President of Ukraine Poroshenko during a speech at the Munich Security Conference said that Ukraine does not intend to stop shelling the republics of Donbass, because if Kiev ceases firing, the Ukrainian state will cease to exist.
“If Russia stops shooting, there will be peace. If Ukraine stops shooting, there will not be Ukraine,” Poroshenko said.

In this he maintains what we have called the Volker Doctrine, after US Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, who insists that the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics do not exist and the only entity to talk to — is Russia. And it is not a civil war, but purely “Russian Aggression.”

At the same time, he described the political and economic situation in Ukraine as a “success story.”
Poroshenko also boasted that during his presidency in Ukraine “the most profound reforms in the history of the country” were carried out. The day before, Poroshenko ordered to come up with “evidence of Russia’s aggression” to use in his speech in Munich.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the European project failed to provide security and prosperity for the continent while the European Union (EU) is wasting its energies to confront Russia to please Washington.

“A unified Europe has not yet been built,” Lavrov said in his speech at the Munich Security Conference. “Everyday issues – from eradicating terrorism to steady economic growth – have not been addressed with adequate solutions.”

Instead, the Russian diplomat said that Europe has enjoyed being a “follower” of Washington’s “lead” while pursuing a “NATO-centered” foreign policy.

British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson said the United Kingdom intends to strengthen the military presence in the Arctic to “protect” NATO’s northern flank from Russia’s actions, according to The Telegraph.

According to the newspaper, more than 1,000 British Navy marines will conduct annual training with Norwegian colleagues as part of a 10-year program, forming a new detachment in the near future, Williamson said during a visit to the military base in Bardufoss, Norway.

The British minister also mentioned that the United Kingdom will send to the Arctic region next year a Poseidon P8 maritime patrol plane to monitor the growing activity of Russian submarines.

The deputy director of the Ukrainian Institute of World Politics, Beleskov, on Monday, February 18, at a press conference in Kiev, said that the Ukrainian fleet needed missile systems to deliver ground strikes, as Russia “saturated the Crimea with equipment” that gave the queue “devalues ??the maritime component”, reports “Tsargrad”.

“Otherwise, Russia will have a big trump card in its hands,” he noted.

Beleskov also expressed the hope that the fleet of Ukraine would be equipped with land-based anti-missile anti-missile complexes in 2020. In addition, the expert recalled that over the past five years, the Ukrainian Navy has been learning to fight against Russia along with ships from NATO countries.

The European Union will blacklist eight more Russians over a stand-off with Ukraine in the Azov Sea, diplomatic sources said on Friday.

EU foreign ministers will discuss on Monday further EU support for Ukraine, especially the south-eastern regions most affected by the conflict. Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Kiev in 2014 and backed separatist rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk industrial regions.

Last November, the Russian navy captured 24 Ukrainian sailors and their vessels in the Kerch Strait, which links the Black and Azov seas. Moscow has not heeded EU calls to release them.

Russian lender Gazprombank has decided to freeze the accounts of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and halted transactions with the firm to reduce the risk of the bank falling under U.S. sanctions, a Gazprombank source told Reuters on Sunday.

While many foreign firms have been cutting their exposure to PDVSA since the sanctions were imposed, the fact that a lender closely aligned with the Russian state is following suit is significant because the Kremlin has been among Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s staunchest supporters.

“PDVSA’s accounts are currently frozen. As you’ll understand, operations cannot be carried out,” the source said. Gazprombank did not reply to a Reuters request for a comment.

PDVSA brandished the story as “fake news” on its Twitter account in capital red letters, but did not reply to a request for comment.

Washington takes unscrupulous steps mobilizing its allies to put the blame for dismantling the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) on Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Munich on Saturday.

"Back in October, US officials told us that President [Donald] Trump announced a withdrawal from the treaty. It is not an invitation for dialogue but a final decision," Lavrov said.

"Afterwards, it has not been very scrupulous to mobilize allies in order to blame us for dismantling this crucial agreement," he said.

Lavrov said that Moscow has no doubts that Washington warned NATO officials against attending a briefing organized by the Russian Foreign and Defense Ministries on the 9M729 cruise missile.

Disinformation campaigns hatched by Russian social-media trolls may be responsible for a 2018 measles outbreak in Europe that killed 72 people and infected over 82,000, according to a new report from the US government-funded RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty.

There were 229,000 reported measles cases worldwide in 2018 according to figures from the World Health Organization - double the number reported in 2017.

And some of that, according to researchers at Duke University in North Carolina, may be due to Russian trolls.

"Are Russian Trolls Saving Measles From Extinction?" reads the article's headline, which then describes how experts are analyzing whether medical disinformation originating from "Russian troll and bot campaigns" is putting lives in danger - noting a World Health Organization warning that "vaccination hesitancy" is now one of the top threats to global health, citing a 30% global rise in measles.

Following the dramatic US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) within the last month and amidst continuing tit-for-tat accusations between Moscow and Washington since then, which even appears to have imperiled the future of the New START treaty, Russia is aggressively touting its new nuclear cruise missile, the 9M730 Burevestnik (or “Storm Petrel”), which Russian media reports say has entered the final stage of testing and development.

The Kremlin is claiming the nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped cruise missile has "unlimited" range and advance superior maneuvering capabilities against anti-air defenses. Russian media previously last week reported based on official state sources that the missile’s nuclear power unit was successfully tested in January 2018.

