Free Republic

Around 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 13, about two dozen high-level U.S. diplomats, politicians and four-star generals held a discussion in a briefing room on the sixth floor of the luxury Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich. Their frank comments behind a sound-proof door were leaked, perhaps to German intelligence but certainly to the German newspapers Bild and Der Spiegel, which published reports of the discussions. They reveal a ham-handed U.S. diplomacy in Europe that has raised consternation and revulsion against the administration of President Barack Obama and by extension against NATO. Although not directly involved, Canadians can learn from the...

A newly disclosed audio recording purportedly depicts a conversation between two American diplomats, in which one curses the European Union as they discuss how to handle turmoil in Ukraine. American officials were quick to suggest a Russian role in the apparent leak, which came as Russia is engaged in a tug of war with the E.U. and the United States for influence over Ukraine. The audio recording, incorporated into a video with Russian subtitles and posted on YouTube Tuesday, appears to be a conversation between the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, Victoria Nuland, and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey...

WARNING: Profanity Victoria Nuland, Asst. Sec. of State for Europe, phone call to US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, in a phone call leaked to the news media on 4 February 2014. [expletive] the EU What's really important here is the level of planning for the coup that overthrew the elected President Viktor Yanukovych, which brought to power (as heard on the recording) a group of select individuals described as "moderate democrats." In fact, most of them, including Oleh Tyahnybok (whom Nuland insists the new head of state consult four times weekly), are a far-right nationalist faction with overt and...

In the absence of effective military forces or law enforcement, Ukrainians are taking the defense of the nation in their own hands through loosely organized militias. One of them popped up in a YouTube video on May 2. Although the group was unidentified, the clip was posted by a pro-Ukrainian group of former military and law enforcement officers, calling themselves the Donbass Volunteer Battalion. The video shows men armed with Kalashnikov rifles and clad in black ninja outfits dismantling a Kremlin-backed roadblock near Krasnoarmiysk in western Donetsk Oblast. The national warriors also claim that 15 pro-Russian rebels were handed over...