The US perceives the Ukrainian crisis as an opportunity to damage Russia and bring Ukraine into NATO, says Srdja Trifkovic Foreign Affairs Editor of Chronicles Magazine. He says a decision to ship lethal weapons to the Kiev regime has already been made. Despite an improving situation in Ukraine, we are still witnessing aggressive rhetoric from some US officials. Why is that? [...]

The continuing economic pressure will never affect Moscow’s foreign policy, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary has said. “No sanctions would force Russia to make changes to the persistent line it follows in international affairs,” TASS quoted Dmitry Peskov as saying on Wednesday. [...]

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke with American protocol and delivered a speech before the US Congress without consulting the White House first. Many Democrats viewed the speech as an attempt by a foreign leader to chastise and change Washington’s foreign policy efforts, specifically with regards to Iran over its alleged efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. [...]

Maintaining tension and making boldfaced accusations for decades has suited the US’ purpose to try to divide and rule in Europe and to put a split between Eastern and Western Europe, investigative journalist Tony Gosling, told RT. The murder of Russian opposition activist Boris Nemtsov provoked a vast amount of comment in the West, some of which according to the Russian envoy to the EU Vladim [...]

The European Central Bank will kick off its monthly €60 billion purchases of government bonds and private sector assets next Monday, said the head of the ECB Mario Draghi. "We will on 9 March 2015 start purchasing euro-dominated public sector securities in the secondary market. We will also continue to purchase asset-backed securities and covered bonds which we started last year,"Draghi told [...]

A Polish government spokesperson has criticized the deputy prime minister's remark on Ukraine‘s disintegrating economy, calling it “unfair.” Janusz Piechocinski painted a black scenario for the country gripped by hyperinflation and currency plunge. [...]

A curious thing happened today. To quiet protests over food, president Petro Poroshenko ordered the minister of the food reserve to fill the shelves of stores with flour, sugar, canned meat, and buckwheat from the reserve. Well guess what? There was no food in the reserve. It has either been looted (like the vanishing gold), or it was fed to the army. [...]

Security forces in Kiev are blocking entry to Ukraine’s eastern regions, the parliamentary speaker of Donetsk People’s Republic said on Tuesday. "Ukraine has completely blocked Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. No one can leave without a pass," Andrey Purgin told Rossiya-24 television news channel, noting that even with a pass people are not allowed to leave eastern territories. [...]

India has proposed creating a free trade zone with the Eurasian Economic Union of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia, said Alexey Pushkov, head of the International Committee of Russian State Duma. "The question was raised by India, which is now considering a free trade agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union. [...]

Western nations should heed Russia's legitimate security concerns over the volatile situation in Ukraine, a top Chinese diplomat has said in a rare public statement on the crisis that has damaged relations between Russia and the West. Qu Xing, China's ambassador to Belgium, said the Ukrainian crisis came about due to the ongoing “game”– a metaphor similar to that used by US geopolitical s [...]

Ukraine asking the United Kingdom for advice on fighting separatists is akin to questioning the Marlboro Man about how to prevent cancer. It's not only futile - it makes both Kiev and London look stupid. Apparently the day Henry Kissinger won the Noble Peace Prize, satire died. [...]

Poland may follow the UK's lead and send military advisers to Ukraine to help train the country's troops. An aid to the Polish defense minister says a final decision will be made in March with the number expected to be under a hundred. Poland has been a staunch ally of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Warsaw says the number of military advisers will range from around a dozen to several [...]

Ukrainian supermarkets have imposed rationing of basic products after the drastic fall in the value of the hryvnia. The currency has lost 70 percent of its value causing people to stockpile food and buy electronics as a hedge. Restrictions apply for goods such as cooking oil, flour and sugar, Ukraine’s news agency UNN reports Wednesday. [...]

Anti-Russia propaganda over Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was bad enough. Now one CNN aviation analyst is blaming Russia for the missing MH370 plane as well - and the Western press is eating it up. Malaysia Airlines MH370 vanished in March last year, shortly after departing from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing. Efforts to find the plane have turned up nothing so far, and the fate of the Boeing [...]

Ramped up surveillance in Britain against a backdrop of dwindling legal protection has contributed to the most rattling assault on human rights in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall, human rights experts warn. [...]

The new Greek government has spoken out against the EU partners over the statement that lays the blame for Saturday's fatal attack on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Russia. Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria voiced similar objections earlier. The government, headed by Prime Minister Alexis Tripras, said in a press release on Tuesday that “the aforementioned statement was released without the p [...]

Burning tires, barricades of rubble and blood on the pavement - RT presents the most striking photos from last February's Maidan riots in Ukraine, which turned the capital Kiev into a warzone and led to an armed coup in the country. With police carrying batons and riot shields, and protesters metal clubs and home-made protective gear – their clashes at times looked more befitting of a medieva [...]

The EU "sleepwalked" into the Ukrainian crisis after a failure to address Moscow's concerns over Western policies, a UK parliamentary report says. Europeans suffer from poor analytic capacity when it comes to Russia. [...]

Kosovo's biggest daily newspaper has published a full-page appeal from Austria not to waste time and money trying to get asylum in the EU. The call comes after a surge in the number of Kosovars smuggling themselves out of the impoverished entity. [...]