The Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization is gaining more weight with a dozen new nations showing interest in cooperation, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with foreign ministers of the bloc. “Other countries would like to strengthen their contacts with our organization. [...]

The timing of the new tensions in Donbass, provoked by the Kiev forces, is connected with the upcoming EU summit, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He added that Kiev has breached the Minsk deal and Moscow is waiting for the OSCE's reaction. "The violations are obvious and [Foreign] Minister [Sergey] Lavrov has already said that the representatives of the OSCE are to draw corresponding conc [...]

The US 6th Fleet has made public a video which is described as showing the Russian jet interaction with the USS Ross warship in the Black Sea on May 30. The video was shot aboard the sea vessel. “[USS] Ross continued on her mission after observing the aircraft return to base. [...]

The Russian military has put together nearly 100 units and organizations in the Crimea last year as part of the program of deploying a self-sufficient group of forces at the peninsula, Sergey Shoigu, Russia's Defense minister, said. "In accordance with the presidential order, we were instructed to deploy a self-sufficient combined group of forces in the Crimean Peninsula capable of effectively [...]

Russia will appeal to the International Court of Justice if Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signs a moratorium on the payment of Ukraine's external debt into law and fails to pay its debt to Russia, said Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. Siluanov said Ukraine was virtually defaulting on its debt, adding that Russia doesn’t yet have grounds to lodge any claims. [...]

Tokyo has signaled it would like Vladimir Putin to finally resolve a territorial dispute and sign a peace treaty 70 years after the end of World War II. The Kremlin said it would welcome dialogue. Moscow is willing to restart peaceful dialogue with Tokyo to finally sign a WWII peace treaty, but Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said that claiming sovereignty over Kuril Islands makes Japan the only count [...]

Let's consider for a moment what the response would be from Washington if Russia announced the start of international war games near American borders. Impossible you say? Yet that is almost exactly what the Pentagon has announced near Russia. “The Russian Ministry of Defense has announced that over 350 Russian soldiers and 80 armored vehicles with Air Force cover will begin a 300-mile march a [...]

Victoria Nuland arrived in Moscow last weekend and declared that Ukraine's government doesn't intend to resume the civil war. Either Nuland was being mendacious or President Poroshenko is on a dangerous solo-run. It’s all gone Lethal Weapon. Not in the sense of munitions, although some of those are definitely in play, but rather the movie series. [...]

Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev has revoked a decree that allowed delivery of NATO military equipment to Afghanistan through Russian territory. According to the official document, signed by Medvedev and published on Monday, all previous decisions on NATO cargo transit to Afghanistan have now been revoked. This includes an act allowing delivery of military hardware and equipment via rail, motor vehic [...]

The Russian embassy in the Syrian capital of Damascus was shelled on Tuesday, with Moscow stating that it considers the attack on its diplomatic mission an act of terror. Two mortar rounds landed on the premises of the Russian Embassy in the afternoon, “one of them fell near the main entrance, the other hit an administrative building," Asiya Turuchiyeva embassy's spokeswoman, told RIA Novosti [...]

The Central Bank of Russia is taking effective steps to stabilize the national currency and the economic situation as a whole, according to the Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Min Zhu. “I think the Russian Central Bank is reacting adequately to the current situation,” the banker said at a conference on doing business with the BRICS countries in Washington o [...]

One year into the Ukrainian crisis, Washington reveals a desire to jump on the bandwagon of the Minsk peace accords - brokered by France and Germany. Not bad news, after all, but when it comes from Victoria Nuland... News that US Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Sochi to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and President Putin came as only a small surprise this week. [...]

This week US relations with Saudi Arabia cool down, while heating up with Russia and Iran. Is the US considering a sweeping change to foreign policy? Saudi King Salman chose not to attend a joint US-Gulf State meeting this week set to deal with the possibility of giving Gulf States a missile defense system to ward off a nuclear-powered Iran. [...]

Russia is set to ramp up its military presence in Crimea, the country’s envoy to the Alliance said justifying the move by NATO’s “stepping up activities” in Eastern Europe. The envoy also urged the US to pull out its nuclear weapons stationed in Europe. "Naturally, we will increase our forces in Crimea because NATO countries have stepped up their activities… in the immediate vicinity [...]

The international participation in Russia's Victory Day commemorations proves that the US policy of maximum political isolation for Moscow has failed, claims State Duma's Foreign Relations chief. “After the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory [in WWII] it has become evident that the policy of maximum political isolation of Russia is not yielding the expected results,” Aleksey Pushkov said [...]

Russia’s permanent mission to NATO has prepared a report summing up complicated relations between the alliance and Moscow over the last 25 years, which differs substantially from what the report calls NATO’s simplified “black and white” picture. The ‘Russia-NATO: facts and myths’ report investigates in detail the difference between NATO’s declared efforts to maintain peace and sec [...]

The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the "world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts. The former US assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, has written on his blog that Beijing is currently "confr [...]

John Kerry's Sochi meetings with Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov hardly dissolved years of mistrust between Washington and the Kremlin. However, they probably signaled the end of Ukraine’s period as a global cause célèbre. In 1968, at an art exhibition in Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, the celebrated artist Andy Warhol was the star attraction. [...]

Over half of Russians think the United States poses a threat to their country and will create barriers for Russia's economic development, but only 5 percent thought the US could defeat Russia in an all-out war. The share of Russians who perceive the United States as a general threat is 59 percent, according to the latest research released by the independent pollster Levada Center on Tuesday. [...]