Free Republic

Putin sacks ANOTHER top general, Western officials say Russia is in advanced stages of planning retreat from Kherson, officials believe 'Reinforcements' are actually conscripts designed to cover the retreat, they said If retreat happens, Russia will try to play it off as 'evacuation' to protect civilians Meanwhile Russian General Lapin has 'probably' been sacked, officials added Russia is planning to retreat from the city of Kherson and play it off as a civilian evacuation, Western officials said today. Putin's troops are in the advanced stages of preparing for the retreat, the officials said, having moved conscripts into the city to...

World’s richest man previously said company would not pay for satellite internet in war-torn country indefinitely Elon Musk Elon Musk on Saturday announced that his company would continue to pay for Starlink satellite internet in war-torn Ukraine, a day after suggesting he could not keep funding the project. “The hell with it,” the world’s richest man wrote on Twitter. “Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.” Musk had said on Friday that SpaceX would not be able to pay for Starlink in Ukraine...

KYIV — Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, announced by President Vladimir Putin on Friday, will not affect Kyiv’s resolve to free them with military force, said an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “For our plans, [Russia’s annexation] doesn’t matter,” Mykhailo Podolyak told POLITICO, speaking before the signing ceremony in Moscow orchestrated by Putin. The Russian leader railed at the United States and the West, denounced the Ukrainian government, and warned: “We will protect our land using all our forces.” The annexation comes on a day when Ukrainian soldiers have reportedly encircled thousands of Russian troops near the city...

Vladimir Putin will formally annex occupied regions of Ukraine to Russian in a major speech tomorrow, the Kremlin has confirmed, as he attempts to regain the initiative after his forces suffered a humiliating rout earlier this month. Putin's speech comes after Russian-backed proxy governments in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions held sham referendums earlier this week on whether to go ahead with the move. Armed Russian soldiers taking ballot boxes door-to-door left the results in no doubt, and Ukraine along with its Western allies have vowed not to recognise the results. But it still marks a turning point in...

The Kremlin this summer scrambled to form a new army corps, seeking replacements for 80,000 troops injured or killed in Ukraine and 5,000 wrecked or captured vehicles. ...As Russian casualties exceeded 50,000 this spring, the Kremlin began scraping together fresh battalions by raiding the training and garrison establishment of existing brigades. At the same time, the army announced an initiative to form scores of new regional volunteer battalions—and even offered elevated salaries of up to $5,000 a month. This should come as no surprise. The recruitment drive behind the 3rd AC collided with Russia’s unhappy demographics and conscription practices. Roughly...

As Ed Morrisey pointed out this morning, the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east has been moving faster than anyone expected, including obviously the Russians. A couple of days ago, Ukrainian forces retook the town of Balakliia and another small town called Volokhiv Yar. From there they moved east and took control of Kupyansk.Ukrainian troops already in Kupyansk.Russians basically offered no resistance.pic.twitter.com/4c2UqjEk1w— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) September 10, 2022That was a significant win because it meant Ukraine was in control of the rail lines which supplied Russian outposts to the south, in particular Izyum. Here’s a crude map showing the location...

The Russians on the "Southern Front" received large reinforcements for half a day via the Crimean bridge The elite Ukrainian units that attempted the "Kherson counter-offensive" for the past six days did not achieve anything, and they paid for that with huge casualties and losses. They briefly took over Blagodatnoe and another smaller settlement and wedged themselves into Russian positions southeast of Suho Stavok, 3-4 kilometers away, but the counterattack was so powerful that they had to return to their starting lines with two captured positions. In the last 24 hours, the Ukris had 230 casualties, and they also lost...

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader and top ally of Vladimir Putin, said Sunday that he is waiting on an order from the Russian president to blast Western countries to "smithereens." Kadyrov made the declaration in a Telegram post that announced the completion of a new Chechen regiment called "North-Akhmat," which was one of four that the Chechen leader announced was being formed last month to help replenish Russia's troops during its ongoing war with Ukraine. He wrote that Russia is the only country in the world to "speak out against the infernal abomination that the West spreads," and that he...

A four-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome has become the latest innocent victim of Putin's war in Ukraine after she was killed in her pram by a Russian cruise missile which also left her mother fighting for life. Liza Dmitrieva was accompanying mother Irina on a day out in the city of Vinnystya - in western Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the nearest frontline - when a Russian Kalibre missile launched from a submarine in the Black Sea crashed down on top of them around 10.50am local time. The pink pram that Liza had been filmed pushing an hour earlier was...

