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Inside a Crimean cave was a gigantic ancient mystery just waiting to be uncovered: a bird so large that it weighed nearly as much as an adult polar bear. Giant birds once roamed Madagascar, New Zealand and Australia. The latest fossil find, an intriguing fossilized femur, was recently found in Taurida Cave on the northern coast of the Black Sea. It was discovered along with other fossils, including bison bones, that helped researchers date the now-extinct giant bird to between 1.5 million and 2 million years ago. When the first early human ancestors arrived in Europe, they might have encountered...

What have the US and Poland agreed to? The two leaders have signed a joint declaration affirming the countries' co-operation on defence. The agreement includes provisions for Poland to provide "basing and infrastructure for 1,000 American troops", who would be temporarily stationed on a rotational basis. When later questioned reporters, however, Mr Trump said "they're talking about 2,000 troops". Around 5,000 troops already rotate in and out of Poland. This is part of a 2016 Nato agreement, made in response to Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. In a separate deal, Poland has ordered 32 F-35 fighter jets,...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Russian media on Thursday that former Secretary of State John Kerry approved of Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula, believing the residents were overwhelmingly in favor of “reuniting” with Russia. According to Lavrov, Kerry’s main criticism of Russia’s actions was to suggest holding another referendum to reinforce the legitimacy of annexation. Russia’s RT.com summarized Lavrov’s comments to the RBK news service: I won’t reveal a big secret if I say that John Kerry was telling me in April 2014: ‘Everything is clear. Everything happened the way the Crimean people...

In a key finding of the Mueller report, Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is tied to Russian intelligence. But hundreds of pages of government documents — which Mueller possessed since 2018 — describe Kilimnik as a “sensitive” intelligence source for the U.S. State Department who informed on Ukrainian and Russian matters. Why special counsel Robert Mueller’s team omitted that part of the Kilimnik narrative from their report and related court filings is not known. But the revelation of it comes as the accuracy of Mueller’s Russia conclusions face increased scrutiny. The incomplete portrayal...

Ukraine is holding presidential and parliamentary elections at the end of March and the race is too close to call. Ukraine is a country sandwiched between Russia and Europe and is often tugged both ways by its neighbors. While Ukraine’s current government firmly sides with Europe and the West, Ukrainian politics and politicians can have deep ties to Russia, giving the vote a deeper geopolitical significance. Opinion polls show the election is too close to call and, as it stands, incumbent President Petro Poroshenko could be usurped by an actor who once played the president of Ukraine in a hit...

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday extended sanctions against Russia by another year, prolonging punitive measures that were first imposed over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. In Monday’s announcement, the Trump administration stressed the “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” posed by Russia as the basis for renewing the sanctions.

Putin's popularity over the last 10-plus years has been pegged to military campaigns and patriotic hysteria. It peaked at 88 percent in September 2008 immediately after Russia’s short war with Georgia (when Putin was officially prime minister), but thereafter it fell slowly but surely, bottoming out at 61 percent in November 2013. Then in 2014, the popular move to annex Crimea saw his rating soar to 86 percent. This symbolic figure established a new social contract between the authorities and society. In return for absolute political support, the state provided meagre social services propped up by the restored feeling of...

I cannot help but think these Irish do-gooders are taking us straight back to the racist laws of the 1930s in Germany. Kauft nicht bei Juden! (Don’t buy Jewish!) The bill now making its way through the Irish parliament that aims to criminalize the trading of goods from Israeli settlements could not be more scandalous! As a native German and citizen of the European Union, I find this proposed law totally misguided, extremely unfair, wholly counterproductive to peace, and – most of all – morally outrageous. On its face, the bill would impose a fine of up to €250,000 or...

Four-time Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Sunday the Crimean people had made a democratic choice to split from Ukraine and hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin as the world's greatest political leader. Earlier this month, Berlusconi became the most prominent Western politician to visit the Black Sea peninsula, which was annexed by Russia last year in a move that has driven a wedge between Moscow and Washington. Pro-Russian separatists are fighting the Kiev government in eastern Ukraine, a conflict that will most likely be raised at a meeting on Monday in New York between U.S. President Barack Obama and...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Saturday he will force a vote soon on a resolution to disapprove the Trump administration's decision to relax sanctions on three Russian companies connected to oligarch Oleg Deripaska…{snip} ...The U.S. Treasury announced on Dec. 20 that it would lift sanctions imposed in April on the core businesses of Deripaska, including aluminum giant Rusal its parent En+ and power firm EuroSibEnergo, watering down the toughest penalties imposed since Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea. After lobbying by European governments that followed the imposition of sanctions, Washington postponed enforcement of the sanctions...

