The Russian nuclear-capable hypersonic missile was first revealed to the public by the country's President Vladimir Putin in March 2018 and has since undergone numerous tests with the Russian Air Force – which have only confirmed its operational capabilities. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended war games between the Russian Northern and Black Sea fleets on 9 January and had a chance to see [...]

Nazi Germany carried out its human eradication programme on an industrial scale, inspired by Hitler’s wicked views about race and people. That genocidal effort relied heavily on a net of extermination camps, responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Of those death factories, Auschwitz was the most “efficient”. 23 January 2020, Jerusalem. More than 45 heads of state and other politici [...]

President Vladimir Putin has introduced changes which could dramatically affect Russia's international image and respond to decades-long criticism of the country's political path from the global mainstream media, say international observers discussing the president's historic decision. Addressing lawmakers, ministers and other high-ranking officials on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin o [...]

The Russian president made a small but noticeable contribution to keeping the Palestinian Authority in order when he put a fallen peaked cap back where it belonged – on the head of a member of an honor guard. The amusing interlude happened on Friday as Vladimir Putin was visiting the Palestinian city of Bethlehem to meet PA chief Mahmoud Abbas. [...]

As many heads of state skipped WEF-2020, most discussions focused on business and the economy. But Wednesday’s panel meeting on Russia turned into a heated debate, with its participants arguing about bias and outdated stereotypes. Relations between Moscow and the West dominated the agenda at the “Strategic Outlook on Russia” – a World Economic Forum panel discussion, which also focused on [...]

Moscow and Ankara are not responsible for starting the conflict which has ravaged Libya, but they may have a decisive role in ending it, as they lead international diplomatic efforts at the Berlin peace conference. The two countries opposed the US-led NATO intervention to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi nine years ago but, despite Turkey being a NATO member and Russia being on the UN Security Council, n [...]

Vladimir Putin’s plane landing in Bishkek despite heavy fog and high humidity is no reason to doubt the skills of Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu’s pilots, who decided to reroute to another airport, a veteran aviator has said. The Russian president’s Ilyushin Il-96-300PU was approaching the airport in the capital of Kyrgyzstan late on Thursday after the crew of Shoigu’s plane had already de [...]

Commenting on US Defence Secretary Mark T. Esper's statement that a group of US troops will remain in eastern Syria, allegedly to prevent Daesh from accessing the oil fields, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said the statement should not be a surprise. In a statement, the chief spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, noted that the US' stated goal of protecting Syrian oi [...]

Libya's internationally recognized prime minister, Fayez Sarraj, and Khalifa Haftar, who leads the Libyan National Army (LNA) in eastern Libya, held on Monday talks in Moscow on the Libyan crisis mediated by Russia and Turkey. Russian President Vladimir Putin informed later in the day in phone talks German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the recent negotiations and discussed preparations for the up [...]

During the 19 December end-of-the-year press conference, President Vladimir Putin specifically underscored Moscow’s assertiveness in the face of the West’s ongoing sanctions pressure against Russia, saying that the country’s “economy has adapted to foreign shocks”. [...]

A truly inspirational Christmas story unfolded in a small town in Russia’s Altai region, after a boy bought a bus ticket for a single mom struggling with a crying child. That mother, it turned out, is a popular Instagram blogger. The heart-warming story was told by the blogger Natalya Mishina herself. Apart from raising a three-year-old boy on her own, the young woman is a columnist with a fashi [...]

The TurkStream pipeline, supplying Russian gas to Turkey under the Black Sea, will boost energy security of entire southern Europe and the US won’t interfere with it, said Sakir Arikan, managing director of TurkAkim Gas. The much-anticipated 930km pipeline was launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during a special ceremony on Wednesday. [...]

The Avangard is one of half-a-dozen new defense systems unveiled by Moscow in early 2018 as a means of restoring the global strategic nuclear balance amid NATO efforts to press up against Russia’s borders and create elements of a ground-based missile shield in Romania and Poland. The first Strategic Missile Forces regiment to be armed with the nuclear-capable Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle ha [...]

Earlier, Gen. (ret.) Ben Hodges, former commander of US Army Europe, suggested that Russia’s historical claims to Crimea were “false and unacceptable” because the peninsula became part of Russia only during the reign of Catherine the Great. Alexei Pushkov, an outspoken Russian senator known for his commentaries on foreign affairs, has responded to Gen. Hodges remarks about the status of the [...]

On September 27, 2018, Yale's Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Poynter Fellowship for Journalism hosted Vladimir Pozner, the acclaimed Russian-American journalist and broadcaster. Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin Vladimir Pozner at Ideas For Tomorrow Vladimir Pozner on Ukraine, Crimea, Putin and Journalism /* */ [...]

During the 19 December end-of-the-year press conference, President Vladimir Putin specifically underscored Moscow’s assertiveness in the face of the West’s ongoing sanctions pressure against Russia, saying that the country’s “economy has adapted to foreign shocks”. Summing up the results of Vladimir Putin’s presidency over the past twenty years, Bloomberg claimed that “one of the mos [...]

A first-of-its-kind combined naval exercise by Iran, China and Russia has wrapped up in the Gulf of Oman. The US has been watching closely, as it could be the beginning of a security coalition to counter American influence. The Iranian Navy had announced that the December 27-30 exercise, codenamed Marine Security Belt, was aimed at enhancing maritime security in the region, which has witnessed a s [...]

The Tu-22 strategic and maritime strike bomber is one of the mainstays of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ strategic bomber fleet, capable of fielding a broad range of standoff weapons including the Kinzhal, an air-launched, nuclear-capable hypersonic, maneuverable cruise missile unveiled by President Putin in a speech to lawmakers in 2018. [...]

The advanced Russian nuclear hypersonic glider entered combat service on Friday with the first regiment of Avangard-armed missiles now operational, the defense minister reported. Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, who reported the development to President Putin on Friday, said Avangard deployment was “a signatory event for the country and the armed forces.” [...]

On Friday, US President Donald Trump signed the FY2020 National Defence Authorisation Act into law, with its provisions including sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. A day later, the Treasury confirmed that the restrictions had snapped into place. [...]

Earlier US President Donald Trump enacted the $738 billion National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA), a military budget package for the coming year that includes sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on new US sanctions against the Nord Stream-2 and Turkish Stream pipelines, saying that the state, with its historically unpr [...]

Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot has formally canceled an order for 22 Boeing 787 Dreamliners valued at about $5.5 billion. This adds to the pressure on Boeing due to the grounding of 737 MAX jets after two recent crashes. The cancelation was not announced by either side but was buried in Boeing’s monthly order release. According to Reuters’ sources, the US plane maker faces the growing possi [...]