European and Chinese officials are firing shots across America’s bow over plans by the Trump administration to impose protectionist tariffs on its steel and aluminum imports. A trade war looms as a result. President Donald Trump is expected to set tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum this week. [...]

The Pentagon may not be surprised by the new Russian hypersonic missiles – but why not use them as a pitch for more money? A military budget about 10 times that of Russia is not enough, according to the DARPA director. Asked by a gathering of journalists on Thursday if the United States is spending enough on its own hypersonic missile program, Steven Walker, the director of the Pentagon’s Defe [...]

Russia's new Sarmat ICBM, which is capable of overcoming missile defense systems, has completed tests and is a "breakthrough" for the country's missile program, President Vladimir Putin announced on March 1. Sputnik tries to find out what this missile is all about. The Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, which Russia has been testing since last year, will replace the aging but relia [...]

The Russophobic hysteria that gripped the West during recent years appears to be veering into the irrational, as even destructive weather phenomena are being blamed on the Kremlin’s machinations, according to the Russian foreign minister. Speaking at a press conference held during his visit to the African nation of Namibia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that recently certain countr [...]

In case US President Donald Trump doesn’t back down on his decision to impose stiff tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, European Union (EU) is set to implement retaliatory restrictions, including a 25 percent tariff on US jeans. Last week Trump announced the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on EU exports of steel and 10 percent on aluminum, adding that similar restrictions would be placed on [...]

Russia's Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet is specifically designed for air superiority and attack roles. Two such planes were reportedly spotted in the skies above Syria earlier this week. Two more Russian fifth generation Su-57 stealth fighters have arrived at Syria's Hmeymim Airbase, Sputnik Arabic reported, referring to local media outlets. [...]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia's latest missiles and other new types of weaponry are unmatched anywhere in the world and capable of nullifying the effectiveness of the United States’ global missile defense, which Washington has started deploying since its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty back in 2002, experts told Sputnik. [...]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) congratulated Italy’s Lega party on achieving great results in the election, expressing hope that both parties would succeed in closing the Brenner Pass on the Italian-Austrian border, a migrant route in the eastern Alps, Roman Haider, the FPO’s foreign policy spokesman, told Sputnik on Monday. [...]

On Monday, the UN Human Rights Council voted in favor of adopting the UK-proposed draft resolution, rejecting Russia's amendments. The Russian delegation regards the refusal to take its proposal into account as a public announcement for the support of terrorists. The United Kingdom and the United States de facto confirmed their support of terrorists in Syria by rejecting Russian amendments for the [...]

Commenting on President Putin recently touting advanced Russian weapons and lawmaker Alexander Sherin signaling Moscow's readiness to stand up for its partners, including Ankara, Turkish military expert Beyazit Karatas told Sputnik that these statements indicate that Ankara does not need NATO's deterrence systems. [...]

Last week President Putin said, during his annual address to the Federal Assembly, that Russia has developed an invincible new cruise missile and warned that any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies will be viewed as a nuclear attack and would trigger an immediate response from Moscow. [...]

Renowned Serbian military expert and columnist for the Serbian newspaper Politika Miroslav Lazanski spoke to to Sputnik Serbia about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address yesterday. Lazanski said that, instead of engaging in a new arms race, Putin is living up to his promise to provide an asymmetrical response to NATO's growing presence in Eastern Europe and Asia. [...]

In one short, simple sentence written some years ago, US scholar and Russia expert Stephen F Cohen got to the heart of the matter: “The Cold War ended in Moscow, but not in Washington.” This indispensable context is how the section of Russian President Vladimir Putin's March 1, 2018, address to the Russian Federal Assembly, dealing with foreign policy and security, has to be understood. [...]

Last week, US President Donald Trump had threatened to impose a tax on European cars and to introduce 25 percent import tariffs on steel and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum. "It is important in this context that the European Union reacts swiftly and proportionately within the WTO and in respect to the WTO," French President Emmanuel Macron told journalists. [...]

The Russian Defense Ministry has responded to the US accusations that Russia allegedly violates the UN Security Council resolution on the ceasefire in Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. False US claims on "hospital bombing" in Ghouta came after Syrian troops repelled pro-US groups, the Russian Defense Ministry said. [...]

If Western sanctions go as far as excluding Russia from the world wide web, the country's own internet is ready, according to the Russian presidential aide on the internet, German Klimenko. "Technically, we are ready for anything now,” he told NTV news channel. However, the shutdown will not be painless, Klimenko added. [...]

Europe should be rebuilt around people, not bureaucracy, said Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Euroskeptic Lega Nord party, after the group made considerable gains in the country’s general election. Salvini’s party won over 18 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, according to preliminary results. [...]

German car maker Porsche continues to impress and is mulling a new way to create a vehicle which would be able to easily navigate around any potential gridlock on city highways. In an interview with the German magazine Automobilwoche, Porsche sales chief Detlev von Platen said that it did not rule out the creation of a flying passenger vehicle by Volkswagen's sports car maker. [...]

While Washington ostensibly supports the peaceful resolution of the Ukraine-Donbass conflict, new revelations - if true - do not add to these claims and on the contrary seem to be in sync with the approval of US weapons to Kiev. The Swiss newspaper Le Temps has reported about scores of US and Canadian instructors training Ukrainian servicemen at the former Soviet firing range Yavorov in wester [...]

Israel's resumed efforts to crack down on Iran could be fueled by Benjamin Netanyahu's looming bribery investigation, geopolitical analyst Gilbert Mercier told Sputnik. As tensions are escalating between Ankara and Damascus over Afrin, Mercier suggested that it would be a strategic mistake on the part of President Bashar Assad to protect the Kurds. [...]

Gevorg Mirzayan, a foreign policy and politics expert, detailed why many in the United States will have difficulty understanding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s true message.  The world's media keeps discussing Vladimir Putin's recent address to the Federal Assembly, in which the head of the state presented a number of new Russian weapons. [...]

Major General Qassem Soleimani, senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, has provided the country's Foreign Ministry with documents proving US collaboration with Daesh beyond a shadow of a doubt, Iranian media has reported. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, special advisor on international affairs to Iran's speaker of parliament, said he had a meeting with Soleimani and received t [...]