Russia's foreign minister believes that the peace plan offered by the Ukrainian president is "unrealistic" and calls of the US and the EU to persuade Kiev to stop using heavy artillery and airstrikes against the civilian population in the country's east. “We assume that the most important thing is for Washington and Brussels to demand Kiev do the same thing they demand in any other conflict: [...]

Europe's largest nuclear power plant is vulnerable to "direct bombardment" in Ukraine if caught in the conflict, a Greenpeace nuclear energy expert told a German newspaper, claiming that its nuclear reactors are not protected from armor-piercing weapons. Greenpeace nuclear expert Tobias Münchmeyer revealed his concerns over the six-reactor Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant in eastern Ukraine to W [...]

Official Washington’s war-hysteria machine is running at full speed again after Russia unilaterally dispatched a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian supplies to the blockaded Ukrainian city of Luhansk, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern. Before dawn broke in Washington on Saturday, “Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists” – more accurately described as federalists of southeast Ukraine who [...]

Some 400 people have joined a protest camp in Newport to protest against NATO. The march comes ahead of next week's military summit that will see 60 world leaders descend on the area and is already causing considerable disruption to locals. "Nuclear NATO - no, thanks!" or "Iraq, Ukraine - no more wars" read the numerous placards as about 400 protesters took in a march on Saturday against the up [...]

War fever is running high again in Official Washington with pols and pundits demanding that President Obama order a major military intervention in Iraq and Syria to stop the violent jihadists of ISIS, a group that got its start with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, as ex-CIA analyst Paul Pillar recalls. [...]

NATO is reportedly working towards the creation of an expeditionary force composed of 10,000 troops from seven different member states as a result of escalating tensions with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. According to the Financial Times, the force’s creation will be spearheaded by Britain and involve contributions from Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Norway, and the Netherlands. [...]

European volunteers are streaming into Ukraine to join the fighting on both sides. While Kiev's forces are beefed up with mercenaries from private military companies, Europeans have also come to defend the rebel Donbass region of their own free will. One of the latest reinforcements of anti-Kiev troops in Eastern Ukraine are four French ex-serviceman who have come to fight this war, thousands o [...]

George Galloway has been released from hospital a day after being attacked in London, allegedly for his anti-Israeli views. His spokesman said the UK MP appears to have some broken ribs and bruising to his head. Galloway, who is a MP for the Respect Party, was posing for pictures in the Notting Hill Gate area of west London, when he was attacked Friday evening. [...]

The Ukrainian crisis has two closely intertwined dimensions: a domestic one and an external one, both testifying to the failure to manage the process correctly. Both provide abundant material for a study in abject mismanagement, with the lessons of European history consigned to oblivion. [...]

The head of the CSTO says its peacekeepers are ready for any operations, including in Ukraine, but their deployment requires the go-ahead from leaders of all member-countries. "Deployment of the CSTO peacekeeping force can be ordered only by the Collective Security Council – the supreme body formed with heads of state of the member countries. By a joint decision these leaders can order the us [...]

Ukraine's Cabinet has asked the country's parliament to consider dropping the country's non-aligned status and seek membership of NATO. Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk’s government submitted to the parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, a draft bill that would cancel Ukraine’s non-aligned status and revive the country’s quest to join NATO – a path ditched by ousted President Viktor Yanukovich [...]

With America’s government-and-media war hawks back in full flight – preparing to swoop down on Syria as well as Iraq – wiser heads might reflect on the chaos that previous adventures have caused, as Danny Schechter recalls. Sound the bugle! Get the press to march along; we are going to war. Again! Enemies R ‘Us! [...]

At least 2,593 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since the start of the Kiev's military operation against anti-government forces there started in mid-April, according to a new estimate by the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. The death toll includes civilians, members of the Ukrainian troops and also fighters in the anti-government forces. [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has compared the shelling of east Ukrainian towns and cities by Kiev's troops to actions carried out by the Nazis during World War II. “Sad as it might seem, this reminds me of the events of World War II, when the German Nazi occupants surrounded our cities, like Leningrad, and directly shelled those cities and their inhabitants,” Putin said on Friday, speak [...]

The NATO chief wants member states to agree to increase their defense spending at next week's summit. But Canada is determined to block the move, Reuters reports, citing anonymous sources familiar with negotiations on the issue. NATO would like to see its member states commit to raising their defense spending to 2 percent of GDP over the next 10 years. In 2013, only four countries - the US, Bri [...]

The road to the Minsk summit this past Tuesday began to be paved when German Chancellor Angela Merkel talked to ARD public TV after her brief visit to Kiev on Saturday. Merkel emphasized, “A solution must be found to the Ukraine crisis that does not hurt Russia.” She added that "There must be dialogue. There can only be a political solution. There won't be a military solution to this con [...]

It makes no sense to comment in detail on the satellite imagery released by NATO as “proof” of Russia’s military involvement in Ukraine, Defense Ministry’s spokesman said, pointing out that even high NATO officials were hesitant to put their names on it. Referring to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Supreme Allied Commander Europe Philip Breedlove, and NATO Spokesperson Oan [...]

Exclusive: Pressured by neocons and the mainstream U.S. media, the Obama administration is charting a dangerous course by seeking a military solution to Ukraine’s political crisis and possibly provoking Moscow to intervene to protect ethnic Russians, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern warns. [...]

A “ring of steel” likened to a prison or the Berlin Wall has been erected around the NATO Summit venues in Newport and Cardiff city center ahead of the military alliance’s conference next week. Ten miles of nine-foot high security fencing has been set up to protect world leaders attending the September 4-5 conference amid fears issued by former foreign office minister Kim Howells of a pos [...]

Kiev's troops had to leave the eastern Ukrainian city of Novoazovsk to save their lives, said the country's Security and Defense Council. The authorities admitted that self-defense forces are advancing and leading a counteroffensive in the southeast. Along with Novoazovsk, Kiev troops have lost control over the villages of Amvrosiivka and Starobeshevo in the Donetsk Region of Eastern Ukraine. [...]

Kiev authorities have opened over 1,000 investigations into Ukrainian soldiers who deserted from the army. Protests of soldiers’ mothers and wives who don’t want them to fight have become frequent as troops say they have been abandoned by the government. On Wednesday, the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s office announced that 1,083 criminal proceeding of desertion had been launched since th [...]

Under the pretext of an 'overt' Russian threat, NATO is pushing for a "readiness action plan" that will bring the Cold War military bloc closer to Russian borders than ever - even despite objections from some NATO members. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the 28-nation military bloc, which meets next week in Cardiff, Wales, would attempt to overcome internal opposition and agre [...]