The foreign minister of the EU member states have gathered in Brussels to discuss the upcoming presidential election in Ukraine, the developments in Syria, as well as the crisis in Venezuela.

Russia has warned the US-led NATO alliance over a recent decision to beef up military presence in the Black Sea, saying such a move would further increase tensions in the volatile region.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Friday that the decision by the Western military alliance to strengthen its position in the sea “is not a surprise” for Moscow.

“We are talking about the strengthening of military and maritime forces of NATO member states, first and foremost, Romania and Bulgaria, plus non-coastal states entering the Black Sea more often,” he said.

"It is our understanding that this activity aggravates the situation in the sphere of security,” Grushko added.

UN Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Ghassan Salame told Sputnik on Saturday he had received the invitation from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to visit Moscow.

"The Russian foreign minister invited me to Moscow. I hope to respond to his invitation [and to visit Russia] soon", Salame said, adding that he had received the invitation during a meeting with Lavrov on the margins of the Munich Security Conference.

Commenting on the situation of the son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Hannibal, who currently is a Lebanese prison, the envoy said the UN mission in Libya was making every effort in terms of humanitarian assistance.

At this year’s Munich Security Conference the US has failed to push its European allies towards further confrontation with Moscow, while Russia has played a constructive role at the event by continuing a dialogue with its partners.

If you manage to get close to the main entrance of the Bayerischer Hof hotel in the Bavarian capital during the annual Munich Security Conference (MSC), you'd see dozens of VIPs — politicians, their staff, NATO generals, and hundreds of police officers. It's been like this for years, but this time there was also something else beyond the glossy pictures of motorcade arrivals.

CEO Jo Käser tells DW the German conglomerate hopes to raise its investments in Russia despite EU-US sanctions. He said it was "regrettable" that several Siemens power turbines ended up in Russian-annexed Crimea.

Europeans want relations with Moscow to go back to normal, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said after a long chain of meetings in Munich, Germany, adding that Europe is increasingly ready to listen to what the Kremlin has to say.

The Russian delegation has held more than two dozens of “nonstop negotiations” with foreign officials over just two days at the Munich Security Conference. Those included even some European nations that talk hard on the Kremlin publicly, Lavrov told journalists after meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Taro Kono.

US Vice President Mike Pence went full throttle in Munich as he rolled out a list of Washington's demands to the EU, clashing with Germany's Angela Merkel and Brussels' Federica Mogherini on Iran and Russia.

EU nations must "stop undermining US sanctions" against Iran, Pence told the audience at the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday, urging European allies to follow the American lead in ditching the deal on the Iranian nuclear program.

He had earlier blasted EU countries for not being "cooperative" with Washington's push to pressure Iran. The US unilaterally pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) last year, citing mistrust towards the Islamic Republic and accusing it of threatening global security. Iran denied the allegations, while Washington's move was condemned by the EU, China and Russia.

Russia is not afraid of sanctions and new penalties won’t hugely harm the economy, according to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. However, he added that the measures may slow development.

The latest bill pushing a fresh round of economic sanctions against Moscow was introduced to US Congress by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez. It is the second attempt to expand anti-Russia penalties after the previous version was defeated last year. If approved, the new package will target Russia’s banking and energy sectors, as well as its foreign debt.

The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee shocked the liberal media world when it admitted there was no evidence of so-called collusion between Trump world and Russia. So what have the last two years been all about? And what is the damage left behind when Russiagate fades from the news cycle?

A retired soviet commando, who captured evidence of US deliveries of anti-aircraft missiles to the mujahideen during the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan, has belatedly received Russia's highest national order.

Vladimir Kovtun is a decorated retired colonel with quite an eventful career behind him. While in service he was a commando officer of the elite special operation unit of the Military Intelligence Directorate, better known as the GRU. On Friday, he added a new merit to his collection – the golden star of the Hero of Russia, the country's highest military decoration.

As Washington’s Secret Team continues to line-up its guns against the elected government led by Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela, it’s worth reminding viewers of another recently executed regime change operation – a portion of which was caught on tape – where US State Department officials could be heard discussing their new hand-picked, post-coup government in the Ukraine.

The FBI, CIA and NSA claim that the DNC emails published by WIKILEAKS on July 26, 2016 were obtained via a Russian hack, but more than three years after the alleged “hack” no forensic evidence has been produced to support that claim. In fact, the available forensic evidence contradicts the official account that blames the leak of the DNC emails on a Russian internet “intrusion”. The existing evidence supports an alternative explanation--the files taken from the DNC between 23 and 25May 2016 and were copied onto a file storage device, such as a thumb drive.

A bipartisan team of US senators is preparing to hit Russia with additional sanctions over its 2016 US election interference and military operations in Syria and Ukraine.

Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are spearheading the measure, called the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, which includes a wide range of financial penalties targeting Russia's energy complex, financial industry and "political figures, oligarchs, and family members and other persons that facilitate illicit and corrupt activities, directly or indirectly, on behalf of Vladimir Putin," reported The Independent.

The top Hungarian diplomat's remarks came during his joint press conference with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who, in particular, warned Hungary not to let Russian President Vladimir Putin "drive wedges between friends" in NATO.

Speaking at a joint news conference with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Budapest on Monday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto specifically pointed out what he described as Western countries' hypocritical stance toward Moscow.

