In the post-Cold War era, US leadership has treated Russia as a "third-rate power," whose opinion on and concerns over Washington's key foreign policy initiatives in Europe were consistently disregarded as insignificant and manageable, former US Defense Secretary William James Perry told the Guardian. [...]

The European Union on Thursday announced it is extending by six months restrictive measures against 146 Russian and Ukrainian individuals and 37 companies. Three dead people have been removed from the list, according to a press release. The asset freeze and travel ban has also been prolonged [...]

The West’s lack of response to recent attacks on Russian diplomatic missions in Ukraine, particularly the embassy in Kiev, is a sign of “hypocrisy and duplicity,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Amid a spate of attacks, Moscow is monitoring the situation around its embassy in Kiev and frequently communicates with the Russian ambassador and his staff [...]

Five trainable dolphins are sought by the Russian military to carry out special tasks for the country’s navy in the Black Sea, the government revealed on Wednesday. The Russian defense ministry placed a 1.75 million ruble ($24,000) contract on the government procurement website to acquire military sea mammals for the country’s navy. [...]

Consistent disregard of Russia’s interests by the US, as well as Washington’s dismissive attitude towards Moscow in the post-Cold War era, have led to strained relations between the two, former US Defense Secretary William Perry told the Guardian. [...]

The assembly of Russia’s Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket carrying an advanced Resurs-P Earth remote sensing satellite has been completed, Russian Roscosmos state corporation said in a statement on Wednesday. The rocket is expected to lift off on Saturday at 18:56 GMT. [...]

In accordance with the Syrian ceasefire, Russian aviation has virtually halted its air operations out of Hmeymim airbase, Canadian journalist Raymond Saint-Pierre reports. However, the Russian military mission remains active, delivering humanitarian aid, carrying out negotiations with village leaders, and urging Syrians not to leave their homeland. [...]

Imposing sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin is an "absurd" idea, Czech lawmaker Jiri Mastalka said. According to him, the initiative will bury the fragile peaceful process in Ukraine and Syria. "Imposing sanctions against a head of state would mean a deadlock in dialogue with Russia. [...]

Orbital Sciences Corporation, the US maker of the Antares rocket, has ordered eight additional RD-181 engines under an option of the 2014 contract with Energomash, the Russian company announced. Antares was initially designed to use AJ26 engines in its first stage, which are refurbished Soviet NK-33 engines [...]

The Washington and Moscow-sponsored truce in Syria may be the last chance for the country to stop the bloodshed, opposition groups said in a joint statement after a meeting at the Russian center for Syrian reconciliation. The leaders of several Syrian opposition groups as well as public and religious figures voiced support for the ongoing peace conference in Geneva [...]

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has accused the US State Department of attempting to influence a Russian court’s decision in the case of Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko. Zakharova questioned the authenticity of the statement attributed to US Secretary of State [...]

Russia has all the chances to emerge “as the de facto leader of the major oil producing nations of the world, accounting for almost 73 percent of the global oil supply”; and in fact has already taken some of the required to do so, according to US-based oil expert Rakesh Upadhyay. “Russia has played a master stroke in the current oil crisis by taking the lead in forming a new cartel, but i [...]

Russian military facilities are offering assistance to humanitarian organizations offering aid to people in Syria, saying their facilities and logistics specialists may be able to resolve the problems they face. The offer was made on Monday when the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that the internationally sponsored truce between rebel groups and the Syrian government in Syria is mostly holdi [...]

A recent survey carried out in the United States and European countries shows that an overwhelming majority of US citizens do not believe that Europe is is playing an important role in the fight against Daesh terror group. /* */ [...]

Early suspension of US reliance on the Russian RD-180 rocket engines to deliver heavy payloads into space will cost US taxpayers as much as $5 billion, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. In 2014, the US Congress passed a law demanding [...]

The so-called Bellingcat investigative journalist group’s publications on MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine distort objective facts and should not be taken seriously, the Russian Defense Ministry’s press service said Monday. [...]

As the world's media attention is currently fixed on the conflict in Syria, and to a lesser extent Ukraine, there has been an ongoing economic conflict occurring against Russia. Economic sanctions against Russia have turned out to be a double edged sword, hurting European exporters and manufacturers as much as Russian importers and consumers. [...]

The Russian task force in Syria has demonstrated remarkable efficiency and professionalism, according to a German magazine citing confidential NATO analysis. The limited Russian contingent operating in Syria is outperforming the more widespread groupings of the US-led anti-Islamic State coalition, according to Germany’s FOCUS media outlet who came by the classified NATO document, which was pr [...]

The US-Chinese standoff in the South China Sea is heating up, with Washington dispatching a small armada to the area following reports that Beijing had reinforced a key island with fighters and air defenses. Much has been said and written about the dispute, with Russian analysts left pondering: if push comes to shove, what will Russia's role be? [...]

Certain people in America’s defense establishment believe that only governments that do Washington's bidding are “truly legitimate.” Others have ideological reasons to stir up tensions with Russia. This fuels discord and creates an unstable world. Imagine if a major Russian media outlet carried an article with the headline, “How We Can Defeat Obama.” [...]

According to latest research conducted by Russian state-owned agency VTSIOM the share of Russians who express willingness to vote for Putin in the nearest presidential polls is the largest in four years. “Seventy-four percent of Russian citizens say that they are ready to vote for Vladimir Putin at the nearest presidential elections, due in the beginning of 2018. [...]

The response of Western governments and of the Western media to the Russian air operation in Syria was unanimous. All of them condemned it and all of them said it would fail. In the US there was much gloating talk — joined in by President Obama himself — about how the Russians had landed themselves in a quagmire. [...]