Hopes of a looming thaw in Russia-US relations seemed to be a prevailing mood among Russian officials following the phone conversation between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, with many seeing it as a significant shift from the Obama administration’s rhetoric and intransigence. [...]

In their first phone conversation that lasted nearly an hour, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the new US President Donald Trump have outlined their intent to cooperate on issues ranging from defeating Islamic State to mending bilateral economic ties. [...]

The MiG-35 multirole jetfighter fully meets the demands of modern-day aerial combat and will be a welcome addition to Russia’s fleet of light frontline fighters, the Russian Airspace Forces’ former deputy commander, Col. Gen. Nikolai Antoshkin told RIA. [...]

Russian constitutional proposals for Syria that were presented to the opposition at the Astana talks envisage that the president is elected for seven years and for no more than two consecutive terms, the document obtained by Sputnik, reads. [...]

Moscow's aerial operation in Deir ez-Zor will help to prevent militants from overrunning the Syrian Arab Army base and the key city in eastern Syria in the short term, but the operation will have an impact on other parts of the country, particularly the north, analysts told Sputnik. [...]

Regular readers of RT Editorial will know this column has provided evidence of how think tanks, which are increasingly indivisible from lobby groups, faithfully promote the specific agendas of their paymasters regardless of their stated high-minded missions. [...]

Russia’s Defense Ministry has said UK defense officials were putting on a show by escorting the Russian aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, while pointing at their own issues in the Royal Navy, such as the infamous Trident situation. [...]

Former Italian Prime Minister and European Commission ex-president Romano Prodi called on Europe to scrap immediately the anti-Russian sanctions, before US president Donald Trump does it first. [...]

Israel will not impose sanctions against Russia, even under US pressure, Israeli Ambassador to Moscow, Harry Koren said Tuesday. "There are no such plans… Israel is very sensitive to the issue of sanctions, because we are threatened every time with sanctions.   [...]

It seems so strange, twenty-seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to be living through a new Cold War with (as it happens, capitalist) Russia. The Russian president is attacked by the U.S. political class and media as they never attacked Soviet leaders; he is personally vilified as a corrupt, venal dictator, who arrests or assassinates political opponents and dissident journalists, and [...]

Powerful elites are using the credibility of the US Intelligence agencies to demonize Russia and prepare the country for war. This is the real meaning of the “Russia hacking” story which, as yet, has not produced any hard evidence of Russian complicity. [...]

The Russian Aerospace Forces have conducted airstrikes in Syria based on intelligence provided by the US-led coalition, the Russian Defense Ministry reported. The Pentagon later denied that cooperation took place.   [...]

Six Russian long-range Tu-22M3 bombers launched airstrikes on Daesh arms and ammunition depots in Syria's Deir ez-Zor, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.   [...]

“Trump or no Trump, Europe needs to build a defense system of its own,” the center-right presidential candidate, said in an interview with Le Monde. François Fillon wants to make Europe less dependent on the United States and favors the idea of a European-Russian conference to discuss new security provisions in Europe. [...]

Russia, Iran and Turkey have announced they will establish a trilateral mechanism to support the ceasefire in Syria. In a joint statement issued at the end of talks in Astana, they said the Syrian opposition should take part in Geneva peace talks on the issue. [...]

As Russian producers reap the rewards of import substitution, Austrian exporters are ruing the EU's decision to impose sanctions. Imposing sanctions against Russia was a mistake which has cost Europe as much as Russia, Vienna's former trade ambassador to Moscow Dietmar Fellner told Austria's Kurier newspaper. [...]

Assessing Barack Obama's legacy some US Twitter users labeled the outgoing politician "the worst president ever" and denounced his attempts to deepen the rift between the United States and Russia. The outgoing US President Barack Obama has taken a last-ditch effort to damage America's relations with Moscow by introducing anti-Russian sanctions over what the US mainstream media called "vote [...]

The prime minister promised "to move step by step towards signing of a peace treaty" with Russia. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will pay a visit to Russia without delay for further progress in the issue of a peace treaty, he said at the opening of the national parliament's plenary session on Friday. [...]

The breakdown of relations with Russia is a key foreign policy blunder committed by the Obama administration and it will go down in history as such, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said. In fact “US-Russia relations completely fell apart by the end of the second term of the Obama administration,” Medvedev said in a Facebook post. [...]

When former CIA Director Michael Morell suggested in his op-ed for The Cipher Brief that Edward Snowden should be presented as the “perfect inauguration gift” from Vladimir Putin to Donald Trump, Russians seemed offended by this tip. In fact, so much so, that Snowden’s asylum was extended for three more years two just after Morell made his argument. [...]

If NASA intends to continue sending astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) or the moon, the space agency has little choice but to rely on Roscosmos’ Soyuz spacecraft, at least until 2019. On Tuesday, NASA filed a "presolicitation" requesting that private firms reach out to NASA if they can transport astronauts to and from the orbital research platform. [...]

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is legally eligible to obtain Russian citizenship, his lawyer said, after it was announced that his asylum status had been extended for 3 more years. “Essentially, he now has every reason to apply for [Russian] citizenship in the future, in a while, as the law [states] that one needs to spend no less than 5 years on the territory of Russia [to be granted c [...]