Free Republic

Russian airlines have stopped selling tickets to Russian men aged 18 to 65 unless they can provide evidence of approval to travel from the Ministry of Defense. All flights from Russia to available foreign destinations were sold out Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin declared a “partial” mobilization of the country’s 25 million reservists. Flights from Moscow to the capitals of Georgia, Turkey and Armenia — which do not require visas for Russians — for Sept. 21 were unavailable within minutes of Putin’s announcement, according to Russia’s top travel planning website aviasales.ru. By noon Moscow time, direct flights from Moscow to...

The Russians find themselves out of options in their collapsing effort to overrun Ukraine. Not only did they fail to keep territory they seized in the invasion over the late winter and spring, Russia has begun to lose ground it held before the war. They’re running out of resources, and more importantly, running out of troops as Ukraine’s counteroffensive threatens to collapse their lines. What better time than now to hold a plebiscite, eh? Unfortunately, Russia may see that as their only recruitment option in Luhansk and Donetsk:(snip) Er … keep dreaming. Vladimir Putin has no concerns over even the...

Vladimir Putin’s economic campaign to force European governments to abandon support for Ukraine by sharply curbing their natural-gas supplies looks to be faltering as gas prices fall, Russian government finances deteriorate and the continent sets plans to ease the pressure on households and businesses. Russia’s long-term success in the economic fight with Europe is seen as critical by both sides in deciding the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine. But signs that Mr. Putin’s economic strategy is struggling are coinciding with serious reverses on the battlefield as Ukrainian forces regain swaths of Russian-occupied territory and as the Russian president has...

For a country that ISN”T overrun with Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, Ukraine sure does seem to contain lots of folks sporting Nazi tattoos or patches on their clothing. The latest to be revealed is one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s bodyguards, who was spotted during a visit to the recently liberated eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum sporting a so-called Totenkopfverbande patch, celebrating the guards who ran Nazi concentration camps and later made up Hitler’s personal guards. Jimmy and The Dive’s Jackson Hinkle wonder at the regularity with which Nazi sympathies crop up in a country that we’re told doesn’t have...

In a dank basement behind the local supermarket, metal bars cordon off a corner of the room to form a large cell. Dirty sleeping bags and duvets show three sleeping spots on top of sheets of Styrofoam for insulation from the damp earth floor. In the corner, two black buckets served as toilets. A few meters (yards) outside the barred cell, three dilapidated chairs stand around a table, cigarette butts and empty husks of pumpkin seeds littering the floor around them. Ukrainian authorities say this was a makeshift prison where Russian forces abused detainees before Ukrainian troops swept through the...

Up to 400 violent criminals are being shipped off to fight for Russia on the frontlines in Ukraine after recruiters promised them a pardon in exchange for six months of service. Prisoners from penal colonies who signed up for the deal were seen filing into prison vans destined for a 'training camp' in the south of Russia, video footage has shown. After perfunctory military instruction the murderers, sex offenders, burglars and other convicts will be sent to the front line following the mass jail release.

The invasion of Ukraine has not gone as planned for the Russians. Despite enjoying superior force strength, the Russians have failed to hold Ukrainian territory – in large part, because Russia has failed to gain air superiority over the country. Russia was supposed to breeze over Ukraine, taking Kyiv “within days, perhaps forcing a Ukrainian capitulation in less than a week.” That didn’t happen of course; the conflict has been ebbing and flowing for several months with no resolution in sight. Ukrainian forces, effective at conducting asymmetrical warfare, have thwarted Russian forces from achieving their objectives, one after another. “Russia...

Can the Ukrainians sustain two simultaneous counteroffensives against the vaunted Russian military? A few months ago, that may have seemed impossible. Just a couple of weeks ago, most observers considered either the Kharkiv or Kherson offensives a feint to distract from the other. Now that Ukraine’s Kharkiv campaign has achieved so much success, however, it’s clear that their Kherson campaign was no feint. Their forces, apparently using US-supplied HIMARS artillery, took aim at a meeting of occupation leadership in the heart of the city, and apparently hit a bulls-eye. Even Russian state-run news outlet RIA Novosti reported on the success,...