Free Republic

Russia went to war in Ukraine two years ago with twice as many artillery pieces as Ukraine had. But it isn’t the advantage in howitzers that really matters – it’s the advantage in shells. The Czechs found, for Ukraine, nearly a million shells precisely when Ukraine needed those million shells the most: at the peak of Russia’s winter offensive. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Czech artillery initiative probably saved entire Ukrainian cities, by giving the Ukrainian army the firepower to resist a much bigger Russian army. It’s no secret how Ukraine got into an artillery bind late...

Satellite pictures capturing the massive expansion of Russian military cemeteries prove the “huge cost” of the Ukraine war for Moscow’s army, according to experts. The “startling” pictures show cemeteries linked to elite units such as the Guards Airborne Division, the Guards Motorised Division and the Wagner Mercenary group have all grown substantially in size since the invasion began in February 2022. Although Russia does not provide a death toll for its soldiers, the pictures – provided by Maxar Technologies and obtained by The Telegraph and National Security News – add weight to Western estimates of significant losses. Images of just...

An Israeli missile attack that killed a senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force in Syria last week has sparked criticism of the military partnership between Russia and Iran. On 25 December, Seyyed Reza Mousavi, a key figure in shaping Iran's military presence in Syria, was killed in a missile strike on his residence in the Zainabiyah neighbourhood of Damascus. Although it wasn't the first time that Israel had targeted Iranian forces in Syria, this incident has drawn attention to Russia's failure to deploy its advanced S-300 anti-missile defence system in support of Iran, its primary...

A former TV journalist and Ukraine War critic has been disqualified from running against Russian President Vladimir Putin in next year’s presidential election. Yekaterina Duntsova, 40, an independent politician who wanted to run on a platform to end the war with Ukraine, had her candidacy application unanimously rejected by the country’s electoral commission on Saturday, which cited "numerous violations" in the papers she had submitted. Duntsova had submitted her application on Wednesday having secured the endorsement of 500 supporters as required by Russian election law. The commission found 100 errors in her nomination papers, including mistakes in the spelling of...

Russia and Iran will speed up work on a "major new interstate agreement", the Russian foreign ministry said on Tuesday. -snip- Iran is the main backer of Israel's enemy Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone with Putin on Sunday and voiced "robust disapproval" of Russia's "dangerous" cooperation with Iran. Iranian authorities have said military cooperation with Russia is expanding day by day. Iran said last month it had finalised arrangements for Russia to provide it with Su-35 fighter jets, Mi-28 attack helicopters and Yak-130 pilot training aircraft.

Over the course of the war in Ukraine, Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin and Wagner Group became household names around the world. From their fighting at Bakhmut, to their standoffs with the Russian MoD leadership, to the dramatic march on Moscow followed by a public truce, the PMC and its leader often dominated the news. But on 23 August, Prigozhin's story seems (so far) to have come to a very public end, when a jet carrying him and other Wagner members crashed in Russia with no reported survivors. What does that mean for the PMC, Russia, Africa & the West? Those are...

HONG KONG — Chinese President Xi Jinping met with veteran U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger in Beijing on Thursday, calling him an “old friend,” Chinese state media reported. Xi said the visit by Kissinger, who has been to China more than 100 times and recently turned 100, had special significance because of the two “hundreds.” Kissinger, who was Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, made a secret trip to China to 1971 that laid the groundwork for a historic trip by the president the following year and the formalization of relations between the United States and China in 1979. “It not only...

At 99, Henry Kissinger is a living demonstration that you’re never too old to learn new things — or to unlearn wrong old things. The former secretary of state has implicitly acknowledged that he dramatically misjudged Russia, its war against Ukraine, and the qualities of Ukraine’s leaders and population. After Vladimir Putin described the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its repressive empire as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” suggesting it should be reconstituted, Kissinger urged America to “show greater sensitivity to Russian complexities.” After Putin invaded Georgia, Kissinger stated that “isolating Russia is not a sustainable long-range...

US elder statesman Henry Kissinger said that Russia’s invasion shows there is no longer a point to keeping Ukraine out of Nato, the long-held aspiration of Kyiv that he had opposed. The 99-year-old former secretary of state and apostle of realpolitik has for months advocated a ceasefire in the Ukraine war that would in effect accept some military gains by Russia. But speaking virtually to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kissinger said that Nato membership for Ukraine would be an “appropriate outcome”. “Before this war, I was opposed to membership of Ukraine in Nato because I feared that it...

