by Ray McGovern Posted on July 17, 2019

Friday’s surprising report that Robert Mueller had successfully sought an extra week to prepare for his House testimony on Russiagate (now set for July 24) must have come as scary news to those of his fans who can put two and two together. Over the past few weeks, it has become clearer that each of the two frayed findings of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has now come apart at the seams.

How to Avoid Eating Crow

As the truth seeps out, there will be plenty of crow to go around. To avoid eating it, the Democrats on the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, the stenographers who pass for journalists at the Times and Post, and the “Mueller team” will need all the time they can muster to come up with imaginative responses to two recent bombshell revelations from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that Iran has signaled a willingness to negotiate on the matter of ballistic missiles. Other US officials aren’t so sure, and Iranian officials are also telling conflicting stories on the matter.

“Iran’s missiles are absolutely and under no condition negotiable with anyone or any country,” insisted Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for Iran’s UN Mission. That is certainly the position Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has long taken.

Yet Pompeo’s belief that talks are possible didn’t come out of thin air. Rather, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif suggested in the US was willing to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Iran’s missiles might also be up for negotiation.

That’s probably a non-starter,with President Trump so obsessed with growing arms sales, but does point to a grand bargain potentially being on the table, if both sides want it. The problem is, neither side is being very clear if they want it or not.

New Delhi (Sputnik): India says it is working with Russia to overcome payment issues for its strategic imports from that country. Deputy National Security Advisor of India, Ambassador Pankaj Saran said both sides are working on rupee-rouble trade to overcome a crisis caused by US financial sanctions.

Addressing the Second India-Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue in New Delhi on Wednesday, Ambassador Saran said this would help overcome India’s adverse balance of trade with Russia.

“As part of the trading environment, there have been talks about trade in national currencies. This again is still a work in progress and we need to see how we can operationalise and move forward on this idea, because increasingly we see many countries in the world are taking recourse to trading in their own respective currencies", said Ambassador Saran.

It keeps getting worse. The neocons have burrowed termite-deep inside the Trump administration and rumor has it the president will add yet another one to an important cabinet position.

If there is any substance to the latest rumors, DNI Dan Coats will be replaced by Fred Fleitz, former NSC executive secretary, CIA analyst, Trump Chief of Staff, Bolton enforcer, and CEO of the Center for Security Policy.

This last one should send up a huge red flag. CSP is a project launched by Frank Gaffney Jr., an Islamophobe way out on the neocon fringe. During the Trump presidential campaign, I wrote a short ebook (Donald Trump and the War on Islam) about Gaffney, among other neocons and rabid Israel-firsters exacting a corrosive influence on the Trump campaign.
I wrote:

An unidentified assailant has fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a Ukrainian television station in the capital of Kiev.

No one was hurt in the attack on Saturday, and Kiev police have initiated a search for suspects.

Authorities have classified the attack as an act of terrorism.

The target was the Ukraine 112 television station, a network considered by some to be pro-Russian.

On Thursday, Ukraine's prosecutor general threatened legal action if the network airs a new Oliver Stone documentary that features an interview with Russia's president Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine 112, a 24-hour news network, is owned Taras Kozak, who is running for parliament for the Opposition Bloc Party, organised by Viktor Medvedchuk.

The first batch of S-400 missile system components arrived in Turkey on Friday, with at least five plane-loads of equipment making its way into the country by Sunday morning, and two more expected later in the day.

The S-400 deal with Russia is one of the most significant contracts in modern Turkish history, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced.

"The most important agreement in our history right now is the S-400 agreement," Erdogan said, speaking to reporters at the presidential palace in Istanbul on Sunday, Turkish outlet Haberler has reported.

Turkey has just called Donald Trump’s bluff by going ahead with the purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles. The outrage in Washington is volcanic. Trump is vowing to rain fire and brimstone sanctions down on the disobedient Turks.

The S-400 is Russia’s premier anti-air missile. It is believed highly effective against all forms of aircraft – including stealth planes – cruise missiles, medium range ballistic missiles, drones, and some other types of missiles. It offers the choice of a self-directing version with its own radar seeker, or a less expensive, ‘semi-active’ version that is guided by its launch-battery radar.

What makes this AA missile (SS-21 in NATO terminology) particularly deadly is its remarkable 400 km range. The S-400 is said by Russia to be able to unmask stealth aircraft. I’ve been told by Soviet security officials as far back as 1990 that their radars could detect US stealth aircraft.

