Iran has refused an offer from the United States to join a global alliance preparing to combat Islamic State militants, according to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei said Monday that the US offered to discuss a coordinated effort with Iran against Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL), a common foe in the region, in the midst of an escalating campaign of violence [...]

The US has no real plan for tackling the Islamic State in Syria, with airstrikes and arms supplies to the unreliable opposition announced “just to do something,” Matthew Hoh, former US marine and analyst at the Center for International Policy, told RT. Damascus has warned that unauthorized US airstrikes in Syria would be tantamount to an act of war, with Moscow stressing that such action ca [...]

NATO member states have started supplying weapons to Ukraine, the country's Defense Minister said on TV. His comments came a few days after a similar statement by a Ukrainian presidential aide sparked a diplomatic scandal and a rash of denials. In an interview with Channel 5, Ukrainian Defense Minister Valery Geletey said that he had held verbal consultations with the defense ministers of the � [...]

Failure by the US to investigate Saudi Arabia’s connection to the 9/11 attacks is among the factors that led to the rise of ISIS, Bob Graham, a former senator and co-chairman of the official inquiry into 9/11, told The Independent in an interview. Graham has expressed doubts about the US’s reliance on Saudi Arabia as an ally in fight against Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL). [...]

Russia has been put into an impossible situation, meaning they are responsible not only for what has been done in Lugansk and Donetsk, but also for what has been done on the side of Kiev, political analyst Alexander Pavic told RT. Apparently, the truce in Ukraine is not enough for the EU to hold back on yet more sanctions. [...]

Key US allies, Turkey and Jordan, are thought to backing away from US calls for a 'bomb ISIS' coalition. Ankara is a notable absentee among the nations that signed a joint communiqué at a Thursday meeting in Saudi Arabia, where US Secretary of State John Kerry was drumming up support for the US anti-Islamist effort. Turkey refused to join 10 Arab nations, who vowed to contribute “as appropri [...]

Russia's third Borei-class nuclear-powered strategic submarine, Vladimir Monomakh, has finished state sea trials, the vessel's builders at Sevmash shipyard announced. The advanced vessel is virtually ready for deployment by the Navy. Vladimir Monomakh has just returned from a trial run in the White Sea, during which the sub successfully test-fired a Bulava strategic missile. [...]

A highly-placed Defense Ministry official says that Russia may be forced to match the US Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) doctrine, which prescribes that a non-nuclear US missile must be able to hit any target on Earth within one hour. “Russia is capable of and will have to develop a similar system,” Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said during a public discussion of the Russian [...]

France may take part in the US bombing campaign in Iraq aimed at crippling the Islamic State militant group if it would be called upon. "In Iraq... we support the formation of an inclusive government. We will participate if necessary in an aerial military action," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday in a speech in Paris. [...]

Russia is not going to get involved in a new arms race, President Vladimir Putin said as he ordered his government to work out “balanced and realistic” defense strategy for 2016 through 2025. “Someone really wants to unleash a new arms race,” Russia’s president said at a meeting with senior defense industry officials. “We, of course, are not going to be involved in this race.” [...]

Ukrainian and American naval forces are taking part in joint maritime drills dubbed Sea Breeze 2014, which began on Monday in the northwestern part of the Black Sea and will last till September 10. “Today in the north-west part of the Black Sea, we are beginning the joint Navy exercises of Ukraine and the US, known as ‘Sea Breeze 2014’. The exercises will continue until September 10. The [...]

The ceasefire between the Ukrainian army and self-defense forces is "still shaky, but holds," the OSCE stated. The fighters are still skeptical of the peace process, but they are hoping for the war to end. “People who have never seen this think war is like TV. You watch and forget because there’s some entertainment show later. Here, everything is reality. Here, people are dying in front of [...]

As the ceasefire in Ukraine gets off to a shaky start, the only way to rebuild the billions of dollars of damage in the nation's east is for the EU and Russia to work together, Lode Vanoust, former MP and deputy speaker of the Belgium parliament, told RT. First off, Kiev has now agreed to what appears to be a major concession, decentralization of power, which wasn’t even on the negotiating ta [...]

Dozens of people gathered in the harbor of Saint-Nazaire in western France on Sunday to protest against the French government's decision to suspend the delivery of a Mistral warship to Russia. Some two hundred protesters gathered by the docked Vladivostok – the first of two Mistral-class helicopter carrier ships – holding banners that read, "Hollande wants to kill Saint-Nazaire. [...]

Foreign Policy magazine – Russia’s fierce critic – met with the leader of Azov Battalion, an irregular force assisting Kiev to cleanse eastern Ukraine of “terrorists.” The group boasts fierce tactics, “values far from European,” and Nazi-like attributes. Azov, which has an estimated personnel of 500 people, is one of about 50 volunteer battalions formed by Maidan activists and ult [...]

Six vessels fom the Russian North fleet have left their base in Severomorsk in the Barents Sea and set off for the New Siberian Islands, where a military base under reconstruction will start functioning later this year. “The major goal of the latest expedition of the North fleet ships to the Arctic is to deliver personnel, equipment and property of the North fleet’s tactical group, which st [...]

We are at the beginning of an epoch where at some point in the future there could be an open war between the advanced powers, and there is not much faith in the ceasefire in Ukraine, Samir Dathi, National Officer of the Stop the War Coalition, told RT. Ukraine's President is confident about a ceasefire - do you think he's right to be? [...]

It is too late for decentralization, as E. Ukraine's self-defense forces want full independence from Kiev after its bloody military campaign, international law expert Alexander Mercouris told RT. Kiev now needs a ceasefire because it's losing, he argued. On Friday, Kiev officials and representatives of the two self-proclaimed republics in southeastern Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire as the contac [...]

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has announced ceasefires before and was always the first to violate them, Spanish volunteer Ramiro Gomez, who fought in eastern Ukraine against the troops of the coup-imposed Kiev government, told RT. According to the European volunteer, this ceasefire is in effect a part of Poroshenko’s strategy: “to reorganize the [Ukrainian] army which is already a la [...]

Lugansk and Donetsk residents are now used to gunfire. RT's Maria Finoshina crossed Ukraine's southeast to see the aftermath of war there - and how it is the civilians who have carried the heaviest burden: relatives lost, homes destroyed, and hope gone. “I worked all my life and what did I get for it,” exclaims a weeping elderly woman. “Why is this happening? Why, God, why?” Many of tho [...]

I suppose one should be grateful for even small gestures, and the news on the morning of September 3rd that Poroshenko might speak with the separatists of Lugansk and Donetsk should be viewed positively as a first step. It also brings to mind the saying “nothing is more permanent than the temporary.” [...]

The UK will contribute 1,000 personnel to a new multi-national rapid reaction force, Prime Minister David Cameron has said. He suggested the NATO "multinational spearhead force" could be deployed anywhere in two to five days. The British prime minister announced the force, to be based in Eastern Europe, will be launched in response to alleged Russian military involvement in Ukraine and instabil [...]