ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Ergodan reaffirmed on Monday Ankara’s determination to purchase Russian S-400 Triumf air defense systems despite the new US sanctions against Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport. [...]

The Russian Foreign Ministry has commented on the mass protests of Palestinians on the Israeli-Gaza border called the Great March of Return that has lead to more than 1,000 being injured. Russia considers that the indiscriminate use of force against the civilian population on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip to be unacceptable and calls upon Palestinians and Israelis to refrain from st [...]

Relatives of the Skripals are worried that Sergei and Yulia are being held in Britain against their will, and the daughter is not allowed to express her real feelings even in a telephone conversation with her cousin. The former intelligence agent’s cousin, 65-year-old Natalia Pestova, who lives in Siberia, has spoken out amid reports that the father and daughter could be granted political asylum [...]

Two Israeli F-15 fighters targeted Syria’s T-4 airbase in Homs province, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday. The jets fired eight guided missiles, but five of them were shot down before they hit the airfield. In a statement on Monday, the Russian military said: “Two Israeli Air Force F-15 jets fired eight guided missiles at the T-4 airfield.” [...]

Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak said the country is considering an option of payments for oil in national currencies, in particular with Turkey and Iran. According to him, both countries are interested but there is also a matter of conversion of currencies and their further use. [...]

It would be illogical for the Syrian government, which previously seems to have acted strategically, to suddenly launch a chemical attack on Douma amid its successful recapturing of territory, experts told RT. [...]

The UK government is busy covering up traces in the case of the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, the Russian Embassy in London said Sunday. On its official Twitter account the embassy commented on a recent report in The Sunday Times that the father and daughter may move to the US under new identities. [...]

Nikki Haley has erupted in another fiery Russophobic rant, warning that Russia will “never be America’s friend.” Moscow can try to behave “like a regular country,” but the US will “slap them when we need to,” Haley said. [...]

Sergei Skripal’s niece has written a letter to Theresa May after the UK abruptly denied her an entry visa to visit relatives, who are recovering from alleged poisoning by a military grade nerve agent, Victoria Skripal told Ruptly. Shocked by the British authorities’ refusal to grant her a visa to visit relatives recovering from the March 4 attack in Salisbury, Viktoria Skripal told RT’s Rupt [...]

With secrecy surrounding the condition of poisoned double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Russian bloggers noticed that somebody logged in to Yulia Skripal's social media page when she was reportedly in critical condition. [...]

Moscow and Beijing will team up to create an integrated navigation system based on Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) and the Chinese BeiDou. The satellite system will cover most of Eurasia. The countries will reportedly negotiate the merger in May at the International Conference on Advanced Technologies in Manufacturing and Materials Engineering in the Chinese city of Harbin, [...]

Russia’s Embassy in London has sent a list of 14 questions to the UK Foreign Ministry, demanding that it reveals details of the investigation into the nerve-agent poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The questions, provided in full below, include a demand to clarify whether samples of the nerve agent А-234 (also known as “Novichok”) have ever been developed in [...]

Although German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas positively assessed the decision of European countries to expel Russian diplomats, he still expressed hope that Moscow and Berlin will remain partners. The expulsion of Russian diplomats from Germany should be taken merely as a sign of solidarity with the UK and other EU member states, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said. [...]

Russia has completed the development of small-caliber ammunition for its fifth generation fighter Su-57 (PAK FA). Russia’s fifth generation Su-57 fighter jets will be armed with the newly-designed Drel air bomb, the deputy head of the Techmash Concern, Alexander Kochkin said. [...]

The Russian Embassy has warned of the growing anti-Russian sentiments in Britain in the wake of the increasing tensions surrounding the Skripal case. The Russian Embassy has called on its citizens to reconsider their plans of traveling to the UK as well as sending their children to study English in the UK. [...]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - UK Home Office explanations aggravate doubts about real reasons behind the search on board the Russian passenger aircraft in London, the Russian embassy in the United Kingdom said in a Saturday statement. "This is a clear attempt by the Minister to divert attention from the provocative actions by British law enforcement officers who have tried to search the aircraft without [...]

Vienna refused to expel Russian diplomats not because it feared reprisal, but because it stands for open dialogue, Austria’s foreign minister said, decrying the UK’s attempts to lure the country into taking “certain measures.” Austria refrained from expelling Russian diplomats earlier this week, in contrast to its EU neighbors, who chose to rely on the UK’s assertion that Russia was behi [...]

On Monday, a number of European countries, as well as the United States and Canada, announced they were expelling Russian diplomats over the Skripal case. Radio Sputnik discussed the significance of the diplomatic response by the Western powers with Srdja Trifkovic, a US journalist and writer on international affairs. [...]

Germany has issued a permit for the construction and operation of an offshore section of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Germany in the Baltic Sea. “The BSH [Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany] issued the permit for this approximately 30-kilometres-long route section in accordance with the Federal Mining Act,” the company in charge of the pr [...]

Russia's Kalashnikov Concern, which is known throughout the world for its production of reliable AK assault rifles, has reportedly decided to foray into fresh fields. The Russian defense manufacturing concern Kalashnikov has agreed with State Corporation Rostec to acquire 60 percent of the shares of the Molniya research and production association, which developed the first-ever Soviet space [...]

This week, in an article published on the UK government's official website addressed to European media, Johnson wrote about the upcoming fourth anniversary of what he referred to as "the events which led to the illegal annexation of Crimea." Responding to British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's recent article about Moscow's "seizure" of Crimea from Ukraine, the Russian Embassy in London h [...]

Nearly two dozen countries have joined the UK in expelling Russian diplomats over the poisoning of ex--spy Sergei Skripal in southern England. Speaking to Sputnik, Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity, shared his thoughts on the broader implications of the case, and what Russia's approach should be. [...]