Turkey is taking delivery of Russia’s S 400 missile defence system. What this signifies is that Turkey and Russia are now “officially” allies. The first shipment of the S-400 landed in Ankara on July 12, according to Turkey’s Ministry of Defense. (see image below)

Two more shipments are due, with the third delivery of “over 120 anti-aircraft missiles of various types… [scheduled] tentatively at the end of the summer, by sea.”

Reports confirm that the “Turkish S-400 operators will travel to Russia for training in July and August. About 20 Turkish servicemen underwent training at a Russian training center in May and June, …” (CNN, July 12, 2019)

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko yesterday stressed that any prospective political reconciliation in Syria should include the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.

In a press release, Grushko said that the Russian military is the only foreign force based in Syria by invitation, which is in keeping with international law, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported yesterday citing Russia Today (RT).

This came after US news reports that France and Britain have agreed to send troops to replace US troops, which plan to leave Syria after US President Donald Trump in December announced he would withdraw his forces from the country.

After months of angrily condemning Turkey for buying the S-400 missile system from Russia over American alternatives, the Trump Administration broadly refused comment on Friday, as Turkey started taking the delivery of the first missiles in the system.

Acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper declined comment, but report are suggesting that US officials are in generally discussing possible ways to “punish” Turkey for buying Russian, even though Turkey was under no obligation to buy American arms.

Eighteen foreign aerial vehicles have been detected while conducting reconnaissance activities near Russia’s airspace, a weekly infographic published by the Russian Armed Forces’ official newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda showed on Friday.

Over the past week, Russian jets have been scrambled three times to prevent foreign aircraft from crossing into the Russian airspace, according to the material.

SOURCE: KURT NIMMO
On Thursday evening, social media posts claimed the UK flagged and Japanese owned crude oil tanker Atlantic Pioneer had crossed over into Iranian territorial waters. According to the Marine Traffic website, on Friday morning the tanker was in the Gulf of Oman.

BREAKING: #UK flagged ship, #AtlanticPioneer, has officially entered recognized #Iran|ian waters. Time to see what Iran does, if anything. pic.twitter.com/gn05YCtUAe

— Evan McLean (@TheEvanMcLean) July 12, 2019

I don’t know if these social media reports are accurate, but considering the recent behavior of the US and Britain, I cannot discount it. The US, with the help of the UK, is attempting to goad the Iranians into taking action and thus providing a pretext to get the next neocon war going.

reportedly in the eastern Anatolian city of Malatya as well as the capital of Ankara.

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced of the provocative transfer which has for the past year been met with condemnation by the United States - including the threat of sanctions and blockage of F-35s to Turkey - that “Deliveries of Russian S-400 complexes to Turkey are carried out as planned.”

The British Foreign Office has banned Russian outlets RT and Sputnik from attending the upcoming Global Conference on Media Freedom in London, citing their predilection for “disinformation”.

“We have not accredited RT or Sputnik because of their active role in spreading disinformation,” said a Foreign Office spokeswoman.

“It takes a particular brand of hypocrisy to advocate for freedom of press while banning inconvenient voices and slandering alternative media; sadly, the world has learned to expect just that from the UK Foreign Office,” RT said in a statement in response.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has approved the construction of a new tolled motorway across Russia designed to significantly shorten cargo routes, local media reported. The project is expected to cost around $9.5 billion.

The massive infrastructure project, the Meridian highway, has won the support of the Russian government, Vedomosti business daily said, citing government officials. The highway is set to stretch over 2,000km from the Belarus border to the frontier with Kazakhstan, and it is expected to become part of the fastest trucking route between China and Europe.

As tensions rise between Russia and Ukraine on the Black Sea, the US is upgrading several Ukrainian naval bases to give American and NATO warships the ability to dock just miles from Russia-controlled Crimea.

Centered at the Ochakiv Naval Base and the military facility at Mykolaiv — 40 miles east of Odessa and less than 100 northwest of Crimea — the American-funded effort includes reinforcing and upgrading existing piers and adding a new floating dock, security fencing around the bases, ship repair facilities, and a pair of brand-new Maritime Operations Centers from which Ukrainian and NATO forces can direct exercises and coordinate activities.

The upgrades come after last November’s incident where Russian warships fired on and seized three Ukrainian navy vessels in the Kerch Strait between Russia and Ukraine. Russia is still holding the crews.

