Free Republic

Enormous infernos ripped through the night sky in the occupied port city of Sevastopol. And as dawn broke this morning, Ukrainian forces announced they had hit two large Russian warships- Yamal and Azov. Both damaged vessels are Ropucha-class landing ships, 370ft long, 4,000 ton behemoths designed for D-Day-style amphibious assaults. Ukraine has attacked this type of ship before - sinking sister ships Tsezar Kunikov and Novocherkassk. Kyiv is reported to have used British Storm Shadow missiles in the strike - 600mph long-range weapons which have proved effective against the Russians. Putin's crony in Crimea, Mikhail Razvozhaev, was forced to admit...

ISIL’s Afghan branch – also known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K) – has claimed responsibility for the attack... “Russian foreign policy has been one big red flag for ISIS [ISIL],” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center told Al Jazeera. “The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Russian actions in Chechnya, Moscow’s close relationships with the Syrian and Iranian governments, and especially the military campaigns that Russia has waged against ISIS fighters in Syria and — through Wagner Group mercenaries – in parts of Africa.” “ISK [ISKP] has consistently demonstrated its ambition...

ISIS had a huge Russian and Central Asian contingent in its heyday. About one out of every five Russian citizens is Muslim, but that population is not evenly distributed either geographically or socioeconomically. In cities, a lot of taxi drivers and hard-luck laborers have names like Magomedov and Ismailov, indicative of Muslim ancestry.... The center of geographic gravity of Islam in Russia is the Northern Caucasus, the site of domestic strife and bloodshed in a series of episodes going back centuries. Some groups around Dagestan and Chechnya have become proficient guerrilla warriors, and Putin perfected his own harsh methods on...

Two fugitive squatters eyed in the slaying of a woman whose body was found stuffed in a duffel bag in a Manhattan apartment were busted in Pennsylvania Friday morning... Halley Tejada, 19, and Kensly Alston, 18, were tracked down by US Marshals deputies in York, west of Philadelphia, just before 11 a.m., and taken into custody the sources said. It came a little over a week after the body of 52-year-old Nadia Vitel was found hidden in her late mom’s 19th-floor apartment on East 31st Street last week. Investigators believed the suspects had been squatting in the upscale apartment and...

Russia's three-day presidential election began on Friday, and some Western analysts have said the Kremlin is concerned about low voter turnout. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to win by a large margin in what is considered by many to be a rigged election, his office is reportedly concerned that a smaller-than-expected turnout could lend credence to the argument that the contest is illegitimate. The Moscow Times on Thursday detailed how Russia is attempting to lure citizens to the polling stations with prizes like bags of sugar and concert tickets. In Omsk, a city in Siberia, some young voters...

Russian military bloggers reported that Ukrainian drones struck a plant in the city that repaired A-50 spy planes, as well as a nearby airfield. The attack came in "several waves," influential channel Fighterbomber wrote on Saturday. Kyiv said it has taken out two of Russia's A-50 aircraft since the new year. In late February, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency, the GUR, said Moscow still had six A-50s remaining. "That's two full shifts. Another A-50 will 'fall' and round-the-clock duty will have to be stopped," the GUR chief added. Earlier this month, the British government...

Who calls the shots in Canada, Ottawa or Beijing? On Monday the Liberal-dominated committee shut down an emergency request by Conservative MP Michael Chong to investigate the firing of two Chinese scientists, Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng, at the Winnipeg National Microbiology Laboratory in 2021. Chong made the request after the government released 600 pages of documents revealing that Qiu and Cheng had basically been spying for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), developing “deep, cooperative relationships” with institutions there and transferring Canadian scientific knowledge and materials to the Chinese government. CSIS warned that Qiu was collaborating with...

Court Commissioner Barbara Spencer said Raad Almansoori, 26, refused to consent to extradition and will stay in Arizona to stand trial for attempted murder, dashing Bragg’s hopes of getting the accused killer back to Manhattan over the objections of Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, KSAZ-TV reported. Manhattan prosecutors said they now plan to petition Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs to intervene. “Nothing can happen on the fugitive case other than there could be what’s called a governor’s directive which is the document that would hold you instead of the governor’s warrant or you would choose to sign a waiver,” Spencer told...

Ukrainian forces destroyed the Russian Black Sea Fleet's newest patrol ship, the Sergey Kotov, using naval drones in an overnight attack, Kyiv has said. According to the Unian news agency, Russia's newest Project 22160 patrol ship cost around $65 million to build and had a crew of 80, though it is currently unclear how many people were on board. "As a result of the attack by Magura V5 naval drones, the Russian ship of project 22160 'Sergey Kotov' suffered damage to the stern, right and left sides," Ukraine's military intelligence said in a post on Telegram. Ukraine has used Magura...

Military officials attribute much of their success so far to the superior technology and NATO-standard training that international partners have provided... Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week revealed that about 31,000 Ukrainian forces have died in combat since Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24, 2022 – while Russian troop death totals are closer to 180,000... “31,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been killed in this war. Not 300,000, not 150,000, not whatever Putin and his deceitful circle have been lying about." ... Officials here affirmed to The Post that Russian forces have been dying at a rate of roughly six...

