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Vladimir Putin today vowed to back Iran and condemned 'groundless' aggression against its ally after the U.S. joined Israel in striking nuclear facilities on Sunday. 'This is an absolutely unprovoked aggression against Iran,' Putin told Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who travelled to Moscow seeking support in mediation. Putin called recent strikes 'unjustified' and added that Russia was 'making efforts to provide assistance to the Iranian people.' Araghchi on Monday thanked Putin for condemning U.S. strikes on Iran, telling him Russia stood on 'the right side of history'.

Iran's supreme leader sent his foreign minister to Moscow on Monday to ask President Vladimir Putin for more help from Russia after the biggest U.S. military action against the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution over the weekend. U.S. President Donald Trump and Israel have publicly speculated about killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and about regime change, a step Russia fears could sink the Middle East into the abyss. While Putin has condemned the Israeli strikes, he has yet to comment on the U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear sites though he last week called for calm and offered Moscow's...

Russia deeply regrets and condemns the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, the Kremlin said on Monday. The U.S. actions had increased the number of participants in the conflict and ushered in a new spiral of escalation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He added it was not yet clear what had happened to Iran's nuclear facilities and whether there was a radiation hazard. The situation on the ground in Iran after the strikes cannot fail to be a cause of concern, he said.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned on Wednesday that direct U.S. military assistance to Israel could radically destabilise the situation in the Middle East, where an air war between Iran and Israel has raged for six days. In separate comments, the head of Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, was quoted as saying that the situation between Iran and Israel was now critical. Ryabkov warned the U.S. against direct military assistance to Israel or even considering such "speculative options," according to Russia's Interfax news agency.

Half of the thousands of North Korean troops sent to help Russia's attempted invasion of Ukraine have died in action, according to British Defence Intelligence. Roughly 11,000 troops have been dispatched by Kim Jong Un to aid Vladimir Putin's war effort in Eastern Europe since 2022 as the ties between their two countries has become closer. Now it has been revealed that more than 6,000 soldiers from North Korea have lost their lives after being stationed to the frontline in the Kurk region

Russia said on Monday that the next round of consultations between Moscow and Washington has been canceled at the initiative of the US side. A written commentary by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the next meeting as part of Russia-US consultations to normalize the activities of their respective diplomatic missions was canceled “at the initiative of American negotiators.” “We hope that the pause they took will not be too long,” Zakharova went on to say, without providing a reason behind the cancellation. US authorities have not immediately confirmed or commented on Zakharova’s remarks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in separate telephone conversations on Friday, told Iran's president that Moscow condemned Israel's actions against Tehran and told Israel's prime minister that questions around Iran's nuclear programme could only be solved through diplomacy. A Kremlin statement said Putin told Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian that Russia "condemns the actions of Israel taken in violation of the U.N. Charter" and expressed condolences for those killed.

Russia said on Friday that Israeli strikes on Iran were unprovoked and in breach of the United Nations charter, accusing Israel of wrecking diplomatic efforts to strike a deal to allay Western concerns about Tehran's nuclear programme. -snip- "Russia is concerned and condemns the sharp escalation in tensions between Israel and Iran," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state media. President Vladimir Putin was getting real-time reports on the situation from Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service and the foreign and defence ministries, Peskov said. In a detailed statement drawn up at Putin's behest, the Foreign Ministry fiercely condemned Israel and blamed...

A Russian Orthodox priest has sparked controversy with his provocative claim that Russian Muslims could be mobilized to commit violence against Christians. The statement was made as Moscow's Muslim community celebrated the holy festival of Eid al-Adha on Sunday. Schema-abbot Gavriil, during his sermon, referred to the Muslims congregating on Peace Avenue in Moscow for the festivities: "The entire space is covered with people. And these are healthy men, who do not drink alcohol, who wrestle and go to gyms for training." He made an alarming assertion: "This is a whole army. And if, one fine day, a mullah orders...

[…]"It is vital that the response to this and other similar Russian attacks is not silence from the world, but concrete action," Zelenskyy said in his statement."Action from America, which has the power to force Russia into peace," he continued. "Action from Europe, which has no alternative but to be strong. Action from others around the world who called for diplomacy and an end to the war -- and whom Russia has ignored. There must be strong pressure for the sake of peace..."