SOURCE: RT

As tension mounts over Iran’s nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Tehran that Israeli warplanes can strike anywhere in the Middle East, “including Iran and Syria.”

“Iran has threatened recently to destroy Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video clip posted on Tuesday. “It is worthwhile for them to remember that these planes can reach everywhere in the Middle East, including Iran and Syria.”

Netanyahu delivered his stern lecture while standing in front of an F-35 fighter jet at Nevatim Airbase in central Israel. The Israeli Air Force has used its warplanes to strike supposed Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria numerous times, most recently pounding the cities of Damascus and Homs at the beginning of July – attacks that left multiple civilians dead. Last year, Israel became the world’s first military power to use the next-generation F-35 in a combat operation, reportedly against Iranian targets in Syria.

In late June, Sergei Chemezov, chief executive of the country’s defence industry giant Rostec, said that Russia had recently started manufacturing the sophisticated S-500 missile systems.

The new S-500 air defence system will specifically be aimed at countering an attack from outer space, Yuri Muravkin, the deputy chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ anti-aircraft missile troops, told the Russian daily Krasnaya Zvezda.

“Realising the fact that nowadays and in the foreseeable future, the boundaries between air and space are being and will be erased as the aerial enemy gradually becomes an aerospace one, it is safe to say that the S-500 Prometey missile systems entering service is [already] in the pipeline”, Muravkin pointed out.

The nuclear reactor on one of the Russian navy’s research submersibles hasn’t been damaged in a fire that killed 14 seamen, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Thursday, adding that the vessel would be put back into service after repairs.

The Defense Ministry said the 14 seamen were killed by toxic fumes from Monday's blaze, the navy's worst accident in more than a decade. It said some others survived the blaze, but there was no information on how many crew members have been rescued.

Earlier in the day, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Tehran will in 60 days announce further nuclear obligations it will discontinue as the third step of scaling down its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Germany is extremely concerned about Iran breaching the limit set for uranium enrichment and urges it to reverse this decision, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.

“Germany – like our E3 [UK, France, Germany] and EU partners – is extremely concerned by Iran’s announcement that it has begun enriching uranium beyond the concentration of 3.67%,” it said in a statement.

Germany will wait for the confirmation from the IAEA nuclear watchdog.

“As E3 and EU we have repeatedly called on Iran not to take further measures that further undermine the nuclear deal. We strongly urge Iran to stop and reverse all steps that are inconsistent with Iran’s commitments,” it continued.

Last night, in response to Iran shooting down an American drone earlier this week, the United States came within one whim of an erratic and unstable president from launching a military strike on Iran.

Like the recent oil tanker attacks in the Gulf of Oman, the Trump administration has framed the drone incident as if it occurred in a vacuum – implying that the Iranians are launching these (alleged) attacks without provocation, and providing an aura of legitimacy to a possible American military response.

And that’s exactly what the Trump administration’s Iran hawks – led by the national security adviser, John Bolton, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo — have seemingly planned all along: to cultivate conditions that make military conflict with Iran the only option.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA.COM

A Saudi-led military coalition said it has intercepted and destroyed drones launched by Yemen's Houthi group at targets in the kingdom, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

"The drones were destroyed in air space," a coalition statement said on Saturday.

The Houthis' al-Masirah satellite news channel said the rebels targeted Saudi airports in Abha and Jizan with Qasef-2K drones.

Yahia Sarie, spokesperson for the Houthi forces, said the attacks resulted in the suspension of air traffic in both airports.

The Houthis have increasingly used drones to target southern Saudi Arabia, including two recent strikes on the Abha airport, which killed one person and wounded more than 30.

SOURCE: NYTIMES.COM
GENEVA — Venezuelan special forces have carried out thousands of extrajudicial killings in the past 18 months and then manipulated crime scenes to make it look as if the victims had been resisting arrest, the United Nations said on Thursday in a report detailing wide-ranging government abuses targeting political opponents.

Special Action Forces described by witnesses as “death squads” killed 5,287 people in 2018 and another 1,569 by mid-May of this year, in what are officially termed by the Venezuelan government “Operations for the Liberation of the People,” United Nations investigators reported.

Laying out a detailed description of a lawless system of oppression, the report says the actual number of deaths could be much higher. It cites accounts by independent groups who report more than 9,000 killings for “resistance to authority” over the same period.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR

Commander of the Iranian Army’s Khatam Al-Anbiya Air Defence Base, Brigadier General Alireza Sabahi Fard, has warned the United States that Iran owns a “unique secret weapon” which it would use against US forces if they make any “wrong moves”.