German army plans to recruit foreign mercenaries in bid to plug thousands of vacancies and fulfil its NATO commitment after Trump said he would cut off funding Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced plans in ministry documents Poles, Italians and Romanians living in Germany will be targeted by recruiters US President Donald Trump has pressured Germany to up its NATO commitment Germany's military is drawing up plans to recruit nationals from other European countries as part of a drive to beef up the armed forces. Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced plans to recruit Poles, Italians and Romanians,...

Kiev, December 24, Interfax - President Pyotr Poroshenko has signed into law a bill compelling the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to specify its affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church in its name, a statement on the presidential website said. The bill "On changes to the Ukrainian law on the freedom of conscience and religious organizations," approved by parliament on December 20, concerns the names of religious organizations which form part of a larger religious organization headquartered outside Ukraine, "in a state which was found by law to have carried out a military aggression against Ukraine and (or) temporarily occupied a part...

Struggling to fill its ranks, Germany’s military is drawing up plans to recruit nationals from other European countries as part of a drive to beef up the armed forces. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen wants to recruit Poles, Italians and Romanians, magazine Der Spiegel said, citing a ministry document. The German military, or Bundeswehr, has stepped up its recruitment efforts as part of a broader reset following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Last year, Germany said it would increase the size of its armed forces to 198,000 active soldiers by 2024 from 179,000. Pressure on Berlin...

Putin won another term in March with 77 percent of the vote, but, as in every election in the Putin era, researchers have found statistical evidence of vote rigging. Although the fraud worked for Putin, it failed to produce results in a series of gubernatorial elections this year...Voters are finding it easier to resist manipulation and cheating. The discontent developed in large part because of Putin’s decision to raise the retirement age to 63 from 55 for women and to 65 from 60 for men, a step that successive Russian governments haven’t had the courage to take since the Soviet...

Ukrainian Orthodox priests are due to hold a historic council in Kiev to create a new national church - a move condemned as schism by Russian clergy. This comes after the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodoxy, recognised the independence of the Ukrainian Church from Moscow.

Ukraine’s future is again bound up in the political ambitions of Yulia Tymoshenko. The fate of the two-time prime minister and her country are once more tightly woven together — like the blonde halo braid that made her an international icon. Only this time, Ukraine is at war, and that means Tymoshenko’s third run for president could have implications far beyond her country’s borders, potentially rewriting relations between Russia and the West and unbalancing the geopolitical order.

Andrzej Zybertowicz, an adviser to Polish President Andrzej Duda, said during a discussion aired by public broadcaster TVP Info that the West decided when the Cold War was over that there was no threat from Russia. It pinpointed terrorism as the greatest threat, resulting in most intelligence and counterintelligence services focusing on combating terror, Zybertowicz said. “This resulted in the activities of Russian agents, including those of agents of influence, cutting through the elites of Western countries like a knife through butter." "We have here is the limited capacity of Western leadership elites to oppose aggressive policies. This could have...

In a stunning sequence of events, the Russian military opened fire then seized three Ukrainian navy vessels in an unprovoked attack on the Black Sea last Sunday. In the melee, several Ukrainian sailors were wounded and 24 captured. Moscow followed up this flagrant act of war by parading the sailors on Russian television to give clearly coerced confessions of guilt. This attack is but the latest escalation in the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine that has been churning since 2014. It’s also the first great test for the Trump administration regarding Russia and one that will have lasting consequences on...

Hungary fully stands by Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and this will continue to be a part of Hungary’s foreign policy in the future, too, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday. Hungary also devotes special attention to the 150,000 ethnic Hungarians living in western Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region, Szijjártó told a press conference in Budapest. Szijjártó noted that when Ukraine began enlisting soldiers due to the conflict in its eastern regions, he held talks with his Ukrainian counterpart at the request of Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association (KMKSZ) leader László Brenzovics about the enlistment of Transcarpathian Hungarians. Szijjártó said his colleague...

Krzysztof Szczerski, chief foreign policy adviser to Polish President Andrzej Duda, was speaking after the Ukrainian navy said Russian special forces had seized three of its ships in the Sea of Azov on Sunday. "We consider the situation serious because it may have far-reaching consequences for both the internal politics of Ukraine and the entire region," Szczerski told Poland’s PAP news agency in an interview. The Sea of Azov is bounded by Ukraine to the north and west, and by Russia to the east. To the south it is linked by the Strait of Kerch to the Black Sea. The...