"As for Russia – and I have told the State Secretary about this – there is enormous hypocrisy and political correctness in the European political arena," Szijjarto said.

READ MORE: Hungary Refuses to Dance to US Tune, Step Up Pressure on Russia — Reports

He recalled that neither Hungarian nor central European energy companies are partnering with the Russian corporation Gazprom in the Nord Stream 2 project.

US State Secretary Mike Pompeo's quest to scare Hungary away from dealing with Russia and China appears to have turned sour, as Budapest said it's fed up with lectures about its foreign policy.

Pompeo is on a five-day massive charm offensive in Eastern Europe seeking to "make up" for the time the US "shunned" the nations of the region "in a way that drove them to fill a vacuum with folks who didn't share our values," as he himself put it.

A new US intelligence report, which highlights that Russia and China were trying to wage a war in the skies, sparked the ire of Beijing, which insists that space is not Washington’s “private property.”

“I want to make it clear that outer space belongs to all of humanity. It is not the exclusive property of any country and especially of US private property,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying.

He was referring to the latest article from the Pentagon’s Defensive Intelligence Agency (AID).

Hua criticized the “unjustified and utterly unfounded comments” in the AID report, saying that China advocates the peaceful use of space and opposes its militarization.

A bipartisan team of US senators is preparing to hit Russia with additional sanctions over its 2016 US election interference and military operations in Syria and Ukraine.

Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are spearheading the measure, called the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, which includes a wide range of financial penalties targeting Russia's energy complex, financial industry and "political figures, oligarchs, and family members and other persons that facilitate illicit and corrupt activities, directly or indirectly, on behalf of Vladimir Putin," reported The Independent.

Threats of the sanctions rocked Russian stock and government bond markets at the end of the week, and the country's debt insurance costs jumped alongside FX volatility.

Moscow has responded to the prospect of new sanctions with anger.

A former minister told Russians to prepare for the worst outcome; the Kremlin accused the US of “racketeering.”

Introduction:

Nuclear submarines are the leading strike force of a fleet, capable of covertly controlling the expanses of the world’s oceans and quickly deploying in the required directions. They deliver unexpected and powerful strikes from the depths of the ocean on both sea and land targets.

The main striking force of the Russian Navy is nuclear submarines armed with ballistic and cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. They are constantly in various parts of the world’s oceans, ready for immediate use of their strategic weapons. Submarines, armed with cruise missiles, are aimed mainly at combating the enemy’s large surface ships and strike on the enemy’s coastal infrastructure. Torpedo nuclear submarines are used to disrupt the enemy’s underwater and surface communications and in the defense system against the underwater threat, as well as to escort surface ships and missile submarines.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday sent his condolences to the Indian counterpart, Ram Nath Kovind, after a deadly bomb blast in the Indian-run part of the disputed Kashmir region.

"Please accept my heartfelt condolences on the death of Indian law enforcement personnel in a terrorist attack in the state of Jammu and Kashmir", Putin said in a message published on his website.

The president also expressed sympathies to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying those behind this crime must be brought to justice, and called for closer anti-terror cooperation.

While overall the Russian Armed Forces display remarkable effectiveness and demonstrated a wide range of modern weapons, a number of gaps in Russia’s arsenal are also evident. Arguably the largest one is the absence of attack UAVs of any kind, comparable to either the propeller-driven Predators and Reapers intended for operations in a benign air defense environment, or heavier platforms intended for high-threat environments comparable to the US X-47B UCAS or France’s Neuron. It is therefore no surprise that there was an upsurge in reports of UAVs of various classes under development in Russia, up to and including the S-70 Okhotnik-B, under development by OKB Sukhoi, whose first flight is planned for 2019.

Even as the ‘Russiagate’ probe crumbled in the US Senate, five senators resurrected a ‘sanctions bill from hell’ against Russia. What are the prospects of it passing, and does it even need to in order to achieve its objective?

The “Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression (DASKA)” Act, also known as Senate Resolution 482, was announced on Wednesday by the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey). It is a rehash of the August 2018 bill (S. 3336) proposed by Menendez and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), called the “sanctions bill from hell” at the time.

The Russian Defence Ministry has called on the United States and leaders of militants groups to stop holding refugees, at least women and children, in the Rukban Camp.

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had not noted any big changes suggesting the United States was moving to withdraw its troops from Syria, following an order from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Putin said Trump was trying to fulfil his election campaign promises by ordering the troop withdrawal, but that he was not always able to fulfil his promises because of what Putin described as internal political issues.

The top U.S. commander overseeing American forces in the Middle East said on Sunday that the United States is likely just weeks away from starting the withdrawal of ground troops from Syria.

With the Russian border little more than an hour away, the desolate grey sky burst open with an explosion of fire and a plume of smoke. If the scene evoked the Cold War, it was intentional.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo trekked Wednesday to the Polish town of Orzysz to witness NATO live-fire exercises in an unmistakable sign to Warsaw that the United States has its eye on Russia.

Pompeo walked through drizzling rain with senior Polish officials over frozen soil and patches of snow to a reviewing stand as several hundred troops stood at attention.

US Vice-President Mike Pence has demanded that Europe withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and lashed out at the EU’s efforts to evade Washington’s sanctions on Tehran.

Speaking at a security conference in Warsaw, Pence chastised Europe for leading an “effort to create mechanisms to break up our sanctions” against Iran, and complained that European countries had not been “cooperative” since the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran deal last year.