Addressing a forum in Iranian capital Tehran yesterday, Fard claimed that Iran’s “deterrence and unique secret weapons have stopped the filthy enemy 200 miles away [from the Iranian border] in the Strait of Hormuz,” Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported.

“The enemy knows very well that it should not test Iran’s combat readiness, as its first mistake will be its last,” Fard added.

A Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet has intercepted a US spy plane that was approaching Russia’s border over the Black Sea.

“An Su-27 fighter jet, as part of the Southern Military District’s air defenses, was scrambled to intercept the target,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday, adding, “The crew flew the aircraft at a safe distance to the aerial target and identified it as a US P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance jet.”

The Su-27 forced the US aircraft to “immediately” change the direction of its flight to turn away from the Russian border.

The interception reportedly occurred on July 3 near the Crimean Peninsula, formerly part of Ukrainian territory but now part of Russia’s.

The first shipment of Russian S-400 air defense systems to Turkey are set to be delivered to the NATO member country next week, Turkish media say.

The initial S-400 delivery will be made on two cargo planes departing from a Russian military air base on Sunday, privately-owned Haberturk TV reported Friday, adding that a Russian technical team tasked with overseeing the system’s installation is also due to arrive in Turkey by Monday.

This comes amid Washington’s threat that Turkey will be subjected to sanctions when the Russian air defense missile systems ordered by Ankara are actually delivered to its NATO ally.

Turkey and the US have been at loggerheads over Ankara’s decision to purchase the S-400s, which Washington claims are not compatible with defenses of the NATO military alliance and would also compromise American F-35 fighter jets, which Turkey has purchased and also helps build.

"We will continue to implement projects in various areas, to hold events within the existing agreements that would strengthen the military potential of this country’s armed forces."

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stated on Friday that his country will continue to develop international cooperation with Venezuela, which includes strengthening military defense capabilities.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived at the Severomorsk naval base on 3 July, where he held a meeting with members of a special commission set up to establish the causes of the fire that killed 14 naval officers, including two highly decorated naval officers.

Those who died in the fire include seven Captains 1st Rank, including two holders of the title of "Hero of Russia", three Captains 2nd Rank, two Captains 3rd rank, a Captain-Lieutenant and a Lieutenant-Colonel of the medical service, the Russian Defence Ministry stated.

According to the Air Force Chief of Staff, a nuclear attack can be mitigated in three steps that should be taken as quickly as possible. These steps are designed for the destruction of incoming ballistic missiles, as well as a successful retaliatory strike.

On Tuesday, US Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, provided insight into a US response should American soil ever be attacked by a nuclear strike. Using Russia as an example, due to the nation’s large nuclear arsenal, he outlined three steps he would take in case of an unlikely nuclear emergency, according to a Fox News report.

BBC has reported that 14 Russian sailors died in a fire aboard a Russian navy research submarine.

The crew were poisoned by fumes as the vessel was taking measurements in Russian territorial waters on Monday.

The ministry gave no details about the type of vessel. But Russian media reports say it was a nuclear mini-submarine used for special operations.

The fire was later put out and the vessel is now at Severomorsk, the main base of the Russian Northern Fleet.

Appearing Friday on CNN with host Anderson Cooper, former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather criticized President Donald Trump’s performance at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, claiming Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin’s actions were “deeply strange and dangerous.”

The Russian General Staff has reinforced the air defences for Russians at the Iranian nuclear reactor complex at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf, according to sources in Moscow.

At the same time, Iran has allowed filming of the movement of several of its mobile S-300 air-defence missile batteries to the south, covering the Iranian coastline of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

More secretly, elements of Russian military intelligence, electronic warfare, and command and control advisers for Iran’s air defence systems have been mobilized to support Iran against US and allied attacks.

NATO defense ministers will hold talks on Wednesday over their next move if Russia doesn't destroy a new missile system that could allow for short-notice nuclear attacks throughout Europe, which the United States has said violates the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), according to Reuters.

"We call on Russia to take the responsible path, but we have seen no indication that Russia intends to do so," said Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at a news conference, adding "We will need to respond."

While he declined to go into further detail, diplomats have said their defense ministers will consider allowing more flights over Europe by nuclear-capable US warplanes, as well as more military training and the strategic repositioning of US sea-based missiles.

