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 [...]

The Russian peninsula of Crimea is a true jewel of the Black Sea, and has plenty of magnificent sights to offer even the most discerning of travelers. Palaces, mountains and ancient ruins – which sight appeals to you the most? [...]

The Crimeans "really wanted to return to Russia," head of the Republic of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov told Sputnik, reflecting on events which led the Black Sea peninsula to hold a referendum on its status within Ukraine. Crimea's parliament and the local government of Sevastopol held the plebiscite following the foreign-sponsored coup which ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in Februar [...]

A delegation of mostly European and Ukrainian politicians has arrived in Crimea for a three-day visit, Ruslan Balbek, a Russian lawmaker representing Crimea, told Sputnik on Sunday. The delegation consists of about 20 people and includes members of the European Parliament, politicians from EU member states, CIS countries and Latin America. [...]

Three years after Crimea's accession to the Russian Federation, which was marked with festivities in Russia on Saturday, Ukraine's Foreign Minister tweeted that freedom was "taken away" from the peninsular and vowed to return it. Of course, Russian politicians didn't take this lying down. [...]

Vladimir Putin would take the same steps concerning Crimea now, according to the Kremlin spokesman. Russian President Vladimir Putin is keeping the situation around Crimea under personal control and would not change his decisions even if there was such an opportunity, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday. [...]

The obsessive condemnation of still unconfirmed Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election is a classic case of “do as I say, not as I do,” where the US politicians and media seem to have developed both long and short-term memory loss when it comes to American meddling in foreign elections. [...]

Maria Zakharova, Russia's Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, has stated on a national TV show that Obama will go down in history as one of the most evil Presidents and Administrations. We can only agree, that something along the lines of the Nuremburg trials for the Neocons would be most appropriate.  Russia: Obama was most evil President Russian FM spokesperson in tears: Russians do not wa [...]

Any third-rate politician who fails anywhere to explain away his failures now has a very convenient scapegoat, says George Szamuely, from the Global Policy Institute at London Metropolitan University. The UK has no evidence Moscow is trying to undermine the democratic process in Britain, according to the UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. [...]

Referring to ongoing peace talks on Syria co-sponsored by Russia, President Vladimir Putin said the negotiations marked the beginning of “rebuilding” this war-torn country, as well as other conflict zones in the Middle East region. Already several rounds of talks have been held in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana between the Syrian government and opponents, under the auspices of Russia an [...]

About 150 thousand people returned to Russia from foreign countries in 2016, the interior ministry said. State support for repatriates and the anti-Russia campaign in Western countries were the top reasons given. According to the report, quoted by Izvestia daily, the total number of people who returned to Russia from foreign nations in 2016 was 146,585. Most of them returned from former Soviet [...]

Over the past few years millions of people have been forced to leave Syria, a country still gripped by war. Thousands of Russian-speaking women were living in Syria with their husbands and hundreds of them stayed behind when the conflict erupted. Sputnik correspondent Mikhail Alaeddin met with one such family residing in Damascus. The sunny and cozy apartment in Damascus where a woman named Ev [...]

I sometimes wonder what Путин must make of the Western media obsession with him. Do his ears burn each day with all the new articles, broadcasts, social media mentions – the myriad voices, guided by the Western political and media establishments, speculating, characterizing, creating – “Putin”? [...]

The world's first man in space Yuri Gagarin was born 83 years ago, on March 9, 1934. Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first man in outer space when the Vostok-1 spacecraft with the Soviet cosmonaut on board was launched from the Baikonur space center on April 12, 1961, at 6:07 AM local time, marking a new era in human history.  Yuri Gagarin's Birthday First woman in space Valentina [...]

Nearly 150,000 Russian nationals returned to live in Russia in 2016, according to statistics obtained by the Izvestia newspaper from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the agency charged with monitoring migration trends. About 30,000 of them came from EU countries, marking a rising trend. [...]

Berlin is not accusing Russia of interfering in the electoral process in Germany and the creation of fake news, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has told a press conference in Moscow. When asked by a reporter to comment on German media allegations that Moscow was behind the creation of fake news and alleged interference in the country’s electoral process, Gabriel said the government wou [...]

German Minister for Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel, who is in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, says that Germany fears a new arms race in Europe. “We are concerned that a new spiral of the arms race may emerge in Europe,” he said, as cited by TASS. “It’s too early to say how and in what direction we could advance to prevent this.” [...]

Russia has delivered over 6 tonnes of humanitarian aid to residents of the Syrian city of Aleppo and Damascus province. Russian servicemen have delivered over 6 tonnes (metric tons) of humanitarian aid to residents of the Syrian city of Aleppo and Damascus province, the Russian center for Syrian reconciliation informs in its daily bulletin. [...]