Russia's RIA Novosti was told by an LNR official that Ukraine inflicted a massive strike on the air defense unit that covers Luhansk. Might be a sign that Ukraine is now shifting HIMARS strikes towards Russian air defenses.

The lower house of the Russian parliament will gather on July 15 for an extraordinary session, its council decided on Monday, just days after President Vladimir Putin warned that he had not even started to get serious in the war in Ukraine. Putin used a meeting with parliamentary leaders on Thursday to dare the United States and its allies to try to defeat Russia in Ukraine, which Russia invaded on Feb. 24. Parliamentary leaders all thanked Putin for his decisions.

It became known about the liquidation of the Russian colonel, commander of the 810th Marine Brigade of the Russian Army Sergey Kens. As Censor.NET informs, Colonel Anatoliy Shtirlitz announced this on Twitter. -In Kherson direction, Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed two command posts of Russian army, - OC "South" -Armed Forces liquidated commander of Russian 49th Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. PHOTO -Ukraine’s Armed Forces already eliminate 36,900 Russian invaders. INFOGRAPHICS. INFOGRAPHICS -Ukrainian soldiers liquidated Deputy Commander of 83rd Airborne Brigade of occupying Guards Lieutenant Colonel Slabtsov. PHOTO -Commander of 6th company of 57th motorized infantry brigade of Armed Forces of Russian...

Nova Kakhovka, Ukrainian troops destroyed the ammunition depot of the Russian Armed Forces The likely culprit is "HIMARS". Reports of AFU strikes on targets in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson region, using American-made HIMARS MLRS.

Twelve Russian officers are thought to have been killed in a single rocket strike as Ukraine's armed forces inflict punishing losses with American-supplied weapons. The attack targeted a command post in at Chornobaivka Airport, near the occupied southern city of Kherson, and is rumoured to have killed at least one general and one colonel. It is thought to have been carried out using US HIMARS rockets. Video shows what appears to be an ammunition dump at the base exploding, as Russian Telegram channels report Putin is infuriated at the inability of Russia's S-400 anti-air systems to protect his armed forces....

Dressed in military camouflage with an assault rifle at the ready, "Prof" Yeh peers from behind a vehicle in a parking lot outside Taipei, scanning his surroundings and waiting for a signal to advance. Yeh actually works in marketing, and his weapon is a replica -- but he is spending the weekend attending an urban warfare workshop to prepare for what he sees as the very real threat of a Chinese invasion. "The Russia-Ukraine war is a big reason why I came to this workshop," 47-year-old Yeh, whose call sign during training is "Prof", tells AFP during a break between...

Russian forces have withdrawn from Ukraine's Snake Island, a strategic outpost in the Black Sea, Russia's defence ministry and Ukraine's president's office said on Thursday. "KABOOM! No Russian troops on the Snake Island anymore. Our Armed Forces did a great job," Andriy Yermak, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office, wrote on Twitter. Russia's defence ministry confirmed Russian troops had withdrawn from Snake Island, calling it a "goodwill gesture"

VILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuania will be prepared if Russia disconnects it from the regional power grid in retaliation for blocking rail shipments of some Russian goods to Moscow's Kaliningrad exclave, but no military confrontation is expected, its president told Reuters. He spoke after the Kremlin warned Lithuania on Tuesday that Moscow would respond to the ban on the transit of goods sanctioned by the EU to Kaliningrad in such a way that citizens of the Baltic state would feel the pain. With relations between Moscow and the West at a half-century low over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Lithuania banned the...

Two events in the last few days–Lithuania’s decision to prevent the transit of Russian supplies for Kalinigrad and the Ukrainian missile attack on a Russian oil platform in the Black Sea–may be the tipping point for Russia in shifting to a War strategy rather than continue with the Special Military Operation. Let me explain.The Special Military Operation, besides the stated goals of demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine, consisted of restricted rules of engagement. Russia did not destroy all communication infrastructure and networks. The internet remained operational in most parts of Ukraine. Cell phone towers and power grids were not targeted and...

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that the country’s warships destroyed a command center with Kalibr cruise missiles, killing dozens of Ukrainian officers. “More than 50 generals and officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were killed,” the statement said. The strike took place near the village of Shirokaya Dacha in Dnepropetrovsk Region. The strike hit the compound where commanders of several Ukrainian units had gathered for a meeting, Moscow said.