“The time has come for our European partners to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal” and join with the US to give the Iranian people and the world “peace, security and freedom,” he said.

Pence said the EU’s newly created Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), conceived as a way to continue facilitating trade between the EU and Iran, was an “ill-advised step” which would only “strengthen Iran, weaken the EU, and create still more distance between Europe and the United States.”

Top Moscow officials have lashed out at a new US “bill from hell” which imposes sanctions on Russia’s banking and energy industry, but said the country is well prepared to face the “racketeering” penalties.

The bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democrat Bob Menendez, is based on a “precise, pragmatic and aggressive trade policy which has nothing to do with international trading rules,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

This policy is sometimes bordering racketeering

US Senators on Wednesday introduced a bill that if adopted would lead to new sanctions against Russia's banking and energy sector, as well as against Russia's sovereign debt.

Russia is ready to respond to new sanctions if they are introduced, including supporting state banks if restrictions are applied to them, Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said.

"If we are talking about debt, I have repeatedly said that in the first place, indeed, we have seen a reverse interest in our debt from foreign investors. This will hit foreigners first. They will shoot themselves in the foot", Siluanov said.

Russian trolls accused of meddling in the 2016 US presidential election may have contributed to a measles outbreak in Europe, according to an extremely logical, level-headed report from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The State Department-funded conduit for unvarnished truth has concluded, after some diligent sleuthing, that rumblings on the internet about the alleged dangers of vaccines – and resulting health crises – are at least partly due to a coordinated disinformation campaign carried out by the Kremlin.

The United States encourages provocations by Ukraine and then covers them up, including the recent naval incident in the Kerch Strait, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council.

"Same for the United States — this is the real ‘puppet-master’ behind the entire ‘Maidan theater’ who now encourages and covers up any provocation of Kiev, including the recent one in the Black Sea, willingly delivers arms to the country and pushes it toward [taking] reckless steps," Nebenzia said on Tuesday.

Nebenzia pointed out Ukraine is sabotaging the Minsk agreements and Western countries cover up Kiev’s actions.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a phone call with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday to discuss recent global developments, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry's statement, Lavrov warned Pompeo against any attempt to interfere into internal affairs of Caracas, including the "force option".

"When discussing urgent foreign policy issues, Lavrov warned against any interference in Venezuela’s home affairs, including the option of using force, which Washington has threatened in breach of international laws", the ministerial statement reads.

On stage at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. this past week was Princeton University Professor Emeritus Stephen Cohen, author of the new book, War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate.

Cohen has largely been banished from mainstream media.

“I had been arguing for years — very much against the American political media grain — that a new US/Russian Cold War was unfolding — driven primarily by politics in Washington, not Moscow,” Cohen writes in War with Russia. “For this perspective, I had been largely excluded from influential print, broadcast and cable outlets where I had been previously welcomed.”

Venezuela hopes to create a trade bloc consisting of China, India and Russia to help the South American country settle oil payments in currencies other than the dollar, its oil minister said on Tuesday.

The strife-torn country is looking for alternative payment methods to keep oil flowing to India, a crucial export market, especially after the United States imposed sanctions curbing the OPEC member’s crude exports to the United States.

“We all can build one economy and that economy does not necessarily have to be within the dollar economy,” Manuel Quevedo said, referring to China, Russia and India.

Quevedo, who on Monday said Caracas was open to barter trade with New Delhi, declined to disclose details on how he planned to do business with India.

The anti-Russian sanctions of the European Union in light of the situation in the Kerch Strait are being taken under Washington’s powerful pressure, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday, commenting on reports of possible new sanctions of the EU and the US against Russia.

"We said long ago that we do not discuss sanctions with anyone. We want to improve our economy and trade with normal Western partners so that not to depend on anybody’s whims - in this case the whims of those who did not keep their word and did not make the opposition carry out their agreements with [former Ukrainian] President [Viktor] Yanukovich," the minister noted.

"We are also dealing with the people who introduced sanctions over the Crimeans’ expression of will and over the events evolving in the region in general, in particular in eastern Ukraine."

Earlier, during a discussion on the fourth anniversary of the Minsk Agreements which led to a ceasefire in the civil war in eastern Ukraine in 2015, German envoy to the UN Christoph Heusgen accused Russia of "occupying" the Belarusian capital.

Speaking at the UN Security Council (UNSC) on the situation in Ukraine on Tuesday, the German ambassador told Council members: "We must realise that this was a Russian invasion, that Russian soldiers were directly involved in both the occupation of Minsk and the occupation of Donetsk."

Russian UN representative Vasily Nebenzya immediately jumped on the German envoy's slip of the tongue.

"My friend Christoph, it seems, had a Freudian slip, and said that Russia 'took Minsk' in 2015. Russia did take Berlin, I remember that; this was earlier. Before that we liberated Minsk," the envoy clarified, referring to the Soviet military efforts against Nazi Germany during World War II.

One of Russia's great rulers, a founder of the Russian state, King Vladimir II Monomakh and his battle against Jewish usury and slave trading.

It appears that Jewish money being sent from abroad to destabilize Russia has a very long tradition.

The parallels to what Vladimir Putin did with the oligarchs is striking.

The United States is ready to help European countries reduce the risk of Russia's alleged meddling in their elections, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday.

