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Russian oligarch Elena Baturina wired $3.5 million in February 2014 to a Hunter Biden-linked firm.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says those who allowed Russia to illegally annex Crimea in early 2014 must be held responsible. In an annual address to parliament on October 20, Zelenskiy did not name anyone in particular, but appeared to be taking clear aim at officials who assumed power after mass anti-government protests toppled Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych in late February 2014. "Those who gave up on Crimea without a fight must be held responsible," Zelenskiy said, adding that his government is doing "everything possible" to return Crimea to Ukraine's control. "We are building a Ukrainian Army that will be capable...

Russians secretly mocked Obama for so easily giving them American uranium, nuclear fuel contracts and technology, FBI informant reveals in excerpts from the new book "Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russian Spies and the Washington Lies that Enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasties." The failed Russian reset .. repeatedly gave Russia's nuclear monopoly, Rosatom, assets like uranium under U.S. soil and billions of dollars in nuclear fuel contracts that made American electricity customers reliant on Moscow for years to come. And then Vladimir Putin pulled the rug out from under the Obama administration in 2014, invading the Crimea region of U.S. ally...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) on Wednesday blamed Russia’s annexation of Crimea on Republicans, though the invasion took place on President Barack Obama's watch. Pelosi slammed President Donald Trump and Republicans for their alleged inability to face Russian aggression—and tied them to President Barack Obama’s appeasement of Moscow. "You just described, not only for the president, but the Republicans in Congress, dereliction of duty," Pelosi told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace. "Undermining our own elections, undermining our commitment to NATO, giving away the store, the base, in Syria. The list goes on and on. Ignoring the annexation of Crimea,...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell flatly rejected on Tuesday the idea of Russia rejoining the Group of Seven (G7). President Donald Trump has suggested allowing Russia to be readmitted to the group of world leaders after it was ousted in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea.

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused President Donald Trump of “kissing up” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Host George Stephanopoulos said, “I want to turn to that rather startling report in The New York Times [that] Russia secretly offered Afghan bounties to kill U.S. troops. It reports that American intelligence officials have concluded that Russian military intelligence units secretly offered bounties to Taliban linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan, including targeting American troops.” He asked, “Were you aware of these reports?” Pelosi said, “No, and we have called for a report to the Congress...

Israel's Annexation Plan of the Jordan Valley European thinking, Abdullah’s reaction, and Israel’s rights. Thu May 28, 2020 Joseph Puder The new Israeli government is considering extending Israeli law and sovereignty to the Jordan Valley, which is within area C of the Oslo Accords. The Accords, which gave Israel both military and administrative control in the area, also contains a large bloc of Jewish-Israeli communities. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on a short visit to Israel (April 22, 2020) told reporters: “As for annexation of the (Jordan Valley) West Bank, the Israelis will ultimately make those decisions.” He added,...

Viewed from above, the fields surrounding Büchel air base stretch out like a greenish-brown patchwork quilt, punctuated by the small villages and woodlands that make up the Eifel region in western Germany. Take a closer look at satellite imagery, and you can make out several dozen camouflaged airplane hangars. Hidden deep below them lies a carefully guarded secret: underground vaults housing American nuclear bombs that date back to the Cold War. […] In March 2010, Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, passed a cross-party resolution urging the government to “emphatically” work towards getting its American allies to withdraw all nuclear weapons from...

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - U. S. Senator Richard Lugar died Sunday morning, according to a release from the Lugar Center. Lugar was a senator from 1977 to 2013, before that serving as Mayor of Indianapolis from 1968 to 1975. After his career in politics, Lugar continued work through the Lugar Center, focused on global food security and aid effectiveness. He was a professor at Indiana University and led the Richard G. Lugar Symposium for Tomorrow’s Leaders at the University of Indianapolis. He held 46 honorary degrees from universities around the country, and Queen Elizabeth bestowed upon him the rank of...

The Battle of Tendra was a naval action fought on 8 and 9 September 1790 in the Black Sea as part of the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792). It ended in a victory for the Russians over the Ottomans. The Russian fleet of 10 battleships, 6 frigates and small craft sailed from Sevastopol on 5 September under Fyodor Ushakov for Kherson to pick up some frigates. At 6 a.m. on 8 September it encountered the Ottoman fleet of 14 battleships, 8 frigates and 23 small crafts at anchor near Tendra. As the Ottomans formed into a battle line, the Russian fleet sailed...

