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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has recently told the world that nations which separated themselves from the Soviet Union, specifically those of the Intermarium, the lands between the Black, Baltic, and Adriatic Seas, are not independent but, rather, “masterless” for the moment. He singled out Poland, Ukraine,” and the “Baltic provinces.” It is telling that Lavrov did not call Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — “Baltic States” [strani Baltii] but “Baltic provinces” [Pribaltika]... What Lavrov implied, of course, was that Russia would take care of the master part sooner or later, slowly but surely. But sometimes the Kremlin sees an opportunity...

PART 2 OF 3. The Hunter Biden Files Hunter Biden and his business partners were involved in discussions about possible deals in dozens of foreign countries, often corrupt backwaters, at times invoking official channels like ambassadors, emails reviewed by The Daily Wire show. While most attention has focused on Ukraine, where a gas company paid the now-president’s son tens of thousands of dollars a month while he was in deep crack addiction, and China, Hunter and his partners at a consultancy called Rosemont Seneca were eager to do business in a vast array of other places. The map below highlights...

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has dismissed two more top security officials following the worst unrest in three decades in the central Asian country. Authorities said the situation has stabilized with forces from the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization fully deployed. Russia's state news agency Tass said nearly 6,000 people, including foreigners, were arrested in last week's violent protests. Reports said at least 164 people were killed during the unrest, which mostly took place in the country's biggest city, Almaty.

Kazakhstan's president fired two more top security officials on Sunday after the worst unrest in three decades of post-Soviet independence and authorities said the situation was stabilising, with Russian-led troops guarding key facilities. The sacked officials were deputies to former intelligence chief Karim Massimov, who was arrested on suspicion of treason after violent protests swept the oil- and uranium-producing Central Asian republic that borders Russia and China. Thousands of people have been detained and public buildings torched during mass anti-government protests in the past week. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev issued shoot-to-kill orders to end unrest he has blamed on bandits and...

A senior U.S. official says the United States is open to discussions with Russia on curtailing possible future deployments of offensive missiles in Ukraine and putting limits on U.S. and NATO military exercises in Eastern Europe as part of strategic talks to begin next week. Y MATTHEW LEE, AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is open to discussions with Russia on curtailing possible future deployments of offensive missiles in Ukraine and putting limits on U.S. and NATO military exercises in Eastern Europe as part of strategic talks to begin next week, a senior Biden administration official said...

MOSCOW—The sixth day of violent unrest devolved into a massacre on the streets of Kazakhstan’s capital city of Almaty, with dozens of protesters and at least 13 law enforcement officials killed, as well as hundreds more wounded. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev—who just a week ago was considered a weak shadow of Kazakhstan’s now-ousted Security Council Chairman Narsultan Nazarbayev—admitted he was the one who had given local security forces the order “to shoot to kill” protestors without warning on Thursday. Never before has any post-Soviet leader confessed to such a terrifying order. A day prior to Thursday’s bloodshed, Tokayev had claimed he...

Russian paratroopers have arrived in Kazakhstan as part of a “peacekeeping” mission by a Moscow-led military alliance to help the president regain control of the country, according to Russian news agencies. Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, asked for the intervention from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – an alliance made up of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – late on Wednesday and it was swiftly approved. It comes as violent clashes continue between protesters and the police and army in Kazakhstan. There is little reliable information on the number of casualties, but local news agencies quoted a spokesperson...

Fresh violence raged in Kazakhstan’s main city on Thursday after Russia rushed in paratroopers overnight to put down a countrywide uprising in the former Soviet state closely allied to Moscow....Nazarbayev’s hand-picked successor, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called in forces from ally Russia overnight as part of a Moscow-led military alliance of ex-Soviet states. He blamed the unrest on foreign-trained terrorists who he said had seized buildings and weapons.“It is an undermining of the integrity of the state and most importantly it is an attack on our citizens who are asking me… to help them urgently,” he said.

Russia’s lead negotiator for coming talks with the U.S. said that Moscow’s demands on Ukraine must be addressed urgently and warned the Biden administration against resorting to the economic pressure it has threatened to try to get the Kremlin to back down. In advance of Monday’s talks with the U.S. in Geneva, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov sketched out an unyielding stance. He said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military ties to Ukraine represent a threat to Russia even if the country isn’t formally admitted into the alliance. Mr. Ryabkov rebuffed the Biden administration’s calls for the Kremlin to reverse...

