Free Republic

Two senior Republican lawmakers, the chairs of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, say their colleagues are echoing Russian state propaganda against Ukraine. Researchers who study disinformation say Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, are merely acknowledging what has been clear for some time: Russian propaganda aimed at undermining U.S. and European support for Ukraine has steadily seeped into America’s political conversation over the past decade, taking on a life of its own. McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Puck News he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately,...

The Russian-flagged tanker Mekhanik Pogodin, used by the Russians as a command post, was destroyed on 11 March 2024 as a result of a successful strike by the Ukrainian Air Force near the Kinburn Spit, Mykolaiv Oblast. Source: Ukrainian Navy’s press service Details: It is noted that the vessel was destroyed in accordance with international humanitarian law as a legitimate military target belonging to the Russians.

Groups of pro-Kyiv volunteer fighters, made up of Russians who oppose the Kremlin, said that they had broken into the Kursk and Belgorod regions, while Moscow said it had foiled multiple Ukrainian attempts to infiltrate the border. "We crossed the border," the Freedom of Russia legion, a militia that claims to be made up of Russian citizens fighting on behalf of Ukraine, said it a post on Telegram. It published a video from a drone that claimed to show the vehicle being blown up and fighters on the streets of the village of Tyotkino, on the border between Russia and...

A prominent liberal priest faces expulsion from the Russian Orthodox church for refusing to read out a prayer asking God to guide Russia to victory over Ukraine. In a verdict published on Saturday, a church court said Aleksiy Uminsky should be “expelled from holy orders” for violating his priestly oath. The decision was forwarded for approval to Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian church who strongly backs President Vladimir Putin. The case shows how the church is clamping down on internal dissent as it throws its support behind Putin and his “special military operation” in Ukraine, which is now...

Ukraine has carried out a large-scale drone attack across the Black Sea and Crimea that comes after Kyiv claimed success in hitting a Russian military headquarters on the occupied peninsula. Ukraine intends to recapture Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and the peninsula hosts many military installations that have come under increasing attack as Kyiv seeks to degrade Russian logistics and equipment. The Russian defense ministry said on Thursday that it had shot down 19 drones and that explosions were heard in the Crimean settlements of Novofedorivka, Saky, Yevpatoriya, Dzhankoi and Balaklava... Russian social media channels painted a different...

A historic cathedral, architectural monuments and residential buildings in Odesa were severely damaged early on Sunday as Russian forces continued to pound the Ukrainian city with missiles. “Another night attack by the non-humans,” Odesa’s governor Oleg Kiper said, adding that one person had been killed and 19 injured, including three children. Kyiv and its allies say the air strike campaign aims to blockade maritime grain exports from the Black Sea port city to global markets and destroy Ukrainian culture. “Missiles against peaceful cities, against residential buildings, a cathedral . . . There can be no excuse for Russian evil,” Ukrainian...

Russian missiles badly damaged a historic Orthodox cathedral in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, sparking outrage and prompting President Zelensky to vow retaliation. The strikes killed at least one person and injured several others, Ukrainian officials said, the latest in a wave of attacks on Odesa. The attacks also destroyed other historic buildings, Ukraine’s culture ministry said. The Transfiguration Cathedral is Odesa’s largest church building. It was consecrated in 1809, destroyed during the Soviet era in 1936 before being rebuilt when Ukraine became an independent nation.

Update from Ukraine | Ukrainian Revenge! Ruzzia lost the "Hero" Commander and positions in Avdiivka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA42UK8oynk ****NEW SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: Invasion Day 396 – Summary March 26, 2023 Jerome News The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 26th March 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-396-summary/

Update from Ukraine | Great News from Bakhmut | There is a Chance | One million shells for Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD2dDMMB2XU https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ ****NEW SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: Invasion Day 388 – Summary March 18, 2023 Jerome News The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 18th March 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-388-summary/

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has been forced to use more of its professional recruits in Bakhmut to replace its depleted supply of enlisted prisoners, who are perishing by the thousands in the longest battle of the war, a Ukrainian official said on Tuesday. The claim suggested that Ukraine sees an opportunity, despite the heavy casualties it has suffered in the eastern city, to exhaust Wagner’s nearly suicidal prisoner assaults, which Ukraine’s commanders regard as one of Russia’s most effective tactics. “This is their last stand,” Col. Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told...

