WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo face an uphill struggle to force other nations to abandon their oil trade with Iran, former European Union consultant Paolo von Schirach told Sputnik. [...]

Earlier, US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman characterised the deployment of two carrier groups in the Mediterranean Sea as a signal to Russia, saying the warships represented "100,000 tonnes of international diplomacy" amid alleged Russian "destabilizing activities around the world." [...]

A record number of Russians say they are happy, a new survey reveals, with family, good health, and a good job making them feel that way. “The level of happiness among the Russians, based on subjective impression, stands at 86 percent,” state-run pollster VTSIOM said on Thursday. [...]

The German Ambassador to the United States has asked the US Congress to hold back new sanctions against two of Russia’s biggest gas corporations, as further penalties may put energy security of the European Union in jeopardy. [...]

Despite a defense budget bigger than the next 7 countries combined, the US says Russia is pulling ahead in a new arms race, and the Pentagon has no choice but to rely on its nuclear deterrent. But how sincere are they being? [...]

KHASAN (Sputnik) - An armoured train carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has departed Khasan railway station in Russia's Primorsky Territory and is heading to Ussuriysk, a Sputnik correspondent reported. [...]

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US government is ending sanctions waivers for Iranian oil importers to provoke a violent insurrection or establish a casus belli for an external invasion, former UK Ambassador Peter Ford told Sputnik. [...]

The arrival of Russian military planes in Venezuela in March 2019 spurred harsh criticism from the US, who has accused Moscow of destabilising the situation in the Latin American state, currently engulfed in a political crisis. Russia, for its part, has recalled that its planes arrived under a bilateral agreement with Caracas. [...]

A young Russian woman visited an ice skating rink wearing nothing but a swimsuit, stunning everyone with this brave and uncommon act, as well as her lean physique. [...]

It took several teams of doctors, three organs, and a 16-hour surgery at a Moscow hospital to give a second chance at life to a nine-year-old boy who suffers from a genetic disease. [...]

This is going to get very ugly. Germany is openly defying US President Trump's demands to spend more on its NATO budget. Already the American ambassador to the country is crying foul, prompting German calls for his expulsion. Of all the countries in the European Union, it is Germany that's been mostly on the receiving end of Trump's wrath since he entered the White House. In two years, the bilater [...]

Israel has the full arsenal needed to take on Hezbollah in Lebanon and eliminate the Iranian threat in Syria, the outgoing IDF Northern Command chief boasted, warning Damascus against using S-300s to protect its sovereignty. [...]

The Israeli elections on 9 April resulted in the victory of Benjamin Netanyahu, who was officially appointed as the country's prime minister on 17 April. Speaking to Sputnik, Israeli publicist Avigdor Eskin shared his opinion on what to expect from the Netanyahu cabinet in the near future. [...]

The research vessel, which belongs to the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, is fitted with advanced scanning equipment and is carrying an unmanned submarine capable of operating hundreds of meters below the ocean surface. [...]

There are suggestions that the US and China may now sign a trade agreement in May. However, it seems unlikely that this will be the great victory over China that Trump promised, as recent events indicate. [...]

The fact that German investments in Russia hit a ten-year record high in 2018 shows that the pressure Washington has exerted on Europe failed to discourage German businesses from returning to the Russian market, analysts believe. [...]

Vladimir Putin and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un will meet in Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East, on April 25. It will be the first meeting of the two heads of state. [...]

Democratic 2020 hopeful Bernie Sanders called the government of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu “racist” during a CNN town hall. Another blue candidate, Beto O’Rourke, used similar wording to blast the Israeli leader. [...]

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will name a settlement in the Golan Heights after Donald Trump, in a show of gratitude for the US president's decision to recognize the region as Israeli territory. [...]

KRASNODAR, RUSSIA – Volodymyr Zelensky’s victory in Sunday’s Ukrainian Presidential election marks the moment when the Western populist wave comes to the post-Soviet space. [...]

A new education and leisure center is expected to open in Crimea’s largest city, Sevastopol by 2023. It will cover a territory of 18.3 hectares on Cape Crystal between Karantinnaya and Artillery bays. Planning includes an opera and ballet theater, an arts academy, a residential complex for employees, a cinema and concert hall, as well as a park and museum devoted to the defenders of Sevastopo [...]

After three weeks of flashy and outrageous campaigning, comedian Volodymyr Zelensky and incumbent president Petro Poroshenko are facing off in a battle for the country’s top job. [...]