The Pentagon will aid in investigating reports that at least 33 civilian died near the Syrian town of Raqqa during a US-led coalition airstrike, officials said on Wednesday, following accusations from both local media and monitoring groups based abroad. [...]

The dream fueling the Russia frenzy is that it will eventually create a dark enough cloud of suspicion around Trump that Congress will find the will and the grounds to impeach him. More likely, the Russia allegations will not bring down Trump. Meanwhile, while Russia continues to dominate the front pages, Trump will continue waging war on immigrants, cutting funding for everything that’s not the [...]

The numbers are in, and according to the Internal Revenue Service, a record number of Americans expatriated in 2016. According to a report published Thursday on the Federal Register, 5,411 Americans renounced their citizenship or expatriated. [...]

According to Mexican Secretary of Agriculture Jose Calzada Rovirosa, Mexico plans to strengthen trade ties with Russia and the EU. Mexico plans to strengthen trade ties with Russia and the European Union against the backdrop of bilateral relation issues with the United States, Secretary of Agriculture Jose Calzada Rovirosa said on Tuesday. [...]

Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, calls within the EU for a so-called "two-speed Europe" are becoming more vocal. Sputnik Italy spoke with Italian economist Pasquale Lucio Scandizzo about who stands to benefit from such a model. [...]

As the European project seems to be finding itself in havoc, many countries from the former Eastern bloc have started to realize that they were too hasty in deciding to join the "European family," which was never a "fair game" and where they were "left to stagnate," thus they are now looking to Russia, according to political scientist Phil Butler. [...]

The Russian military has launched a large-scale exercise at the Opuk training range, in Crimea. The drills involved the Russian Airborne Forces, the Black Sea Fleet and the Aerospace Forces. Airborne Forces commander Col. Gen. Andrei Serdyukov told reporters that the drills involved over 2,500 airborne personnel and some 600 units of military hardware. [...]

Russia, unlike other countries in Europe, undertakes a great number of efforts toward the achievement of peace Syria amid the Middle Eastern country's military conflict, a member of the Serbian parliament, Bozidar Delic, said Tuesday. During the visit, the delegation observed the operation of the Russian center for reconciliation of opposing sides in Syria, and looked at the militants weap [...]

The Trump administration does not view relations with the North Atlantic Alliance or Europe as a priority as evidenced by the fact that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will not attend a meeting of NATO foreign ministers scheduled for April 5-6, political analyst Vladimir Batyuk told RIA Novosti. [...]

The Russian peninsula of Crimea is a true jewel of the Black Sea, and has plenty of magnificent sights to offer even the most discerning of travelers. Palaces, mountains and ancient ruins – which sight appeals to you the most? [...]

The Syrian Army says its air defenses have shot down one Israeli warplane and hit a second after four planes breached Syrian airspace and attacked government troops near Palmyra Friday morning. The Israeli military has denied the claims. Syrian military officials and observers told Sputnik that the incident sends an important message to Israel. [...]

Someone somewhere thought it was a good idea to use a $3 million Patriot missile to take out a rogue quadcopter. Militaries face a real challenge: the adaptation of cheap civilian tech. Are quadcopters the new IEDs? [...]

The Wall Street Journal has dialed up the paranoia over former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn's so-called 'Russia ties' over his failure to disclose an 'interaction' he had with a Russian-British national at a security conference in 2014. But as social media users, including a Russian senator, point out, WSJ's case is extremely weak. [...]

The Crimeans "really wanted to return to Russia," head of the Republic of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov told Sputnik, reflecting on events which led the Black Sea peninsula to hold a referendum on its status within Ukraine. Crimea's parliament and the local government of Sevastopol held the plebiscite following the foreign-sponsored coup which ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in Februar [...]

A delegation of mostly European and Ukrainian politicians has arrived in Crimea for a three-day visit, Ruslan Balbek, a Russian lawmaker representing Crimea, told Sputnik on Sunday. The delegation consists of about 20 people and includes members of the European Parliament, politicians from EU member states, CIS countries and Latin America. [...]

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has delayed the third review of its loan program to Ukraine, the Ukrainian Finance Ministry said Sunday. Earlier in March, IMF Communications Department Director Gerry Rice said the fund's directors planned to meet on March 20 to make the final decision on providing a new tranche of loans to Ukraine. [...]

The United States suffers from a chronic trust deficit, to put it mildly. Anything that its leaders say must be weighed against years of deception and relentless criminal conduct by US governments. Only a fool would trust anything that comes out of Washington. [...]

Three years after Crimea's accession to the Russian Federation, which was marked with festivities in Russia on Saturday, Ukraine's Foreign Minister tweeted that freedom was "taken away" from the peninsular and vowed to return it. Of course, Russian politicians didn't take this lying down. [...]

Foreign nationals can get on a fast track to receiving Ukrainian citizenship by investing the equivalent of $100,000 US into the country's economy, according to a recent directive by the Ukrainian cabinet of ministers. In an official directive dated March 1 establishing immigration quotas for foreign nationals and stateless persons for 2017, 2,223 people married to Ukrainian citizens, and an [...]

Vladimir Putin would take the same steps concerning Crimea now, according to the Kremlin spokesman. Russian President Vladimir Putin is keeping the situation around Crimea under personal control and would not change his decisions even if there was such an opportunity, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday. [...]

Dark Times are truly upon us. There will be an acceleration of acts of violence under the Trump administration and the conditions for eliminating this new stage of state violence will mean not only understanding the roots of neo-fascism in the United States, but also eliminating the economic, political, and cultural forces that produced it. [...]

The neocon royalty Kagans are counting on Democrats and liberals to be the foot soldiers in the new neocon campaign to push Republicans and President Trump into more “regime change” wars, reports Robert Parry. The Kagan family, America’s neoconservative aristocracy, has reemerged having recovered from the letdown over not gaining its expected influence from the election of Hillary Clinton [...]