The Ukraine conflict has been 'west splained' enough. On Gravitas Plus, Palki Sharma tells you how Western arrogance & NATO's expansionism are also to blame, and how their actions precipitated the crisis in Ukraine. Russia – Ukraine conflict/crisis Explained | Everything in detail The Expansion of NATO Since 1949 The video shows the spread of NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Or [...]

Importers are puzzled by the switch, while the ruble surges against the dollar and euro. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday gave the country’s central bank and government one week to come up with a way to switch payments for Russian gas exports to the national currency, the ruble. The prospect raised many eyebrows among Russia’s gas buyers, who started to speculate how exactly this [...]

Russia will now accept payment for gas exports to "unfriendly countries" in rubles only, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the government on Wednesday. The president explained that Russia plans to abandon all “compromised” currencies in payment settlements. He added that illegitimate decisions by a number of Western countries to freeze Russia’s assets destroyed all confidence i [...]

Volodymyr Zelensky is the current President of Ukraine. He was elected in a landslide victory in 2019 on the promise of easing tensions with Russia and resolving the crisis in the breakaway republics in east Ukraine. He has made no attempt to keep his word on either issue. Instead, he has greatly exacerbated Ukraine’s internal crisis while relentlessly provoking Russia. Zelensky has had numerou [...]

Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine has spelled the end of an epoch in the state of global affairs after President Vladimir Putin launched the action last week. Its impact will be felt for years to come, but Moscow has positioned itself to “become an agent of cardinal change for the whole world.” The Russian Armed Forces’ operation in Ukraine marks the end of an era. [...]

Russia on 24 February launched a "special operation" in Donbass aimed at protecting Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), which were recognized as independent entities by Moscow on 21 February. The Western media called the operation "an invasion" they have long warned about. The "Russia invasion" narrative wasn't the West's "prophecy" but rather a cover-up for a new attempt to ret [...]

The US diplomat George Kennan, an astute observer of Soviet Russia under Stalin, offered his observations later in life on the question of NATO expansion. The tragedy of our times is that those views are being ignored. Winston Churchill once famously quipped that the “Americans will always do the right thing, but only after all other possibilities are exhausted.” That bit of dry British h [...]

In a recent press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance. “Their [NATO’s] main task is to contain the development of Russia,” Putin said. “Ukraine is simply a tool to achieve this [...]

Emmanuel Macron is no Talleyrand. Self-promoted as “Jupiterian”, he may have finally got down to earth for a proper realpolitik insight while ruminating one of the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs key bon mots: “A diplomat who says ‘yes’ means ‘maybe’, a diplomat who says ‘maybe’ means ‘no’, and a diplomat who says ‘no’ is no diplomat.” Mr. Macron went to Mo [...]

Victoria Nuland, the neoconservative warmonger appointed Undersecretary of State by the White House fool, announced Washington’s surrender when she called on China to use its influence with Russia to save Ukraine from invasion. She thus acknowledges what everyone had already concluded: the US and NATO lack the capability. Washington’s surrender followed the request of the Ukrainian presiden [...]

Russia has agreed to work closely with three Latin American nations, including on military matters. Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to develop partnerships in a range of areas, including stepping up military collaboration, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has announced. [...]

The world is realizing the price for American hegemony and vanity is criminally insane as the Ukraine debacle demonstrates amply. This is precisely what Washington fears most: cracks appearing in its presumed leadership of European allies. The U.S.-led pressure campaign against Russia over Ukraine has been dangerously stoked up to the hilt to the point where a catastrophic war in Europe could be [...]

“The main issue is our clear position on the unacceptability of further NATO expansion to the East and the deployment of highly-destructive weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Washington delivered a slap in the face to Moscow on Wednesday when U.S. ambassador John Sullivan provided a written response to Russia’s prop [...]

Opinion Article by John Linnemeier. According to a recent international Gallup poll, The U.S. overwhelmingly emerged as the greatest threat to world peace. With Pakistan, China, North Korea, Israel, and Iran (in that order) trailing distantly behind. Over 12 years into the so-called "Global War on Terror," the United States appears to be striking terror into the hearts of the rest of th [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Cuban counterpart President Miguel Diaz-Canel spoke by phone on Monday to discuss "issues of further coordination of the actions of the two countries in the international arena," according to a Kremlin statement. The talks came in an atmosphere of growing tensions between Russia and NATO over Ukraine. [...]

With tensions rising to fever pitches in Ukraine, and in the wake of Putin’s announced red lines regarding a mad frenzy for the absorption of Ukraine into NATO, Dr. Edward Lozansky, President of the American University in Moscow, arranged a roundtable discussion bringing together eight experts to provide their thoughts on the causes, trajectory, and solutions to the current geopolitical disorder [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has wound up his annual end-of-year press conference, having taken questions on the Kremlin’s policy positions at home and abroad, amid strained relations with the West, high rates of Covid-19 deaths and pressure on a range of domestic political issues. Talks with NATO Last week, Moscow issued a series of proposals to both Washington and NATO as part of a bid t [...]

President Vladimir Putin defined Russia's ideology as a "conservatism of optimists", while delivering his remarks at the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, titled 'Global Shake-Up in the 21st Century: The Individual, Values, and the State'. "For the coming period of global reconstruction, which may continue for quite some time and the final outcome of which is not known, moderate [...]

MOSCOW, Sept 27 (Reuters) - The Kremlin warned on Monday that any expansion of NATO military infrastructure in Ukraine would cross one of President Vladimir Putin's "red lines", and Belarus said it had agreed to take action with Moscow to counter growing NATO activity. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Moscow ally, accused the United States of setting up training centers in Ukrai [...]

Diplomatic sources told the Financial Times this week that French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were willing to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to a summit of European leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that the European Union had to create a "format for dialogue" with Russia and its President Vladimir Putin to settle differen [...]

Atomic warfare was top of the agenda as Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, met for crunch talks last week in Geneva, amid escalating hostilities and talk of a return to a ‘Cold War’ mentality. The first summit between the pair gives some room for cautious optimism. The atmosphere was respectful and calm, compared to how it might have been, and there seemed [...]

While Joe Biden has vowed to "press" Moscow on human rights issues in Geneva, he may be given a dose of his own medicine one day given Washington's record of human rights abuses both at home and abroad, according to economist and author Dr. Paul Craig Roberts. President Joe Biden has vowed to bring up human rights issues during an upcoming meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Put [...]