A claim by the Russian Defence Ministry that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin was "in the epicentre of a drone attack" has turned out to be a staged performance by the Kremlin. Russian state media claimed earlier this week that when Putin visited Kursk Oblast for the first time since the hostilities began in the area, his helicopter came "under fire from Ukrainian drones". In reality, this was not a combat incident but a meticulously staged event. Four sources within the government and the Kremlin told The Moscow Times that security officials promoted this shocking and "risky" episode in the media...

Important events are developing on the international political scene - according to Keith Kellogg, the US special representative for Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin may personally participate in the Russia-Ukraine talks scheduled for May 15 in Istanbul. If this happens, it is possible that US President Donald Trump will also attend the meeting. Kellogg explained this proposal as follows: "We hope that President Putin will also go to the talks. If so, then President Trump may also come to Istanbul. This will be a completely unexpected, historic meeting," he told reporters. Hope and pressure from Trump's visit According to a...

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for the creation of an "army of Europe" to guard against Russia as he suggested the US may no longer come to the continent's aid. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, he also said that Ukraine would "never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement" after US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to start peace talks. In a speech on Friday, in which he attacked European democracies, US Vice President JD Vance warned that Europe needed to "step up in a big way" on defence. Zelensky said: "I...

..."The Ministry of Defense is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there were insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole NATO block," the Russian businessman said. "The special operation was started for a completely different reason." Prigozhin was echoing a main reason that Putin gave for justifying his decision to invade Ukraine last February—NATO expansion near Russia's border—but avoided naming the Russian leader. Instead, Prigozhin ramped up his months-long criticism of Shoigu. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a "poorly...

Key sites in America’s vast missile defense system network are plagued by seawater corrosion, inadequate running water in the bathrooms, poor heating and air conditioning, a lack of storage facilities and other problems, a government watchdog said, pointing to shortfalls in the system at a crucial moment for U.S. national security. The new report from the Government Accountability Office paints a troubling picture of the country’s missile defense system, or MDS, an array of satellites, radars and other tools designed to identify, track and potentially destroy missiles fired at U.S. or allied targets. The health of the MDS is a...

Boy, looks like I missed the hysteria. Instead of thumbing my way around the internet to catch the latest news on the complete devastation of Russia’s Kerch bridge that unites Crimea with Mother Russia, I was at a gun range being trained by a retired Delta Force operator. He is a hell of a teacher.Needless to say, my time was better spent (and cheaper) compared to what Ukraine spent on its spectacular failure to destroy the Kerch bridge. Failure? Yes. The initial images of a veritable Dante’s furnace, complete with rolling clouds of black smoke and frantic tongues of flames...

This year’s Peace Prize is awarded to human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties Zelensky will be gutted. 😆t.co/qwr27Y5LzG — Tess Summers 🇬🇧🇮🇪 (@tesssummers98) October 7, 2022 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced at 11am local time on Friday in Oslo, Norway. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was on the 2022 TIME 100 list, is the bookmakers’ favorite to win

Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, delivered a warm congratulatory message to Russian President Vladimir Putin on his 70th birthday, after a week of criticizing how the Ukraine war has been handled. In a stark shift of tone after publicly ridiculing Putin's military amid a series of successful counteroffensives conducted by Kyiv in Ukraine's south and northeast, Kadyrov extended his well wishes to Putin, offering praise and crediting the leader for supporting Chechnya "in the most difficult times." "Russian President Vladimir Putin played a key role in the fate of the Chechen people," he said, adding that Russian leader "saved the republic"...

Russian leader Vladimir Putin marked his 70th birthday on Friday with congratulations from the fellow authoritarian leaders of Cuba and Kyrgyzstan and a full “work” schedule, according to the Kremlin. The Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry observed the day by sharing a recent quote from Putin predicting the “collapse of Western hegemony” on Twitter, illustrated by a photo of Putin wearing sunglasses.

Ukrainian forces surprised occupying Russians with a one-two punch Thursday, pushing deep into enemy territory to open a second front in Kyiv’s counterattack. Ukrainian authorities announced the liberation of 20 villages in the northeast, outside Kharkiv, as the military pushed for the occupied city of Izyum — all while continuing a fierce fight for Kherson in the south. Oleksiy Hromov, a deputy chief with the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine, said Thursday that his nation’s forces — pushing toward the Donbas from Kharkiv — had penetrated more than 30 miles beyond Russia’s defensive line. “Since the beginning...