"We are prepared to help European countries across the continent understand the threat, how to reduce the risk of interference," Pompeo said during a meeting with Slovak youth in Bratislava streamed by the State Department.

On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the bloc was getting prepared for a potential cessation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, but it didn't want a new arms race and did not plan to deploy new ground-based missiles in Europe.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is speaking at a press conference in Brussels during the first day of the meeting between the defence ministers of the NATO member states.

The event comes after earlier in February, the United States said it was suspending its obligations under the INF Treaty starting from 2 February and would begin the withdrawal process, which would be completed within six months unless Moscow remedied its alleged violations of the bilateral arms control deal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin later announced that Moscow was also suspending its obligations under the treaty in response to the US move.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a phone call with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday to discuss recent global developments, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry's statement, Lavrov warned Pompeo against any attempt to interfere into internal affairs of Caracas, including the "force option".

"When discussing urgent foreign policy issues, Lavrov warned against any interference in Venezuela’s home affairs, including the option of using force, which Washington has threatened in breach of international laws", the ministerial statement reads.

It's been at least a few months since the US or western nations unveiled some new, broad sanctions targeting Russia, and with the Mueller "collusion" report due any minute, it's time for Trump to once again remind the audience of the biggest ever soap opera, that he is not a BFF with Vladimir Putin. As such, the FT reports that the US and EU are close to agreeing a raft of new sanctions against Russia, this time in a co-ordinated push aimed at punishing Moscow for its "aggression" towards Ukraine in the Kerch strait.

The Russian Foreign Ministry slammed upcoming joint US-Ukraine military exercises which will take place in the Black Sea dubbed operation Sea Breeze-2019, described as a multinational maritime exercise.

“That’s a dangerous idea, and that’s the way we will view it. Prior to that, we will study the facts. They are viewed by us as a dangerous idea,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin on Thuesday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the United States must be more engaged in Central and Eastern Europe as Russia tries to divide the West.

On the first day of a five-country European tour that will focus on opposition to the growing influence of Russia and China in Central Europe, Pompeo met with Hungary's right-wing populist prime minister, Viktor Orban, on February 11 to stress the importance of promoting democracy and the rule of law.

Washington sees those issues as key to countering Russian and Chinese moves to sow discord in the European Union and NATO.

"We must not let Putin drive wedges between friends in NATO," Pompeo told a joint news conference in Budapest with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

The US Senate Intelligence Committee has found no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 US presidential election, NBC News reported on Tuesday.

The bipartisan committee, which is nearing the end of its investigation, has found no proof that US President Donald Trump formed a corrupt pact with Russia to offer sanctions relief or other favorable treatment in return for Russian help during the election, NBC News reported citing Democrats and Republics on the committee.

Russia is likely pursuing directed energy weapons including lasers that could take out enemy satellites, the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said in a new assessment entitled "Challenges to Securities in Space".

"Russia likely is pursuing laser weapons to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites and their sensors", the report said Monday.

Prior to July 2018, the report added, Russia began delivering a laser weapon system to the Aerospace Forces that is likely intended for an antisatellite (ASAT) mission.

Moreover, the document also claims Russia is developing enhanced on-orbit dual-use technology that can be used to attack and permanently disable satellites.

On March 1, 2018 the world learned of Russia’s new weapons systems, said to be based on new physical principles. Addressing the Federal Assembly, Putin explained how they came to be: in 2002 the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. At the time, the Russians declared that they will be forced to respond, and were basically told “Do whatever you want.”

And so they did, developing new weapons that no anti-ballistic missile system can ever hope to stop. The new Russian weapons include one that is already on combat duty (Kinzhal), one that is being readied for mass production (Avangard) and several that are currently being tested (Poseidon, Burevestnik, Peresvet, Sarmat). Their characteristics, briefly, are as follows:

With the approach of the May elections to the EU Parliament, a pro-EU think tank has sounded an alarm over the burgeoning Euroskeptics, expected to take some 30 percent of seats. Naturally, Russia "highly likely" has a hand in it.

The alarmist report is published by The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) – a pro-EU non-profit think tank. The ECFR was established in 2007 and relies primarily on "donations" from various organizations – including such purveyors of a globalist agenda as George Soros' Open Society Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

US State Secretary Mike Pompeo's quest to scare Hungary away from dealing with Russia and China appears to have turned sour, as Budapest said it's fed up with lectures about its foreign policy.

Pompeo is on a five-day massive charm offensive in Eastern Europe seeking to "make up" for the time the US "shunned" the nations of the region "in a way that drove them to fill a vacuum with folks who didn't share our values," as he himself put it.

UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson is itching for conflict with Russia and China. He’s not mad. Not even slightly. But he is stupid. Very.

Unlike former fireplace salesman Gavin Williamson, I am no military expert. But then you do not need to be one to understand that while Britain going to war with Russia and China might work as a video game, the real thing would be an exceedingly bad idea.

So why then in a speech delivered to the Royal United Services Institute in London, did Mr Williamson’s argument on the feasibility of the real thing elicit applause rather than the shrieks of horror and demands he be sacked forthwith it should have? This is a serious question, by the way. It is one that cuts through British establishment verbiage to reveal a country ruled not by the sober and doughty political heavyweights of years gone by, but by foaming fanatics in expensive suits.

The US secretary of state traveled to the region on Monday, kicking off a multi-leg tour that will take him to Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Belgium and Iceland.

