The Russian capital’s air and missile defence system is one of the most sophisticated in the world, and includes a dense layer of anti-aircraft missile launchers, interceptor systems, and a unique tetrahedral truncated pyramid radio-radar station so powerful it can detect space debris. In the event of an enemy attack, Moscow’s air defences would intercept and destroy enemy missile tar [...]

Vladimir Putin has confided that US President Donald Trump privately lamented the "insane" US military budget. He also says Russia protects itself by making the costs of attacking the country too high for anyone to contemplate. The US has outstripped us” in terms of annual defense expenditure, the Russian president said in a new episode of news agency TASS's ‘20 Questions to Vladimir Putin� [...]

The “Russian collusion” trope didn’t just spring to life with US President Donald Trump in 2016 – accusations of taking help from the evil Russkies have dogged candidates who buck the establishment since the 1960s. Trump may be the best-known candidate to attract allegations of being ‘Putin’s puppet,’ but he is by no means the first. [...]

Russia more than doubled crude oil supplies to the United States and Britain in 2019, data from the Federal Customs Service (FCS) has revealed. A fall in prices for the Russian Urals oil, combined with US sanctions against Venezuela and Iran, were among the reasons for such an increase in purchases. [...]

As part of a WWII document trove declassified ahead of the 75th anniversary of the Yalta summit, never before seen photographs show US and British leaders and officers arriving in Crimea and touring Sevastopol with Soviet hosts. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt traveled to Crimea in February 1945, to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the B [...]

Russia will not introduce politically correct terminology such as “parent #1” and “parent #2” any time soon, Putin told a constitutional reform working group on Thursday, as they discussed family values in Russia. As for ‘parent #1’ and ‘parent #2’, I have already publicly said it and I will repeat it once more: as long as I am president, we will not have parents #1 and #2, it will [...]

TOKYO (Sputnik) – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday that he wanted to solve the dispute with Russia around the Southern Kuril Islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, boost friendly relations between Moscow and Tokyo as well as sign a peace treaty between the two nations. [...]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hit back at threats from Washington over Moscow’s support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, insisting Caracas and its neighbors deserve the option not to be US vassal states. “I have heard the threats from Washington about punishing all those who work with Venezuela,” Lavrov confirmed during a press conference in Mexico City on Thursday. “But [...]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo won’t be winning Ukraine’s ‘friend of the year’ award. A week after he told an NPR reporter that Americans don’t care about the country, he allegedly told a Kiev audience to forget about Crimea. That’s according to Novoye Vremya (NV), an influential Ukrainian news outlet, which quotes Pompeo as saying: “Crimea is lost [for Ukraine]. World leaders und [...]

Moscow doubts the viability of the new peace plan for the Middle East recently unveiled by Donald Trump, as it is incompatible with UN decisions on the matter and does not sit well with the Arab world. Among other things, it cements Israel's sovereignty over the occupied West Bank; the Jewish state would also annex vast swathes of fertile Palestinian lands. Whereas the plan calls for establishing [...]

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal quoted Karim Elaiwi, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defence Committee, as saying that Baghdad was considering purchasing Russian S-400 systems amid concerns that the US may stop supporting the country. According to Joey Hood, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, Iraq’s possible acquisition of S-4 [...]

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 [...]