Free Republic

Last week, sources leaked to The New York Times that, in Ukraine's targeting and killing of Russian generals and the sinking of Russia's Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, U.S. intelligence played an indispensable role. Apparently, our intel people identified and located for the Ukrainian forces what became the targets of their deadly attacks. Why U.S. intelligence would do this seems inexplicable. By claiming credit for Ukraine's most visible military successes, we diminish the achievements of that country's own forces. By bragging publicly that we helped engineer the killing of Russian generals and the sinking of the cruiser Moskva, we taunt...

The unprecedented U.S.-led Western sanctions against Russia have been likened to economic weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that would ultimately destroy the Russian economy. In reality, the sanctions are like a double-edged sword — they inflict pain on Russia but also impose costs on their imposers. The West, in fact, is caught in a trap: The sanctions and the deepening conflict, by helping to raise global commodity and energy prices, translate into higher revenues for Moscow in spite of a significant decrease in its exports. And the higher international prices, by fueling inflation, mean political trouble at home for those...

Russia will transfer two to four S-300 air defense missile systems to Syria within the next two weeks, the Russian news website Kommersant reported Tuesday, citing a source familiar with the details. The amount of systems may increase in the future. The Assad regime will use the systems to defend Syria's coastline and its borders with Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, the report said. According to the official, Russia may end up transferring up to eight systems to Syria, depending on the circumstances.Meanwhile, Russian outlet Izvestia reported that Moscow is boosting its electronic warfare systems in Syria, which were brought...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States almost doubled its aid for displaced Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh and Myanmar, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced on Monday as she pushed for U.N. investigators to brief the U.N. Security Council on the crisis. “The military are at fault, the fact finding mission came out and gave clear examples of what’s happened,” Haley told reporters on Monday as she left a ministerial meeting in New York on the sidelines of the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders. “These weren’t terrorists. This was the military that did this to them....

<p>A bellicose President Trump wanted to kill Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad after he launched a chemical weapons attack on civilians in April 2017, according to the new White House tell-all by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.</p> <p>The commander-in-chief called Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and issued the deadly order.</p>

Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Crimea, Ukraine, with mainland Russia on Tuesday. Putin did so by in a typical show of bravado by leading a column of transport vehicles across the bridge. Ukraine should now destroy elements of the bridge. While that course of action would be an escalation against Putin and one that would almost certainly spark Russian retaliation, this bridge is an outrageous affront to Ukraine's very credibility as a nation. Of course, from Putin's perspective that's the whole point. The bridge cost Russia's near-bankrupt government billions of dollars, but it offers Putin...

Rand Paul: Syrian Chemical Attack A False Flag Either that or Assad is ‘dumbest dictator on the planet,’ he says Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4V3jQCi8-o The chemical attack allegedly perpetrated by the Syrian government is most likely a false flag, according to Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). When asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer if stalling Russian sanctions was the right move for Trump, Paul directed the topic to whether or not the chemical attack in Syria was even genuine. “I think before you talk about sanctions, we oughta talk about what evidence is there that Russia was complicit in this attack,” Paul said on Monday....

The Turkish military says it has surrounded the Kurdish-held city of Afrin in northern Syria, the focus of an offensive against a Kurdish militia. A statement said troops and allied Syrian rebels had also captured "critically important areas". Kurdish sources said all roads into Afrin were being targeted by shellfire, but denied that it was encircled.

The details of the closed meeting of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko with bloggers became known. According to blogger Martin Brest, the Ukrainian authorities are preparing for a quick power sweep of the Donbass . Brest wrote about this on his Facebook page on Sunday, March 10th.

Despite fraught relations between the two countries after a Russian pilot was killed last week, the Turkey's PM demanded communication channels be opened up to stop similar incidents from occurring. Ahmet Davuto?lu told a news conference: "Our call to Russia again is to open military communication channels to prevent similar incidents happening. Let's keep diplomatic channels open." His call for dialogue comes after the Kremlin closed an emergency phone line with Ankara in anger at the attack, which Russia claims happened over Syrian airspace.