Free Republic

US unilateralism has wrecked the chances of peace in the Middle East, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, told a crisis Brics meeting on Gaza as he attempted to woo leaders of the global south. The virtual meeting of 11 nations, convened by South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, came as Arab foreign ministers toured capitals to drum up support for a fresh UN security council resolution mandating Israel to introduce a full ceasefire and end what they say are breaches of international humanitarian law. ...Putin told the Brics meeting that the US was undermining the chances of peace by trying to...

Svyatoslav Golikov, an instructor of Russia's Storm-Z penal units, took to his Telegram channel on Tuesday to outline the impact the weapons are having on troops in combat. He said ATACMS, which are capable of reaching targets 100 miles or more away, are creating large-scale casualties, and this is disrupting the execution of Russian operations... The U.S. agreed in September to supply Ukraine with ATACMS. Given their long-range, Kyiv's forces are able to strike targets further away than missiles from the U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and M270 multiple-launch rocket systems... "It is cluster shells that are now...

Russia's proposed 2024 budget allocates funding to the families of 102,700 military personnel killed in Ukraine, giving insight into Moscow's likely death toll in Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine that began in February 2022. The figures, which have not been independently verified by Newsweek, were reported on Thursday by independent Russian news outlet Mozhem Obyasnit, which analyzed Russia's federal budget draft for 2024 to 2026. The publication notes that in addition to one-time insurance payments for military personnel killed in Ukraine, relatives also receive monthly compensation of 21,922.12 rubles ($225) from the Social Fund of Russia.... According to...

At about 10:50 into the video, Throwing girls and young women into the kleptonazi meat-grinder,,,

The West has provided Ukraine with EVERYTHING, from weapons, training, and money to removing their opponent from the SWIFT system and irreparably harming their relationship with Russia. The blank checks to Ukraine are real, as we have come to learn as week after week, politicians travel to Kyiv to offer more and more. Major General Kyrylo Budanov of Ukraine knows that there would be no war without Western aid, and said that he knows Western nations can provide more since “warehouses in Western countries are not completely empty.” According to Joe Biden, the US is low on ammunition but there...

Russia expected to finish off its invasion of Ukraine within a week and a half, making sweeping gains in the initial days of the invasion that started on February 24, 2022. But this failed to materialize in the face of what experts called Ukrainian defiance that took the Kremlin by surprise. Western analyses have also suggested that Moscow made a number of crucial mistakes in the early phases, including how it used its tank crews, sustaining heavy losses of experienced personnel... Russia currently controls about one-fifth of Ukraine's internationally recognized territory. Kyiv's ongoing counteroffensive, which began in early June, has...

Commercial vessels have resumed using Ukraine’s main port of Odesa without asking permission from Russia for the first time since the war began—showing just how much the balance of power has changed in the Black Sea. By imposing an asymmetrical war that relies on domestically produced naval drones and missiles, and that targets Russians ships in their own home bases, Ukraine has eroded much of Russia’s vaunted naval superiority... Outnumbered 12 to one by the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Ukrainian Navy wasn’t considered a meaningful force when Russia invaded... Ukraine quickly scuttled its flagship frigate... so that the vessel...

Ukrainian forces have made progress in the area south and east of Robotyne in southern Ukraine, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said in a post on her channel on the Telegram messenger app on Sept. 18.The Ukrainian Armed Forces are now consolidating the positions they have gained, Maylar said.In the south, Ukrainian troops are continuing to conduct an offensive on the Melitopol section of the front line, she said.

It is increasingly difficult for the Zelensky regime to hide, if not exact numbers, but the truly enormous scale of losses in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, suffered not only during the so-called counter-offensive, famous for “meat assaults,” but in general during the period of hostilities on the Ukrainian front. According to the Russian side, the Ukrainian army lost about half a million people killed and wounded during the conflict. Even in the West, including at the official level, there is a figure of at least three hundred thousand military personnel who will never return to the front.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned Sunday that the West must make preparations for a “long war in Ukraine,” and declaring that there is “no doubt” Ukraine will eventually join the American-led military alliance. In an interview with the German Funke media group, the Norwegian politician threw cold water on the notion of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine coming to an end any time soon. “Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,” Stoltenberg said per France24. “Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.”

