Free Republic

Old Believers, the strictest adherents of ancient Christian traditions, are finally returning from 100-year exile in the West to RussiaThis fascinating news story offers an update about the Old Believer communities that have been steadily returning to Russia from an almost 100-year exile in Alaska, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina and setting up communities in Russia's Far East. Old Believers are Russian Christians who did not accept the reforms of the Official Russian Church in the 1600s. Since then, they have retained strict staunch loyalty to old traditions. They live in communities, farming the land, have traditional large families, don't...

The Russian military presented the evidence of the successful operation of Syrian air defense systems during the missile strike by the United States and its allies. Journalists were shown fragments of intercepted cruise missiles and told about the missiles that failed to hit the targets because of "malfunctions". And although Washington is confident that the strike was a complete success, the Defense Ministry reports that only 22 out of the 105 "smart missiles," as they were called by the US president, hit their targets. Alexei Baranov saw and touched the evidence. There were no burn marks, and the serial numbers...

"This is an adult and, moreover, a man who for many years has organised beauty contests. He socialised with the most beautiful women in the world. I can hardly imagine he rushed to the hotel to meet our girls of lower social responsibility -even though they are the best in the world, of course."

The substance used on Sergei Skripal was an agent called BZ, according to Swiss state Spiez lab, the Russian foreign minister said. The toxin was never produced in Russia, but was in service in the US, UK, and other NATO states. Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with an incapacitating toxin known as 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, citing the results of the examination conducted by a Swiss chemical lab that worked with the samples that London handed over to the Organisation for the Prohibition of the Chemical...

Globalism is as harmless as recycling and as sinister as enforced belief in gay rights. It is as pervasive as seat belts, and as cultish as watching Stephen Colbert in the belief that he is always right. What is globalism? We use the term a lot, but what makes a person a globalist? The shortest answer I can formulate is that it has replaced communism as the doctrine of the far left, and become the creed of political correctness. There are seven main distinguishing characteristics of globalism as compared to the politics of the democratic right (and these divides are...

Following U.S.-led coalition strikes in Syria to degrade chemical weapons capabilities, the Pentagon says it's seen a “2,000 percent increase” in Russian “disinformation.”...Chief Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said at a briefing on Saturday that “there has been a 2,000 percent increase in Russian trolls in the last 24 hours.”

Is life a matter of grand politics or individual souls? Can human affairs be boiled down to science or theories? Tolstoy and Chekhov believed: Life is lived at ordinary moments, and what is most real is what is barely noticeable, like the tiniest movements of consciousness. True life is not lived where great external changes take place—where people move about, clash, fight, and slay one another. It is lived only where these tiny, tiny infinitesimally small changes occur. American conservatives can learn much from the great literary output of 19th century Russia. Though seemingly distant in time and place, the...

A presenter on Russian state television has issued an apparent threat to "traitors" living in Britain. Kirill Kleymenov warned of the dangers of spying on Russia and advised those who betrayed their country: "Don't choose Britain as a place to live." The comments, made on Channel One's Vremya news programme on Wednesday evening, came amid speculation over who was behind the attempted murder of a double agent on British soil. "I don't wish death on anyone, but, purely for educational purposes, I have a warning for anyone who dreams of such a career," he reportedly said. "The profession of a...

Beijing is happy with the speed and quality of first Su-35 delivery, but makes local production prerequisite of more orders Multiple sources within Russia and the People’s Liberation Army Air Force suggest that Beijing and Moscow may have struck a preliminary deal for procurement by the PLAAF of more of Russian-made Sukhoi Su-35 fighters. Hong Kong-based military monthly Kanwa Defense Review reported in February that the second batch of the highly maneuverable aircraft with thrust-vectoring engines had already descended on PLA airbases in southern China. Among those tipped as the likely locations to service and hangar the multi-role air-superiority fighters...

(CNSNews.com) - Who leaked the transcript of Michael Flynn's telephone conversation with the Russian ambassador to the United States? It's the only "obvious felony" to emerge from the whole Trump-Russia investigation, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, told Fox News's Maria Bartiromo on Monday morning. "It is the one felony that's very, very serious, leaking the highest, most sensitive information that we have in our government that got leaked to multiple people....... ….

Question: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation? Why didn’t Obama do something about the meddling? Why aren’t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions! 9:40 AM - 21 Feb 2018

The Conflict Intelligence Team found the Russians "may have fought alongside pro-Russia separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine prior to joining the fight against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and other insurgents challenging Assad's rule in Syria." The group also found Russians killed "appeared to have joined the Wagner Group, a private paramilitary company, before traveling to fight in Syria. Last October, ISIS released a video showing two Russian-speaking men the militants claimed to have captured, and subsequent research showed the two men were likely Wagner Group members fighting in Syria." "While the total number of 'Wagner' operatives killed in...

Anyone here using Duolingo??

Conversations about good games led to reinstalling Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl because the "Lost Alpha" finished. Been a long time since that game and it still holds up.

A record-setting Russian spacewalk ended with a critical antenna in the wrong position Friday outside the International Space Station. NASA’s Mission Control reported that the antenna was still working. Nevertheless, Russian space officials were convening a special team to see whether further action would be necessary. The antenna is used for communications with Russia’s Mission Control outside Moscow. The trouble arose toward the end of the more than 8-hour spacewalk — the longest ever by Russians and the fifth longest overall — after Commander Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov successfully replaced an electronics box to upgrade the antenna.

Roscosmos, is considering offering future space tourists the chance to do their own spacewalk for $100 million price tag.

A Russian warplane was shot down Saturday in Syria, according to Russian state-run news agencies. The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed one of its Su-25 warplanes was downed in Idlib province in northwest Syria, state media outlet RIA Novosti reported. Militants shot down the plane in an area controlled by al-Nusra Front fighters, according to the RIA Novosti report. Russia and Turkey, which is responsible for a de-escalation zone in Idlib, were taking measures to return the pilot's body, the defense ministry said. The ministry said more than 30 militants in the area were killed in a retaliatory strike, according...

Dear Mike Le Deplorable [my Twitter handle], As part of our recent work to understand Russian-linked activities on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, we identified and suspended a number of accounts that were potentially connected to a propaganda effort by a Russian government-linked organization known as the Internet Research Agency. Consistent with our commitment to transparency, we are emailing you because we have reason to believe that you either followed one of these accounts or retweeted or liked content from these accounts during the election period. This is purely for your own information purposes, and is not related...

Researchers at The Alliance for Securing Democracy, an initiative housed at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, say they’ve been observing and monitoring “Russian online influence” for three years, so it’s a good bet that they took notice of PropOrNot’s spectacular failure, while developing the “Hamilton 68 Dashboard,” released on August 2. According to The German Marshall Fund, the “dashboard” is designed to “shed light on Russian propaganda efforts on Twitter in near-real time.” The “Hamilton 68” website offers a dozen automatically-updated columns tracking “trending hashtags,” “trending topics,” “top domains,” “top URLs,” and so on. “Our analysis is...

Washington DC has renamed the street the Russian embassy sits on after a murdered Russian opposition politician. The city council voted to rename the street outside Russia's embassy complex after Boris Nemtsov, who was shot outside the Kremlin in 2015.