Over the past nine months, Russia has launched more than 16,000 missile strikes on Ukraine. This was announced on Twitter by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, Censor.NET informs. "97% of Russian targets are civilians. We are fighting against a terrorist state. Ukraine will win and bring war criminals to justice," he writes.

The picture was posted via Twitter by Serhiy Bolvinov, head of the investigative branch of the National Security Service in the Kharkiv region. ‘Defense of Ukraine‘, the official Twitter of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, wrote in a Tweet: “A torture chamber in Pisky-Radkivsky. Two photos. A gas mask placed on the head of a victim who was covered with a smoldering rag and buried alive. And a box of gold dental crowns. A mini-Auschwitz.” Here’s the original Tweet by Serhiy Bolvinov with some additional objects found onsite:

“A regime of harassment of personnel was gradually established,” following the Russian takeover, said Petro Kotin, the director of Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency, in an interview with a French news agency Friday. “Two people were beaten to death,” he added. “We do not know where about 10 people are now. They were taken [by the Russians] and after that, we have no information about their whereabouts.”

Russian soldiers appeared to castrate a Ukrainian war prisoner in a video circulating online, drawing international shock and condemnation. In the graphic video, a soldier wearing blue surgical gloves and a distinctive wide-brimmed black hat stomps on the head of a prisoner lying facedown on the ground. Another soldiers stands on the prisoner’s legs. The prisoner is wearing camouflage, with part of the pants cut away, and his hands are bound behind his back. A blue and yellow patch on his shoulder identifies him as Ukrainian. The assailant then mutilates the prisoner using a box cutter-type knife with a green...

Poland's intelligence services say they have identified camps where thousands of Ukrainian children have been held and adults brutally beaten by invading Russian forces. Special Services minster Stanislaw Zaryn said on Wednesday that over 1.5 million Ukrainians including 'thousands of children' were being held in various locations inside occupied territory where 'Ukrainians are sent en masse' and 'subjected to torture'. Zaryn continued: 'The aggressors carry out a verification of the detained, looking for people with combat experience and officials of the Ukrainian administration. 'They also study the attitudes of specific people towards Russia. 'Those who do not raise any objections...

At the start of the year, Russia dispatched more than 2,000 troops to its longtime ally Kazakhstan to help put down violent antigovernment unrest. Six weeks later, when Russian troops stormed into Ukraine, Kazakhstan had an opportunity to repay the favor by supporting the invasion. It didn’t.

On July 26, the Russian occupiers shelled their own positions with friendly fire, and then destroyed their own Ka-52 helicopter. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Censor.NET reports. "Gesture of goodwill" from the occupiers. Yesterday, three Russian Ka-52s in the Kherson region intended to attack our units, but... struck their own. Returning, the occupiers' helicopters came under the "friendly" fire of the frightened air defense calculations of the Russian troops. Russian air defense has never been distinguished by accuracy, so the invaders shot down only one of their Ka-52 strike out of three....

Russia’s planned big-ticket arms sales in Africa are expected to take a hit as a result of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. defense and intelligence officials told Foreign Policy, depriving the Kremlin of a major revenue source as the five-month war continues to devolve into a bitter stalemate. The Defense Department and U.S. intelligence officials believe that Russia’s severe losses of high-end equipment in Ukraine, including hundreds of tanks and helicopters disabled by American- and European-provided shoulder-fired rockets, will begin to cause significant slowdowns in the Kremlin’s arms deliveries into Africa, which could give inroads to Russia’s competitors, such...

We have been working for the enemy for a long time: new details of the case of Kulinich and Sivkovich, who are suspected of involvement in the surrender of the South. EXCLUSIVE Details of the case of high treason of the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine in Crimea Oleg Kulinich and former deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Vladimir Sivkovich, who are suspected of surrendering the south of Ukraine to the Russian invaders in February 2022, have become known. According to the investigation, both worked for the enemy since at least June...

More than four months into Russia’s invasion, the wail of air raid sirens warning of an incoming strike has become, to some Ukrainians, a kind of background noise: irritating, alarming, but also possible to ignore. A series of deadly missile attacks by Russian forces in recent days that have hit civilian targets, however, has changed the calculus, sending Ukraine’s leaders scrambling to reinforce the message that adherence to the advisory to seek shelter saves lives. “I’m begging you, once again: Please don’t ignore the air alert signals,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a national address this weekend. “Appropriate...