Free Republic

The Summary of the Report Background 2014-2021 Since the first months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2014, faith-based communities of various denominations have fully experienced the brutality and ruthlessness of Russia’s repressive policy in the occupied territories of Crimea and the Donbas region. Russian troops and Russian- backed separatists have targeted religious leaders and individual believers of most faiths, except the Orthodox parishes affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate. Representatives of religious minorities were arbitrarily arrested, threatened, beaten, illegally imprisoned, tortured, and some were deliberately killed. The repressive policy in the self-proclaimed “people’s republics,” in those parts...

A fearsome Russian general has been linked to the deadly railway station strike that killed dozens of fleeing civilians that was branded a 'crime against humanity' within the international community. Western officials believe Captain General Aleksandr Dvornikov, a Russian commander who oversaw devastation in Syria, is likely to have ordered yesterday’s fatal air strike on the station in Kramatorsk. Graphic images on Friday from the eastern Ukrainian city showed bodies strewn across the floor, lying amongst luggage and children's prams outside the city's busy station. Some had already been put into green body bags, while other photos showed smoke rising...

“In the modern world, the decision is up to the woman herself,” Russia’s president said in his annual marathon press conference on Wednesday, which ran to just shy of four hours. Any attempt to suppress it, he added, would only push the practice underground, causing immense damage to women’s health. Putin also cautioned against tightening the country’s historically liberal laws on abortion any further, saying that any decision on future regulation “must be careful, considered and based on the general mood in society and the moral and ethical norms that have developed in society.” Putin’s comments—his first clear statement on...