for the war in Ukraine hasn't borne much fruit, despite his prominent perch on the most-watched cable news channel. We know very little about what happened to the pipelines, which carry natural gas from Russia to Europe, or who was responsible if the explosions were due to sabotage, which authorities say is likely. Anything seems possible at this point. But Carlson's supposed evidence for this being a U.S. operation is decidedly weak. Nonetheless, Carlson continued, that's where some people are pointing. "The Washington Post got right to it,"...

The strategy behind Ukraine’s rapid military gains in recent days began to take shape months ago during a series of intense conversations between Ukrainian and U.S. officials about the way forward in the war against Russia, according to American officials. The counteroffensive — revised this summer from its original form after urgent discussions between senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials — has succeeded beyond most predictions. Ukrainian forces have devastated Russian command and control, and appear poised to capitalize on their advances in the northeast of the country and in another campaign in the south.

Disclaimer: The Kyiv Independent is publishing this investigation to shed light on the alleged abuse of power in the leadership of one wing of the International Legion – a legion created for foreign fighters dedicated to defending Ukraine. The members of the Legion’s unit say that they reported their commanders’ misconduct to Ukrainian law enforcement, the parliament, and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Office, but saw no proper reaction and thus turned to journalists as a last resort. Soldiers who pointed at the problems within this unit of the Legion claim they received threats for speaking up. For their safety, we do...

Russia’s economy shrank by 4 percent year-on-year over the second quarter, according to data published by Russian federal statistics service Rosstat. The plunge, though significant in absolute terms, was not as drastic as expected by Russian and some Western observers. “June data suggests the contraction in the Russian economy seems to have bottomed out as the situation in some industries is stabilizing,” Sergey Konygin, an economist at Sinara Investment Bank, told Reuters. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban claimed in a speech last month that the European Union’s sanctions strategy against Russia has failed. “A new strategy is needed which should...

A court in Moscow has sentenced an opposition councillor to seven years in jail for criticising Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, the first prison sentence handed out under the new laws that restrict criticism of the war. Alexei Gorinov, a deputy at Moscow’s Krasnoselsky district council and trained lawyer, was arrested in April on charges of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army. According to the authorities, Gorinov committed the offence when he and a fellow opposition deputy, Elena Kotenochkina, spoke out against the council’s proposal to hold a children’s drawing contest and a dancing festival despite the war...