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Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed the West for increasing tensions in Eastern Europe and suggested a “military-technical” response if his request for security guarantees is not met — while a media mouthpiece for the Kremlin warned that Russia will hold a gun to “America’s head” if Ukraine is allowed to join NATO. In a speech Tuesday to Russian defense ministry officials, Putin said Moscow needs “long-term, legally binding guarantees” from the West that the US and NATO will not deploy missile systems in Ukraine, rather than “verbal assurances.” Russia has massed as many as 175,000 troops as well as...

Ukraine is again looking warily over its eastern border as Russia threatens its territorial integrity. In recent weeks, a buildup of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border has rattled Western leaders fearful of an incursion similar to, or perhaps even more wide-ranging than, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Then, on Dec. 17, 2021, Vladimir Putin demanded that no former Soviet states, such as Ukraine, be added to NATO – the Western alliance that Ukraine has long expressed a desire to join – and that NATO cease all military cooperation in Eastern Europe. Such rhetoric harks back to the Cold...

THIS is the dramatic moment Russia's £300m stealth warship that was designed to carry hypersonic missiles went up in flames in a humiliating blow for Vladimir Putin. New footage shows devastating fire damage to the new £307 million warship intended to carry Putin’s lethal Mach-9 hypersonic missiles.... ...The scale of the blaze, which started on Friday in St Petersburg, has been viewed as a massive set back to the Kremlin’s naval modernisation programme. Huge flames and thick smoke were seen rising from the corvette Provornyy at Severnaya Verf shipyard where it was being built. The battleship was almost completely destroyed...

Russia upped the ante Monday in its dangerous standoff with Ukraine, openly warning of military action if President Biden and America’s NATO allies ignore a list of demands Moscow announced late last week — a far-reaching list that some key U.S. lawmakers have dubbed a “pretext to war.” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said his country is fully prepared to respond through “military-technical means” if Western powers fail to address those demands. He said NATO must not expand to include Ukraine or Georgia and the U.S. must not base additional military assets in former Soviet republics in Central Asia....

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia sent a pair of nuclear-capable long-range bombers to patrol the skies over Belarus on Saturday, a mission intended to underline close defense ties between the two allies amid tensions with the West. The Russian Defense Ministry said the two Tu-22M3 strategic strike bombers practiced “performing joint tasks with the Belarusian air force and air defense.” Su-30 fighter jets that Russia has supplied to Belarus escorted the bombers. Saturday’s four-hour patrol marked Russia’s third such mission in Belarus since last month... ...The Belarusian leader wouldn’t elaborate on what kind of Russian weapons Belarus would be willing to...

For seven years, a war has been going on in eastern Ukraine and now Russia is accused by the West of threatening an invasion. Since war in the east broke out in April 2014, more than 14,000 people have died. There are fundamental differences in the Russian and Ukrainian positions. But the major dispute centres on a political settlement for the Donbas. The two countries have "irreconcilable" views on the future of the war-torn areas in eastern Ukraine, says Duncan Allan, an associate fellow at Chatham House. Ukraine wants to restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity while Russia, he believes,...

According to volunteers of the international intelligence community InformNapalm, in the near future, the Russian Federation plans to covertly transfer modernized anti-aircraft missile-gun complexes (ZRGK) "Shell-S1" to the occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine through uncontrolled sections of the border. The Russian military and political leadership thus pursues several tasks of tactical and strategic levels at once. Since 2014, the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine have actually been a training ground for Russians and a convenient platform for testing various types of weapons and special equipment in combat conditions. As has been repeatedly recorded by international researchers...

A top Russian diplomat has warned that Moscow will respond “militarily” and deploy tactical nuclear weapons outside Ukraine, if NATO does not guarantee an end to its eastward expansion. His remarks raise the stakes even higher in the confrontation between Russia and Western powers just days after Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin held a two-hour video conference aimed at defusing a burgeoning crisis over Russian military movements near Ukraine’s borders. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov’s threat comes amid rising fears that Putin is considering a further military incursion into Ukraine in a rehash of Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean...

RUSSIA has threatened to deploy intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe, as tensions over Ukraine intensify. The warning from the country’s foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov comes amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, where the Kremlin has massed 175,000 troops. Vladimir Putin has been warned of “massive consequences” if he invades Ukraine as Russia masses troops on its neighbour’s border. Ryabkov has now threatened to revive Intermediate-range nuclear missiles, deployed in large numbers by both sides in the Cold War in the early 1980s. He denied Russia was planning to invade Ukraine said Moscow would “respond militarily” if Nato...

