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On August 10, Circassian activists in Moscow picketed the offices of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Emergency Situations Ministry and the Migration Service. The initial request to hold a protest rally was turned down by the Moscow city authorities, so the activists reverted to one-person pickets that cannot be banned under Russian legislation. The activists demanded that the Russian government give a clear response to the plight of the estimated 150,000 Circassians in Syria, who have been in danger since the hostilities began there. Only about 400 Circassians have managed to relocate to the North Caucasus over the past several months,...

Donald Trump has staked much of his political brand on being the consummate dealmaker. He is not a theorist, nor a philosopher-king, nor a bureaucrat buried in details. His appeal rests in his posture as the man who cuts through nonsense, breaks impasses, and brings adversaries to the table. In the past, Trump’s instincts on foreign affairs have proven unconventional but effective: cooling tensions with North Korea, brokering normalization between Israel and Arab states, restraining NATO adventurism, and articulating—against Washington orthodoxy—that endless wars in the Middle East were bleeding America dry. He relishes the image of the peacemaker, a strongman...

In February 2016, Donald Trump scandalized Republican Party elites at a CNN town hall event in Columbus, Ohio, when he dared to call George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq “a big fat mistake” and “the worst decision any one has made, any president has made, in the history of this country.” Trump’s assertion infuriated GOP insiders not because it was clearly mistaken or even easily disputable, but because it was all too true. A glance at the titles of major books on America in the Middle East written by authors across the political spectrum—Fiasco, Grand Delusion, Losing the Long Game,...

Ukrainian officials say that despite media reports that the Trump administration is halting the delivery of critical air defense interceptors and other munitions, at least some U.S. arms continue to be provided and they have not been informed that these transfers will no longer be made. The news comes at a particularly critical time, as Russia has stepped up its aerial attacks. Earlier this week, Moscow launched its largest air barrage of the war, firing 477 drones and 60 missiles, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Overall, major and relatively sudden shortfalls in planned weapons deliveries could have wide-ranging impacts...

Russian TV host Vladimir Solovyov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, recently called for Alaska's return to Russia during a recent Russian-state media program. -snip- During the recent program, Solovyov said Finland, Warsaw, the Baltics, Moldova, and Alaska should be "returned to the Russian Empire." "Do you think I'm joking when I mention Finland, Warsaw, the Baltics, Moldova? Everything returned to the Russian Empire. And Alaska too, while you're at it," Solovyov said in a translated video.

Tucker proves people have a hunger for information In a hotly anticipated interview that began with a history lesson for Americans on the founding of Russia, President Vladimir Putin told Tucker Carlson that NATO expansion eastward and a 2014 coup that installed an anti-Russian government in Ukraine forced his country into war in 2022. “In 2008… the doors of NATO were opened for Ukraine,” Putin said to Carlson in a sweeping conversation posted to X on Thursday, February 8. The former Fox News host has become the focus of intense vitriol within big-box media and political circles for traveling to...

In an interview with Germany's ARD television in 2008, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Moscow recognizes all of Ukraine's borders, and that there is no issue of ethnic conflict in Crimea. His comments, delivered shortly after Russia's military intervention in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, stand in stark contrast with Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support of armed separatists in eastern Ukraine. VIDEO https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-crimea-ukraine/26942862.html

European intelligence suggests that Russia may launch an attack on Europe during the winter of 2024-2025 if the United States finds itself "without a leader" following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the German tabloid Bild reported on Dec. 23, citing an anonymous European intelligence source.The intelligence service source contends that a potential Russian strike on Europe could occur within the presidential transitionary period, contingent on President Joe Biden not securing re-election in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. This transition period spans three months, from the November 2024 U.S. presidential election to the subsequent inauguration in January 2025.According to the intelligence...

Russian language transcript available at the link. Click "more" and then "Show Transcript"

Against the backdrop of the Gaza conflict, anti-Jewish attacks have been on the rise in the Muslim-dominated Russia's North Caucasus. Israel urged Russian authorities to protect Israelis and Jews. A violent crowd stormed the airport in Makhachkala, in the Republic of Dagestan in southern Russia, on Sunday evening in search of Israeli citizens after word spread that a plane was arriving from Israel. Russian news reports said people in the crowd shouted anti-Semitic slogans and tried to storm the plane, which had landed from Tel Aviv. Video on social media showed some in the crowd on the landing field waving...

This is a video from a Russian propagandist with English language subtitles. In the video the propagandist proudly promotes the prospect of a restored Russian/Soviet Empire.

