Free Republic

With most con artists, you need to count your fingers after shaking hands. With the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, you have to make sure you still have your arm. He wears the same clothes to project he is at war raising some to hope he at least takes it off to wash. Both Germany and Japan as well as the Swiss all apologized for war crimes – but never Ukraine. Never in all my career of dealing with governments have I ever witnessed such a bold-faced liar as Zelensky. He addressed the students and professors of Yale University, and...

On Saturday, the Ukrainians hit the Kerch Strait Bridge, which leads from Russia to Crimea, with something—a missile, explosives planted by naval commandos, a truck laden with explosives. No one who knows is saying for sure.(snip)The tactical questions of how the Ukrainians pulled off this strike and of whether lasting damage has occurred are interesting and important but currently unresolvable publicly. What can, however, be more profitably discussed is what this tells us about where the Russia-Ukraine war is headed. “Battles are the principal milestones of secular history,” Winston Churchill wrote in his biography of the Duke of Marlborough. The...

Russian nationalists called angrily on Sunday for President Vladimir Putin to make immediate changes to ensure ultimate victory in the Ukraine war, a day after Moscow was forced to abandon its main bastion in northeastern Ukraine. The swift fall of Izium in Kharkiv province was Russia's worst military defeat since its troops were forced back from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in March. (snip)Moscow's almost total silence on the defeat - or any explanation for what had taken place in northeastern Ukraine - provoked significant anger among some pro-war commentators and Russian nationalists on social media. Neither Putin, who is Russia's...

The Yellow Ribbon resistance movement is unfolding in the temporarily occupied Crimea. This is reported by the representative office of the president of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea on Facebook, reports censor.No. "In the temporarily occupied Simferopol, as well as in Kherson and Melitopol, the Yellow Ribbon resistance movement began to operate. In particular, in the occupied Crimea, activists put up leaflets with photos of the mass protest of Crimeans on February 26, 2014 and the words "Crimea – Ukraine. Not only since 1954, but always!", "Crimea is Ukraine. We're coming back!"and" time for resistance! Time to fight!...

Russia says the use of Turkish drones near the Line of Contact is a violation of the Minsk Agreement, but Ukraine begs to differ. kraine’s purchase and deployment of Turkish combat drones has reignited the territorial conflict simmering its eastern border, with some warning of the likelihood of further escalation. Kiev is moving forward with plans to procure dozens of Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs). The acquisition is part of a larger defense cooperation venture with Ankara involving the production of Bayraktar drones on Ukrainian soil. It was revealed earlier this week that a Ukrainian Bayraktar drone...

Russia’s Foreign Ministry says Moscow expects the Syrian government to take over the areas where the U.S. troops are currently deployed following their withdrawal. The ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said at Wednesday’s briefing that the territories in eastern Syria should be handed over to the Syrian government in line with international law. She noted that Moscow is unaware of any details of the planned U.S. withdrawal from Syria, but added that the move would help peaceful settlement in Syria if implemented. U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announced the pullout from Syria last week, surprising allies and sparking the resignation of...

Helicopter was brought down with aid of American TOW antitank missile system, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported

Slovyansk, Ukraine (CNN) -- In a forest of pines to the east of Slovyansk, Prapor and his seventy men were digging in Thursday. A man in his late-fifties with a magnificent beard and four different weapons, Prapor freely admitted he was not a local. But he was here -- he said -- to resist the "Ukrainian fascists" in Krasny Liman, a nearby town just recaptured by government forces. He was dismissive of the group that had fled Krasny -- "Cossacks," he sneered. He had already lost seven men, but his fighters were the bravest. They would not run away. Meeting...

(Reuters) - Lech Walesa, head of the Solidarity movement that ended Communism in Poland, knelt in prayer on Friday at a Catholic funeral mass for General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Communist leader who for decades was his sworn enemy.

Israeli rabbi Michael Finkel says the Jewish community is on high alert because of the influence of the neo-Nazi's within Kiev's temporary government. "This is Right Sector. This is the peole who are marching in Nazi uniforms with SF on their arms and on their military uniforms," Finkel says. According to the rabbi, it is possible that Ukraine could turn into a country similar to Lebanon. "In Lebanon, there's an official government and there is Hezbollah, which is a terrrorist organization linked to the government. They're members of the parliament, and there's a Hezbollah militia over thre, a separate army,...

