Ukraine as a new nation has to create a useable past, Arch Getty, Professor of Russian and Soviet history at UCLA told RT's In the Now show. War criminals like Bandera, who killed a lot of civilians, are being praised by Kiev government now, he added. Mikhail Gorbachev said that snubbing the Victory parade is disrespect for the people who suffered enormous losses fighting Nazism. [...]

Vladimir Putin placed the onus on Petro Poroshenko's government to follow through on the Minsk agreements to resolve the Ukrainian conflict in comments made at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Moscow. “The success of the peace initiative depends on those who hold the reins of power.   [...]

Two Chinese missile frigates will enter the Russian Black Sea naval base of Novorossiysk for the first time in history. They will then conduct joint exercises with Russia in the Mediterranean. The Linyi and the Weifang will enter the port of Novorossiysk on May 8 to take part in Victory Day celebrations, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. [...]

Russia and China have signed a number of energy, trade and finance deals on Friday aimed at strengthening economic ties. The two countries have multiple mutual projects which "achieved a unity of views on a wide range of issues." Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have signed a decree on cooperation in tying the development of the Eurasian Economic Union with the "Si [...]

Part of China's rapidly developing space program consists of testing new anti-space technologies, even though the country publicly pledges not to militarize space, the Pentagon said in a report to Congress. “By the end of October 2014, China had launched 16 spacecraft, either domestically or via a commercial space launch provider. [...]

Russia and China suffered the worst casualties during World War II and thus have the greatest reasons to oppose attempts to rehabilitate Nazism and militarism, Russian President Vladimir Putin said after meeting China's President Xi Jinping. [...]

The Parade Relay is the latest in RT's series of special projects dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War, as its theater of WWII is known. RT will air a live broadcast of Victory Day parades from all around Russia as part of an extensive project to mark the occasion. [...]

A 72-year-old Dutch citizen has written a letter to Vladimir Putin asking for a Russian passport. He explained his intentions by saying he loves Russia, admires Peter the Great and is tired of anti-Russian propaganda in Europe. "When I served in the army of the Netherlands, I was brainwashed with the words ‘the Russians are coming!’” Gerhard Reyndsen wrote in a letter to Putin, as cited b [...]

Barack Obama's decision to play political games with the 70th anniversary of Victory Day was probably intended as a snub to Vladimir Putin. However, it's actually an outrageous insult to the Russian people. I remember my first Russian May 9th very well. For the simple reason that following a rather raucous Saturday night, I plain forgot about it. [...]

The Turkish Stream pipeline will become operational in December 2016, said head of Gazprom Aleksey Miller. "An agreement [between Russia and Turkey] has been reached on operational commissioning and the start of gas deliveries via Turkish Stream in December 2016,” said Miller, according to a statement released by Gazprom. [...]

Mikhail Gorbachev has said that western government officials who refused to attend the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow were showing disrespect to nations that had defeated Nazism and to all the people who perished in this fight. Ignoring the opportunity to demonstrate one’s attitude towards the war against Nazism is also disrespectful to the boundless courage shown by all people who fought [...]

As little as 13 percent of Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2, a recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK reveals. The majority of respondents – 43 percent – said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe. The survey, carried out from March 20 to April 9, 2015, was conducted by the Brit [...]

Today marks 15 years since Russian President Vladimir Putin's first inauguration. RT looks back at his years as president and all the important benchmarks on the way. After former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin resigned back on December 31, 1999, his Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took over the reins, inheriting a country in a dire economic situation and struggling with lawlessness. [...]

Moscow may team up with Beijing to create a scientific station on the Moon. The challenge for Russia is to build its own space station by 2024 to achieve its lunar exploration goals. According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who supervises defense-related policies, the question on "bringing China in as the main partner in creating a lunar scientific station," is currently being [...]

Russian President Putin did not agree to a possible deployment of peacekeepers in eastern Ukraine, his spokesman said in response to Kiev's claims to the contrary. Moscow insists that all points of the Minsk agreement are fulfilled first. The peacekeeper initiative was discussed on Thursday in a phone conversation between the so-called Normandy Four - the leaders of France, Germany Russia and U [...]

Russia is to renew production of the Tu-160 "Blackjack" supersonic strategic bomber and missile carrier, according to defense minister, Sergey Shoigu. “Today it is already necessary to solve the task of not only maintaining and modernizing long-range aviation, we must also produce the Tu-160 missile carrier,” Shoigu said during a visit to the Kazan Aviation Plant, as cited by Sputnik news a [...]

The Russian and Chinese Navies are to hold a joint exercise in the Mediterranean Sea in mid-May, a first in that part of the world. A total of nine warships from the two countries are to participate, Beijing said. "The aim is to deepen both countries' friendly and practical cooperation, and increase our navies' ability to jointly deal with maritime security threats," [...]

Vladimir Putin has written a column (something he very rarely does), recalling the stories of his parents who survived the hardships of the Leningrad blockade, his dead brother and World War II with very personal details. ‘My dad was breathing via a reed in a swamp while the Nazis passed by, just a few steps away’ [...]

Russia is not considering completely lifting the food embargo on products from the West, says Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. "We do not consider lifting the embargo currently in the broadest sense of the word, there are some special orders about individual products or countries,” said Dvorkovich. “These issues are being considered, but no final position has been formed so far." [...]

China intends to ramp up trade with Russia to $100 billion in 2015, the Chinese Ambassador to Russia Li Hui has said. The $4.7 billion increase from last year cements the countries commitment to boosting cooperation in finance and energy. "We intend to increase bilateral trade to $100 billion this year,” Hui said at a news conference in Moscow Wednesday, as quoted by TASS. [...]

Russia's upper house of Parliament, the Federation Council, has ratified the plan to deliver 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China. The deliveries are slated to begin as early as 2018. The bill hashes through the detail of exactly how the nearly 4,000 kilometer long pipeline will be built and operated. [...]

The chairman of the Russian Lower House, Sergey Naryshkin, has backed the idea of a future merger between the Russian Federation and the European Union, and suggested immediately starting consultations on the matter. Naryshkin expressed his position in a column published in the Tuesday issue of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. [...]