Speaking at the BRICS summit this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin deplored the “low political culture” of American leaders. "It is difficult to dialogue with such people," said Putin, adding: "You can do nothing about it." Less diplomatically, what the Russian president was lamenting is this: the incorrigible stupidity of US leaders. [...]

The F-22 was a pioneer fifth-generation jet in the US Armed Forces, combining multirole strike capabilities with the ability to stay off most radar screens due to its stealth coating. However, as it turned out, the latter comes at a price both in terms of maintenance time and money. [...]

Everything the CIA does is deniable. It’s part of its Congressional mandate. Congress doesn’t want to be held accountable for the criminal things the CIA does. The only time something the CIA does become public knowledge – other than the rare accident or whistle blower – is when Congress or the President think it’s helpful for psychological warfare reasons to let the American people know [...]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived in Russia for a working visit to hold a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. [...]

Moscow has perfect counter-measures in response to US plans to install THAAD air defense systems closer to the Russian territory in South Korea on the pretext of Pyongyang's threat, a military expert told Sputnik, naming the Iskander and Kalibr missiles. [...]

Facebook has blocked RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan's account for allegedly “violating community standards.” Revealing the ban, Simonyan complained of pervasive censorship practiced on the platform. [...]

One of the oldest people on the planet, Appaz Iliyev from the Russian republic of Ingushetia, has got his sight back thanks to a successful surgery. One of the oldest people on the planet, 121-year-old Appaz Iliyev from the Russian republic of Ingushetia, has got his sight back thanks to a successful surgery. Born in 1896, the man still works daily in his garden in the North Caucasus mountains. [...]

Investigative journalist Jurij Kofner is a German citizen. To question the extent to which his country’s policy decisions are influenced by America’s agenda, he explores Germany’s post-war history to understand how relations with the US were formed. He also looks into the dynamics of the two countries’ cooperation under the umbrella of NATO [...]

Russian tanker Christophe de Margerie has brought the first batch of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Yamal to the United Kingdom. London had to urgently turn to Russian gas targeted by US sanctions due to supply outages. [...]

Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in the Russian city of Sochi to discuss an array of issues, with the situation in Syria and the Turkish military operation there expected to be the main topic of their conversation. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that foreign forces that are currently deployed in Syria unlawfully must leave its territory. He added that Turkey shares this vis [...]

A passenger jet with over 160 on board slid off the runway in the Turkish city of Trabzon Saturday night and was left precariously perched atop a cliff edge, saved only by the freezing mud. "All 162 passengers, 2 pilots and 4 cabin crew have been disembarked safely from the aircraft. There has been no loss of life or injury to anyone on-board," [...]

Washington officials are reportedly demanding that Turkey “destroy or return” its Russian-made S-400 air defense systems to get back in the good books and rejoin the F-35 fighter program – but Ankara has no intention of complying. [...]

George Soros has lamented that the European Union is on the verge of collapse while Russia is becoming “a resurgent nationalist power.” Hungarian-American tycoon George Soros, who runs the $26 billion Soros Fund Management and chairs the global board of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), made the remarks while speaking to the Financial Times. [...]

Earlier US President Donald Trump enacted the $738 billion National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA), a military budget package for the coming year that includes sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on new US sanctions against the Nord Stream-2 and Turkish Stream pipelines, saying that the state, with its historically unpr [...]

Life is confusing in 2018. There are times when everyone around you is offended by something, and you feel left out because common sense has kicked in, you’ve remained calm, and got on with your life. This is a horrible situation to be in. [...]

Officially, Israel has never denied or confirmed the existence of its nuclear program. Some analysts believe that Israel sticks to a policy of deliberate ambiguity concerning its nuclear capabilities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accidentally called Israel a "nuclear power" during a cabinet meeting on Sunday but immediately corrected himself to "energy power". [...]

"The memo reveals an infrastructure plan that is essentially a giveaway to corporations at the expense of the American people and our environment." Green groups reacted with alarm on Friday to a leaked Trump administration infrastructure draft that proposes a drastic rollback of environmental regulations in an attempt to expedite the construction of water-threatening oil pipelines, roads, bridges� [...]

In December, US President Donald Trump signed the National Defence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, which, among other things, stipulates sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The US also threatened to sanction any company or individual involved in providing services on the project. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg has lashed out at the US over its push for sanct [...]

Russian financial institutions and firms are ready to work without SWIFT's interbank cash transfer services, according to Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. “Certainly, it is unpleasant, as it will prove a stumbling block for companies and banks, and will slow down work. It will be inevitable to deploy some aged technologies for information transfer and calculations. [...]

While experts across the world search for a vaccine to tackle the dangerous new infection, Russian health bosses have identified a trio of existing medicines to combat 2019-nCoV in adults. The new coronavirus can be fought with ribavirin, lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon beta-1b, they believe. These drugs are typically used to treat hepatitis C, HIV and multiple sclerosis respectively. [...]

Anastasia Zagitova was forced to leave the ice-rink ahead of time, when the World Anti-Doping Agency officers demanded that she take a doping control test. “Several hours ago a doping control officer took blood sample from Alina. After that she was asked to give a urine sample, however, she was too nervous and failed to do it physically. [...]

As part of a WWII document trove declassified ahead of the 75th anniversary of the Yalta summit, never before seen photographs show US and British leaders and officers arriving in Crimea and touring Sevastopol with Soviet hosts. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt traveled to Crimea in February 1945, to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the B [...]