Free Republic

Ankara supports Ukraine's territorial integrity and rejects the illegal annexation of Crimea, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday. "The return of Crimea to Ukraine, of which it is an inseparable part, is essentially a requirement of international law," Erdogan said in a video message to the Second Crimea Platform Summit. The Crimea Platform is an international coordination mechanism of Ukraine to draw more global attention to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Erdogan said Ankara will continue to support the Crimean Platform that was established to resolve the Crimean issue through peaceful means. "Türkiye does not recognize...

The age of the ray gun is almost upon us after the US Navy took delivery of a near-operational high-energy tactical laser weapon called the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system from Lockheed Martin that can be installed in existing warships. When the first laser was invented by Theodore Maiman at the Hughes Research Lab in Malibu, California, in 1960, it was almost immediately seen as a potential superweapon – the death-ray of science fiction come to life. While the ability to generate beams of coherent light provided scientists and engineers with a unique tool that...

"Establishing control over southern Ukraine would also give the Russian army access to Transdniestria, where facts of oppression of the Russian-speaking population have also been observed," Minnekayev said. Transdniestria is the de-facto breakaway region of Moldova that is not internationally recognized but has pro-Russian leaders and about 1,500 Russian troops stationed there. Before the Russian military retreated from the capital city Kyiv, Moscow claimed that "the first stage" of the attack had been completed, and it is now focusing efforts on the "liberation" of two regions in the east to bring them under the control of pro-Russian leaders in the...

Putin has launched a major salvage operation to the wreck of the downed Black Sea Fleet flagship to secure military secrets including coding devices, unexploded missiles, and possibly even attempt to bring the bodies of dead sailors back home, naval experts have claimed. An eight-ship salvage flotilla including Kommuna, the world's oldest active warship, and submarine has been sent to the site of the sunken Moskva 80 miles off the coast of Odessa from Sevastopol, the large naval base in Russia-annexed Crimea, according to a report by Forbes.

Talks between Moscow and Kyiv to put an end to nearly two months of Russia’s military campaign in pro-Western Ukraine have stalled, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. “They [negotiations] have stalled now,” Lavrov said after talks with his Kazakh counterpart, adding that Moscow has still had not received an answer to its latest proposal sent around five days ago.