The US will increase its presence in Central Europe, correcting an earlier policy of absence, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday.

"I'm announcing new initiatives that will strengthen the US presence in Central Europe. We are increasing the support for people-to-people ties, events and exchanges…We are also increasing support to help Hungary in its fight against corruption, strengthening law enforcement cooperation and providing mentorships training in exchanges for independent media in all four Visegrad countries," Pompeo said, speaking in Budapest on Monday at a joint press conference with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

The UK should strengthen its global presence and enhance its lethality according to UK Defense Minister Gavin Williamson as he addressed the Royal United Services Institute on Monday.

The cabinet minister unveiled plans to modernize and strengthen the UK armed forces to prepare Britain in the post-Brexit world. Williamson spoke about UK plans to send its new aircraft carrier to the Pacific – where there is currently a territorial dispute in the South China Sea — invest in offensive cyber capabilities and adopt a harder military stance after Brexit. The UK withdrawal from the EU is of course only weeks away as Prime Minister Theresa May tries to strike a last-minute deal with Europe.

Russia has condemned Israel’s airstrikes in Syria as “unlawful,” labelling its targeting of alleged Iranian targets illegitimate.

Deputy Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said yesterday that Israeli airstrikes on Syria are “unlawful” and “unfounded”, but simultaneously stressed that Israel’s security is very important to Moscow.

“For us, Israel’s security is of paramount importance, but having said this, I cannot say that Israel’s unlawful attacks on targets in Syria – including against targets linked in some way to Iran – are legitimate or justified,” Ryabkov told reporters.

Two years ago President Putin banned Jacob Rothschild and his New World Order banking cabal from operating in Russian territory “under any circumstances,” and now, following his recent election victory, Putin has vowed to continue “unburdening” Russia’s economy from the dangerous monopoly of the US dollar in order to ensure Russian sovereignty in an increasingly globalized world.

Addressing the Russian Parliament following his inauguration, Vladimir Putin said that declaring “total independence” from the global banking cartel and Rothschild international money lending organizations would be the “greatest gift” he could give to future generations.

“We used to behave naïvely, but now we see that the WTO [the World Trade organization] rules are all too often broken, the restrictions are imposed for political reasons, which they call sanctions. Plus more and more of them are imposed to secure its favorite competitive advantages,” Putin said.

On the 40th anniversary of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, President Trump attempted to reach out to Iranians in their own language by tweeting "the long-suffering Iranian people deserve a much brighter future." Notably this marks the first time in history a sitting US president issued a social media statement in Persian, or the Farsi language.

Though we don't expect the "birthday wishes" on the occasion of the Ayatollah's founding their Islamic Republic to be received too warmly inside Iran, as the message also appeared a veiled threat of regime change.

We wonder what poor low-level CIA or State Department analyst had to be pulled from their work and into the White House to compose the foreign language tweet for the president.

Authored by Tom Luongo,

Russia is winning its war of attrition against aggressive U.S. sanctions policy. Diplomatically, Russia is winning on all fronts, finding positive solutions through its abundant energy reserves to open gaps in relationships hat have been frozen in geopolitical amber for two generations.

I’ve covered the surprising stability of the Russian ruble over the past six months given the volatility in oil prices in the past. That stability is key to the future of central Asia as well as eastern Europe.

Putin is positioning Russia and the ruble as the glue which ties central Asia’s development together through the Eurasian Economic Union. So, it and Russia’s economy defying the best efforts of the U.S. to impede its growth is something to keep watch on.

Attempts to force Russia to make foreign policy decisions “by orders” are doomed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday in a Diplomatic Day activity in Russia on February 10.

“The West, owned by the complex of superiority and permissiveness must not forget the lessons of history and I have no doubt that tries to force Moscow to make decisions on foreign policy ordered are doomed to fail,” he said.

Russia has proved to be a country that defends its national interests in the multipolar world and “even if it does not please the United States and its allies, it is the objective march of history,” he said.

Nothing better illustrates Washington’s opposition to democracy and self-determination than the blatantly public coup Washington has organized against the properly elected president of Venezuela.

Washington has been trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government for years. Washington wants the state owned oil company to be privatized so that it can fall into the hands of US oil companies. That would ensure Washington’s control over Venezuela. Transferring the wealth out of the country would prevent any economic development from inside the country. Every aspect of the economy would end up in the hands of US corporations. The exploitation would be ruthless and brutal.

Venezuelans understand this, which is why Washington, despite wrecking the Venezuelan economy and offering enormous bribes to the Venezuelan military, has not yet been able to turn the people and the troops against Maduro.

Russian authorities and major internet providers are planning to disconnect the country from the internet as part of a planned experiment, Russian news agency RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK) reported last week.

The reason for the experiment is to gather insight and provide feedback and modifications to a proposed law introduced in the Russian Parliament in December 2018.

A first draft of the law mandated that Russian internet providers should ensure the independence of the Russian internet space (Runet) in the case of foreign aggression to disconnect the country from the rest of the internet.

In addition, Russian telecom firms would also have to install "technical means" to re-route all Russian internet traffic to exchange points approved or managed by Roskomnazor, Russia's telecom watchdog.

There is a sad disregard for human life among the neocon regime-changers. The devastation of Iraq, with its million dead, was a mere stepping stone to a "re-making" of the Middle East. A Libya turned into a modern day slave market after neocon-backed "liberation" is off the radar screen. Who cares, right?

