France'€™s foreign minister has accused the UK of double standards following its criticism of the Russian Mistral warship deal. Referring to Russian oligarchs in the UK, he said that Britain must tend to its own backyard before attacking French policies. Following the Malaysia Airlines plane crash in Ukraine, British Prime Minister David Cameron criticized Paris for its plan to go ahead with [...]

Moscow will respond to NATO's expansion towards Russia's borders, President Vladimir Putin said at the emergency Security Council meeting in Moscow. Here are his key quotes on Russia's defense, Western sanctions, and violence in eastern Ukraine. [...]

France will go ahead with the delivery of the first of two Mistral warships to Russia despite protests by the US and UK, prompted by Moscow's stance in the Ukrainian crisis. The ship is nearly completed and will be presented in October. French President Francois Hollande said the plan to deliver the two Mistral helicopter carriers was made in Paris and will go forward despite calls from the US [...]

Russia has released military monitoring data, which shows Kiev military jets tracking the MH17 plane shortly before the crash - and posed yet another set of questions to Ukraine and the US over the circumstances of the tragedy. [...]

The duty-free trade deal between Russia and Ukraine is coming to an end. Russia says fundamental changes mean that it will invoke Article 62 of the Vienna Declaration to terminate the understanding. The move comes as Russia insists it needs to protect domestic markets after Ukrainesigned the Association Agreement on June 27, which gives Kiev duty-free trade status with the European Union. [...]

The Russian military detected a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet gaining height towards the MH17 Boeing on the day of the catastrophe. Kiev must explain why the military jet was tracking the passenger airplane, the Russian Defense Ministry said. [...]

Russia urges an impartial and open investigation into the Malaysian Boeing 777 crash in Ukraine and an international commission to be set up. Addressing the UN, Russia's envoy Churkin said a probe into Ukraine's aviation authorities is also necessary. [...]

Some Western states and Kiev rushed to find Russian involvement in the MH17 crash having no evidence to back their claims, Russia's Deputy Defense Minister told RT. He invited Ukraine to answer 10 questions to prove their commitment to an impartial probe. Speaking to RT, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov has criticized Western countries for jumping to conclusions just “24 hours [...]

The Russian Defense Ministry has said that neither the Buk missile defense system, nor any other military equipment, has crossed the Russian border into Ukraine. Such border crossings “can’t be performed in secrecy,” the official representative for the Russian Defense Ministry told the journalists in Moscow. [...]

Revelations of the National Security Agency's global spy program, together with civil strife in Ukraine has severely damaged Barack Obama's popularity among Brazilians, Germans and Russians, a major US polling agency reported. Thanks to a series of global scandals, the United States in general, and its commander-in-chief in particular, [...]

Russia considers the latest package of sanctions against it issued by the US as revenge for the failure of Washington's schemes in Ukraine and blackmail. Moscow reserves the right to retaliate. [...]

Imposing sanctions on Russia and blaming it for destabilizing Ukraine contradicts US national interests, President Putin said at the BRICS summit in Brazil, emphasizing that declared support of Ukrainians should not be limited to the country's oligarchs. [...]

Moscow and Havana have reportedly reached an agreement on reopening the SIGINT facility in Lourdes, Cuba - once Russia's largest foreign base of this kind - which was shut down in 2001 due to financial problems and under US pressure. When operational, the facility was manned by thousands of military and intelligence personnel, whose task was to intercept signals coming from and to the US territory [...]

France, Germany, and Italy are among EU members who don't want to follow the US lead and impose trade sanctions on Russia. US sanctions are seen as a push to promote its own multibillion free-trade pact with Europe. “France, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia, and EU President Italy see no reason in the current environment for the introduction of sectorial trade and [...]

The daughter of a man killed by an artillery shell fired by Kiev's forces in a quiet Russian town just across the border from Ukraine is still in shock. In a night of horror, she also had to save her 11-year-old brother from the bombing. Andrey Shulyatyev, a 46-year-old father of four, was killed on Sunday when an artillery shell from Ukraine hit his private house on the border, in the Rostov Regi [...]

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff symbolically handed over the World Cup to her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Sunday, as Russia is set to host the 2018 tournament. The two were joined by FIFA president Sepp Blatter. The ceremony took place inside Maracana Stadium before the Germany-Argentina final in Rio de Janeiro. [...]

An artillery shell from Ukraine has hit a private house in the Rostov region of Russia, killing a citizen and leaving two more injured. The Russian Foreign Ministry promises heavy consequences. Reportedly up to six mortar shells exploded on Sunday in the small Russian town of Donetsk, which has the same name as the Ukrainian city and is situated right on the Ukrainian border. [...]

A Russian MP claims the US kidnapped his son from the Maldives on bogus cyber-fraud charges and may be preparing to offer him as bait in a swap deal for Edward Snowden. Roman Seleznyov, 30, was arrested at Male international airport as he was about to board a flight to Moscow. [...]

Ukraine is the land where time has stood still and the consequences of what has been sown are now being reaped as anarchy is unleashed upon its rotting corpse. Just over a year ago, in rather more peaceful times, I was on a train from Kharkov to Simferopol, sharing a cabin with two Russian gents from the Far Eastern outpost of Nakhodka and, breaking the monotony of long distance rail commutation, [...]

Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that Russia-US relations are currently not at their best in a congratulatory Fourth of July note to Barack Obama. The Russian president said he was sure, however, that the two countries "must cooperate." The Independence Day greetings from Russia come at a time when relations between the two countries are at their lowest in years, mostly over differences in approach [...]

Russia's president has blamed the turmoil in Ukraine on the country's newly-elected leader Petro Poroshenko. Vladimir Putin also criticized the West for its intention to turn the planet into a "global barracks." Russia’s president has laid the blame for the ongoing turmoil between Kiev and south-eastern regions squarely at the feet of Petro Poroshenko, after the Ukrainian leader terminated the c [...]

The first delivery of Russian Sukhoi fighter jets arrived in Iraq on Saturday, the country's Defense Ministry said. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is hoping the jets will make a key difference in the fight against ISIS. The Iraqi Ministry of Defense on Sunday confirmed receiving five Su-25 fighter jets in accordance with the deal with Moscow. [...]