Russia has officially launched direct passenger train service to the annexed territory of Crimea, using a rail route that bypasses mainland Ukraine. People can now travel from Saint Petersburg southward toward the Crimean city of Sevastopol. The journey lasts 44 hours and crosses the Crimean Bridge, which Moscow is accused of building illegally over the Strait of Kerch. Russian President Vladimir Putin rode along a section of the railway route on Monday to inaugurate the railway. Moscow seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that's drawn international condemnation. The new train route is seen as a fresh step to...

The efforts in both countries had much in common. They were aided by a transatlantic cast of characters loosely organised around the Trump and Brexit campaigns. Many of them worked in concert and interacted with Russians close to the Kremlin. The outcome in both countries was also eerily similar. Both countries have been at war with themselves in the three years since, pulling them back from the international stage at a time when Putin has consolidated his position in Crimea, Ukraine, Syria and beyond. ***** "Glenn R Simpson and Peter Fritsch, both former journalists, are the founders of the research...

A majority of Germans are in favor of reducing Germany’s reliance on the United States militarily, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by the German news agency DPA. According to the poll, 55% of Germans believe that European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should protect themselves from an attack without US help. In addition, a majority of poll participants believe the US should partially (23%) or completely (26%) withdraw its 30,000 troops stationed in Germany. Conversely, 54% said NATO should work more closely with Russia rather than relying on deterrence. Meanwhile, 37% are for lifting sanctions against...

Apart from the Charge of the Light Brigade (the actual charge, but also the poem), the Crimean War (1853-1856) is best known as the first “modern” war, in that it was during the Crimean War when later military staples like rail, telegraphs, trenches, and rifled firearms and artillery first got tested on a major battlefield. Oh, and it also led to the development of modern professional nursing, triage, and anesthetics, but who’s counting? The 1853 Battle of Sinop is perhaps most noteworthy for the way it helped pioneer another development in military technology, although it’s also important in that it...

MOSCOW/KIEV, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Wednesday Apple did not "give a damn" about its pain, after the U.S. tech giant began referring to the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula as part of Russia in its Maps and Weather apps for Russian users. Russia and Ukraine have both been highly sensitive to the way global companies identify Crimea, since Russian troops seized the territory and Moscow annexed it after a referendum that Kiev and its Western allies say was illegal. Apple appeared to have changed the way it displays locations in Crimea in its software, in a nod to Russian...

Ukraine's main opposition chief back in race Reuters Kiev : Ukraine's main opposition leader, still undergoing treatment for a mystery ailment, has rejoined a campaign to overturn the scandal-plagued legacy of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma in a presidential election this month. Viktor Yushchenko, looking haggard and flushed, flew back to Kiev on Sunday after a second stay at an Austrian clinic where doctors failed to confirm his team's suspicions that he was poisoned to knock him out of the October 31 election. His main rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanuko-vich, is backed by Kuchma, whose decade in office has been marked...

Samantha Power, top Obama aide and UN Ambassador, tells a story in her new book, The Education of an Idealist about proudly telling her 7 year old son, Declan, how she had verbally bested her Russian counterpart, Vitaly Churkin, in a confrontation over Russian’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. “I regaled him with my best lines from earlier in the day,” Power writes of her conversation with her son. “I proudly recounted how Vitaly had seemed to stumble in our back and forth. I told Declan that I had made clear that just because Putin had big weapons...

The Trump administration has released $250 million in military aid to Ukraine that had been held up despite criticism that the money was desperately needed to deter Russian aggression and territorial expansion. As CBS News has reported, the administration had been reviewing military spending for Ukraine. "The president has made no secret when it comes to foreign assistance that U.S. interests abroad should be prioritized and other foreign countries should also be paying their fair share," a senior administration official told CBS News last month. Committee members announced the administration's move during debate on a $695 billion Pentagon funding bill.

United States carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the power sector and the broader economy have declined 61 percent between 2006 and 2014, mainly from "switching from coal-to-gas-powered generation," according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Second Installment of the Quadrennial Energy Review, January 2017.  These environmentally sound numbers from higher use of natural gas can also be translated globally to help with pollution in countries such as China, India, and the entire continent of Africa. The U.S. now uses natural gas converted to liquid natural gas (LNG) from shale deposits in states such as Texas, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania to...

Ukraine threatened to boycott a "discredited" Council of Europe after the body's parliamentary assembly voted to lift a five year restrictions imposed on Russia's delegation over the annexation of Crimea. The PACE assembly in Strasbourg voted by 118 to 62 in favour of a motion to limit the sanctions mechanism that had stripped the Russian delegation of voting rights following a late-night debate on Monday. There were ten abstentions. The vote followed a plan signed off by foreign ministers of the 47-nation Council of Europe in May and paves the way for the Russian delegation to present its credentials and...