The vast majority of Ukrainians – 78 percent – say President Volodymyr Zelensky is directly responsible for corruption in the government and military, a poll published on Monday found. The survey, conducted in July by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, also found that Ukrainians ranked corruption within their own government as a bigger threat to “Ukrainian entrepreneurship” than the ongoing Russian invasion, according to the Kyiv Independent. The poll was taken after months of investigations, which followed months of firings at the highest levels of governments. Zelensky announced measures to fight bribery...

Just 38 percent of respondents "definitely" support the actions of Russia's Armed Forces in Ukraine, the survey by independent pollster Levada Center conducted late August found... The results come as Russia's 2024 presidential election looms, scheduled to be held on March 17 next year. Putin is expected to soon announce his bid for a sixth overall presidential term. Per constitutional changes made prior to the war in Ukraine, Putin may remain in power until 2036. Last month, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying that Russia's presidential election is "not really democracy" and forecasted a 90 percent victory for...

Ep. 18 Into the abyss: Colonel Douglas Macgregor tells us why the Ukraine war must end now.

President Joe Biden said on Monday the threat of Russian President Vladimir Putin using tactical nuclear weapons is "real", days after denouncing Russia's deployment of such weapons in Belarus. On Saturday, Biden called Putin's announcement that Russia had deployed its first tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus "absolutely irresponsible". "When I was out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado river drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy," Biden told a group of donors in California on Monday. "They looked at me like when I said I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons....

The deputy commander killed was said to be from the Storm Ossetia battalion, and was named Tekhov Aivengo. He was allegedly surrounded along with his battalion, and about 300 Russian soldiers were killed. The propagandists write that this unit had allegedly "decided to stand to the end." Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Hanna Malyar confirmed that the Ukrainian military had liberated the village of Pyatykhatky in Zaporizhzhya Oblast. In total, during the two weeks of the offensive in the Berdyansk and Melitopol sectors of the front, the Tavria grouping units have de-occupied eight settlements ...

Ukraine said its forces were advancing on several axes in their counteroffensive but were struggling to counter Russian air and artillery superiority hobbling its assaults in the east and south. Now into its second week, Ukraine’s ambitious attempt to take back Russian-occupied land is proving to be a hard slog against dense minefields and well-prepared defenses. After Ukraine’s first probing attacks yielded mixed results, its forces have mostly paused their advances in recent days as commanders take stock of the past two weeks and analyze ways to punch through Russian lines without taking huge losses. Russia has taken advantage of...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday gave African leaders seeking to mediate in the war in Ukraine a list of reasons why he believed many of their proposals were misguided, pouring cold water on a plan already largely dismissed by Kyiv. The African leaders were seeking agreement on a series of “confidence building measures”, even as Kyiv last week began a counteroffensive to push back Russian forces from the swathes of southern and eastern Ukraine that they occupy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said after meeting them in Kyiv on Friday that peace talks would require Moscow to withdraw its forces...

The team of soldiers had been out of their Ukrainian armored personnel carrier for only a matter of minutes when the tree line in front of them erupted in Russian gunfire. The dozen or so soldiers, sent to reinforce a trench, found themselves pinned down for hours. “Never seen that much fire, from so many positions,” a soldier recounted in a mission report obtained by The New York Times. One soldier fighting for Ukraine was killed and nine were wounded in the battle, which took place in March near the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Russian troops, the report said, showed...

Yevgeny Poddubny: Good afternoon, Mr President. Thank you very much for finding the time to meet with us. President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I am very happy to see you all. Yevgeny Poddubny: Our previous meetings have all taken place in an atmosphere of trust. Our conversations have always been sharp and frank, and we are very grateful to you for this. Vladimir Putin: I feel you won’t be able to do that if the cameras are on; everyone wants to fire up the audience when the TV cameras are on. Yevgeny Poddubny: No, we will keep things in hand....

An open letter calling for a swift diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine was published on Tuesday in the New York Times. The letter’s 14 signatories consisted mostly of former U.S. military officers and other national security officials, including Jack Matlock, Washington’s former ambassador to the Soviet Union; Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former diplomat; Matthew Hoh, a former Marine Corps officer and State Department official; and Ret. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff. Many are longtime critics of U.S. foreign policy and post-9/11 war policies.The letter calls...