In case US President Donald Trump doesn’t back down on his decision to impose stiff tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, European Union (EU) is set to implement retaliatory restrictions, including a 25 percent tariff on US jeans. Last week Trump announced the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on EU exports of steel and 10 percent on aluminum, adding that similar restrictions would be placed on [...]

Russia's Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet is specifically designed for air superiority and attack roles. Two such planes were reportedly spotted in the skies above Syria earlier this week. Two more Russian fifth generation Su-57 stealth fighters have arrived at Syria's Hmeymim Airbase, Sputnik Arabic reported, referring to local media outlets. [...]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia's latest missiles and other new types of weaponry are unmatched anywhere in the world and capable of nullifying the effectiveness of the United States’ global missile defense, which Washington has started deploying since its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty back in 2002, experts told Sputnik. [...]

Work requirements, time limits, and drug testing could significantly shrink America’s largest health insurer. A dozen states are applying for or entertaining work requirements and other restrictions on Medicaid — putting the lifeline for millions of poor Americans at risk. [...]

"I don’t know anybody who thinks that trade wars are something you win." Historically, the United States has focused on staying out of trade wars. Not so under President Donald Trump, who last week announced plans to slap sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and asserted that trade wars are good and easy to win. [...]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) congratulated Italy’s Lega party on achieving great results in the election, expressing hope that both parties would succeed in closing the Brenner Pass on the Italian-Austrian border, a migrant route in the eastern Alps, Roman Haider, the FPO’s foreign policy spokesman, told Sputnik on Monday. [...]

On Monday, the UN Human Rights Council voted in favor of adopting the UK-proposed draft resolution, rejecting Russia's amendments. The Russian delegation regards the refusal to take its proposal into account as a public announcement for the support of terrorists. The United Kingdom and the United States de facto confirmed their support of terrorists in Syria by rejecting Russian amendments for the [...]

Commenting on President Putin recently touting advanced Russian weapons and lawmaker Alexander Sherin signaling Moscow's readiness to stand up for its partners, including Ankara, Turkish military expert Beyazit Karatas told Sputnik that these statements indicate that Ankara does not need NATO's deterrence systems. [...]

Last week President Putin said, during his annual address to the Federal Assembly, that Russia has developed an invincible new cruise missile and warned that any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies will be viewed as a nuclear attack and would trigger an immediate response from Moscow. [...]

Renowned Serbian military expert and columnist for the Serbian newspaper Politika Miroslav Lazanski spoke to to Sputnik Serbia about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address yesterday. Lazanski said that, instead of engaging in a new arms race, Putin is living up to his promise to provide an asymmetrical response to NATO's growing presence in Eastern Europe and Asia. [...]

In one short, simple sentence written some years ago, US scholar and Russia expert Stephen F Cohen got to the heart of the matter: “The Cold War ended in Moscow, but not in Washington.” This indispensable context is how the section of Russian President Vladimir Putin's March 1, 2018, address to the Russian Federal Assembly, dealing with foreign policy and security, has to be understood. [...]

Last week, US President Donald Trump had threatened to impose a tax on European cars and to introduce 25 percent import tariffs on steel and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum. "It is important in this context that the European Union reacts swiftly and proportionately within the WTO and in respect to the WTO," French President Emmanuel Macron told journalists. [...]

The Russian Defense Ministry has responded to the US accusations that Russia allegedly violates the UN Security Council resolution on the ceasefire in Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. False US claims on "hospital bombing" in Ghouta came after Syrian troops repelled pro-US groups, the Russian Defense Ministry said. [...]

The head of the Pentagon's F-35 office has confirmed that some 49% of the 280 planes delivered to the military by Lockheed Martin are suffering from a series of hardware and software problems. Vice Admiral Matt Winter, director of the F-35 Joint Program Office, has confirmed that just 51% the US new 5th-gen fighter aircraft are flight ready, with the initial production lots delivered starting in [...]

If Western sanctions go as far as excluding Russia from the world wide web, the country's own internet is ready, according to the Russian presidential aide on the internet, German Klimenko. "Technically, we are ready for anything now,” he told NTV news channel. However, the shutdown will not be painless, Klimenko added. [...]

Europe should be rebuilt around people, not bureaucracy, said Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Euroskeptic Lega Nord party, after the group made considerable gains in the country’s general election. Salvini’s party won over 18 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, according to preliminary results. [...]

German car maker Porsche continues to impress and is mulling a new way to create a vehicle which would be able to easily navigate around any potential gridlock on city highways. In an interview with the German magazine Automobilwoche, Porsche sales chief Detlev von Platen said that it did not rule out the creation of a flying passenger vehicle by Volkswagen's sports car maker. [...]

While Washington ostensibly supports the peaceful resolution of the Ukraine-Donbass conflict, new revelations - if true - do not add to these claims and on the contrary seem to be in sync with the approval of US weapons to Kiev. The Swiss newspaper Le Temps has reported about scores of US and Canadian instructors training Ukrainian servicemen at the former Soviet firing range Yavorov in wester [...]

Israel's resumed efforts to crack down on Iran could be fueled by Benjamin Netanyahu's looming bribery investigation, geopolitical analyst Gilbert Mercier told Sputnik. As tensions are escalating between Ankara and Damascus over Afrin, Mercier suggested that it would be a strategic mistake on the part of President Bashar Assad to protect the Kurds. [...]

Gevorg Mirzayan, a foreign policy and politics expert, detailed why many in the United States will have difficulty understanding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s true message.  The world's media keeps discussing Vladimir Putin's recent address to the Federal Assembly, in which the head of the state presented a number of new Russian weapons. [...]

Major General Qassem Soleimani, senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, has provided the country's Foreign Ministry with documents proving US collaboration with Daesh beyond a shadow of a doubt, Iranian media has reported. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, special advisor on international affairs to Iran's speaker of parliament, said he had a meeting with Soleimani and received t [...]

The newest Russian missile, “Avangard,” which can travel at speeds up to Mach 20, makes US defenses totally useless because US counter-missiles can only travel at Mach 5, says one military expert. According to Alexey Leonkov, a former employee of the 30 Central Research Institute of Russia's Aerospace Force, the newest hypersonic missile that Russian President Vladimir Putin presented today ma [...]