Free Republic

Two senior Republican lawmakers, the chairs of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, say their colleagues are echoing Russian state propaganda against Ukraine. Researchers who study disinformation say Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, are merely acknowledging what has been clear for some time: Russian propaganda aimed at undermining U.S. and European support for Ukraine has steadily seeped into America’s political conversation over the past decade, taking on a life of its own. McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Puck News he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately,...

For over a year now, pro-Russian voices have circulated the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was close to signing a peace deal in the spring of 2022, only to be thwarted by the West. Although this narrative has repeatedly been debunked as disinformation, it stubbornly persists in some circles.The central premise of the theory is that, only a few weeks into the war, Ukraine was ready to sign a deal with Russia amid peace talks in Istanbul until Western powers, led by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ordered Kyiv to scrap the deal. It is thus argued that blame for...

In a rare challenge to the Kremlin, a growing number of Russian women are fighting to bring home their husbands, brothers and sons who were drafted to fight in Ukraine. They say the men have served their time on the front lines, 15 months after some 300,000 reservists were called up to bolster Russia’s struggling campaign. But with little sign of President Vladimir Putin scaling back his ambitions, the military is ignoring their pleas and propagandists have sought to villainize those speaking out. The women’s mounting frustration has bonded them together, providing common cause in their defiant public stand just...

The Kiev regime has been given free rein to do whatever it wants by the West and “is even allowed to torture and kill Americans,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov charged, referring to the death of US YouTuber Gonzalo Lira in Ukrainian Prison. Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova charged the United States with “consigning an inconvenient journalist to execution.”“Kiev has unbridled freedom, and this permissiveness is manifested in everything it does. This free rein only leads to disaster. And this disaster has already reached the minds of the current Ukrainian regime, and they are leading their entire country there,” the...

Vladimir Solovyov, prominent Russian propagandist and staunch ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that there "can be no mutual coexistence" between Russia and Western nations.... "We need to recognize the West is our enemy—systemic, centuries-old, millennia-old, existential. There can be no mutual coexistence," Solovyov said, according to Gerashchenko's translation... Solovyov continued: "We should only act out of expediency. There is no need to change their minds or to please them. We just need to realize that they are the enemy. Systemic, well-trained, motivated, convinced. Which means we have to fight for minds. Not theirs, but ours."... During the course...

This is the German version of how WW2 got started in Europe Now, as far as I am concerned, Adolf Hitler was a goofball and a slave to his own racist ideology and if there was a reason for anybody to like the guy, I wouldn't know what it was. Nonetheless, if anybody were to ask me who started WW2 in Europe, I'd not hesitate to answer the British and the Poles. Pat Buchanan has said that the Brits were handing out war guarantees like they were cotton candy at the time and stopped the Poles from dealing with Germany...

In recent weeks, optimism has been the main feature of analysis regarding Ukraine’s chances this summer, as Kyiv gears up for a major offensive. The failure of Russian forces to gain any significant territory since the winter has, quite understandably, excited Western pundits. But there is a risk that we are over-estimating Kyiv’s abilities and becoming complacent in the process.Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, is now trying to damp down expectations. “It is definitely overheated – everyone wants another victory,” he says. “We didn’t believe in victory before. We used to want Ukraine to survive at least minimally.” His words...

Russia today boasted its missile strikes were 'right on target' in a sickening Telegram post made just hours after Vladimir Putin unleashed a barrage of rockets on Ukrainian homes. More than 20 cruise missiles and two drones were fired at cities and towns across Ukraine that were miles away from the front lines, killing at least 23 civilians including a mother and her two-year-old daughter as they slept inside their homes. Families were blown to pieces, with many victims buried amongst the rubble of their homes, as Russia's missiles thundered through the air and smashed into residential buildings. Five hours...

Fighters of Russia's Wagner mercenary group have captured two more areas of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Russia's Defence Ministry said on Saturday. Wagner has spearheaded Russia's attempt to take Bakhmut since last summer in what has been the longest and deadliest battle of the war for both sides.

