Free Republic

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has been forced to use more of its professional recruits in Bakhmut to replace its depleted supply of enlisted prisoners, who are perishing by the thousands in the longest battle of the war, a Ukrainian official said on Tuesday. The claim suggested that Ukraine sees an opportunity, despite the heavy casualties it has suffered in the eastern city, to exhaust Wagner’s nearly suicidal prisoner assaults, which Ukraine’s commanders regard as one of Russia’s most effective tactics. “This is their last stand,” Col. Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told...

Vira Hyrych was killed when her apartment was struck by a Russian missile in Kyiv. Radio Freedom photo The body of Ukrainian journalist Vira Hyrych was pulled out of the wreckage of an apartment building in Kyiv on Friday, a day after two Russian missiles struck the city. Wary Kyiv residents gathered on April 29 at the scene of the missile strike in the Shevchenkivskyi district, where the first two floors of a newly opened 25-storey apartment building were largely destroyed. Read more: One month after liberation, Bucha’s morgue is the city’s new nucleus Two powerful explosions rocked central Kyiv...

A journalist for Radio Liberty in Ukraine has been killed during Russian shelling of Kyiv, the station has said. Vera Gyrych was at home when a missile hit her building, according to a statement from Radio Liberty. She was described as "a bright and kind person, a true professional" by her employer. "A wonderful person is gone," her colleague Oleksandr Demchenko said on Facebook. Radio Liberty, also known as Radio Free Europe, is a US-funded organisation which broadcasts news in areas of the world where free press may be restricted or not yet established. Earlier, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said...

Former Trump campaign aide Carter Page said Friday he will be updating his slander lawsuits against various news organizations in light of the release of the Nunes memo, and hailed the release of that memo as a way to "repair" U.S. democracy. In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Page he is looking forward updating his “pending legal action in opposition," but wasn't more specific. Page’s remarks were in response to the release of a classified and controversial memo that shows the so-called Steele dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act...

Police in Azerbaijan have detained a dozen journalists working for US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty amid an ongoing crackdown on the outlet that Washington and rights groups decry. The Baku offices of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty were sealed on Friday after prosecutors and armed police confiscated equipment and computers during a raid. The US State Department said it was "deeply disturbed" by the action, and called on Azerbaijan to respect its "international commitment to protecting media freedom." Ramping up pressure on the organisation's Azerbaijan station, Radio Azadliq, police descended upon the homes of its journalists Saturday and took many in...

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Vasily Kononenko.) A recent public opinion poll shows that foreign radio voices broadcasting to Russia have lost most of their audiences. Radio Liberty is the only one keeping afloat, reports Comcon-2 on the results of a June radio monitoring survey. It is 28th on the list of popular radio stations in Moscow (1.2% of the audience). The other radio stations are quickly approaching zero: The BBC Russian Service is only 33rd (0.5%) and the Voice of America, 36th (0.4%). When the Iron Curtain was lifted, the foreign radio voices failed to find a new niche...

"In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars."  U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay, CubaFOR MANY, the debate over the former Iraqi regime's ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network ended a year ago with the release of the 9/11 Commission report. Media outlets seized on a carefully worded summary that the commission had found no evidence "indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or...

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, March 29 - Shortly before Kyrgyzstan's recent parliamentary elections, an opposition newspaper ran photographs of a palatial home under construction for the country's deeply unpopular president, Askar Akayev, helping set off widespread outrage and a popular revolt in this poor Central Asian country. The newspaper was the recipient of United States government grants and was printed on an American government-financed printing press operated by Freedom House, an American organization that describes itself as "a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world." In addition to the United States, several European countries - Britain, the Netherlands and Norway...

(Washington, DC--November 1, 2004) The escalation of violence by Islamic extremists over the past year has mobilized moderate Muslims to speak out against Islamic terrorists, an expert on suicide bombers told an RFE/RL audience last week. Joyce M. Davis, author of "Martyrs: Innocence, Vengeance, and Despair in the Middle East," and an associate director of broadcasting at RFE/RL, said that the terrorists perpetrating violence in the name of Islam are at "war with Islam" itself, and that Muslims who believe in the peaceful tenants of their faith are the ones "who will have to defeat them." Davis said that she...

<p>The United States is waging its war against terrorism on several public fronts, but the least-known is the administration's stepped-up broadcasting activities in the Arab world. The strategy is a simple one: Win the hearts and minds of younger people and you win the long-term war against terrorism.</p>

On December 15, 2003, Michael Peroutka announced his candidacy for the Constitution Party presidential nomination. In an interview on Radio Liberty hosted by Dr. Stan Monteith, Mr. Peroutka identified the need to restore loyalty to the Constitution as a key reason for his campaign for the presidency, "We really do need, Dr. Stan, an American, somebody who understands law and American form of government, to run for president; and I really believe that at this point, there is not such a person in any of the major parties ... because none of them give the slightest fig, I believe, about...

Iran seethes with protests over a death sentence given to a professor for disagreeing with the government about who is allowed to interpret the Koran. Iranians are now questioning the decisions of their religious, political and judicial leaders. The sentence has been appealed, making the coming weeks crucial to Iran's internal debate over freedom. There has never been a greater opportunity for U.S. public diplomacy to assure Iranians of our solidarity and to tell the story of liberty and limited government. Unfortunately, we won't be able to, because the most successful U.S. broadcasts into Iran have been shut down. And...

Monday, Oct. 7, 2002. Page 1 Radio Liberty Stripped Of Status By Andrei Zolotov Jr. Staff Writer Radio Liberty, which has irritated President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin with its coverage of Chechnya, has been stripped of the special legal status it had enjoyed since 1991.In a decree released Friday, Putin revoked a decree issued by President Boris Yeltsin during the democratic euphoria of August 1991 that granted Radio Liberty, a U.S.-funded Russian-language radio station, the right to open its Moscow bureau and gave Radio Liberty reporters the freedom to work unhindered throughout Russia.Radio Liberty said the decision would have no immediate...