New San Francisco Giants manager Bob Melvin has instituted a new rule for his club in his first year with the the franchise, and it’s difficult to miss during spring training. Melvin is requiring every person in the team’s dugout to stand for the national anthem, and he explained why. “It’s all about the perception that we’re out there ready to play,” Melvin said, per The Athletic. “That’s it. You want your team ready to play, and I want the other team to notice it, too. It’s really as simple as that.” Melvin also made it clear his reasoning has...

Deliveries of all-new Russian aircraft have been delayed by two years due to safety concerns ... The publication said that, for example, the weight of the new MS-21 passenger aircraft has increased by 5.75 tons, compared to the previous version, which used foreign components and Western engines. This means its flight range and altitude have been significantly reduced. One of Kommersant's sources said that, if Russia is unable to reduce the weight of the aircraft, it will be impossible for authorities to make the plane achieve the desired performance characteristics. "It's impossible to increase engine thrust by 20 percent," the...

"Russian officials and state-run and state-affiliated TV channels likely refrained from commenting on the two-year anniversary of the start of Russia's full-scale invasion to avoid drawing attention to Russia's failures to achieve its stated strategic goals in Ukraine and its more immediate goals of seizing all of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, while also suffering high personnel losses," the ISW said... The think tank said a recent opinion poll, conducted by independent Russian opposition polling organization Chronicles between January 23 and 29, suggests that "Russian sentiments about the war in Ukraine have largely remained unchanged in recent months and that most...

A representative of the company told Russian news outlet RBC that the decision was made after Roscosmos lost almost 80 percent of its export income after losing orders and key partners due to the war in Ukraine. This year, it intends to sell its "non-core" assets ... Borisov said in December that the company had lost contracts worth 180 billion rubles ($1.9 billion) out of 230 billion ($2.5 billion) as a result of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and subsequent sanctions imposed on Russia by Kyiv's allies... In October last year, Roscosmos appeared to admit that Russia's Luna-25 mission failed...

Missing from the picture, though, is the violence and disorder that makes these camps untenable from the get-go. They’re crime dens. They’re dangerous. They’re places no human should live, and places that the public should not have to subsidize. Even though police run patrols, and community groups run outreach programs, tent cities tend to be “governed” by gangs. In Vancouver, gang members set up tents in the community as an outpost for dealing. In Calgary, a gang took over a camp near a drop-in centre — resulting in beatings of campers and assaults on centre workers. In Edmonton, gangs are...

But upcoming Biden administration and German decisions concerning the deployment of precision deep-strike weapons — namely ATACMS and the Taurus cruise missile — are likely weighing heavily on Putin’s mind, along with the coming introduction of F-16 fighter jets. Ditto bilateral security guarantees, some signed just days ago, with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Canada — and Sweden’s and Britain’s announcements last week of additional military assistance. Europe is not giving up on Ukraine. Propaganda wins aside, it was a losing week for Putin... As many as 65 soldiers from Russia’s 39th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade...

For Russia, the battlefield situation is a testament to systemic failure. "Russia could not win this war at all," he continued. "No chances. Nothing to fix... Everything is wrong: Russia's strategy, Russia's ideology, decision-making process, education system, etcetera." Moscow's war effort has become more costly, more brutal and less ambitious over the past two years. The Kremlin's plodding devastation doctrine is still laying waste to front-line areas, but a goal of total victory was abandoned—like so many Russian soldiers—in the churned approaches to Kyiv in the spring of 2022... "Russia's army was unable to win anyway," Luzin said. "Russia put...

Facts, by Tom MacDonald, is currently No. 1 on two Billboard charts; Rap Digital Song Sales and R&B/Hip Hop Digital Song Sales. Released on Jan. 26, Facts has blown past the genre’s usual stalwarts, pulling ahead of artists such as Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat... MacDonald has scored hit songs before, but he got to No. 1 with Facts thanks in large part to his collaborator on the song, popular conservative podcast host Ben Shapiro... Shapiro, a classically trained violinist, has often been a vocal critic of rap and hiphop music — routinely reserving segments of his podcast to...

In recent years, a movement among sections of Chinese nationalists has emerged, asking that Russia return Vladivostok to China. These claims have been intensified by Putin's interview, in which he contrasted the alleged historical foundation of the Russian state, which he said dated back to the 9th century, with the "invention" of Ukraine in the 20th century. "According to history, Russia should return us Vladivostok and vast territory stolen 100-something years ago," Robert Wu, a social media user from China, said on X, formerly Twitter... Another Chinese nationalist on Weibo pointed out that Russia has territories that imperial Chinese dynasties...

... The Russian president argued that Poland was to blame for Hitler's decision to invade, claiming the Warsaw "went too far" by balking at the annexation of part of its territory. Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski suggested in a post to X, formerly Twitter, on Friday that Putin was "paranoid" and called it "shocking" that Carlson "enabled" the Russian president by giving him a platform to spread his false claims and rhetoric. Sikorski .. also noted that Hitler was joined in invading Poland by the Soviet Union, which was an ally to Nazi Germany for nearly the first two years...