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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has taken part in ceremonies to commemorate the millions who died of famine under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Poroshenko attended a ceremony in the capital, Kyiv, at the museum dedicated to the famine, or Holodomor. A minute of silence was also held across Ukraine. November 28 has been marked in Ukraine as the day to commemorate the victims of the Holodomor since 2006. The famine took place in 1932 and 1933 as Soviet leader Stalin's police forced peasants in Ukraine to join collective farms by requisitioning their grain and other foodstuffs. It is estimated that up...

The 28-nation US-led group agreed to start the entry process at a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels this morning, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. The move will be seen as a warning to the Kremlin that its influence in the region is waning, despite a show of strength during last year's annexation of Crimea and the subsequernt bombing campaign in Syria. In retaliation, Russia has warned that Montenegro will be punished for the action.

Political hothead and Russian colonel Vladimir Zhirinovsky called for president Vladimir Putin to wipe out Turkish capital Istanbul, killing nine million people. Turkey's decision to down a SU-24 fighter jet after it entered their aerospace was branded "stupid" by Zhirinovsky. "A nuclear attack can destroy Istanbul very easily. Just one nuclear bomb in the Istanbul Strait will wash the city away," he told Moscow Speaking Radio.

On November 18, 2015, the 95th anniversary of legalization of abortions in the Soviet Union, individuals picketed in defense of life of pre-born children at the entrances to the Council of Federation and the State Duma in Moscow. The Pro-Life Movement activists silently witnessed the fact of legality of infanticide for past 95 years before the elected representatives of the people and representatives of the regions who were arriving to the plenary meetings. Commenting on the action, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Cooperation of the Church and Society Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said: "I am very glad that Orthodox...

The United States began combat training for Ukrainian Army forces on Monday, expanding its effort to help Ukraine defeat Russian-backed separatists. Until now, U.S. trainers had worked only with Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, and officials say the shift to regular army training signals President Barack Obama's growing commitment to Ukraine's defense against the aggression of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Crimea was left without electricity supplies from Ukraine on Sunday after pylons carrying power lines to the Russia-annexed peninsula were blown up overnight. It was not immediately clear who had damaged the pylons, but a Russian senator described the move as an "act of terrorism" and implied that Ukrainian nationalists were to blame. Crimea receives the bulk of its electricity from the Ukrainian mainland and its seizure by Russia last year prompted fury in Kiev and the West, which then imposed economic sanctions on Russian companies and individuals. Russia's Energy Ministry said emergency electricity supplies had been turned on for...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred Wednesday to Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a tough guy with a thin skin.” Clinton was speaking at UCLA where she added she supported the Obama administration’s efforts to reach a diplomatic solution in Ukraine. Clinton reiterated comments she made at a fundraiser in California on Tuesday afternoon, where she compared Russia’s decision to issue passports in the Crimean region to the “population transfers” carried out by Nazi Germany before World War II. “The claims by President Putin and other Russians that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into Eastern...

A nationalist march is underway in Warsaw to commemorate Poland's Independence Day, with authorities bracing themselves for a crowd of around 50,000. Marches in recent years have turned violent, with police using rubber bullets and water cannons. The Independence March, an annual event marking the anniversary of the country gaining autonomy from Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1918, following 123 years of partitions, is organized by the National Front Group. It is seen as a showcase for anti-EU politicians who are seeking to revive Polish nationalism. Such politicians accuse the EU of being the biggest threat to the country's sovereignty....

In response to the European Union’s plan to label Israeli products manufactured in Judea and Samaria, MK Miki Zohar (Likud) has submitted a bill to the Knesset that would see products from countries that label Israeli products being labeled themselves. “We will label every product which comes from a country which is boycotting us. I think it would be appropriate if the public knows that the country that sends the product to us is daring to boycott us," Zohar told Arutz Sheva about his initiative on Sunday. .....

Moscow requires major companies to move information to servers in Russia by start of next year A Russian law could place the personal data of millions of Internet users, including Americans, at risk if international digital companies comply by the start of next year, analysts say. The law, enacted last year, requires digital companies to store the personal information of Russians in servers on Russian soil. While officials in Moscow have cited concerns that Russians’ information could be vulnerable to foreign intelligence services such as the National Security Agency (NSA) if it is located outside the country’s borders, critics of...

History, Identity and Holodomor Denial: Russia’s continued assault on Ukraine Holodomor Memorial in Washington D.C. as final touches are made in preparation for its official opening on November 7. (State Dept./D.A. Peterson) 2015/11/07 • Analysis & Opinion, History, News, Op-ed On Saturday November 7, a long-awaited memorial to a little-known modern genocide will be dedicated in Washington D.C. It will be accompanied by an exhibit at Union Station aimed at raising awareness among Americans of what Ukrainians call the Holodomor, literally “death by hunger,” an engineered famine which took the lives of anywhere from 4 to 10 million Ukrainians in...

