Free Republic

Nearly six months into the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin still refers to its invasion as a “special military operation” while trying to maintain a sense of normalcy at home. But a series of Ukrainian attacks in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that President Vladimir V. Putin illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, is puncturing that narrative. And as Ukrainian attacks mount in the strategically and symbolically important territory, the damage is beginning to put domestic political pressure on the Kremlin, with criticism and debate about the war increasingly being unleashed on social media and underscoring that even what the...

Three months ago, Sonya, a 25-year-old who works at a major mobile gaming company and moonlights as a tutor, made one of the toughest decisions of her life: She left Russia. She had an old but cozy communal apartment with her boyfriend and two other roommates in Moscow’s city center, a tight-knit group of friends, and spent several days a week taking classes at a local dance academy—her lifelong passion. “It’s my home. My family, friends are there. My whole life. How can you possibly abandon all these things?" she told Fortune. But like countless other young educated Russians, Sonya,...

A car belonging to the daughter of famous Russian political scientist and philosopher Alexander Dugin exploded late Saturday in Moscow, according to media reports. Darya Dugina’s car exploded on Mozhayskoye highway around 9.45 p.m. local time, with witnesses claiming the blast rocked the vehicle in the middle of the road and scattered debris. Preliminary reports said she died instantly. The elder Dugin has arrived at the scene, according to a video on social media. There is no official confirmation or information on the cause of the explosion. It is unclear if the explosion was an assassination attempt targeting her father,...

It's now almost six months to the day since Russia invaded Ukraine. According to the United Nations, the conflict has displaced at least 12 million Ukrainians while huge parts of the east and the south of the country lie devastated. But according to frontline volunteer, Seva, he along with many of his countrymen and women remain committed to the war - even if it means paying the ultimate cost. Speaking as part of a special edition of Sky News' Ukraine War Diaries podcast, to mark six months since the beginning of the war, Seva explains. "Everyone is tired of war,...

Detailed commentary with maps from a bird's eye view along with Denys Davydov expertise in all kinds of vehicles and weapons.

The Puppet Masters of UkraineDems, Repubs and NATO(All links open in new tab/window) It seems NGOs and in particular, the president and CEO of one of them are in charge of shaping US policy in Eastern Europe and have been for many years.NED is funded by congress and also helps fund the a couple of other NGOs , one made up of democrats and one made up of republicans both of which are also funded by congress. Can you say incest? I knew you could.The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)https://www.ned.org/about/board-of-directors/The National Endowment for Democracy has supported democracy-building efforts in Ukraine...

A detailed list of the destroyed and captured vehicles and equipment of both sides can be seen below. This list is constantly updated as additional footage becomes available.

ussian President Vladimir Putin has scheduled an operational meeting with members of the Russian Security Council, as rumors swirl that Russia and Belarus are moving toward a unification process. "On Friday, the president will hold an operational meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council in the middle of the day or in the afternoon—it will depend on other events," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Russia's state-run news agency TASS as saying. -snip- Russian political scientist and publicist Andrei Piontkovsky said in an interview with TSN.ua that Putin may, during Friday's meeting, sign a "pact to unite"...

Throughout his 20-plus year rule, Vladimir Putin has consolidated power through graft, intimidation, manipulation of the Russian legal system, and forcefully silencing critics. Putin’s ability to sustain subservience and loyalty to his authority is no small feat, especially in a political culture of ruthless power politics. His reputation as a master tactician abroad has also been carefully cultivated, if not exaggerated.

Temperatures would plunge in a bigger shift than the last Ice Age and crops would fail around the world after nuclear war erupted, a study has shown. The after-effects would be long-lasting with oceans taking hundreds of years to recover, and fishing devastated, the researchers warn. Professor Cheryl Harrison, of Louisiana State University, said: "It doesn't matter who is bombing whom. It can be India and Pakistan or NATO and Russia. Once the smoke is released into the upper atmosphere, it spreads globally and affects everyone." In all the simulated scenarios, nuclear firestorms would release soot and smoke into the...

