Contents tagged with USA

  • Putin expresses sympathy for Russian agent Butina detained in the US

    At a meeting of the Human Rights Council in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the case of the Russian woman Maria Butina arrested in the USA. According to Putin, Russian special services do not know anything about her.

    “But this girl Butina, how unfortunate, she is in prison, she faces 15 years. For what?” stated the Russian President.

    He added that after he heard about Butina’s arrest, he asked Russian special services leaders about her. “Who is she? Nobody knows anything …

  • The US considers imposing sanctions on Russia for violations of religious freedoms

    During a telephone briefing with journalists, United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel Brownback confirmed that the US government may impose sanctions on Russia because of violations religious freedom. "They [ the Russian authorities] really… intensified their oppression," said Brownback while speaking of Russian authorities and religious freedoms, as quoted by TASS.

    The briefing was held after US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s recent decision to assign …

  • US House of Representatives supports sanctions against Nord Stream 2 pipleline

    On Tuesday, December 11, the House of Representatives of the United States Congress approved the resolution condemning the construction of Nord Stream 2, the main gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, and supported the imposition of sanctions to counteract this project.

    Laying the pipeline would be "a dramatic step backward in the issue of European energy security and interests of the United States,” the document noted. “Russia’s geopolitical interest in Nord Stream 2 is not about increasing …

  • Putin to appoint a new chief of military intelligence

    Russian President Vladimir Putin will appoint a new Chief of Military Intelligence instead of the recently deceased Igor Korobov.

    According to several Russian media outlets, the successor will become Vice-Admiral Igor Kostyukov, who after the death of Korobov, served as the head of the main intelligence directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

    As reported by the newspaper Kommersant, Kostyukov was born on February 21, 1961, in the Amur region of Russia. He received a naval …

  • Russian oligarchs forced to leave offshore havens

    With three months of sanctions, the Donald Trump Administration has managed to do something which the Russian government has been unable to do for the last 27 years: stop Russian money from flowing into offshore accounts. finanz.ru reports.

    Since the tightening of sanctions in April, which was accompanied by a mass audit of Russians’ accounts in Cyprus, the freezing of Oleg Deripaska’s and Viktor Vekselberg’s assets, and the elimination of the Baltic “laundromat” for laundering Russian money, …

  • Estonian army to buy American machine guns

    Estonia will become the second country after New Zealand to use automatic weapons produced by the American company Lewis as the primary firearm of its armed forces. The first batch will cost €22 million, but the contract also envisages further purchases, the news outlet Err.ee reports.

    Although until now, the Estonian Defense Forces and Estonian Defense League (Kaitseliit in Estonian) have primarily used Israeli Galil automatic rifles and Swedish AK-4s, in the coming years they will switch to …

  • Volker: Russian ships may be banned access to European ports

    US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker demands that Russia release the Ukrainian sailors captured in the Kerch Strait at the end of November before Christmas or New Year.

    During an interview with the Voice of America,  Volker explained that the US and its western allies are considering a number of ways to prevent new instances of Russia’s “unilateral control” of the shared waters of the Sea of Azov.

    “We do not accept or agree to the annexation of Crimea claimed by Russia,” he said, …

  • Berlin: fate of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty depends exclusively on Russia

    “The Intermediate-Range and Short-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) is of great importance for ensuring security in Europe, and the German government welcomes the fact that the United States once again gives a chance to preserve it," stated the deputy head of the Press and Information Office of Germany, Ulrike Demmer, at the press conference on the December 5.

    Berlin also believes that the continuation of the Treaty now depends solely on Russia. The spokeswomen of the German Ministry of …

  • Putin: Russia will produce banned missiles if the US withdraws from Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia will build missiles banned under the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles if the United States leaves the arms control agreement and start producing such weapons, the Kremlin stated.

    “The arguments are quite clear. Russia and the United States are the only countries that do not produce such weapons. This is true, indeed. Many countries – probably about a dozen of them – produce such weapons. Russia and the …

  • Russia threatens Europe with retaliatory nuclear strike

    Russia will certainly respond to the US’s decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, if such a step is ultimately taken, Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov said on Wednesday.

    According to him, any European countries which agree to host American missile launchers will inevitably become the targets of a Russian response strike.

    “As military professionals, you must understand that it is not the US, but the countries that have American systems with …