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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia did not initiate its military operation in Ukraine any earlier because it believed in the Minsk agreements and aimed to resolve the Donbass issue peacefully.Russia did not prepare specifically for a military operation, but instead sought a peaceful resolution to the Donbass conflict, Vladimir Putin told journalist Pavel Zarubin in a documentary dedicated to the 25th anniversary since the president's first inauguration. The country could not proceed with drastic action on Ukraine without first addressing key issues in the spheres of security and the economy. The president pointed out that the United States is...

The Russian president reiterated that such precedents under the auspices of the UN existed in East Timor, New Guinea and parts of former YugoslaviaMURMANSK, March 28. /TASS/. The international practice presumes the possibility of introducing external governance, paving the way to legitimate talks on the settlement of the Ukraine conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with the servicemen of the Arkhangelsk nuclear-powered submarine of the Yasen-M class (Project 885M). He reiterated that such precedents under the auspices of the UN existed in East Timor, New Guinea and parts of former Yugoslavia. "Such practice does exist and, technically,...

Russia does not seek to absorb all of Ukraine, as the Russians have "returned" five regions and Crimea, obtaining what they need, states the US Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. The Special Envoy emphasized the importance of reaching a fair agreement for Ukraine, but stressed that the US and Western countries cannot allow this country to drag them into a Third World War. He added that this is not his personal opinion, but the policy of President Donald Trump. When asked by the journalist about the plans of the UK and several other European countries to send...

@Mick_O_Keeffe George Bush used to drive Putin around his ranch in a pick-up and nobody called him a Russian puppet. VIDEO [30 sec]

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Europe has spent more money buying Russian Oil and Gas than they have spent on defending Ukraine —BY FAR! Mar 03, 2025

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is set to visit Moscow on Jan. 17 and sign a cooperation agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian state news agency RIA cited Iran’s ambassador to Russia as saying on Thursday. Russia has cultivated closer ties with Iran and other countries hostile towards the U.S., such as North Korea, since the start of the Ukraine war. The country’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in October that Moscow and Tehran intended to sign a deal which would include closer defence cooperation.

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has not ruled out the emergence of new regions in Russia. "Actually, this experience (of Donbass and Novorossiya’s integration - TASS) may be useful in the future as well, if new but very close-by regions appear in our country soon. This is quite possible," he said at the 22nd United Russia party congress.

The Russian prosecutor's office has warned Russians against participating in a mass protest in the centre of Moscow after the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. -snip- According to videos and photos on social networks, people in other Russian cities were paying their respects to Navalny after news of his death spread.

Israel will hardly be able to ensure its security even by “drowning the Gaza Strip in blood,” Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov said on Monday. “Even by decapitating Hamas and even by drowning the Gaza Strip in blood it will hardly be possible to ensure Israel's security. After some time, the tide of hatred and terrorism may rise again with renewed force. This cannot be ruled out,” Ushakov said as cited by state news agency TASS. “The Palestinian problem is unrivalled in terms of its ability to spread to the global level,” he added. “Israel's military measures fail to narrow...

Russian scientist Dr. Dmitry Fedyanin seemed to die doing what he loved. German officials say the 34-year-old expert in ultra-violet light and a senior research fellow at the Nanooptics Department of Siegen University in Germany fell to his death Berchtesgadener Alps National Park after following his hiking app over a cliff. Fedyanin’s body was found at the bottom of Hoher Laafeld peak, which sits at about 7,000 feet. Fedyanin was using his hiking app to make his way down the mountain but the route he was taking didn’t have paths and the app “sent him over mountain precipice.” “Our investigators...

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a jet which crashed killing all on board, Russia's civil aviation authority has said. Earlier, Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone reported that the private plane, which belonged to Prigozhin, was shot down by air defences. It was flying from Moscow to St Petersburg, with seven passengers and three crew.

During an interview set to air on Sunday’s broadcast of CBS’s “60 Minutes,” President Joe Biden was asked by network correspondent Scott Pelley about the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin using chemical or nuclear weapons as his nation’s military struggles to hold on to territory gained in its Ukraine ground invasion. “Don’t, don’t, don’t,” Biden said. “You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.”

