In the Soviet Union’s declining years, there was a half-deferential, half-derisive moniker for the feeble leaders in their 70s who preceded Gorbachev: the ‘Kremlin elders’. Thirty-something years later, the United States looks set to elect its own septuagenarian to run the White House. [...]

The “Russian collusion” trope didn’t just spring to life with US President Donald Trump in 2016 – accusations of taking help from the evil Russkies have dogged candidates who buck the establishment since the 1960s. Trump may be the best-known candidate to attract allegations of being ‘Putin’s puppet,’ but he is by no means the first. [...]

Russia more than doubled crude oil supplies to the United States and Britain in 2019, data from the Federal Customs Service (FCS) has revealed. A fall in prices for the Russian Urals oil, combined with US sanctions against Venezuela and Iran, were among the reasons for such an increase in purchases. [...]

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is “terminating” the Visiting Forces Agreement, which provides legal immunity to US military drills, in retaliation for the US canceling the visa of a political ally and fellow drug-warrior. “The president said he is terminating the VFA,” Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told ABS-CBN News on Friday. “I asked for clarification and he said he is not [...]

The head of the Pentagon’s testing and evaluation department sharply criticized the F-35 program’s schedule for incremental software updates on the high-tech aircraft, calling it “high risk” as the program falls further and further behind schedule. Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft is basically a giant, flying computer, and its greatest asset, according to Air Force st [...]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hit back at threats from Washington over Moscow’s support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, insisting Caracas and its neighbors deserve the option not to be US vassal states. “I have heard the threats from Washington about punishing all those who work with Venezuela,” Lavrov confirmed during a press conference in Mexico City on Thursday. “But [...]

Oliver Stone’s films have won 12 Academy Awards including two for Best Director, as well as a bunch of Golden Globes and BAFTAs. His new focus is documentaries – on Venezuela, Ukraine, and Edward Snowden – all reflecting on the dubious activities of the US government both at home and abroad. Oliver Stone, the award-winning American director and a relentless critic of US administrations, has [...]

President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Mahmoud Abbas announced on Saturday that all ties between the PNA and Israel, as well as the United States, would be cut following Donald Trump’s unveiling of his long-advertised peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which many saw as being strongly biased towards the Jewish state. [...]

The area where the alleged UFO was spotted nearly five decades ago was apparently used by the USSR to test experimental missiles and laser weapon systems. A recently declassified CIA report sheds light on an alleged UFO encounter that took place at the height of Cold War in Kazakhstan in 1973, back when it was part of the Soviet Union. [...]

The embattled USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), flagship of the new Ford class of carriers which the US Navy plans to eventually replace its Enterprise- and Nimitz-class warships with, is currently years behind schedule, and facing a slew of issues which US lawmakers have complained seem to have no “end in sight.” A new report by the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT& [...]

A spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has accused the US of covering up deaths at a base in Iraq after a ballistic missile attack. The US insists nobody was killed, and that its troops suffered brain injuries. [...]

The long list of problems plaguing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter continues to grow, with a Pentagon review finding over 800 software flaws in the costly aircraft, as well as defects that prevent its guns from hitting targets. The annual assessment by the Pentagon’s director of operational testing and evaluation, Robert Behler, revealed that the program that has cost over $400 billion so far has [...]

Islamic State terrorists rejoiced at the death of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at the hands of his American ‘allies,’ according to a weekly newspaper affiliated with the group that once controlled much of Syria and Iraq. Soleimani was killed by a US drone strike on January 3, as he was being driven, with others, near Baghdad international airport. [...]

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Thirty-four US service members have been diagnosed with concussions and traumatic brain injuries after Iran conducted ballistic missile strikes on two bases in Iraq with half of them still undergoing medical treatment, Department of Defence spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a press briefing on 24 January. "With regard to the number of recent injuries here is the latest upda [...]

The Russian nuclear-capable hypersonic missile was first revealed to the public by the country's President Vladimir Putin in March 2018 and has since undergone numerous tests with the Russian Air Force – which have only confirmed its operational capabilities. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended war games between the Russian Northern and Black Sea fleets on 9 January and had a chance to see [...]

The gloves came off this week in the United States as Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced she would sue Hillary Clinton for suggesting she was a 'Russian asset.' Clinton’s conspiracy theory that Gabbard was in the employ of the Russians went something like this: somewhere deep behind the walls of the Kremlin, the Russians, trembling at the prospect of having to play 4D ches [...]

Speaking to RT, firebrand President Rodrigo Duterte spewed vitriol at the US for seeing the Philippines as "a vassal state," revealing that he has sets his hopes on reaching out to Moscow and Beijing instead. "America is not the Philippines and the Philippines is not America. It ain't that way anymore, and I refuse to dovetail under American foreign policy," Duterte proclaimed in a candid intervie [...]

Although Western media has a shoddy track record of lying on Syria (and Libya, Iraq...), the US State Department will pump $35 million more into future war propaganda on Syria, under the guise of promoting honest reporting. A US State Department grant, “Support for Independent Media in Syria,” is unabashed in stating one of its main goals is “to advance U.S. Government policy objectives in S [...]

A massive demonstration –called for by a prominent Shia cleric– has flooded the streets of the Iraq's capital Baghdad, with thousands voicing their anger at the US military presence there.  Early on Friday morning, throngs of protesters – men and women, young and old – began amassing at al-Hurriya Square in central Baghdad, near the city's main university. [...]

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal quoted Karim Elaiwi, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defence Committee, as saying that Baghdad was considering purchasing Russian S-400 systems amid concerns that the US may stop supporting the country. According to Joey Hood, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, Iraq’s possible acquisition of S-4 [...]

Three European signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as Iran nuclear deal, initiated the accord's dispute mechanism on 14 January thus threatening to put an end to the agreement's existence following the US withdrawal from it in 2018. German Defence Minister and head of a governing coalition party, the CDU, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has confirmed that the US indeed thr [...]

France, Britain and Germany have betrayed the 2015 nuclear deal after being threatened with US tariffs, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has claimed, noting that Europe has lost the moral high ground. The three European states accused Tehran of non-compliance with the accord after buckling under pressure from the United Sates, Zarif wrote in a tweet, citing a Washington Post report de [...]