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By Humeyra Pamuk, Sabine Siebold, Robin Emmott and Vladimir Soldatkin RIGA/MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia would pay a high price for any new military aggression against Ukraine, NATO and the United States warned on Tuesday as the Western military alliance met to discuss Moscow's possible motives for massing troops near the Ukrainian border. President Vladimir Putin countered that Russia would be forced to act if U.S.-led NATO placed missiles in Ukraine that could strike Moscow within minutes. Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that now aspires to join the European Union and NATO, has become the main flashpoint between Russia and the West...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he had not yet decided whether to run for six more years in the Kremlin when his current term ends in 2024, while praising U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to seek reelection in that year...."What President Biden said about his possible reelection I think he was absolutely right to do." Putin said..."The U.S. president doesn't need my opinions, but I think he acted absolutely rightly."

The United States and Britain warned Russia on Tuesday over any new military aggression against Ukraine as the Western military alliance NATO met to discuss Moscow’s intentions for massing troops on the border with the former Soviet republic. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to brief his 29 NATO counterparts on Washington’s intelligence on the group’s eastern flank and in Ukraine, which is not a member.

The Ukrainian Parliament passed a bill approving a military agreement signed between Ukraine and Turkey. Some 303 out of 450 lawmakers voted in favor of the law. The agreement was signed during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Turkey on Oct. 16, 2020. It includes the legal framework for mutual defense cooperation issues. The agreement reflects a guarantee for security and peace in the Black Sea region. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry also signed a series of agreements on Dec. 14 with the Turkish side on the production and technology transfer of naval corvettes and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV), which...

Russia has orchestrated the deployment of special operations troops to the northern border of Belarus to see how sudden surges of migrants to the area are straining neighboring NATO countries' ability to respond, a source familiar with local governments' assessments tells U.S. News – the latest development in Moscow's troubling campaign of destabilization against Europe. It was not immediately clear whether the commandos came from Russia or from Belarus, says former U.S. Army Europe Commander Ben Hodges, who says senior officials in Latvia believe the deployments are at least for reconnaissance, if not some other form of nefarious distraction. The...

According to unofficial information obtained by PAP, a meeting of Polish officials is planned for Tuesday at which the possibility of triggering Nato's Article 4 will likely be discussed. The meeting is to be attended by the president, Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the defence and interior ministers as well as officials of the foreign ministry, armed forces, police, Border Guard and other services. Nato's Article 4 provides for joint consultations should a member state consider its territorial integrity, political independence or security to be under threat. Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have been tackling an escalating migration crisis...

Russia says the use of Turkish drones near the Line of Contact is a violation of the Minsk Agreement, but Ukraine begs to differ. kraine’s purchase and deployment of Turkish combat drones has reignited the territorial conflict simmering its eastern border, with some warning of the likelihood of further escalation. Kiev is moving forward with plans to procure dozens of Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs). The acquisition is part of a larger defense cooperation venture with Ankara involving the production of Bayraktar drones on Ukrainian soil. It was revealed earlier this week that a Ukrainian Bayraktar drone...

Ukraine's use of Turkish strike drones in the conflict in the eastern Donbass region is defensive and does not violate any agreements, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday. Russia accused Ukraine of destabilising the situation after government forces used a Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone to strike a position controlled by Russian-backed separatists this week. read more The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said it had deployed the drone to force pro-Russian separatists to cease fire and the drone had destroyed an artillery unit belonging to the separatists using a guided bomb. "When the Ukrainian army feels the need to...

As tens of tens of millions of People stay unvaccinated, state and native governments have launched mandates requiring public workers be absolutely inoculated in opposition to the coronavirus. And whereas orders in some localities have translated into a final minute surge in vaccination charges, they’re additionally met with steadfast refusal, resulting in authorized challenges or considerations over staffing points.Washington State’s mandate, one of many strictest within the nation, went into impact on Monday. The order requires greater than 800,000 public staff to be absolutely inoculated in opposition to the coronavirus, save for a non secular or medical exemption, or danger...

Vladimir Putin sat down with NBC News for his first on-camera interview with a western news agency in more than three years.Putin avoided public commentary during much of the Trump Administration, but less than six months into the Biden Administration he came out swinging at Biden and the US on a host of issues.Putin spoke for nearly an hour and a half as Biden met with the leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, from which Russia was suspended in 2014 after it annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.This interview was carefully orchestrated by Putin to follow along after...

