On February 20, 2014, unknown snipers shot at people gathered on Kiev’s central Maidan square killing 49 protesters and four police officers. Local opposition leaders, as well as US and EU representatives, were quick to point a finger at the "regime of Viktor Yanukovych." [...]

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump released his “efficient, effective and accountable” budget for fiscal year 2019 and, to no surprise, social programs are on the chopping block. Aside from wanting to privatize the International Space Station and eliminate the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, Trump is also looking to cut food assistance programs by $214 billion. [...]

At a time of unprecedented goodwill between Seoul and Pyongyang over the Winter Olympics, the US has decided to double down on its inflammatory rhetoric, undermining a fragile thaw on the Korean Peninsula. On the eve of the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, one would be forgiven for temporarily forgetting history’s bitter divisions on the Korean Peninsula. [...]

From the Archive: With Moscow saying that U.S. proposals in its new Nuclear Posture Review to develop “tactical” nukes are “confrontational” and “anti-Russian,” we republish a 2016 article by Robert Parry. Through an endless barrage of ugly propaganda, the U.S. government and the mainstream American press have put the world on course for a potential nuclear showdown with Russia, an exi [...]

Perpetual war is leading to a host of societal ills, yet debates on war and peace are almost entirely absent from public discourse, Robert Wing and Coleen Rowley observe. Last October marked the 16th anniversary of our unending war – or military occupation – in Afghanistan, the longest conflict on foreign soil in U.S. history. [...]

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told Sputnik on Saturday, hours after a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft was downed by militants in Syria, that the United States did not equip partner forces in Syria with surface-to-air weapons. Alongside by, with, and through our partners in Syria, the United States remains focused on the fight against ISIS [Daesh]. [...]

Russian lawmakers have called for a thorough investigation on the origins of the man-portable missile launcher that was likely used by militants in Syria to shoot down a Russian fighter jet before killing the pilot in a firefight. "Certainly, we will investigate, including a great many things: [...]

Congress has authorized $618.7 billion for the 2017 military budget. The bill ups aid to Ukraine by $50 million and allows the transfer of missiles to Syrian rebels. However, it omits controversial provisions about drafting women or religious exemptions for contractors. [...]

The Russian Foreign Ministry has commented on the Nuclear Posture Review, issued by the United States on February 2, naming Russia, North Korea, Iran and China as potential threats to the US national security. "The content of the new nuclear doctrine (the so-called Nuclear Posture Review) released by the United States on February 2 has provoked our deep disappointment. [...]

Imperialism – which today is usually referred to by the euphemism ‘liberal interventionism’ – went on Trial at the Waterside Theatre in Derry, Northern Ireland this week. Five passionate and well-informed speakers, who included the former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, detailed the carnage and chaos that has been unleashed around the globe by the aggressive, warmongering policies [...]

Anti-Russian sanctions have achieved nothing other than placing a significant burden on the German economy, prime ministers of two German federal states have argued, calling on fellow regional leaders to demand their lifting. [...]

The latest spat between Washington and Moscow over how reports of chemical weapon attacks in Syria should be investigated seems to be just an episode in which US political necessities trump transparency in policy-making. [...]

The United States and its NATO allies are facing an existential threat. But the threat has nothing to do with Russia, China, or any other external “enemy” for that matter. The West’s own worst enemy is itself. Or more precisely, the intellectual bankruptcy of its political and military leaders and their dominant public discourse. [...]

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Donald Trump does not have the authority to keep military forces in Syria after Daesh is defeated, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ben Cardin said in a statement on Thursday in reaction to a speech given by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. [...]

US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has revealed a National Defense Strategy (NDS) shifting the focus from international terrorism to America’s old geopolitical rivals, Russia and China. But should these really be its priorities? [...]

Russia has accused the US of fueling the conflict in Ukraine after the ultra-nationalist Ukrainian Azov battalion was spotted wielding American-made TOW anti-tank weaponry, according to Moscow’s envoy to the OSCE. Russia is concerned that the US is encouraging Kiev to solve the Donbass conflict with force by supplying it with “defensive” heavy weaponry. [...]

The influential US think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has the Balkans on its conflict prevention list in its recently published 2018 survey.  However the idea, promoted by the CFR, that the US is the country that can help preserve ‘peace and stability‘ needs to be challenged – as it is the US and its closest NATO allies themselves who are actually responsible for many of the [...]

The Turkish president has called US-backed Syrian Border Force using Kurdish fighters a “terrorist army,” vowing to “drown” it before it’s complete. He also added that military preparations against Kurdish-held Afrin are ready. [...]

Two Russian Syria-embedded journalists have put together a damning firsthand report on the true purpose of the secrecy-laden US military mission at At-Tanf, southern Syria. The Pentagon was forced to go into full public relations mode late last month amid fresh allegations by the Russian General Staff that US instructors were providing training assistance for some 350 ex-Daesh (ISIS) militant [...]

Donald Trump’s remarks on “s***hole countries” roused a righteous high-mindedness in his detractors. But a perusal of their own past quotes suggest they are quite capable of similar words – when one particular state is involved. [...]

The question whether Western leaders promised the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand east has been debated for years. Newly declassified papers prove what many Western officials and scholars have denied: A promise was broken. [...]

The Trump White House has set a record, as US troops deploy around the world in an ever-widening net of American outreach at the end of a gun barrel. According to new data, US Special Operations troops, including Navy Seals and Army Green Berets, were deployed in 149 nations in 2017, a 150 percent jump from the administration of George W. Bush, and a modern record for shipping US military policy [...]