Top ranking NATO officials are becoming concerned with technologically advanced Russian submarines operating in the North Atlantic. According to Vice Admiral Clive Johnstone, Commander of NATO's Maritime Command, his subordinates report "more activity from Russian submarines than we've seen since the days of the Cold War", HIS Jane’s points out. [...]

The US European Command published its revamped military doctrine which places emphasis on deterring the "Russian threat." According to military political analyst Andrei Koshkin, the US seeks to draw Europeans’ attention from the migrant crisis and make them obedient once more. [...]

European sanctions imposed against Russia have no logic or adequate reasons. As a result, the European Union itself is suffering from the current situation, British MP George Galloway said. According to Galloway, anti-Russian sanctions have negatively affected the EU. [...]

After Saudi-backed Syrian rebels balked at peace talks and the Russian-backed Syrian army cut off Turkish supply lines to jihadists and other Syrian rebels, the U.S. and its Mideast Sunni “allies” appear poised to invade Syria and force “regime change” even at the risk of fighting Russia, a gamble with nuclear war, writes Joe Lauria. [...]

Russia’s new-generation Su-35 fighter jets will be on round-the-clock duty at the Latakia base in Syria, ready to take off at a minute's notice to provide cover for aerial operations in the area, a spokesman for the Russian forces in Syria said.   [...]

Buildings are riddled with bullet holes, the sound of explosions can be heard day and night, and many residents have already packed up their belongings and fled. It sounds like war-torn Syria, but the actual location is a surprise: inside the supposedly secure borders of Turkey. [...]

Syrian government forces make major battlefield gains against foreign-backed opposition. Simultaneously negotiators representing the main opposition groups refuse to return to peace talks in Geneva until their demands are met. Among those conditions were that the Syrian Army cease bombardments, in effect cease operations, in and around areas it has just recaptured. [...]

Developments on the Turkish-Syrian border give serious grounds to suspect that Ankara is planning a military invasion in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. “We have serious grounds to suspect intensive preparations by Turkey for a military invasion on the territory of the sovereign state of Syria,” Major General Igor Konashenkov, Defense Ministry spokesman, told journalists. [...]

EU sanctions against Russia have made no political progress and brought negative effects to Austria’s economy, said Austrian Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner during a visit to Moscow. We have over a thousand companies doing business with Russia from Austria, and another 500 Austrian firms working in Russia. 40,000 employees are being affected,” said Mitterlehner. [...]

Is it just coincidence that shortly after Russia begins a successful bombing campaign against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) positions in Syria, US think-tanks suddenly called for American boots on the ground in the Arab Republic? The US military has some of the world’s most advanced surveillance technology, capable of identifying suspected terrorists and eliminating them with state-o [...]

Western media coverage does not accurately reflect what is happening on the Syrian battlefield, US journalist Mike Whitney wrote for the CounterPunch magazine: Damascus-led forces, assisted by Russian warplanes, have turned the tide of war and are on the way to flush Islamic radicals out of the country. Unlike America's military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq, this process will not be a pro [...]

Russia is preparing to conduct an official military inspection in Turkey, Sergei Ryzhkov, head of Russia’s National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, told the media. "From February 2 until February 5, a Russian team of inspectors intends to conduct an inspection of a designated area in Turkey – about 18,000 square kilometers in total – in order to promote mutual trust and security in accorda [...]

The UN-sponsored Syrian peace talks, which began on Friday in Geneva, will be boycotted by the main Syrian opposition group which has insisted that Russia stop bombing its positions while negotiations are conducted. To appreciate how ridiculous these demands are, one would have to imagine a similar scenario taking place in the United States. [...]

The United States put pressure on EU countries when it came to extending the anti-Russian sanctions, but as the situation in Europe deteriorates, the US prefers to watch from the sidelines, Austrian newspaper Kurier wrote. Washington strongly insisted on tougher measures against Moscow because it understood that the sanctions wouldn‘t affect it much, the article said. [...]

A case can be made that for Moscow it would be a tremendous waste of hard-earned foreign exchange to try to counter a rig against their currency they simply cannot beat, as the entire fiat financial power of the US is against them. Russia’s Central Bank by now should be all-out selling rubles for gold, and building Russia’s gold reserves. Well, it is happening, somewhat. [...]

As the West’s mainstream media portrays Russia as a crazy rogue state, Moscow’s thoughtful critiques of world affairs are ignored, not fitting the propaganda theme. Such was the case when Foreign Minister Lavrov explained why there would be no more “business as usual” with the West, as Gilbert Doctorow describes. On Jan. 26, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held an important year [...]

When there's a natural rapport between leaders, relationships are easy. In such an atmosphere, negotiating is a doddle. Of course, when the opposite is the case, the reverse often happens. Small disagreements can explode into furious arguments. [...]

Moscow has denied Turkey’s accusation that a Russian Su-34 bomber violated its airspace on Friday. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that Ankara couldn’t have determined which country the jet belonged to under the circumstances they described. He stressed that the airspace controlling radar stations that Turkey has can only determine the altitude, flight line, and speed of an aerial vehi [...]

Police said 11,000 people have gathered in the Moldovan capital on Sunday for anti-government protests, disputing organizers' estimates of 100,000 demonstrators. CHISINAU (Sputnik) – Supporters of center-right and left-wing parties took to the streets to voice opposition to the appointment of a new prime minister and to call for snap elections. [...]

Pretty much all that Americans – and much of the West – get to hear about Russian President Putin is heavy-handed propaganda often read over images of him riding shirtless on a horse. He’s either a bully or a buffoon. But editors of a popular German newspaper encountered a much more sophisticated figure, writes Gilbert Doctorow. I was hesitant to write about Vladimir Putin’s recent inte [...]

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the US and EU will bring Europe more problems than benefits, Bulgarian economist Nina Djulgerova told Radio Sputnik. The critics of the TTIP have long instated that US companies will make trade negotiations instrumental in their attempts to alter European economic laws. [...]

American business magnate and investor George Soros no longer views Russia as an enemy of the EU and is now openly calling on Brussels to cooperate with Moscow, German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) wrote. According to him, the European Union may soon collapse due [...]