Free Republic

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has approved the plan to support Ukraine with armoured vehicles, The Sun reported. It would mark the first time in the war that Britain has supplied Ukraine with military tanks and would significantly ramp up Western support. Providing additional tanks could assist Ukraine in taking back territory that Russia occupies and comes amid hope that Volodymyr Zelensky will be in a position to launch a decisive counter-offensive in the early spring.

Top officers in the U.S. Navy warned that the Ukraine war is putting a strain on an already stretched industrial base Tuesday, complaining defense contractors continue to fall behind in keeping up with the Navy’s needs, according to media reports.Defense companies have struggled for years to keep pace with the Navy’s demands, citing pandemic-induced supply chain setbacks and a shortage of available labor, Navy Times reported. As the U.S. continues sending weapons and equipment to Ukraine, heightening the burden on weapons manufacturers, top Navy brass expressed worry that the fleet could fall dangerously low on needed assets if the war...

Russia and Ukraine have publicly agreed on a fundamental and important issue. The question is who Russia is fighting in Ukraine. During an interview with a Ukrainian TV station the Oleksii Reznikov, the defense minister of Ukraine, answered that the Ukraine has "already become a de facto member of the NATO alliance." The interview, given four days ago, is available on Youtube. English language subtitles can be generated by autotranslate. The sentence pictured above comes at about 1:25 minutes in. Sputnik, which seems to be the only international outlet that has picked up on this, has more (from ~11:05 min):...

Russian troops attacking the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut are bogged down because of a tenacious Ukrainian resistance and an extensive network of defensive fortifications, the head of Russia’s mercenary company Wagner said Tuesday. There is a “fortress in every house” in Bakhmut, Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an interview with state news agency RIA Novosti. “The lads are fighting over every house, sometimes for more than a day. Sometimes it takes them weeks to capture a house. They take one house, they take another.” Wagner soldiers — including inmates recruited from Russian prisoners — have been leading a Russian assault on...

Ukraine has a new Western backer. It’s not a nation-state, or a military contractor. It’s the financial firm BlackRock.Ukraine announced Wednesday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a video teleconference with BlackRock Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink. The pair apparently struck a deal to coordinate investment efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation.A readout of the meeting on the Ukrainian president’s website boasted BlackRock’s involvement, calling the firm “one of the world's leading investment managers” and noted that it “manages client assets worth about 8 trillion dollars.”“Zelenskyy and Larry Fink agreed to focus in the near term on coordinating the efforts...

Dear Ukrainians! This year began on February 24. Without prefaces and preludes. Sharply. Early. At 4 o'clock. It was dark. It was loud. It was hard for many and scary for some. 311 days have passed. It can still be dark, loud, and complicated for us. But we will definitely never be afraid again. And we'll never be ashamed. It was our year. Year of Ukraine. Year of Ukrainians. We woke up on February 24. Into another life. Being another people. Another Ukrainians. The first missiles finally destroyed the labyrinth of illusions. We saw who was who. What friends and...