It was a piece of news so obscure and implausible that I missed it when it first surfaced last month. The news was that the Russians are going to put hypersonic nuclear missiles into Nicaragua and terrify the Americans into backing down over Ukraine. Or kill them all if they don’t.“If American missile systems can nearly reach Moscow from Ukrainian territory, it’s time for Russia to roll out something powerful closer to the American ‘city on a hill,’” Olga Skabeyeva said on the news show on “Rossiya-1,” the most popular Russian TV channel.Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega published a decree last...

A detailed list of the destroyed and captured vehicles and equipment of both sides can be seen below. This list is constantly updated as additional footage becomes available

Ukraine plans a "million-strong army" equipped with Nato weapons to retake the south of the country from occupying Russians, the defence minister says. Retaking the areas around the Black Sea coast was vital to the country's economy, Oleksii Reznikov said. However, the comments are more of a rallying cry than a concrete plan, says the BBC's Joe Inwood in Kyiv.

After some early hesitation over concerns the systems could be used by Ukrainian forces against Russian territory, reluctantly drawing the U.S. into the fight, Washington said it would initially send four Himars to Ukraine, and train Ukrainian forces to use them. These advanced systems are mobile launchers capable of striking targets from a maximum distance ranging from about 60 kilometers to nearly 500 kilometers depending on the type of ammunition used. “We needed to persuade them, to show them proof,” said Mr. Reznikov. “In the Izyum case, we were precise [in targeting] a Russian command center for aerial operations. It...

After more than four months of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, open-source data confirms that the Russian Armed Forces lost, at a minimum, over 830 tanks and 1,650 different types of armored vehicles (destroyed, damaged, abandoned or captured) as well as dozens of combat aircraft and helicopters and many other pieces of military equipment (Oryxspioenkop.com, accessed July 6). This data also does not count damaged but survived weapons systems that Russian troops were able to haul back to their bases; those systems will need a full overhaul before returning to the battlefield. Another issue Russia faces in Ukraine is a looming...

Republican James E. Risch (Idaho) was in Ukraine, touring the country. He was escorted by Ukrainian forces because the State Department refused to provide him security once he crossed the Ukrainian border. He met with Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, and came away with the conclusion that the current U.S. strategy has not properly adjusted to the latest phase of the fighting.Russian forces are pummeling Ukrainian civilian and military targets in the Donbas with their superior artillery. Ukrainian forces are still not receiving enough of the weapons that might give them the advantage — including long-range air defenses, longer-range artillery, heavy...

A court in Moscow has sentenced an opposition councillor to seven years in jail for criticising Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, the first prison sentence handed out under the new laws that restrict criticism of the war. Alexei Gorinov, a deputy at Moscow’s Krasnoselsky district council and trained lawyer, was arrested in April on charges of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army. According to the authorities, Gorinov committed the offence when he and a fellow opposition deputy, Elena Kotenochkina, spoke out against the council’s proposal to hold a children’s drawing contest and a dancing festival despite the war...

Cafes and restaurants are open and largely busy. It was in one of the latter that I met a senior Ukrainian government official who had contacted me, expressing approval for something I had said in the international media"You know, don't you, that this time next year, a Russian soldier could be sitting right where you are," he said after a brusque introduction. "We are losing this war." He is right. There were the great victories at Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkhiv. But with setbacks in Donetsk and Luhansk, the appalling realization is sinking in that this is likely to be a...

Consider the Buryats, one of Siberia’s largest Indigenous groups. Closely related to Mongolians, they were subjugated, annexed, and subsequently colonized by Russia in the 1600s. Russian independent news outlets Mediazona and iStories found that by mid-May, Buryatia had the second-highest number of soldiers killed in Ukraine since the start of the invasion—just after Dagestan, another conquest of the Russian Empire. By May 18, Buryatia had lost 117 soldiers (the actual number is likely higher), whereas the city of Moscow, with a population around 15 times Buryatia’s, lost only three. Relative to the population, Buryatia’s rate of battle deaths was the...

Vladimir Putin has vowed to defeat the West on the 'battlefield' and suggested he could escalate the war in Ukraine. The Russian leader announced at a televised meeting with MPs this afternoon: 'Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. 'Well, what can I say - let them try.