Free Republic

The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine's leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions.The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kiev maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come.

As chaos spreads in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden is dispatching Vice President Harris to Eastern Europe on an urgent mission this week to reinforce Western unity, reassure allies of U.S. protection and promise aid as more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees flee their homes. Harris will meet with leaders in Poland on Thursday and their counterparts in Romania a day later, in what amounts to an extension of her recent trip to a global security conference in Germany. There, in the earliest days of the Russian invasion, Harris met with an array of European and...

Six months ago, the transatlantic alliance was on shaky ground, with President Biden’s promise of a reinvigorated NATO under U.S. leadership severely undermined by the Afghanistan debacle and a foreign policy that seemed unready for prime time. Today, Biden and his team have redeemed themselves in the eyes of many NATO allies, with a tough stance on Ukraine and the successful wrangling of the often-fractious alliance to support it. Ukraine’s fate, and Russia’s future relationship with the West, remain uncertain. Biden has said he is convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin, with more than 150,000 troops and massive weaponry amassed on...

Afghan activists, journalists and advocates for women’s rights scrambled to identify escape routes Sunday as international civil society organizations intensified a chaotic effort to evacuate local allies under threat following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. The stunningly swift collapse of the Afghan state injected a sense of desperation into a month-long effort by outside aid groups and religious and advocacy organizations to secure visas, flights or any kind of way out for Afghans seen as likely militant targets. Human rights organizations in recent days have sent the State Department flurries of emails with spreadsheets laying out the identities and personal...

By the middle of the week, as cities across Afghanistan were falling like dominoes to the Taliban and U.S. diplomats appeared increasingly at risk, President Biden’s plan for an orderly end to the United States’ longest war was quickly falling apart. On Wednesday evening, Biden convened his top advisers to assess the ominous turn of events. One by one, in the cramped Situation Room in the White House basement, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined the administration’s options for ensuring the security of U.S. personnel. Biden asked them to return...

An Army officer who played a high-profile role in President Trump’s impeachment proceedings is retiring from the military over alleged “bullying” and “retaliation” by the president, his lawyer said Wednesday. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served as a national security aide at the White House until earlier this year and was up for promotion to colonel, will leave the military instead, his lawyer, David Pressman, said in a statement. “Through a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation, the president of the United States attempted to force LTC Vindman to choose: Between adhering to the law or pleasing a President. Between...

An Army officer’s promotion is in jeopardy over what some officials fear could be White House retaliation for his role in last year’s impeachment inquiry, raising the possibility that President Trump might again intervene in military affairs, according to officials familiar with the matter. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who received a Purple Heart for his actions in Iraq and later served as a White House aide on European affairs, is among hundreds of officers selected to be promoted to full colonel this year. Such promotions are typically signed off on by Army and then Pentagon leaders before moving to the...

Western leaders warned Syria on Saturday that they could launch further missile strikes if chemical weapons are used again, while the pre-dawn attacks were denounced by Damascus and its backers as illegal actions that would carry repercussions. But one major worry appeared to ease: That the coordinated attacks by the United States, France and Britain late Friday could have set off a direct confrontation with Syria’s most powerful military partner, Russia. At the Pentagon, the director of the Joint Staff, Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, said the more than 100 missile strikes delivered a blow to the “heart” of Syria’s chemical...

In significant news that has thus far either gone under or outright unreported by the media, U.S. military advisors have “boots on the ground” in Yemen, according to a recent report in the Washington Post by Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Missy Ryan: “The Pentagon has placed a small number of U.S. advisors on the ground in Yemen to support Arab forces battling al-Qaeda, military officials said on Friday, signaling a new American role in that country’s multi-sided civil war. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said U.S. personnel had been in the country for about two weeks, supporting Yemeni and...

The U.S. military will subject Syrian rebels taking part in a new training program to psychological evaluations, biometrics checks and stress tests under a screening plan that goes well beyond the steps the United States normally takes to vet foreign soldiers, a sign of the risks the Obama administration faces as it expands support for armed groups in Syria. Officials said the screening program, developed chiefly by the U.S. Central Command, will rely on what was described as a “common core” of screening protocols, including running trainees’ names through U.S. and foreign intelligence databases, collecting biometric data and, when possible,...