The Group of Seven economic powers told Russia on Sunday to “de-escalate” its military buildup near the Ukrainian border, warning that an invasion would have “massive consequences” and inflict severe economic pain on Moscow. Foreign ministers from the United States, Britain and the rest of the G-7, joined by the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, issued a joint statement declaring themselves “united in our condemnation of Russia’s military buildup and aggressive rhetoric towards Ukraine.” The G-7 called on Russia to “de-escalate, pursue diplomatic channels, and abide by its international commitments on transparency of military activities,” and praised Ukraine’s “restraint.” “Any...

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On December 7, 2021, resident Biden had a two-hour telephone conference with Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, to discuss the tense situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Mr. Biden's objective was to dissuade Mr. Putin from his apparent, imminent plan to invade Ukraine. However, given that Putin is a former KGB officer, cold, calculating, and a sharp thinker and President Biden is not exactly known for his intellect, it is unlikely that Biden convinced Putin to order Russia's troops on the Ukrainian border to stand down. A war between the United States and Russia over Ukraine is doubtful, and Putin knows it....

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced Thursday it had "successfully" modernized the first B61 nuclear gravity bomb to increase the nation's air-delivered nuclear deterrent capability amid threats of war with Russia in Ukraine and China in the South China Sea and or in the Taiwan Strait. Over the years, we've been documenting (read: here & here) NNSA's $12 billion program to modify aging B61 thermonuclear gravity bombs for the modern battlefield. The weapons first entered service in the late 1960s and needed upgrades to be more effective and increase lifespan by another two decades. The...

Ukraine and Taiwan are proxy fights over the soul of American foreign policy: does it exist to protect America's security interests, or everyone else's?If you thought for one moment that the embarrassing multi-decade debacle in Afghanistan would lead to some soul-searching from the failed interventionists responsible for America’s 21st-century Vietnam, think again. Instead of taking a step back to understand exactly why and how their grandiose plans to use the mightiest military in history to impose a top-down, secular, Western-style democracy didn’t quite pan out, they’re doubling down on failure.When you’re a hammer, everything is a nail, and when you’re...

President Joe Biden’s administration reportedly plans to push the Ukrainian government to appease Russian President Vladimir Putin by ceding territory, The Associated Press reported Thursday

The administration of President Joe Biden confirmed on Monday he has scheduled a meeting with Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for June 14, on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels that day. The meeting with the fellow head of state is particularly notable given that it will occur before a scheduled meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on June 16, the first between the two since Biden was inaugurated president. The White House on Monday pointed disregarded a request by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – whose nation Russia has torn into pieces through illegal colonization and covert...

Germany’s incoming government, led by the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), were pressed to clarify their foreign policy priorities at a press conference on Tuesday. Having officially signed a three-party coalition agreement, Chancellor-designate Olaf Scholz and the rest of his Cabinet members are expected to take office on Wednesday after a vote and swearing-in ceremony in the German parliament. Scholz put Europe in focus as he fielded questions on Russia, China and the United States alongside Greens co-leader and incoming vice chancellor Robert Habeck as well as Free Democrat (FDP) chief and incoming Finance Minister Christian Lindner. Strengthening the European Union...

Biden said Wednesday sending troops to confront a Russian invasion of Ukraine "is not in the cards."..."The idea the US will unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now," Biden told reporters. "We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies under Article 5. It's a sacred obligation. That obligation does not extend to ... Ukraine."...While the US has effectively signaled it would not go to war for Ukraine, it has also underscored that a Russian invasion would lead to severe consequences.

President Biden on Wednesday said the United States is not considering sending troops to Ukraine amid rising fears about the possibility of a Russian military invasion. “That is not on the table,” Biden told reporters at the White House before departing for a trip to Kansas City, Mo. “We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies if they were to attack under Article 5, it’s a sacred obligation. That obligation does not extend to … Ukraine,” he added.

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill approved of a list of churches requiring restoration works, which will be subsidized by the Moscow city budget in 2022. The Moscow city government subsidizes restoration works on churches that are entered on the Cultural Heritage list and are not the property of the Russian Orthodox Church, which can only use these buildings for religious purposes. “This program was launched in 2012," said Ekaterina Inasaridze, Head of the restoration and renovation program at the financial and economic department of the Moscow Patriarchate. “The subsidies are allocated on an annual basis and must be expended within a...