Steven Seagal banned from Ukraine after being branded national security threat

Steven Seagal banned from Ukraine after being branded national security threat

Steven Seagal has joined fellow actor Gérard Depardieu on a blacklist of cultural figures barred from entering Ukraine. The Under Siege star, 65, whose grandmother was from Vladivostok, has been branded a national security threat after he was granted Russian citizenship last year and voiced support for Russia’s seizure of Crimea. Ukraine’s security service said it had banned […]

Clashes in northwest Syria after de-escalation zones take effect: sources

Clashes in northwest Syria after de-escalation zones take effect: sources

Syrian government forces and rebels clashed in the northwestern province of Hama on Friday shortly after a Russian-led deal to establish de-escalation zones took effect, a monitor and a rebel official said. Fighter jets fired at the rebel-held village of al-Zalakiyat and nearby positions in the Hama countryside, where the combatants exchanged shelling, the Syrian […]

Trump and Putin discuss cease-fire in Syria in first conversation since U.S. airstrikes

Trump and Putin discuss cease-fire in Syria in first conversation since U.S. airstrikes

MOSCOW — In their first publicly announced conversation since the United States launched a Tomahawk cruise-missile strike in Syria last month, President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the humanitarian crisis in Syria in a phone call Tuesday, with both countries expressing interest in working toward a cease-fire in the region. The two men […]

Russian Military buildup in the Arctic has US concerned

Russian Military buildup in the Arctic has US concerned

Russian President Vladimir Putin is beefing up his military forces in the Arctic on a scale that hasn’t been seen since the days of the USSR and the Cold War. He’s reopening closed bases and opening new ones in a bid to control the cold but natural resource-rich region One such base holds the 80th […]

Russians, in peaceful protest, call for Putin to quit

Russians, in peaceful protest, call for Putin to quit

Several hundred Russians lined up in central Moscow on Saturday under the gaze of riot police to hand over handwritten appeals for President Vladimir Putin to quit, as similar protests took place in other cities. Putin, who has dominated Russian politics for 17 years, has not said whether he will run in presidential elections in […]

Montenegro parliament approves NATO ascension in a historic move sure to anger Russia

Montenegro parliament approves NATO ascension in a historic move sure to anger Russia

Montenegro’s parliament on Friday supported the Balkan country’s membership in NATO in a historic turn toward the West amid protests by Russia and the pro-Russia opposition. Lawmakers voted 46-0 in the capital of Cetinje to ratify the accession treaty with the Western military alliance. They then stood up and applauded the decision. The parliament has […]

A dark and familiar cloud is hanging over France’s high-stakes presidential election

A dark and familiar cloud is hanging over France’s high-stakes presidential election

France’s upcoming presidential election has turned into a de facto referendum on whether to halt or strengthen the nationalist fervor sweeping the west that propelled US President Donald Trump into the White House last year and spurred Britain’s exit from the European Union. Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has been accused of meddling in both the US […]

Western push at U.N. to boost backing for Syria gas attack inquiry

Western push at U.N. to boost backing for Syria gas attack inquiry

The U.N. Security Council could vote as early as Wednesday on a push by the United States, Britain and France to bolster support for international inquiries into a deadly toxic gas attack in Syria, diplomats said, a move Russia had deemed unacceptable and unwarranted. The three countries have proposed a revised draft resolution, diplomats said, […]

Trump officials tell Russia to drop its support for Syria’s Assad

Trump officials tell Russia to drop its support for Syria’s Assad

Officials in the Trump administration on Sunday demanded that Russia stop supporting the Syrian government or face a further deterioration in its relations with the United States. Signaling the focus of talks that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is set to have in Moscow this week, officials said that Russia, in propping up Syrian President […]

News Roundup: Did Ivanka Trump persuade POTUS to act in Syria? Chimp assassin, SEAL fakery

News Roundup: Did Ivanka Trump persuade POTUS to act in Syria? Chimp assassin, SEAL fakery

Nobody voted for Ivanka Trump: Donald Trump’s daughter persuaded him to strike targets in Syria, according to reports of a diplomatic memo. A cable briefing to Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson by Britain’s ambassador to Washington Sir Kim Darroch said Ms Trump was influential in bringing about the bombings, those who saw the memo said. […]

Syrian forces defiantly take off from airfield hit by onslaught of US cruise missiles

Syrian forces defiantly take off from airfield hit by onslaught of US cruise missiles

  Less than 24 hours after two US Navy destroyers pulled up to Syria’s Mediterranean coast and let fly a blistering salvo of 59 cruise missiles, Syrian warplanes took off from the damaged air base targeted by the strike, according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory. The US strike, retaliation for a chemical attack in […]