Russia has unambiguously stated its position that the self-ruling island of Taiwan is a part of the mainland-based People's Republic of China, as strategic partners Moscow and Beijing seek to further align their positions regarding geopolitical issues across the globe. During his visit Tuesday to the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared Moscow's stance on the issue. "Russia, like the overwhelming majority of other countries, considers Taiwan to be part of the People's Republic of China," Lavrov said. "We have proceeded and will proceed from this premise in our foreign policy." Only 14 countries today, along...

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said on Monday that a prison commission had designated him an extremist and a terrorist. Navalny said on Instagram that he had been summoned before a commission which voted unanimously in favor of the change of status.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expelled eight members of Russia’s mission to the military alliance on Wednesday after determining the members were working as alleged spies. “We can confirm that we have withdrawn the accreditation of eight members of the Russian Mission to NATO, who were undeclared Russian intelligence officers,” a NATO official told the Associated Press under a customary condition of anonymity for the organization. In addition to expelling the eight suspected Russian intelligence officers, NATO also halved the size of Russia’s mission to the alliance, reducing the number of Russian mission members it will accredit from 20...

His secret girlfriend has lots of secret wealth. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s longtime mistress has an estimated net worth of $100 million in “shadow wealth,” including swanky apartments and a yacht, despite her modest background, a trove of newly leaked documents reveal. Svetlana Krivonogikh, 46, has been romantically linked with the Russian strongman since he was still deputy mayor of her hometown of St. Petersburg, and reportedly has a daughter with him. But Krivonogikh — who grew up in a communal apartment — and other Putin cronies have been enriched through shell companies in the Virgin Islands and elsewhere, the...

As Joe Biden continues to falter, Germany and now the UK have reached out to Vladimir Putin to thwart further chaos in Afghanistan. French and Italian leaders reached out to Putin last week to discuss the humanitarian issues in Afghanistan. The entire Western world knows they cannot trust the Biden regime after this historic catastrophe they engineered in Afghanistan. The Financial Times reported:

A new study by Douglas Wilbur, a visiting scholar in the UTSA Department of Communication, examines the claims made by the fact-checking website Prop or Not that Russian propaganda targets the American public. He found evidence that popular sites such as Zero Hedge, a Wall Street focused site, echoes Russian propaganda in line with the claims leveraged by Prop of Not. Wilbur analyzed over 600 articles and found a strong, positive correlation between Sputnik, Russia’s state-owned media, and popular alternative media sites that are thought to provide favorable coverage in the U.S. of Russia and its allies. “Covert manipulation of...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev have discussed the situation in Afghanistan by telephone, the Kremlin’s press-service said on Sunday. "The situation in Afghanistan was discussed in detail. It was agreed the Russian and Uzbek agencies and ministries concerned would step up cooperation," the statement runs. The two presidents will keep in touch further on, the press-service added. After the pullout of the bulk of the Western military contingent from Afghanistan the movement Taliban (outlawed in Russia) launched a massive offensive on all fronts towards Kabul. According to the television broadcaster Al Arabiya, Afghanistan’s former Interior...

The first glitch in Nauka’s journey happened yesterday, when the spacecraft didn’t complete its first orbit-raising burn. This meant that the uncrewed Nauka wasn’t on track to actually intercept the ISS, which it’s scheduled to dock with on Thursday, July 29. The problem was attributed to a software issue in a computer aboard Nauka, which prevented the spacecraft’s main engines from firing. Nauka’s team was able to manage a remote course correction, but a second bout of course corrections were deemed necessary, and scheduled for today. One early report from journalist Anatoly Zak indicated that one of the spacecraft’s engines...

MOSCOW. July 2 (Interfax) - Much headway has been made at the negotiations on reinstating the Iran nuclear deal, however, the U.S. return to this agreement will require the unconditional resumption of its every obligation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday. "Indeed, the assessments made by the negotiating parties over the past month or even two, as long as the talks have been on, demonstrate significant progress. Lots of things have been coordinated, but not all of them," Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow. "Speaking of a brief account of what has been obstructing the agreement,...

RUSSIA'S "city killer" submarine has set sail for the first time packed with nuclear drones capable of triggering monster tsunamis. The 604ft Belgorod - which is twice the size of the Royal Navy's Astute-class attack subs - reportedly took to the sea for the first time on Friday. The 14,700-tonne war machine bristles with nuclear-tipped underwater drone torpedoes - each guided by artificial intelligence. The secretive launch came after Vladimir Putin's navy vowed to sink British warships the next time they sail too close to Crimea. The war talk followed a face-off in the Black Sea where HMS Defender was...