The OSCE monitoring mission on the Russian-Ukrainian border has registered no violations of international law by the Russian side during its week-long stay at the Gukovo and Donetsk checkpoints, mission head Paul Picard said. During his press conference, Picard was asked to comment on Western claims that Russia is shelling Ukrainian territory and has starting deployment troops to the country. [...]

Edward Snowden has received a residence permit in Russia, which is valid for three years, starting on August 1, the former NSA contractor's lawyer announced. “On the first of August he received a three-year residence permit,” lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told reporters. [...]

Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree on the full ban for imports of beef, pork, poultry meat, fish, cheese, milk, vegetables and fruit from Australia, Canada, the EU, the US and Norway. The ban will last a year, starting August 7. The Prime Minister also said Russia has stopped transit flights by Ukrainian airlines to such destinations as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey, addin [...]

US missile cruiser Vella Gulf has entered the Black Sea in what the American Navy described as a move to "to promote peace and stability in the region." Moscow has considered any such acts as "offensive." The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf (CG 72) entered the Black Sea on Wednesday as part of the effort to “strengthen the collective security of NATO allies and partner [...]

Activists and police have clashed in the Ukrainian capital's center after communal workers tried to dismantle the camp. It follows a months-old conflict over the camp with the city administration. Camp residents are currently fortifying the old barricades and building new ones, Ria Novosti reported. [...]

Moscow and Tehran have signed far-reaching deals, from energy to consumer goods, which are expected to undermine Western-led sanctions against the two countries. Russia’s Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak met with Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and signed a five year memorandum of understanding between the two governments, Russia’s Energy Ministry announced in a statement release [...]

The command in Kiev has blatantly abandoned a group of more than 400 soldiers encircled by the self-defense forces, the senior Ukrainian officer who requested sanctuary in Russia with his men has revealed. Lack of ammunition, food, fuel and clear orders from the command on how to act in the condition of encirclement has made the Ukrainian troops cross the border, Major Vitaly Dubinyak, a battal [...]

Russia's import ban on agricultural goods from countries that sanctioned Moscow over the Ukraine crisis may have a negative impact on European producers, farmers say. However, the EU's ambassador to Moscow insists the bloc's position will not change. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed Wednesday a decree imposing a one-year ban on agricultural produce, foods, and raw materials from countrie [...]

The US dollar, the dominant global currency since 1944, may lose some of its luster due to the American-led sanctions against Russia over the turmoil in Ukraine. The greenback has been fading in favor since the global financial crisis in 2008. The US-led sanctions against Russia may have backfired on the US because it threatens to “hasten a move away from the dollar that’s been stirring sin [...]

Kremlin decree restricts EU and American products for up to one year, while acknowledging move may lead to food price rises. Vladimir Putin has banned the import of agricultural goods from countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia in a tit-for-tat move that deepens the economic standoff between the Kremlin and the west. [...]

John Kerry has spent months rushing from one conflict to the next, but has little show for it. His failures are symptomatic of an America that lacks a foreign policy identity -- and of a country that seems uncomfortable with its role as a superpower. In the Middle East, it doesn't take much to be branded a terrorist -- even if you are the US secretary of state. [...]

Millions of cubic meters of water, sand and chemicals, which were released into the waterways of British Columbia, Canada, from a breached mine tailings pond have led to a total water ban for residents in the area of the incident. Some 10 million cubic meters of water and 4.5 million cubic meters of fine sand from the tailings pond of the Mount Polley copper and gold mine spilled over into lake [...]

If one relies on Western mainstream media and those who claim to represent the Western world, it is easy to come to the conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin is the most evil political figure in the world. Actually, it would not be a gross exaggeration to claim Putin is responsible for just about all that afflicts the human condition today. One simple sentence says it all: “Putin d [...]

The World Trade Organization got a surprise setback on Thursday when India, pushing for concessions on agricultural stockpiling, vetoed plans for universal customs rules. The deal could have added $1 trillion and 21 million jobs to the world economy. The July 31 deadline on the first proposal for major global economic reform in two decades - a series of customs procedures known as "trade facili [...]

Aeroflot's new budget airline Dobrolet announced it is temporarily suspending flights and ticket sales due to “unprecedented pressure” from European partners as a result of economic sanctions. From August 4, due to “unprecedented pressure on Dobrolet from European counterparts, the carrier is forced to stop flights and ticket sales,” Aeroflot said in a statement released on Sunday. Pass [...]

The big Russian businesses hurt by Western sanctions against Russia won’t even think about putting pressure on President Putin, because the interests of the state are at stake in the conflict, says a reputed presidential ‘inner circle’ figure. “This is out of the question,” Gennady Timchenko, who is one of the few Russian businessmen personally targeted by the US-championed sanctions, [...]

US steps to increase military cooperation with Ukraine, providing its National Guard arms and training amid Kiev’s military operation, can be considered complicity in war crimes, Russian MP Irina Yarovaya believes. “In a situation, when the National Guard of Ukraine is leading punitive operations in the Donbass, the US promises to allocate $19 million for training and equipping this militar [...]

Ron Paul, the former United States congressman who campaigned for the presidency no fewer than three times, is yet again warning the White House not to increase America’s involvement in the escalating crisis in Ukraine. Paul, a 78-year-old retired doctor who spent nearly three decades in the US Congress representing the state of Texas, has spoken out incessantly this year about the ongoing sk [...]

Without waiting for MH17 crash investigators’ conclusions, NATO chief is eager to blame anti-Kiev forces, thus “exerting pressure” on the international team while providing no evidence to back the claims, Russia’s mission to NATO said. The Russian mission to NATO has said that the bloc's Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen “decided not to wait until the end of #MH17 investigation [...]