"Whatever the larger goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s armed intervention in Syria, it has succeeded in distracting the world’s attention from his ongoing aggression in eastern Ukraine. In his half-hour speech at the United Nations earlier this month timed to reach a prime-time Russian audience, he spent only a minute on the Ukrainian conflict, focusing instead on Russia’s constructive role in the Middle East. Putin’s rhetorical redirection is not surprising. The Kremlin’s war in Ukraine is turning into a quagmire. Militarily, it is a stalemate — which, given the vast imbalance between Russian and Ukrainian capabilities, amounts to a...

NATO: Russia More Interested in Shocking, Intimidating By The Associated Press BUCHAREST, Romania — Oct 16, 2015, 2:29 PM ET A senior NATO official says Russia would prefer to shock and intimidate rather than have a predictable relationship with the military alliance. NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow said Friday that the alliance would assess its relationship with Russia to find ways to "restore predictability and transparency," at NATO's summit in Warsaw next year. Vershbow, a U.S. diplomat, said Russia appeared to be "more interested in shocking, surprising and intimidating than in calming and building confidence."

Frame grab shows Russian fighter-bomber dropping bomb over Syria. The skies over Syria are dangerously crowded these days with the US, Russia, and the Assad regime all bombing various actors on vaguely opposite sides of the country's multidimensional conflict. In both Iraq and Syria, the reality of overlapping aerial operations among countries with little geopolitical fondness toward one another has already led to claims that British aircraft have been authorized to engage Russian aircraft over Iraq if threatened. The British government denied these reports, but they still underscore the possibility of confrontation between allied and Russian military aircraft. Several presidential...

Saturday's attack in the Turkish capital is as close to Turkey's 9/11 as the country has gotten. Twin bombings in downtown Ankara, across from the city's busy central train station and only minutes from key government buildings, killed at least 95 people and injured hundreds more. It is, in short, the worst terror attack in the country's history. The massacre is saddening and shocking, all the more so because it runs counter to the perception of Turkey as relatively stable and peaceful. Although it borders the tumultuous Middle East, Turkey has a vibrant economy, a large middle class and democratic...

The Kremlin has launched an incredible volte-face in economic policy and turned to traditional industries like farming in the face of tumbling oil prices ___ Russia has abandoned hopes for a lasting recovery in oil prices, bracing for a new era of abundant crude as US shale production transforms the global energy market. The Kremlin has launched a radical shift in strategy, rationing funds for the once-sacrosanct oil and gas industry and relying instead on a revival of manufacturing and farming, driven by a much more competitive rouble. "We have to have prudent forecasts. Our budget is based very conservative...

Construction or preliminary work has begun on three new pipelines designed to flow new supplies of natural gas from Azerbaijan to consumers in Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, and Italy. For more than a decade, companies have been announcing proposals to build new natural gas pipelines to connect natural gas resources in Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East with consumers in southern Europe. In contrast to the three new pipelines considered in this article, most of these projects have failed to advance. These three new or expanded pipelines would reach from Azerbaijan's eastern edge on the Caspian Sea to Italy's southeastern...

Britain and its western allies should be prepared to enforce a no-fly zone inside Syria to protect refugees even if Russia vetoes a UN resolution, the Labour co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Syria has said. Jo Cox, working in conjunction with the former Conservative international development secretary Andrew Mitchell, is pressing the British government to develop a new comprehensive diplomatic political and military strategy focused on protecting Syrian civilians against attacks both by Isis and Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

U.S. President Barack Obama tried to convince the King of Saudi Arabia to coordinate actions in the oil market to reduce world oil prices, the main source of Russia's export revenues, and "punish its behavior" in Crimea. Experts estimate that if the prices are reduced by as little as 12 dollars per barrel, the Russian Federation will lose $40 billion in revenue. There has been a precedent, because this is precisely how the USSR collapsed. Before Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. media was discussing options of "punishment" for Russia with sanctions for its "behavior in Crimea." The first...

President Barack Obama got “feisty” during an interview about Russian President Vladimir Putin, as one CBS News anchor put it. In the interview, set to air Sunday on “60 Minutes,” Obama immediately pushed back from reporter Steve Kroft’s line of questioning about America’s leadership around the world, particularly in the Middle East. “A year ago, when we did this interview, there was some saber-rattling between the United States and Russia on the Ukrainian border,” Kroft said. “Now it’s also going on in Syria. You said a year ago that the United States, America leads, that we are the indispensable nation....