The dispute has deepened a fissure in East-West ties that severely deteriorated after Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its involvement in Syria. -Reuters

The US withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty is raising concerns in Russia that it would lead to the deployment of land-based US missiles along their borders in Eastern Europe. Russian officials warn this could create a crisis comparable to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

This is not a totally unfounded concern. The INF treaty’s dissolution, and the expansion of NATO all the way to Russia’s border indeed would create such a possibility. Russian officials have made clear they would respond to try to maintain deterrence, and prevent NATO having an overwhelming nuclear advantage. Though there are no formal plans for such deployments by NATO announced publicly yet, the Eastern European members are overwhelmingly hostile to Russia, and would endorse such deployments.

There is “absolutely no evidence” that outside forces such as Russia used Facebook to target users and influence Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, the world’s biggest social network said on Monday.

Nick Clegg, head of global affairs at Facebook and Britain’s former deputy prime minister, said the network had run two full analyses of its data held in the run up to the 2016 referendum and found no evidence of a significant attempt by outside forces to influence the outcome.

Opponents of Brexit have repeatedly questioned whether the Kremlin played a role in the vote by promoting stories online on issues such as immigration in a bid to sway opinion. Britain has said it found no evidence that Russia interfered in the vote and Moscow has repeatedly denied even trying.

NATO defense ministers will hold talks on Wednesday over their next move if Russia doesn't destroy a new missile system that could allow for short-notice nuclear attacks throughout Europe, which the United States has said violates the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), according to Reuters.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg
"We call on Russia to take the responsible path, but we have seen no indication that Russia intends to do so," said Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at a news conference, adding "We will need to respond."

While he declined to go into further detail, diplomats have said their defense ministers will consider allowing more flights over Europe by nuclear-capable US warplanes, as well as more military training and the strategic repositioning of US sea-based missiles.

At the very moment a Russian warship has docked in Cuba — a mere one hundred miles off the American coast, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has slammed US build-up of its weapons systems in Europe by invoking comparisons to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Ryabkov made his comments early Monday, the same day the frigate Admiral Gorshkov, armed with Kalibr missiles, entered the port of Havana.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will run straight through the Baltic Sea, delivering Russian natural gas directly to Germany. For once, Democrats and Republicans in the US agree on something: The project is a really bad idea.

The Pentagon responded to warnings from Russian politicians, who in turn criticized the US decision to send additional troops to the Middle East.

The Defense Department defends its decision to implement its troops saying that it is Russia that is trying to destabilize the situation in the Middle East .

“This deployment is not a provocation, the additional troops are for defensive purposes to address air, naval, and ground-based threats in the Middle East,” Lt. Col. Carla M. Gleason from the Pentagon’s Europe public affairs unit told CNBC in an email Tuesday.

“Russia seeks to revise the world order and reject the international system that has enabled peace for decades. Russia has sought to exploit chaos and advance its influence, expanding beyond its near abroad. And it has done so with particular focus in the Middle East,” she added.

However president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov refused to say whether the Russian leader would have a meeting with Donald Trump.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his French counterpart Edouard Philippe are holding talks in the port city of Le Havre in northern France, where they've discussed bilateral cooperation between the two countries as well as relevant international issues.

Dmitry Medvedev and Edouard Philippe held a joint press conference following bilateral talks.

According to the prime ministers' respective press offices, during the meeting, the two ministers discussed French-Russian cooperation in trade, energy, the economy, culture and other areas, as well as the ongoing crises in Syria and Ukraine. The joint press conference will be followed by a working dinner.

The French government said Medvedev's visit was an opportunity to continue the dialogue between the country at the level of their prime ministers two years after Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to France.

US generals are well aware that there’s no way of limiting the use of nuclear weapons in a war between superpowers, so the claim that some “low-yield” nukes are needed to match Russia is an outright lie, the Foreign Ministry said.
Moscow’s statement comes in response to the vice-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Paul Selva, who vehemently promoted the modification of the warheads on Trident missiles, which are carried on Ohio-class submarines, in order for them to be able to carry low-yield nuclear weapons.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is attending a commemoration ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow to mark the 78th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the USSR.

The annual ceremony, which remembers the start of the Great Patriotic War, is attended by war veterans and senior Russian politicians.

On 3 December 1966, in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the defeat of the German Nazi troops near Moscow, the ashes of an unknown soldier were transferred from a mass grave on the 41st kilometre of the Leningrad Highway and solemnly buried in the Alexander Garden near the Kremlin walls.