Since Putin’s tanks crossed into Ukrainian territory, three options have been on the table for how this war would end:... victory for one side or the other, a frozen conflict or a negotiated settlement. The long-planned counter-offensive, has run into several problems.. It is incredibly tough going for the Ukrainians. They lack the air cover and advanced jets to protect their ground forces from Russian attack helicopters and fighters. Their soldiers, meanwhile must negotiate miles of minefields, tank-traps and then ultimately the heavily dug Russian trench networks. The variable that isn’t on their side is time. In war, time is...

After attempting to navigate through the politics in order to curry favor with the base Republican voters on a Ukraine position, when confronted by Piers Morgan who is a pro-NATO war voice, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis now says his former position on Ukraine has been “mischaracterized” and Vladimir Putin “is a war criminal.”The walk back highlights once again that Ron DeSantis is an empty vessel using poll testing to formulate his policy stances.The reversing comments on Vladimir Putin and Ukraine come from the interview DeSantis gave to Piers Morgan as noted in a recent New York Post article:(Piers Morgan, NY...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sought to clean up comments where he called Russia's brutal war on Ukraine a 'territorial dispute' after drawing rebukes against 'isolationism' but praise from Fox News host Tucker Carlson. 'Well, I think it's been mischaracterized. Obviously, Russia invaded — that was wrong. They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014 — That was wrong,' DeSantis told Piers Morgan in an interview more than a week after his initial comments. He also rolled out tough talk against Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling him a 'war criminal' and saying he should be 'held accountable,' while dissing Russia as...

EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was "taking the Chinese position" on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when the potential Republican 2024 contender called the war a "territorial dispute." During an interview with Fox News Digital on Friday, the South Carolina lawmaker and military veteran was asked whether he was concerned about the current front-runners for the GOP presidential nomination — DeSantis, who is expected to announce a White House bid, and former President Donald Trump, who already has — both having a more skeptical position of the current level of U.S. aid to Ukraine than more...

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he is “gravely concerned” that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said the Ukraine war is a “territorial dispute.” Guest host Mike Barnicle asked, “Senator, given the lit fuse that is Ukraine and Russia, and given what happened over the Black Sea, do you have any sense of the communication at the top of the house, each house, secretary of defense here, defense minister in Russia, Putin, the president of the United States, any sense at all of communication that might be going on between the two of them? Then as...

Ukraine has invited Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to visit, after the Republican dismissed the Russian invasion as a "territorial dispute". Ukraine's foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko criticised Mr DeSantis's comments and tweeted his invitation to the Republican governor on Tuesday. "We are sure that as a former military officer deployed to a combat zone, Governor Ron DeSantis knows the difference between a 'dispute' and war," Mr Nikolenko said. "We invite him to visit Ukraine to get a deeper understanding of Russia's full-scale invasion and the threats it poses to US interests."

The Republican Party is once again in a war of words with itself over the war in Ukraine — this time because of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.In a statement submitted to Tucker Carlson's Fox News show, DeSantis said that the war in Ukraine was not among the United States' "many vital national interests," adding that "becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.""The Biden administration's virtual 'blank check' funding of this conflict for 'as long as it takes,' without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country's most pressing challenges,"...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on Tuesday that the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war is not a “territorial dispute,” pushing back against remarks made by his home state Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on the matter. In a questionnaire sent out by Fox News personality Tucker Carlson to potential 2024 presidential candidates, DeSantis said “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” was not among the United States’ “vital national interests.” During an appearance on the “Hugh Hewitt Show” on Tuesday, Rubio was asked about those remarks from DeSantis. “Well, it’s not a territorial dispute in the sense that any...

Ukraine deserves to have NATO membership, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, following talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Russia said it was closely watching. Zelensky spent this week visiting NATO countries, courting support ahead of a NATO summit in Lithuania next week where members are expected to reaffirm that Ukraine will eventually join. “Without a doubt, Ukraine deserves to be in NATO,” Erdogan said. Zelensky said he was “happy to hear” that Turkey supports Ukraine’s bid to join during a joint press conference.

A top Russian general has 'vanished' amid claims he had advance knowledge of the weekend armed revolt which threatened Vladimir Putin's regime. One theory is that General Sergei 'Armageddon' Surovikin is under interrogation over a plot to oust defence minister Sergei Shoigu amid a hunt to purge the enemies within. Surovikin, 56, is the second-in-command of the Russian armed forces. He has known links to 'coup leader' Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary army chief. US officials briefed on American intelligence said a top Russian general had advance knowledge of Prigozhin's plans to rebel against Shoigu and chief of the armed...

Lukashenka agreed with Prigozhin to stop military convoys According to the press service of the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, having enlisted the support of Vladimir Putin, spent the whole day negotiating with the head of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin. As a result, the parties came to a mutually beneficial agreement, after which the movement of armed persons of the Wagner company on Russian territory was stopped. https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1672655608506466306