European leaders know that the US wants to get them to spend money on military equipment which will be purchased from the US, says Brian Becker of the anti-war Answer Coalition. But Europe knows the dangers from the experience of two world wars, he added. Several senior American officials say Russia is the greatest threat to their country's national security. [...]

The OSCE has warned that a growing presence of heavy weaponry on the government controlled side of Donbass territory has put Ukrainian security forces in violation of the terms of the demarcation line, according to OSCE Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug. “We can highlight that the security situation has gotten worse in the Donbass over the past few weeks,” Hug said at a briefing in Mariupo [...]

A man claiming to be a Ukrainian major general and former assistant to the country's defense minister has announced he is now working with the forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. "I am Ukrainian Armed Forces Major General Aleksandr Kolomiyets. [...]

The head of the State Duma"s Foreign Relations Committee has proposed reciprocating Canada's latest anti-Russian move by introducing sanctions similar to embargo of agricultural products from EU introduced about a year ago. “We should not pretend that nothing is happening and we should develop a complex of reciprocal measures aimed at Canada,” MP Aleksey Pushkov (United Russia) stated at Tu [...]

The Ukrainian president has named an entirely new, wildly different figure for the number of Russian troops allegedly in Ukraine: over 20 times higher than he claimed earlier this month. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Ukraine’s [...]

As ISIS and ISIS-style terror erupts across the globe, Western governments are busy making plans to establish a rapid reaction force in Eastern Europe to ‘contain Russia’, thus qualifying them for an annual ‘you couldn’t make it up’ award. It calls to mind one of Britain’s worst military defeats, suffered at the hands of the Japanese, when 100,000 troops and sailors were marched int [...]

The number of government troops deployed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine has reached 60,000 troops, according to President Petro Poroshenko. The statement comes as the total of Ukrainian refugees has exceeded 900,000 people, according to UN. "We are doing our best to ensure the security of our state. We have brought the number of our armed forces in the ATO zone to 60,000 servicemen today. [...]

We all remember how, in early June, President Putin announced that Russia would deploy more than 40 new ICBMs "able to overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems." Oh dear; the Pentagon and their European minions have been freaking out on overdrive ever since. [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

The dialogue between Russia and the United States can only be equal and must not amount to lectures on democracy-building, says the Foreign Ministry's envoy for human rights. “If they want to lecture us on how we should build our democracy, I suggest they rather deliver such lectures in some US university,” Konstantin Dolgov told reporters on Tuesday. [...]

Vladimir Putin and Pope Francis are popular figures who impact people's thoughts, and their meeting in the Vatican represented a reunification of Western and Eastern worlds, Ukrainian journalist Halyna Mokrushyna told RT's In the Now. Why did the US ambassador to the Holy See Kenneth Hackett call on the Vatican for a tougher stance on Russia ahead of Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Pope Francis [...]

Artillery shells have hit a local market in the north-western district of Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine. At least one person has been wounded, according to the head of the district's administration aligned with Donbass rebels. RT's Ilya Petrenko was on the scene at the spot which came under attack. [...]

The US-assembled coalition of the willing that – supposedly – is fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh across “Syraq” met in Paris this week. In theory, they’d examine what to do next after the loss of Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria. The script, though, came straight from the Surrealist Manifesto. [...]

Pope Francis has attacked what he called "the atmosphere of war," which he believes is hampering the world. He also attacked those profiteering from war and those engaging in arms sales, as he led a mass in Bosnia on Saturday. Francis received a joyous welcome from around 100,000 people who lined the streets of Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital, as his motorcade made its way to the national stadium, [...]

A senior Russian diplomat has expressed bewilderment over the decision to limit Russian officials' access to the European Parliament, adding that such unexplained and unmotivated actions were reminiscent of medieval witch hunts. “I have an impression that the European bureaucracy is partially returning into the times of the Holy Inquisition. [...]

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? [...]

There is frustration among Western leaders with Kiev's failure to make peace efforts and implement the Minsk agreements, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin told the UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine on Friday. The Security Council gathered on Friday to call for the full implementation of the agreements reached in Minsk on February 12 amid escalating tensions between the conflictin [...]

Thousands of demonstrators flocked to the streets of Germany on Thursday ahead of the G7 summit in Bavaria. The main rally took place in Munich, with participants accusing world leaders of failing to act on major global issues. The demonstrators had a long list of complaints and demands for G7 leaders, ranging from poverty reduction to climate change and rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean. [...]

The US 6th Fleet has made public a video which is described as showing the Russian jet interaction with the USS Ross warship in the Black Sea on May 30. The video was shot aboard the sea vessel. “[USS] Ross continued on her mission after observing the aircraft return to base. [...]

Tokyo has signaled it would like Vladimir Putin to finally resolve a territorial dispute and sign a peace treaty 70 years after the end of World War II. The Kremlin said it would welcome dialogue. Moscow is willing to restart peaceful dialogue with Tokyo to finally sign a WWII peace treaty, but Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said that claiming sovereignty over Kuril Islands makes Japan the only count [...]

Victoria Nuland arrived in Moscow last weekend and declared that Ukraine's government doesn't intend to resume the civil war. Either Nuland was being mendacious or President Poroshenko is on a dangerous solo-run. It’s all gone Lethal Weapon. Not in the sense of munitions, although some of those are definitely in play, but rather the movie series. [...]