Russia has signaled its willingness to secure Iran's interests in the oil and banking sectors if Europe's non-dollar mechanism aimed at facilitating trade with the Islamic Republic is not launched.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday that Moscow is ready to help Iran export its crude and ease restrictions on its banking system if Europe fails to launch its mechanism, officially called the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), with Tehran.

The three European signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), unveiled late in January the long-awaited direct non-dollar payment mechanism meant to safeguard their trade ties with Tehran following the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal and in the face of the "toughest ever" sanctions imposed by the United States against the Islamic Republic.

SOURCE: STRATEGIC-CULTURE.ORG

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation

The tenth international meeting on security has just concluded in the Russian the city of Ufa. The forum has been under-reported, but it represents one of the few global examples of multilateral meetings between high-level representatives of countries that are in conflict. Hundreds of representatives from as many as 120 countries attended the meeting over three days to discuss humanitarian crises, hybrid warfare, terrorist threats and ways to recover from armed conflict.

President Putin’s opening speech was read aloud by Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev, which explained the forum’s agenda and objectives, namely, to create a positive atmosphere that should succeed in reducing various areas of tension between countries around the globe.

Georgian opposition leaders said they would hold mass protests until parliament was dissolved. Moscow condemned the rallies as "russophobic provocation" as a Russian delegation paid a visit.

Russia manages to remain a great military power despite decreasing its defense budget, while other countries keep pumping money into their armies, Vladimir Putin said, during his annual Direct Line Q&A session.

“We are probably the only great military power that is reducing its defense spending,” the President pointed out.

At around $48 billion, “Russia is just seventh in the world in absolute value” when it comes to the size of the military budget, he reminded his audience.

“We are surpassed –sizably– by the US, which spends $720 billion dollars” and by other countries, including Saudi Arabia, UK, France and Japan, he said.

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has purchased 200,000 troy ounces (6 tons) of gold in May, boosting bullion reserves to 2,190 tons.

Russia increased its gold reserves by 0.3 percent in one month from May 1 to June 1, the central bank reported on Thursday. In May, the regulator held some 2,183 tons of the precious metal.

Moscow has been actively beefing up bullion reserves in order to reduce reliance on the US dollar and to diversify its foreign exchange reserves. Russia’s international reserves are highly liquid foreign assets comprising stocks of monetary gold, foreign currencies and Special Drawing Right (SDR) assets, which are at the disposal of the Central Bank of Russia and the government.

The Russian Glonass-M navigation satellite launched into orbit in late May will go into operation on 22 June, the GLONASS information centre said Wednesday, adding that a previous device has been transferred to an orbital reserve.

"According to GLONASS System Control Centre, the Glonass-M 758 (orbital slot 12) is set to enter the orbital constellation on 22 June 2019", the centre said in a statement.

The Glonass-M 758 satellite will replace Glonass-M satellite 723, which has exceeded its expected service life by some 50 percent.

Russia called regrettable the “absolutely baseless” accusations made by the international investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which said the Russian military was involved in the incident.

On Wednesday, the Dutch-led Joint Investigations Team (JIT) accused three Russians nationals and a Ukrainian of playing a significant role in the downing of MH17 over Ukraine in 2014. All 298 people onboard died back then.

The JIT said the individuals, who were fighting on the side of the rebel forces in eastern Ukraine, received a Buk surface-to-air missile from Russia, possibly provided by the Russian military. The Russian foreign ministry said such accusations “deserve only regret.”

On top of that, the allegations were not backed up by reliable evidence and followed a “not quite coherent” line of argument. At the same time, the ministry maintains, JIT still opts to ignore information provided by Moscow.

Iran and Russia have signed a dozen cooperation agreements covering energy, railway, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and tourism, with senior officials stressing the political will of the two countries to reinforce ties in the face of US sanctions.

The agreements were signed as Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak visited Iran with a delegation of 120 businesspeople, including representatives of private and public companies.

The two sides held their 15th meeting of the joint commission for economic and trade cooperation in Isfahan Tuesday, which was also attended by governors of several Iranian provinces and ministers of several Russian republics.

“Both Iran and Russia are affected by illegal sanctions. It is hoped that the sanctions can be used as an opportunity to expand ties and increase cooperation,” Iranian energy minister Reza Ardekanian said, stressing that there is “political will” on both sides to do that.