Bakhmut is encircled. All roads in and out of it are under Russian artillery fire. Over the last three days fighting has largely stopped there. No one seems to know why the operation was halted. There are unconfirmed claims that Ukraine is preparing a counterattack to free Bakhmut from its encirclement. That attack is supposed to go off as soon as the muddy ground has dried up a bit. Meanwhile other encirclement has taken place in Avdiivka: Avdiivka (Ukrainian: Авдіївка, IPA: [ɐu̯ˈd(j)ijiu̯kɐ]; is a city of regional significance in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. The city is located in the center of...

US actor’s family was deported from Jaffa to Egypt in 1914 bataween | Posted on 15 February 2023 | No Comments The celebrity US actor David Duchovny has just discovered something about his family he never knew: his grandfather Moshe was deported from Jaffa to Port Said in Egypt by the Turkish authorities at the start of World War I. Duchovny learned about his family’s migration from their place of birth, Berdichev in the Russian empire, to Palestine (then under Ottoman rule), thence to Egypt. They ended up taking a boat from Greece to the US, where Moshe acquired American...

A U.S. government body held a Congressional briefing plotting ways to break up Russia as a country, in the name of supposed “decolonization.” The participants urged the United States to give more support to separatist movements inside Russia and in the diaspora. They proposed the independence of numerous republics in the Russian Federation, including Chechnya, Tatarstan, and Dagestan, as well as historic areas that existed centuries ago such as Circassia. This is far from the first time that hawks in Washington have fantasized about carving up foreign countries. During the first cold war, the U.S. sponsored secessionist groups inside the...

Miss Russia 2022 Anna Linnikova has become one of 16 contestants who will vie for the title of Miss Universe. The semifinals of the pageant were broadcast on the YouTube channel of the Miss Universe Organization. Linnikova, 22, wore the national "The Crown of the Russian Empire" dress during the preliminary competition on Wednesday where 84 contenders were taking part. The red and white gown decorated with pearls and precious stones was designed by a St. Petersburg couturier in cooperation with the State Hermitage museum. The finals of the beauty pageant in which the top beauties will be picked from...

Russian President Vladimir Putin blasted the West for trying to "tear apart" Russia, in extracts from an interview to be aired on national television later Sunday. "At the core of it all is the policy of our geopolitical opponents aiming to tear apart Russia, historical Russia," Putin said. "They have always tried to 'divide and conquer'... Our goal is something else -- to unite the Russian people," he said. Putin has used the concept of "historical Russia" to argue that Ukrainians and Russians are one people -- undermining Kyiv's sovereignty and justifying his 10-month offensive in Ukraine. "We are acting...

Kazakhstan has significantly boosted its defence spending while seeking to strengthen ties with China and Nato nations amid anxieties that Moscow could expand its geopolitical ambitions beyond Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has reported, citing a Kazakh official. The ex-Soviet state is committing an additional Kazakhstani tenge (KZT) 441bn ($918mn) to its defence budget, marking a nearly 1.5-fold rise from last year’s budget of $1.7bn, the newspaper reported. Part of the money would go to increasing Kazakhstan’s military reserves, according to a the quoted senior official, who added that Kazakhstan has learned lessons from Ukraine’s fierce resistance to the...

The war in Ukraine is a trompe l’oeil. Behind the appearances of the unity of NATO and its consolidation by new members, several big players run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. In reality, all those who are not blinded by their own propaganda know that their side is going to lose and is already planning other enemies on other battlefields. Washington is making the best of a bad situation and using Russian pressure to close ranks. On the front of the stage, Nato assures that it has been strengthened by “Putin’s madness”. Ukraine, powerfully armed by the...

RUSSIA’S CZECHOSLOVAK LEGION of World War One was an army without a country. The 60,000-man unit, raised between 1915 and 1917, was made up of Czech and Slovak patriots keen to free their ancestral homeland from Austrian rule. By taking up arms in the name of the Russian Tsar, the men of the unit hoped that after the war the great powers would reward them with statehood. But when in 1917, the Bolsheviks rose to power following the collapse of Russia’s Romanov dynasty and then made a separate peace with the Central Powers, the Czechoslovak Legion suddenly found itself trapped...

A video posted on Chinese microblogging website Weibo by the Russian embassy of a party held today to celebrate the 160th anniversary of Vladivostok sparked online outrage with Chinese diplomats, journalists and users referring to the city by its old name ‘Haishenwai’. Vladivostok which once used to be part of China’s Qing dynasty and was known as Haishenwai was annexed by the Russian empire in 1860 after China’s defeat by the British and the French in the Second Opium war. Reacting to Russian embassy’s tweet, Shen Shiwei, a journalist working with the state-owned broadcaster CGTN, tweeted: “This “tweet” of #Russian...