Syria suffered a half million dead after a US backed jihadist insurgency - strongly backed by the neocons - and not a word of remorse.

In fact, in a remarkable act of chutzpah, neocons have taken to blaming the victims in Syria, with the Washington Post's Josh Rogin branding Assad, who fought and ultimately defeated US-backed terrorists (and in so doing saved Syria's ancient Christian community) an "enemy of humanity." One need not join the Assad fan club to come to the easy conclusion that an al-Qaeda-controlled Aleppo, for example, was a living hell while an Aleppo liberated by Assad very soon was on its feet again as a multi-confessional and multi-cultural center of Syria.

The testing of the Russian shipborne Poliment-Redut air defence missile system for the frigates of the Project 22350 series has been completed, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy Adm. Vladimir Korolev has announced.

"The state testing of the Poliment-Redut air defence missile system has been completed," Korolev said as quoted by the Russian Krasnaya Zvesda newspaper.

The air defence missile system is capable of hitting air targets located within an up to 150-kilometer (93-mile) radius and at an altitude of up to 30 kilometers.

Russian authorities and major internet providers are planning to disconnect the country from the internet as part of a planned experiment, Russian news agency RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK) reported last week.

A first draft of the law mandated that Russian internet providers should ensure the independence of the Russian internet space (Runet) in the case of foreign aggression to disconnect the country from the rest of the internet.

The Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom addressed the stance UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson voiced earlier in the day. Specifically, he said that Britain will be "be ready to flex its military muscles after it leaves the EU".

The embassy voiced concern over the "militaristic tone" of Williamson's speech, saying that such rhetoric, portraying Moscow as an "aggressor", aims to justify defence budget hikes.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated on Sunday his commitment to continue negotiations with Russia on the peace treaty, stressing that this issue should not be left for future generations to solve.

“We should not hand over to future generations the problem that has not been solved during over 70 years. I am determined to solve this problem together with Russian President Vladimir Putin and to continue active negotiations on the peace treaty,” Abe said at a congress of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, as broadcast on the YouTube channel of the Japanese media outlet The Page.

AH-64 Apache attack helicopters from the British Army were dispatched for the first time to the Arctic Circle, reports The Sun.

The newspaper referred to exercises in Norway this week involving British Apache helicopters. According to the operations officer of the Joint Helicopter Command, Brigadier Mike Keating, the Apache helicopter “sends a psychological message to any potential enemy, to any foe that’s out there.”

“That’s exactly why we brought it here, to learn those lessons and prove to ourselves and any adversaries out there that no matter where trouble might face us, we are prepared to go and face it,” he continued.

The US ambassador to Germany says Berlin needs to escalate its stand-off with Russia by investing more in weapons, and pressuring it over energy links. Moscow believes that Germany won't submit to American "blackmail.”

“The Germans have the leverage with Russia. Imagine if Chancellor Merkel stood up and said: Because of the Russian behavior, because of the malign activity in the increased offense, we cannot give you more influence by buying your energy,” Richard Grenell, a career diplomat who was assigned to Germany last year, told Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

The current White House administration has persistently urged Angela Merkel’s government to restrict or halt the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, which is due to be completed later this year.

As the US tries to impede Berlin from a joint energy project with Russia – Nord Stream 2 – the German economy minister says that his country will stick to the enterprise, backing Moscow as a reliable partner.

Speaking to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Peter Altmaier was quizzed about Donald Trump’s 2018 comments that Berlin is “a captive” of Russia, when it comes to gas supplies.

Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA is telling customers of its joint ventures to deposit oil sales proceeds in an account recently opened at Russia’s Gazprombank AO, according to sources and an internal document seen by Reuters on Saturday.

PDVSA’s move comes after the United States imposed tough, new financial sanctions on Jan. 28 aimed at blocking Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro’s access to the country’s oil revenue.

Attempts to force Russia to make foreign policy decisions “by orders” are doomed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday in a Diplomatic Day activity in Russia on February 10.

“The West, owned by the complex of superiority and permissiveness must not forget the lessons of history and I have no doubt that tries to force Moscow to make decisions on foreign policy ordered are doomed to fail,” he said.

Russia has proved to be a country that defends its national interests in the multipolar world and “even if it does not please the United States and its allies, it is the objective march of history,” he said.

Russia has prepared a separate draft resolution to be presented to the UN Security Council in support of Venezuela, a diplomatic source has said.

According to information published in the media, the United States would have a draft resolution to be presented to the Security Council, however, supporting new presidential elections in the country.

Earlier, the head of the Latin American department of Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that Caracas did not send a request to Moscow for military assistance. The diplomat also added that Russia is open to dialogue with Venezuelan politicians willing to constructively discuss the situation in the Latin American country.

The United States aims at breaking down the existing architecture of arms control while pursuing an illusory goal of achieving global military dominance, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said commenting the situation around the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

"The US aims at breaking down the architecture of arms control which has been built for many years between our two countries," Antonov told TASS in an interview ahead of the Diplomats' Day. "We see in this an attempt to create room for themselves to pursue the illusory idea to achieve global military dominance," he added. "It needs to be said directly — such attempts are impossible to implement," he noted.

Russia is not planning to move its diplomatic mission in Israel to Jerusalem al-Quds despite US President Donald Trump’s recognition of the city as the new Israeli "capital".