A German Air Force military transport plane, the A400M-100 Airbus, landed at the airport in the Russian city of Kemerovo, media reports said.

According to the Sibdepo portal, the aircraft flew from Asia to Europe with refueling provided at the Siberian airport of Novosibirsk, but due to bad weather, the Airbus ended up making an emergency landing in Kemerovo, Siberia.

"I want to get along with Russia, and I think we will. I want to get along with China, and I think we will," he said

The creation and possible deployment by the United States of low-yield nuclear weapons in order to ‘contain’ Russia may actually result in using nuclear weapons, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters.

The senior diplomat expressed concerns over the growing trend in the US, where the term "strategic stability" is used in a very loose way. He pointed out that strategic stability means that the emergence of preconditions for becoming the first to use nuclear weapons is unacceptable.

Russia will welcome Switzerland acting as a mediator in lifting the trade and economic blockade imposed on the Donbass Region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press conference following talks with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis.

"Speaking of practical participation in the Ukrainian settlement, then, firstly, Switzerland takes part in the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission," Lavrov pointed out, answering a TASS question on the Swiss mediation on Ukraine. "Bern, as Minister Cassis underlined, believes that it is vital to fully implement the Minsk Agreements, including the humanitarian provisions."

The is the moment Moscow claims two Su-27s fighter jets intercepted a US B-52 bomber as it flew towards Crimea.

Russia released footage of its warplanes allegedly heading off the USAF jet, claiming there were two incidents on Monday over the Black and Baltic Seas.

Non-Russian accounts said that one of the B-52s subsequently made an emergency landing at RAF Mildenhall in Britain following an unrelated in-flight emergency.

One of the US strategic bombers was reportedly flying direct for the Crimean peninsula over the Black Sea.

One of Russia's newest warships, the first-in-class Project 22350 frigate Admiral Gorshkov, is sailing in the Caribbean and may be headed toward Cuba. The ship's presence in the region might incite the ire of the United States, especially if it also makes a visit to a port in Venezuela, where the U.S. government and Russia continue to support competing political factions. Wherever it sails, its impact might be somewhat muted by the fact that the rest of its flotilla consists of three support ships, including a heavy tug that often shadowed the Russian Navy's accident-prone and now indefinitely out of commission aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov.

Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin’s early June 2019 summit in Moscow with People’s Republic of China (PRC) Pres. Xi Jinping seems likely to have a disproportionate influence on the next phases of the crises unfolding in the greater Middle East, and therefore on the future of the region.

The escalating confrontation between Iran and the US is both influencing and influenced by the mega-trends set by Russia and the PRC.

There is so much disinformation that it is difficult to judge the Israeli news report below that the US is planning a military attack on Iran. Israel wants the US to attack Iran and the report could be an attempt to push events in that direction.

There is no valid reason for Washington to serve Israeli interests.

It would be extremely irresponsible for Washington to risk starting another war.

Russia and the US are engaging in tit-for-tat hacking of each others’ power grid, the New York Times is reporting, in what is really a kind of cyber “cold war” where the hackers from each country’s military and intelligence services load electronic “explosives” in the computer systems of critical infrastructure of the other, that in a crisis or war could be “detonated” to create chaos or bring down electric grids.

The Times article, the publication of which President Trump decried in a tweet as “close to treason,” was disturbing for a number or reasons. One was that sources told the Times the hacking by the US Cyber Command of Russia’s power grid had been conducted without the president’s knowledge, for fear that he might act to prevent it or might disclose it.

Expanding on weekend reports that the US had been carrying out cyberattacks against Russia’s electricity grid and other infrastructure, Russian news agencies are quoting unnamed security sources who say that the US attacks were thwarted.

Kremlin officials said they consider the reports “worrying,” and that a major cyber war was possible. Security officials said that so far they remain able to neutralize all of the US attempts to infiltrate and plant malware in the systems.

Iran and Russia have signed a memorandum of understanding over cooperation in the energy sector, the Iranian oil ministry’s SHANA news agency reported on Monday.

The preliminary agreement covering oil, gas, petrochemicals, electricity and nuclear power was signed in Tehran by Iran’s deputy oil minister, Amir Hossein Zamaninia, and his Russian counterpart, SHANA said.

In June of 1933, at the height of the Holodomor, 28,000 men, women and children in Ukraine were dying of starvation each day. The land that was known worldwide as the breadbasket of Europe was being ravaged by a man-made famine of unprecedented scale.