KIEV, Ukraine, Jan. 16 - As protests here against a rigged presidential election overwhelmed the capital last fall, an alarm sounded at Interior Ministry bases outside the city. It was just after 10 p.m. on Nov. 28. More than 10,000 troops scrambled toward trucks. Most had helmets, shields and clubs. Three thousand carried guns. Many wore black masks. Within 45 minutes, according to their commander, Lt. Gen. Sergei Popkov, they had distributed ammunition and tear gas and were rushing out the gates. Kiev was tilting toward a terrible clash, a Soviet-style crackdown that could have brought civil war. And then,...

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on Wednesday urged young voters to head to the European parliamentary polls on May 25th "to cure the European disease of nationalism".

Slavyansk, Ukraine (CNN) -- Deadly street fighting, helicopters shot down and civilians being used as human shields. That was the picture that emerged Friday in southern Ukraine as violence escalated amid reports that dozens of people were killed in a fire and still more were shot dead or wounded in street fighting, raising the question of whether the country can stave off a possible civil war. The violence -- pitting pro-Russian separatists against Ukrainian forces and those who support the government in Kiev -- prompted an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, with Russia demanding an end to what...

... “Our security forces are fighting mercenaries of foreign states, terrorists and criminals,” Turchynov said in a statement. One of the downed helicopters was hit by a surface-to-air missile, the Ukrainian Security Service said, calling it a sophisticated weapon that undercut Russia’s claims the city was simply under the control of armed locals. The agency said its forces were fighting “highly skilled foreign military men” in Slovyansk.... Ukrainian troops met fierce resistance Friday morning but managed to take control of nine checkpoints on the roads around Slovyansk, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said. He called on the insurgents to lay down...

The U.N. Security Council plans to meet in emergency session Friday on Ukraine after Russia called for a public meeting on the growing crisis there. The Russian mission to the United Nations tweeted that Russia asked for what will be the council's 13th meeting on the crisis, and the spokesman's office for the U.N. secretary-general confirmed that the open meeting would be at noon (1600 GMT). SNIP------- Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman on Friday said Ukraine's new offensive has "effectively destroyed the last hope for the implementation of the Geneva agreements" that aimed to defuse the crisis

UkraInians in Scotland have accused Alex Salmond of "giving succour" to Vladimir Putin's regime and its undemocratic invasion of their country. A group representing the Ukrainian diaspora in Scotland said that the First Minister should issue a "sincere apology" for his controversial remarks praising the Russian President. Mr Salmond has come under fire after comments that he admired "certain aspects" of Mr Putin's leadership. Michael Ostapko, chairman of the Scottish branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, Scotland, said: "I have been overwhelmed by the reaction of the Ukrainians in Scotland to the comments."They are variously insulted, dismayed...

Americans haven’t thought much about such scenarios since the Cold War ended, ... However, this year’s crisis over Ukraine is a reminder that Russia remains a nuclear superpower, and that the geopolitical sources of its security concerns have not vanished. In fact, Moscow may have greater reason for worrying today, because it has lost the buffer of allies that insulated it from Western attack during the Cold War, and now finds its capital only a few minutes from the eastern border of Ukraine by jet (less by missile). If you know the history of the region, then it is easy...

Saying President Barack Obama hasn’t been tough enough on Russia, a high-powered group of Republican senators introduced legislation on Wednesday aimed at imposing new sanctions on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine. “Rather than react to events as they unfold, which has been the policy of this administration, we need to inflict more direct consequences on Russia prior to Vladimir Putin taking additional steps that will be very difficult to undo,” said Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top GOP member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who drafted the measure. The congressional push for a harder line on Russia comes...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Russia on Tuesday that NATO territory was inviolable and the alliance would defend every inch of it. “Today Russia seeks to change the security landscape of Eastern and Central Europe,” Kerry said in a speech in Washington. “We have to make it absolutely clear to the Kremlin that NATO territory is inviolable we will defend every single inch of it,” said Kerry.

Report: Kerry says US taped Moscow's calls to spies in Ukraine By Rebecca Shabad - 04/29/14 08:25 AM EDT U.S. intelligence officials have recordings proving the Russian government has been directing a network of spies inside eastern Ukraine, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a closed-door meeting Friday, according to The Daily Beast. “Intel is producing taped conversations of intelligence operatives taking their orders from Moscow and everybody can tell the difference in the accents, in the idioms, in the language. We know exactly who’s giving those orders, we know where they are coming from,” Kerry said in a...