Just over a year ago, thousands of Ukrainians took to Kiev's main square, angry at oligarchs and corruption. But instead of "Europe" and prosperity, they got a coup, more oligarchy, and war. During the three-month “people power” spectacle in Kiev's Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) that began on November 21, 2013, one of the protesters' favorite chants was “Who doesn't jump is a [...]

MasterCard and Visa have suspended service for Russian banks in Crimea, saying the decision complies with US sanctions. "According to the US sanctions imposed against Crimea on December 19, 2014, Visa currently cannot provide services and offer their products in the Crimea. This means that we can no longer issue or accept bank cards in Crimea, and service them in ATMs," the company has confirme [...]

It's unlikely that Snowden will ever be removed from the US wanted list, as he told the truth about the "bastion of freedom" that lectures other states while spying on its own citizens, said Matteo Bergamini, director of Shout Out UK. It’s been two years since the publications of the NSA documents by Edward Snowden. What is the biggest achievement that came out of the revelations? [...]

A summit of all EU leaders scheduled for Sunday has been cancelled with eurozone leaders only meeting to "conclude talks on Greece" On Saturday, a meeting of Eurogroup finance ministers was adjourned without reaching any conclusion. Early on Sunday, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, tweeted that the eurozone leaders’ meeting will start at 14:00 GMT. [...]

A senior State Duma MP has said that Russia would look into possibility of the visit to Crimea by the head of PACE'€™s Social-Democratic caucus, Andreas Gross, albeit not within the remit of the Russia-PACE dialogue. Aleksey Pushkov, chair of the lower house Committee for International Relations, told TASS that after Russian delegation withdrew its participation in PACE in protest of the sanc [...]

The CIA wants to erase tens of thousands of internal emails sent by most covert and counterterror officers after they leave the agency, leading US senators and transparency advocates to fear the plan would mean the loss of vital government records. The spy agency’s proposal, first submitted to the National Archives in January but only now revealed to the public, would mean only the emails of [...]

The Royal Navy has launched an investigation into whistleblower William McNeilly, who exposed horrid security lapses in UK's trident nuclear program which make it easier for intruders to access some secured areas than enter "most nightclubs." UK authorities are “concerned for the whereabouts” of the 25-year old whistleblower, who went absent without leave and cooperated with WikiLeaks to po [...]

The Austrian army has been sent to assist in introducing tougher border checks amid the growing migrant crisis, Reuters cited the country's vice-chancellor as saying. At least 2,200 soldiers will assist police in tackling the refugee crisis on the border, according to a statement from the Austrian government. [...]

Twenty-five years after that embodiment of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, was torn down by ecstatic Germans, the world observes the anniversary as it rushes headlong towards a new confrontation. As the celebration unfolds in Berlin to rejoice in a unified country – and to some extent a unified world – some of the people who shaped the events two-and-a-half decades ago approach the date in a [...]

New radar data indicating that military aircraft were in the air near Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 when it crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17 has been released by a Russian air safety consultancy. The consultancy provided a snapshot representing the readings taken by a radar station located in Russia’s Rostov, near the Ukrainian border, shortly before and about 20 minutes after the MH17 c [...]

A record number of Americans gave up their US citizenship in the first quarter of 2015, according to IRS data. This is blamed on the taxation of income earned outside the US, along with laws expanding offshore bank account and asset reporting. A total of 1,335 people renounced US citizenship during the first three months of the year, topping the previous record by 18 percent, according to data [...]

The situation with the sanctions won't escalate as Russia wants to keep a way open for political dialogue with the EU, said Alexander Mercouris, International Affairs Editor at Russia Insider, adding that Brussels' policy is "wrong" and "failing". The EU is officially extending sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine. The restrictions will remain in place for at least another six mo [...]

Russia is launching a new national defense facility, which is meant to monitor threats to national security in peacetime, but would take control of the entire country in case of war. The new top-security, fortified facility in Moscow includes several large war rooms, a brand new supercomputer in the heart of a state-of-the-art data processing center, underground facilities, secret transport rou [...]

The timing of the new tensions in Donbass, provoked by the Kiev forces, is connected with the upcoming EU summit, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He added that Kiev has breached the Minsk deal and Moscow is waiting for the OSCE's reaction. "The violations are obvious and [Foreign] Minister [Sergey] Lavrov has already said that the representatives of the OSCE are to draw corresponding conc [...]

The European Commission should have adjusted the economic activity of Greece before the crisis, Russian President Putin has said, adding that the EU shouldn't have issued such high bonuses and loans to the debt ridden country. “Of course, all the blame can be shifted to the Greeks. But if there were violations in their [Greece] activity, where was the European Commission? [...]

Ukraine as a new nation has to create a useable past, Arch Getty, Professor of Russian and Soviet history at UCLA told RT's In the Now show. War criminals like Bandera, who killed a lot of civilians, are being praised by Kiev government now, he added. Mikhail Gorbachev said that snubbing the Victory parade is disrespect for the people who suffered enormous losses fighting Nazism. [...]

The Ukrainian Parliament has approved new regulations on martial law, which among other things allows for extrajudicial detention and relocation of Russian citizens in the country. The law was approved by 254 deputies out of 322. It regulates how martial law can be declared in Ukraine and the changes to legal procedures it brings. [...]

The US can't quit buying Russian RD-180 rocket engines for heavy lifting until it produces an engine with similar capabilities, chief of the US Space Command said. This follows frantic calls by Republican Senator John McCain to terminate the contract. “Why in the world would anyone think we would want to continue dependency on Russian rocket engines, which traces up to the corrupt mafia that [...]

The UN special peace envoy to Syria has urged the international community to take advice from Russia to resolve the four-year-long civil war that has claimed 210,000 lives and left 1.5 million Syrians with injuries and disabilities. “Russia has influence on Damascus, and it’s very important that they get involved," Staffan de Mistura, who was challenged by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-mo [...]

At the Autumn Meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA), Russian official Sergey Naryshkin made the Ukrainian crisis a top European security issue, while speaking at a conference on new security challenges in the region. At a meeting on "New Security Challenges: The Role of Parliaments" on Friday, Naryshkin, the Head of the Lower House of Russian Parliament, who leads the Moscow delegatio [...]

Electronic equipment, including hard drives and a device operating the helicopter carrier's communications system, has been stolen off the Mistral ship built for Russia in the French port of Saint-Nazaire. An investigation into the case of the missing equipment has been launched, French media reported. “Sensitive material” could allegedly be stolen from one of the amphibious-assault vessels [...]

Never has a leader so catastrophically misjudged the character of an enemy as Hitler misjudged the Soviet Union and its people prior to launching his invasion of the country on June 22, 1941. Hitler and other top Nazis were convinced that the Soviet Union would crumble under the weight of the largest military operation ever mounted, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. [...]