Stalin and his followers were determined to teach Ukraine’s farmers “a lesson they would not forget” for resisting collectivization, which meant giving up their own land to work on government controlled farms. Moreover, the famine was meant to deal “a crushing blow” to any aspirations for independence from the Soviet Union by the Ukrainians, 80 percent of whom worked the land.

While millions of people in Ukraine and in the mostly ethnically Ukrainian areas of the northern Caucasus were dying, the Soviet Union was denying the famine and exporting enough grain from Ukraine to have fed the entire population. For 50 years, surviving generations were forbidden to speak of it, until the Soviet Union was near collapse.

SOURCE: CONSORTIUMNEWS.COM

The FBI relied on CrowdStrike’s “conclusion” to blame Russia for hacking DNC servers, though the private firm never produced a final report and the FBI never asked them to, as Ray McGovern explains.

By Ray McGovern

The revelation came in a court filing by the government in the pre-trial phase of Roger Stone, a long-time Republican operative who had an unofficial role in the campaign of candidate Donald Trump. Stone has been charged with misleading Congress, obstructing justice and intimidating a witness.

The filing was in response to a motion by Stone’s lawyers asking for “unredacted reports” from CrowdStrike in an effort to get the government to prove that Russia hacked the DNC server. “The government … does not possess the information the defendant seeks,” the filing says.

KYIV -- The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented more than 500 cases of ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, and torture by both Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists since the conflict erupted in April 2014, the mission’s head said in Kyiv on June 13.

“We believe, however, that this is the tip of the iceberg, as torture is a systemic issue in Ukraine that was exacerbated by the armed conflict,” Fiona Frazer told reporters at a press conference where she presented a new UN report.

In many instances, Frazer said, “the alleged perpetrators are the state security services and the so-called ‘ministries of state security’ of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic.”

Vladimir Putin had a lot to say about the US at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, warning that Washington's policies may turn global economy into battle royal and suggesting that dollar's role should be revised.

Even though the Russian president didn't always identify the US or the Donald Trump administration by name, he didn't mince words about America's aggressive economic policies either.

'US hegemony contradicts aims of humanity's future'

Ahead of a visit by German lawmakers to Russia, one of them, Gregor Gysi from the left-wing party Die Linke, has accused Angela Merkel of failing to steer relations between the two countries out of the impasse in which they’ve been mired for years.

The number 2 in the Bundestag’s German-Russian group, Gregor Gysi, from Die Linke has told Sputnik that lifting tit-for-tat sanctions would help to solve international conflicts.

“The sanctions, imposed by the West, further aggravated the situation [in relations with Russia]. Russia responded with sanctions, too. That is why lifting them bilaterally would be a condition for renewing active dynamics in the dialogue between Germany and Russia”, Gysi stated, noting this demands that the German government take a corresponding stance.

The Russian embassy in Syria has slammed CBS News for sending its reporters into Idlib province, which is controlled by the al-Qaeda group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), at a moment of a stepped up joint Russian-Syrian aerial assault campaign over the northwestern territory.

Over the weekend the embassy tweeted of the CBS team's reporting from Idlib: CBS News crew + a "white helmet" (not wearing one, apparently) = another act of media warfare in the making.

Following a bombastic report that US government hackers are targeting Russia’s power grid, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to accuse the NY Times of spreading fake news detrimental to US credibility and national security.
“This is a virtual act of Treason by a once great paper so desperate for a story, any story, even if bad for our Country…” Trump tweeted on Saturday evening, before realizing that he forgot to actually dismiss the report of Washington increasingly targeting Moscow in a cyber-warfare campaign as “fake news.”

“.....ALSO, NOT TRUE!” he added in a follow-up tweet, without specifying whether the report was untrue in its entirety – or just the specifics like the targets of US cyber-offenses or their gravity.

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE

The Army expects to procure its Multi-Mission High Energy Laser (MMHEL) by 2022 and a hypersonic weapon prototype by 2023, said Lt. Gen L. Neil Thurgood, director of hypersonics, directed energy, space, and rapid acquisition, reported Army News Service.

The MMHEL is a 50-kilowatt laser through a precision pointing, high-velocity target tracking beam control system. The new design will be mounted onto an IAV (Interim Armored Vehicle) Stryker, an eight-wheeled armored fighting vehicle, to increase the Army's short-range air defense capabilities, according to officials with the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office.