Free Republic

Russia is claiming two significant victories in its ongoing sanctions war with the West, after Canada agreed to waive restrictions on a key gas pipeline component and the European Union clarified its position on the standoff over the Kaliningrad exclave."The truth is that some European politicians might be more interested in Russian gas rather than in Ukraine's victory," Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of Ukraine's parliament and the chair of the body's foreign affairs committee, told Newsweek.Merezhko—a member of Zelensky's Servant of the People party—shared a similar view from Kyiv. "To us it's a dangerous political precedent," he explained. "I'm also...

Effigies of the Russian president have been spotted at different temples in a Japanese town but Mitsunobu Hino has escaped prosecution despite being caught on cameraA man who was arrested after being caught nailing Vladimir Putin voodoo dolls to Japanese temples will not be prosecuted. Mitsunobu Hino, 72, was spotted on security cameras leaving Vlad impaled after hammering an effigy of the warmongering Russian president to a tree at a sacred Shinto shrine in the town of Matsudo, which lies about 20 miles east of Tokyo in the Chiba Prefecture. The dolls, known as wara ningyo in Japan, have repeatedly...