The White House is writing off an ally to appease an enemy. The situation in Ukraine has become very grave. On December 17, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin sent U.S. president Joe Biden an ultimatum, effectively demanding that NATO abandon Eastern Europe or face military action. Biden agreed to a phone conversation with Putin to talk it over, giving the Kremlin what it sought: The affected countries were now on the table instead of at the table. When the two then talked on December 30, according to the White House, Biden rejected the ultimatum and informed Putin that if he proceeded...

A Russia-led military alliance said Thursday that it will dispatch peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan after the country’s president asked for help in controlling protests that escalated into violence, including the seizure and setting afire of government buildings. Protesters in Kazakhstan’s largest city stormed the presidential residence and the mayor’s office Wednesday and set both on fire, according to news reports, as demonstrations sparked by a rise in fuel prices escalated sharply in the Central Asian nation. Police reportedly fired on some protesters at the residence in Almaty before fleeing. They have clashed repeatedly with demonstrators in recent days, deploying water...

Schumer, Pelosi, Swalwell, Blumenthal...they all reportedly took the Nord Stream 2 lobbyist/Democrat party bundler's cash — and Schumer, curiously enough, blocked a vote on sanctions. Democrats for years have accused President Trump of being in bed with Vladimir Putin, but a new investigative report from Daniel Greenfield demonstrates pretty damningly that they're the ones who've been keeping Putin's bed warm. Greenfield singles out Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer as Exhibit A: Schumer, along with a number of other top Democrats, is a beneficiary of campaign contributions from top Democrat fundraiser Vincent Roberti whose lobbying firm was paid over $8.5 million...

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday, delivered three strong signals that he intends to invade Ukraine. Addressing military commanders and intelligence chiefs at the Defense Ministry, Putin offered a preemptive casus belli to justify invading Ukraine in order to address an existential threat to Russia. The Russian leader warned that the United States "will supply Ukraine with hypersonic weapons," which would reduce the nuclear strike launch-to-target time against Moscow to "five minutes." This, Putin insisted, would pose "the most serious threat" to Russia's security. One that means "we simply have nowhere to retreat further." Note the explicitly existential nature of...

(CNSNews.com) – The Kremlin has reiterated that it regards the further expansion of NATO into former Soviet countries as a “life and death” matter, but Moscow is also making clear that it objects to Sweden and Finland, nations that were not part of the USSR, joining the alliance. Ahead of talks with the West next month, which Russia hopes will result in a halt to additional NATO enlargement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russia 1 television network on Sunday that the prospect of Ukraine, Georgia, or Moldova being admitted into NATO was a question of “life and death for...

Germany on Friday shut down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power. The decision to phase out nuclear power and shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy was first taken by the center-left government of Gerhard Schroeder in 2002. His successor, Angela Merkel, reversed her decision to extend the lifetime of Germany’s nuclear plants in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and set 2022 as the final deadline for shutting them down. The three reactors now being...

As was reported yesterday, resident Joe Biden took a call from Russian President Vladimir Putin where the two leaders discussed the situation on Russia’s border with Ukraine, among other matters. Despite the best efforts of the State Department to put some positive spin on the discussion, it doesn’t sound as if things went very well. Both sides wound up sticking to their previous positions and Putin sounded increasingly frustrated and belligerent over what he perceives as NATO’s stubborn refusal to comply with his demands. Biden reportedly didn’t offer any additional sweeteners in an effort to cut a deal and Putin...

President Joe Biden again spoke with President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, warning Russia not to further invade Ukraine. “President Biden urged Russia to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine. He made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement after the call.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Sky News that the US and NATO are expanding onto Russia's borders - and not the other way around. At his traditional end of year news conference, Mr Putin answered questions from the world's media. And he told Sky News' Russia Correspondent Diana Magnay that his country wasn't threatening anybody and that he didn't want conflict in Ukraine. But he said the ball "is in the West's court". Watch their exchange here in full. (Click link for video)

CNN)President Joe Biden will hold a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday afternoon "to discuss a range of topics, including upcoming diplomatic engagements with Russia," National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne told CNN. The call was requested by Putin...

MOSCOW, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipeline would help to calm a surge in European gas prices and was ready to start exports now a second stretch of the pipeline has been filled. Nord Stream 2, completed in September but awaiting regulatory approval from Germany and the European Union, faces resistance from the United States and several countries including Poland and Ukraine, which say it will increase Russia's leverage over Europe. "I'd like to congratulate Gazprom and your partners in Nord Stream 2 on the completion of work...