Russian Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov told the TASS news agency on Thursday that Moscow would not breach international law and United Nations resolutions on Jerusalem al-Quds.

"The issue of transferring the Russian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is outside the agenda. Russia is committed to the international legal framework concerning Jerusalem, including corresponding United Nations Security Council resolutions," Viktorov said.

Russia should be concerned by the calls of US Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson to go on an offensive against Moscow and Beijing, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian upper house Konstantin Kosachev has stated.

"I would not regard the bravado of Chief of the Naval Operations of the US Navy Adm. John Richardson, who called for an ‘offensive,’ to show ‘more aggression' against Moscow and Beijing and generally ‘push first’ as another stupidity of another US military man. First, it is a high-ranking representative of the most powerful army in the world. Secondly, no one has disavowed his words yet", Kosachev wrote on Facebook.

In an effort to encourage defections from Venezuela's elected President Nicolas Maduro, the Trump administration is reportedly holding secret talks with members of the Venezuelan military as top U.S. cabinet officials continue to issue aggressive threats and push for regime change.

According to Reuters, which cited an anonymous senior White House official, the U.S. "is holding direct communications with members of Venezuela's military urging them to abandon President Nicolas Maduro and is also preparing new sanctions aimed at increasing pressure on him."

"The Trump administration expects further military defections from Maduro's side," Reuters reported, "despite only a few senior officers having done so since opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president last month, earning the recognition of the United States and dozens of other countries."

Nuclear submarines are the leading strike force of a fleet, capable of covertly controlling the expanses of the world’s oceans and quickly deploying in the required directions. They deliver unexpected and powerful strikes from the depths of the ocean on both sea and land targets.

The main striking force of the Russian Navy is nuclear submarines armed with ballistic and cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. They are constantly in various parts of the world’s oceans, ready for immediate use of their strategic weapons. Submarines, armed with cruise missiles, are aimed mainly at combating the enemy’s large surface ships and strike on the enemy’s coastal infrastructure. Torpedo nuclear submarines are used to disrupt the enemy’s underwater and surface communications and in the defense system against the underwater threat, as well as to escort surface ships and missile submarines.

Washington has sent several ships to the Black Sea following an incident in the Kerch Strait, when Russian border patrol boats forcibly stopped several Ukrainian military vessels that had violated the Russian maritime border and refused to follow the patrol's orders.

The commander of the US Navy, Admiral John Michael Richardson, has come up with an unexpected suggestion in terms of proactive measures to counter Russia in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, Newsweek reported. When asked at the Atlantic Council in Washington on 6 February about the strategy against "perceived aggressions" from Russia, Richardson reportedly suggested that instead of responding to Moscow's actions, the US should actually "push first" in a number of areas.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed nine generals from the defense ministry, following a document published on Friday in an official Russian news portal

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed the nine generals from the defense department, following a document published on Friday in an official Russian information portal for legal information.

Among other things, the duties were dismissed General Sergeant Sergei Didenko - Head of the Siberian Regional Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, Major General Irina Zejbert - Senior Assistant to the President of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Major General Alexander Kuznetsov - Deputy Chief of the State Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Krasnoyarsk region, follows from the published document.

Students from eight Moscow schools took part in the Polar Walk to school Wednesday morning.

The Polar Walk is part of the National Safe Routes to School program.

The West Park Elementary had 75% participation, a record-breaking Polar Walk for the school.

The temperature also set a record for the walk’s history.

"This is the coldest Polar Walk that we've done,” said Erin Bacon, coordinator.

The US continues breaching its obligations as a host nation to national UN missions, this time by obliging the administrative and technical personnel of the Russian Permanent Mission to the UN to obtain driver’s licenses through the state authorities, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

"In addition to the already routine practice of denying visas to Russian diplomats travelling for long and short-term business trips to the Russian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, as well as revoking visas, another irritant has recently emerged. Since January 2019, the Americans introduced a new procedure for obtaining driver's licenses and registering personal vehicles of the permanent mission's administrative and technical personnel. Now driver’s licenses for these individuals will be issued not by the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions, but by the state authorities," the ministry’s Department of Information and Press said in a statement.

A California senator and media-appointed frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic nomination has finally managed to unravel the conundrum of so-called Russian ‘interference’ in the 2016 election — it’s so simple you won’t believe it.

Tweeting out her discovery, Kamala Harris explained that Russia was “able to influence” the last presidential election because it “figured out” that “racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and transphobia are America’s Achilles heel.”

Armed with this top secret information, Russia was “able” to turn Americans against each other in a way never before seen in history (if you conveniently forget most of history, that is).

What drives Adam Schiff’s never ending Russia hysteria?

When in doubt follow the money. Congressman Schiff’s well documented Putin obsession may have something to do with his billionaire, military complex, oligarch patron from Ukraine.

In a Zerohedge post yesterday, chronicling the latest Adam Schiff idiocy, where the Democrat Congressman spoke to a crowd at the University of Pennsylvania, declaring Russian ads promoted the Second Amendment during the 2016 election “so we will kill each other” commenter AlaricBalth linked some interesting information on Schiff’s underlying motivation behind his Russia hysteria…

Adam Schiff is an owned hatchet man of Ukrainian arms dealer Igor Pasternak. Schiff’s anti-Russian narrative is carefully orchestrated by his Ukrainian handlers