Vladimir Putin appears to be clamping down on Russian men trying to dodge his invasion of Ukraine by creating a new digital conscription system which would leave them unable to flee abroad. -snip- Under the new plan, Russian men will start receiving draft papers by registered post and via their personal account on the 'Gosuslugi' online public services portal - the same site used to book doctor appointments or manage state pensions. The old system of delivering papers in person will also remain in place. The new rules will apply both to conscripts and to men who are targeted in...

Russia is ready to introduce electronic military draft papers for the first time in its history in an effort to make it harder for men to avoid being drafted after the lower house of parliament gave its backing to the move. The State Duma, the lower chamber, gave its backing to the necessary legislation in two separate votes. Some lawmakers complained the changes were being rushed through without giving them enough time to scrutinise the changes. -snip- NO SECOND MOBILISATION Peskov dismissed suggestions that the digitalisation plans might spark a further wave of panic and emigration among young male Russians...

Major Russian media now reporting Bakhmut in Russian handsBakhmut was the basic lynchpin of the entire ukie defensive system in the East.

Bakhmut and Debáltsevo

Ukraine is bracing for a grisly Russian offensive in the Donbas. Moscow has concentrated hundreds of thousands of troops in the country’s east, using brute-force tactics and human waves in a bid to chip away at the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defenses. Amid a recent surge in fighting, many military analysts believe the long-awaited Russian offensive is already underway and is expected to accelerate as the first anniversary of the invasion approaches. “Something is brewing in the east,” said Jonatan Vseviov, secretary-general of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “More and more Russian soldiers are arriving on the front,” he said....

A slide in Russian revenue from oil and gas clashed against the Kremlin ramping up spending on its nearly year-long war against Ukraine, resulting in a wider budget deficit for the country in January. Oil and gas revenue tumbled 46% in January from the same month a year ago to 426 billion rubles ($5.96 billion), Russia's finance ministry said Monday in a preliminary release. It attributed the decline largely to a drop in prices for its Urals blend — its largest crude oil export — and to a fall in exports for natural gas. Russia sold Urals at an average...

Russian President Vladimir Putin himself held only a meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council of the Russian Federation via videoconference. After the main part, the meeting continued in a narrow format. We discussed the state of affairs at the front and a number of related topics. The President was informed that in connection with the resumption of the offensive in a number of sectors of the front in the last five days, Russian troops have suffered heavy losses both in manpower and in equipment. Putin was also informed about the problems with the provision and the possibility...

Russia’s widely-anticipated winter offensive has begun. Aiming to extend its control over eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, Russian troops are attacking north and south of Donetsk city. In the northern sector, around the city of Bakhmut, the Russians slowly are advancing—albeit at staggering cost. In the south, around Vuhledar, the Russians’ losses are just as steep—but they’ve made no clear gains that could justify the casualties. Vuhledar is turning into a meatgrinder for the Russian army, with enormous implications for the wider offensive. The latest Russian attack on Vuhledar—a town with a pre-war population of just 14,000 that lies a mile...

This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come. I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying. The Government claims to be in favour of free debate in universities, so all the stage army of "Right-wing" thinkers...

In 2021, a whopping 83 percent of Russian gas was exported to Europe. Russia’s global exports of 7 million barrels of oil a day and 200 billion cubic meters (bcm) of piped gas a year accounted for about half of its federal revenue... Far from freezing to death, Europe quickly secured alternative gas supplies by pivoting to global liquefied natural gas (LNG) ... these alternative supplies have reduced Europe’s dependence on Russian gas to 9 percent of its total gas imports... Furthermore, Europe’s unseasonably warm winter means that not only have the worst-case scenarios been avoided, but Europe’s full storage...

Ukraine claimed that Russia has lost close to 117,000 troops since the beginning of the full-scale invasion last February — which is more servicemen than the US lost during World War I. There have been 116,950 enemy troops “eliminated” since Feb. 24, according to the latest tallies released by Ukraine’s Armed Forces Tuesday, which The Post could not independently verify. Kyiv reported that in the last 24 hours alone, 870 Russians had been killed in Ukraine. For comparison, the US lost 116,516 soldiers during World War I, of whom more than 63,000 suffered non-combat deaths mostly related to illnesses.