Free Republic

AP) — A Russian operative under the supervision of one of the Kremlin’s main intelligence services has been charged with recruiting political groups in the United States to advance pro-Russia propaganda, including during the invasion of Ukraine, the Justice Department said Friday. The indictment of Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov reflects what U.S. officials say are ongoing Russian government efforts to meddle in the American political process, to shape public opinion and to sow discord and dissent on hot-button social issues. In this case, the authorities say, Ionov from 2014 through last March recruited political groups in Florida, Georgia and California and...

Western sanctions against Russia are the most ill-conceived and counterproductive policy in recent international history. World energy prices are rocketing, inflation is soaring, supply chains are chaotic and millions are being starved of gas, grain and fertiliser. Defence analysts are dumb on the subject. Strategy thinktanks are silent. Yet, hint at scepticism on the subject and you will be excoriated as “pro-Putin” and anti-Ukraine. The reality of sanctions on Russia is that they invite retaliation. Putin is free to freeze Europe this winter. He has slashed supply from major pipelines such as Nord Stream 1 by up to 80%. World...

We know where this is likely to end. We will accept Russia's sovereignty over Crimea. Sanctions will be quietly dismantled, Moscow will reassure Kiev with a deal on neutrality. Nato will agree no further eastward expansion. The G7 will again become G8; and Crimea will join Tibet, Kosovo, East Timor, Chechnya, Georgia and other territorial interventions which history students will struggle to remember. But how do we get from here to there?... Crimea must be a classic instance of a great power wrestling inside the shrunken straitjacket of imperial retreat, as Britain did, far more violently, half a century ago....

This Russian risk could yet dwarf our blunder on Iraq Putin's belligerence is the upshot of inept western diplomacy. Following cold war with cold peace may prove a historic error Simon Jenkins Wednesday June 6, 2007 The Guardian Will history tell us we were fools? We worried about the wrong war and made the wrong enemies. In the first decade of the 21st century the leaders of America and Britain allowed themselves to be distracted by a few Islamist bombers and took easy refuge in the politics of fear. They concocted a "war on terror" and went off to fight...