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has authorized Russian troops, planes and ships to deploy to Nicaragua for purposes of training, law enforcement or emergency response. In a decree published this week, and confirmed by Russia on Thursday, Ortega will allow Russian troops to carry out law enforcement duties, “humanitarian aid, rescue and search missions in emergencies or natural disasters.” The Nicaraguan government also authorized the presence of small contingents of Russian troops for “exchange of experiences and training.” Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, told the Russian news outlet Sputnik that the measure was...

Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, is convening a meeting of her security council on Tuesday following a series of incidents in the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transnistria and a warning from Moscow that the Russian-backed region could be drawn into the war in Ukraine. Transnistria, which borders western Ukraine, is controlled by pro-Russia separatists and permanently hosts 1,500 Russian troops as well as a large arms depot. Last week, a senior Russian commander said the goal of Russia’s new offensive was to seize control of southern Ukraine and to gain access to Transnistria, creating worries that the small east European country...

Foreign aircraft lessors seeking to recover some $10 billion worth of planes from Russia were dealt a new blow Monday when President Vladimir Putin signed a law clearing the country’s airlines to fly the planes domestically.Sanctions and reciprocal airspace closures in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month have cut off the country’s air travel market. Boeing and Airbus have said they will no longer supply parts to its airlines. That could force carriers to cannibalize other jets for parts.There are some 728 Western-built aircraft in the country’s airlines’ fleets, 515 of them leased by foreign lessors, according to...

President Vladimir Putin has promised government backing for Islamic religious education in Russia, in a bid to stave extremism and cater to Russia’s large Muslim community. Up to 20 million Muslims make up Russia’s second-largest religious minority. Thousands of young radicalized Russians have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join jihadist fighters in recent years, making the country the largest source of foreign fighters in the war-torn region. At a meeting with Islamic religious figures on Wednesday, Russia’s president pledged “undoubted support” for a "revival of Islamic education in Russia," the state-run TASS news agency reported. “Traditional Islam is an...

For the last several years, Russian security services have driven Islamist radicals and others out of the North Caucasus and other regions of the Russian Federation under paid of jail or death to fight for ISIS in Syria, Israeli expert Avraam Shmulyevich says. Now that the last redoubts of the Islamic State in that country have fallen, these same services, exploiting Chechens in Syria, have begun to extract these same people back to Russia, an action that strongly suggests, the president of the Israeli Eastern Partnership Institute says, that Moscow plans to make use of them elsewhere – and may...

Almost 450 extremists from various nationalities arrive to Idlib to fight against Russian troops, after leaving Syria and passing through Turkey.Close to 450 extremist Arab and foreign nationals have arrived in Ukraine from Idlib to fight against Russia's forces, less than only three days after they left Syria, passing through Turkey.Relatives of extremists that have arrived in Ukraine told Sputnik that senior fighters from terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (the rebranded version of Jabhat Al-Nusra, i.e Al-Qaeda) have held a number of meetings with senior leaders in the Turkistan Islamic Party group and Ansar Al-Tawhid and Hurras al-Din groups, and...

Chechen Residents: Dozens of Those Killed in Battle in Ukraine Have Been Delivered to the Republic. Local residents say that several dozen residents of Chechnya, who took part in the fighting in Ukraine and died in the Donetsk region, have been brought back to their homeland in the last few days, giving numbers from 35 to 40-45 dead. The Republic’s security agencies declined to comment on these reports, writes a correspondent for Caucasian Knot. Caucasian Knot has reported that, following the change of power in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea by Russia, clashes broke out in the towns of...

A squad of Chechen special forces 'hunters' has been unleashed in Ukraine to detain or kill a set of specific Ukrainian officials. Each soldier was reportedly given a special 'deck of cards' with Ukrainian officials' photos and descriptions on them, a Moscow Telegram channel with links to the security establishment reported. The list is of officials and security officers suspected of 'crimes' by the Russian Investigative Committee, the report added. It came as Ukraine's president admitted he is 'target number one' for Russian assassins in his capital, while his family is 'the number two goal' for Putin's hitmen. The Chechen...