President Trump’s hasty decision to attack Syria may have lightened political pressure at home but Russia’s retaliation – suspending a key “deconfliction agreement” – left Secretary of State Tillerson as supplicant at the Kremlin, reports Gilbert Doctorow. The Russian media offered no complete account of what may have been accomplished during Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s [...]

Russia appears to have drawn a "red line" by suspending the air safety agreement, which Moscow and Washington reached in October 2015 to prevent aerial accidents in Syria's crowded skies, Director on geopolitical studies at the Brussels-based European Institute for International Relations (IERI) Pierre-Emmanuel Thomann told Sputnik. [...]

Moscow will continue to support Syrian Army troops in their anti-terrorism effort, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, after being asked whether Russian policy had changed following a reported chemical attack in the Idlib province.   [...]

Russians responded with relative calm to the lethal terror attack on St. Petersburg’s metro but stressed that the incident underscored the need for counter-terror cooperation despite other disagreements, writes Gilbert Doctorow. Russia’s reaction to Monday’s terror attacks on St. Petersburg’s subway system stands in stark contrast to what we have seen in public behavior in Paris, Berlin [...]

Russia's air defense systems have improved significantly over the past few years, Russian TV host Dmitry Kiselev said in his program on Russia's Rossiya 1 news network. n his program Vesti Nedeli (News of the Week), broadcast by Russia's Rossiya 1 news network, TV host Dmitry Kiselev specifically focused on Russia's air and missile defense systems, which he said have been bolstered considera [...]

The Russian military outlined the threats coming from a new missile defense system the United States is building across the world, explaining that Russia has to deliver an adequate response. Military expert Andrey Golovatyuk pointed out that Russia has reasons to be concerned. [...]

NATO is offering jobs to Russian-speaking actors ready to play civilians in the alliance’s military drills, according to a job advertisement on the official website for the city of Berlin. NATO is offering jobs to Russian-speaking actors ready to play civilians in the alliance’s military drills, according to a job advertisement on the official website for the city of Berlin. [...]

The ruble continues its seemingly unstoppable rally boosted by foreign investors seeking high yield returns. The currency has gained over 30 percent against the US dollar in just over a year. On Thursday, the ruble rose 0.4 percent versus the greenback and was trading at 56.35 at 7:35am GMT, and gained 0.6 percent to 60.60 against the euro.   [...]

The humanitarian plight of war-torn Mosul has “escalated to the limit,” with the Iraqi president comparing it to a “full-on catastrophe,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said. “It’s time to toll the alarm bells,” the official added.   [...]

Accusations that Russia interfered in last year's U.S. elections are "lies" used for "domestic American politics," Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. "We said on numerous occasions and I reiterate that we are confident … and know for sure that opinion polls in the United States show that very many people are … friendly towards the Russian Federation, and I'd like to tell these [...]

Analysts in the US have called on the government to invest more in the Arctic in order to rival Russia's economic development there, but such a comparison is misplaced, Heather Exner-Pirot, Managing Editor of the Arctic Yearbook, told Radio Sputnik. [...]

How does the latest US decision to impose sanctions against eight more Russian companies play into the Trump administration’s promise to improve relations with Moscow? RT spoke with experts. The restrictive measures were introduced against such companies as Russia’s main weapons exporter Rosobornexport and Aviaexport over their alleged violation of US non-proliferation law concerning Iran, [...]

Wheelchair-bound Russian singer Yulia Samoylova said she can’t comprehend what scared the Ukrainian authorities so much that they slapped her with a three-year ban. Samoylova said she still hopes to perform at Eurovision in Kiev. [...]

On Thursday, Crimea marked the anniversary of the 2014 referendum which saw the peninsula break off from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. In an exclusive interview for Sputnik, Natalya Poklonskaya, the lawmaker who bravely served as Crimea's prosecutor during the Crimean Spring, offered Kiev and Western officials some advice about Crimea's status. [...]

The cyber firm investigating allegations of a Moscow-sponsored attack on US Democratic Party servers has a history of linking "Russian hacking" with imaginary events. But just days ago, FBI Director James Comey heralded CrowdStrike as a "highly respected private company" before the Senate. [...]

The Pentagon is asking Congress for an extra $30 billion for 2017, mostly to address pressing readiness issues and the fight against Islamic State – yet Russia and President Trump’s budget proposal dominated the Senate appropriations hearing. [...]

The dream fueling the Russia frenzy is that it will eventually create a dark enough cloud of suspicion around Trump that Congress will find the will and the grounds to impeach him. More likely, the Russia allegations will not bring down Trump. Meanwhile, while Russia continues to dominate the front pages, Trump will continue waging war on immigrants, cutting funding for everything that’s not the [...]

According to Mexican Secretary of Agriculture Jose Calzada Rovirosa, Mexico plans to strengthen trade ties with Russia and the EU. Mexico plans to strengthen trade ties with Russia and the European Union against the backdrop of bilateral relation issues with the United States, Secretary of Agriculture Jose Calzada Rovirosa said on Tuesday. [...]

Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, calls within the EU for a so-called "two-speed Europe" are becoming more vocal. Sputnik Italy spoke with Italian economist Pasquale Lucio Scandizzo about who stands to benefit from such a model. [...]

As the European project seems to be finding itself in havoc, many countries from the former Eastern bloc have started to realize that they were too hasty in deciding to join the "European family," which was never a "fair game" and where they were "left to stagnate," thus they are now looking to Russia, according to political scientist Phil Butler. [...]

The Russian military has launched a large-scale exercise at the Opuk training range, in Crimea. The drills involved the Russian Airborne Forces, the Black Sea Fleet and the Aerospace Forces. Airborne Forces commander Col. Gen. Andrei Serdyukov told reporters that the drills involved over 2,500 airborne personnel and some 600 units of military hardware. [...]

Russia, unlike other countries in Europe, undertakes a great number of efforts toward the achievement of peace Syria amid the Middle Eastern country's military conflict, a member of the Serbian parliament, Bozidar Delic, said Tuesday. During the visit, the delegation observed the operation of the Russian center for reconciliation of opposing sides in Syria, and looked at the militants weap [...]