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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. He did not focus his attention solely on the Kremlin, though, and promptly warned his Hungarian counterpart about the...

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A delegation of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has arrived in Moscow to discuss a possible plan to stop a Turkish attack as well as the future of the east of the Euphrates, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Sunday. The SOHR cited sources which said the SDF delegation and Russian authorities were expected to meet in Moscow “in the coming hours” to discuss the future of east Euphrates. According to the monitor, the Russians offered to deploy border guards from the Syrian army in the border area from the east of Euphrates...

Donald Trump’s runaway success in the GOP primaries so far is setting off alarm bells among neoconservatives who are worried he will not pursue the same bellicose foreign policy that has dominated Republican thinking for decades. Neoconservative historian Robert Kagan — one of the prime intellectual backers of the Iraq War and an advocate for Syrian intervention — announced in the Washington Post last week that if Trump secures the nomination, “the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton.” Max Boot, an unrepentant supporter of the Iraq War, wrote in the Weekly Standard that a “Trump presidency would...

BRUSSELS - NATO is flatly dismissing a claim by Russia that its actions and expansion constitute a menace for Russia's security. Alliance spokesperson Oana Lungescu said Tuesday that NATO is still studying Russia's new security doctrine, approved last week. "That said," Lungescu added, "we categorically reject totally unfounded claims that NATO and its policies constitute a security threat" for Moscow.

urkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday condemned an attack on the rebel-held Syrian city of Idlib, believed to have been carried out by Russian jets, and said Syria will not be part of "Russian imperialist goals". Relations between Ankara and Moscow are already at their worst in recent memory after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane over Syria last month. This weekend's air strikes killed scores of people in the center of Idlib in northwest Syria on Sunday, rescue workers and residents said. Turkey, which has long called for the ousting of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and supports the...

In a twist on the typically shadowy world of super PACS, a new anti-Donald Trump group is openly seeking donations for an ad that would flog the New York businessman for drawing and accepting praise from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Make America Awesome is also offering to pay commissions to people who bring in big donors. The size of the commissions is not disclosed in the appeal circulated early Friday by Republican operative Liz Mair, and she did not immediately respond to a request for details.

Republican US presidential front-runner Donald Trump is apparently "honored" that Russian President Vladimir Putin considers the real-estate magnate a "flamboyant" and "very talented" man. "It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond," Trump said in a statement, according to Politico. He continued: "I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect." (full article at...

The main point is, however, that Russia's 'conservative turn' since Putin's return to the Kremlin in March 2012 — widely deplored in the West as a creeping authoritarianism with roots only in the wiles of Putin's mind — may be closer to the world view of Russia's conservative and patriotic majority than most Western governments would care to admit. In foreign and economic policy, Russia's post-Soviet government may never have cleaved as close to the views of the majority as it does now. That's the view of Igor Okunev, a vice-dean at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, whom...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Russia to try and narrow gaps with Russian leaders over a political transition to end Syria's civil war and restore stability in eastern Ukraine. [...] The trip is Kerry's second to Russia this year - he met with Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in May - but his first since frosty relations over Ukraine were exacerbated by Moscow's intervention in Syria in late September. President Barack Obama has seen Putin briefly twice since then at international summits in Turkey and France. ...

Donald Trump wants to ban Muslims from entering the United States? Well, it turns out lots of Britons want to ban him from the United Kingdom. Trump detractors across the pond have started an online petition on an official government website asking British officials to block the GOP presidential front-runner from visiting. "The signatories believe Donald J. Trump should be banned from UK entry," the petition reads. "The UK has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech. The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the UK," the petition says. "If the United Kingdom is to...

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's defence ministry on Saturday accused the United States of turning a blind eye to the trafficking of oil into Turkey from Syrian areas under Islamic State control, after Washington called the amounts involved insignificant. "When US officials say they don't see how the terrorists' oil is smuggled to Turkey... it smells badly of a desire to cover up these acts," the ministry said on its Facebook page. "The declarations of the Pentagon and the State Department seem like a theatre of the absurd," the statement added, suggesting that Washington "watch the videos taken by its (own)...

Experts say Syria insurgents used mustard gas on foes near Aleppo November 6, 2015 12:00 AM By Anthony Deutsch / Reuters THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Chemical weapons experts have determined that mustard gas was used in a Syrian town where Islamic State insurgents were battling another rebel group, according to a report by an international watchdog seen by Reuters.

An American researcher says it is highly likely that the United States is responsible for the crash of a Russian passenger plane over Egypt this week. On Saturday, the Airbus A321-200 broke up in midair and crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing 224 people on board. An investigation is underway to find out how the disaster happened; however, the airline has said that technical faults or human errors could not have caused the tragic crash. "New information from sources with contacts in the CIA are reporting that the US recently sold ships to Egypt in return for a drone base...

RT: Forbes claims that Putin can do what he wants and get away with it. Do you agree that he wields that much power? MM: That is basically what he is doing because he knows exactly how far to go, he knows where the red line is, he isn’t going beyond that red line. He is not going to start a war with the US because Russia would lose it. He is not going to start a war with China because he would lose it. Therefore, in his policies he knows exactly how far to go. And he knows the...

One point we’ve been particularly keen on driving home since the beginning of Russian airstrikes in Syria is that The Kremlin’s move to step in on behalf of Bashar al-Assad along with Vladimir Putin’s open “invitation” to Washington with regard to joining forces in the fight against terrorism effectively let the cat out of the proverbial bag. That is, it simply wasn’t possible for the US to explain why the Pentagon refused to partner with the Russians without admitting that i) the government views Assad, Russia, and Iran as a greater threat than ISIS, and ii) Washington and its regional...

KYIV, June 21 /Ukrinform/. Tanks with Ukrainian insignia and people in Ukrainian uniforms have been seen near the village of Millerovo, Russia, 20 kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border. [....] "This could be aimed at committing provocations in Ukraine or even in Russia," Chepovy said.