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Kazakh authorities have not openly supported Russia’s invasion and are making moves that could, at least to a certain extent, distance Nur-Sultan from the Kremlin. Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his “special military operation” in Ukraine, Kazakhstan has tried to cling to a neutral stance. Although Nur-Sultan is a member of the Moscow-led Eurasian Union, as well as its Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the energy-rich Central Asian nation has supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and openly stressed that it does not intend to recognize the Russia-backed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. On the other hand, Kazakhstan did not...

MUNICH (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence rebuked European powers over Iran and Venezuela on Saturday in a renewed attack on Washington’s traditional allies, rejecting a call by Germany’s chancellor to include Russia in global cooperation efforts. In speeches and in private talks at the Munich Security Conference, Pence and Chancellor Angela Merkel laid out competing visions for how the West should address world crises. ...

President Vladimir Putin has praised farmers for making Russia’s grain harvest this year the highest in post-Soviet times. Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev reported to Putin on Tuesday that this year’s harvest is expected to reach 110-115 million metric tons, the largest yield in a quarter century. […] Putin said Russia shouldn’t hurry to boost its grain exports, but wait for global prices to rise. …

European Union leaders will explore next month the possibility of improving strained ties with Russia in response to growing irritation among some member states over economic sanctions imposed on Moscow over its role in the Ukraine crisis. But the sanctions appear likely to remain in place for now, especially those slapped over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula seized by Russia in March 2014, despite the legal and political challenges of maintaining them. A series of Reuters investigations recently showed how European companies including German retailer Metro and France’s Auchan were doing business in Crimea despite the punitive sanctions regime there....

A statement by a Russian parliamentarian has sent shockwaves through Bulgaria, as the country begins to realize that the many Russians who bought real estate in the country may sooner or later become a powerful political force. The MP, who is from Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, was asked on Bulgarian television if his country would pursue a benevolent policy towards Bulgaria, if his party won the Sunday elections (18 September). In fact, United Russia won with more than 50% of the votes. “Of course,” Piotr Tolstoy answered, adding: “We will just buy out the entire [Bulgaria]. Half of its...

Russia plans effectively to revive the KGB under a massive shake-up of its security forces, a respected business daily has reported. A State Security Ministry, or MGB, would be created from the current Federal Security Service (FSB) , and would incorporate the foreign intelligence service (SVR) and the state guard service (FSO), under the plans. It would be handed all-encompassing powers once possessed by the KGB, the Kommersant newspaper said, citing security service sources. Like the much-feared KGB, it would also oversee the prosecutions of Kremlin critics, a task currently undertaken by the Investigative Committee, headed by Alexander Bastrykin, a...

The Russian mafia is becoming “increasingly active” in Germany, with networks recruiting in German prisons and groups bringing in billions of euros each year, Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has warned. “The Russian-Eurasian organized criminality is very dynamic,” BKA President Holger Münch told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. “They are already expanding in the west.” One of the most dangerous groups, according to Münch, is the so-called “Thieves in law” (Diebe im Gesetz) gang, founded in Stalin’s labor camps. The group from the former Soviet Union have their own “laws” and a secret language, and is thought to be...

The leaders of France and Germany assured prospective EU members in the Balkans on Monday that the British vote to leave the union won’t threaten eventual enlargement of the bloc. Balkan nations that survived wars and political breakups in the 1990s worry they will face more hurdles to membership as the EU struggles to keep itself together. And pro-Russian forces in countries such as Serbia are hoping to sway the region toward Moscow and away from the West, as the Brexit vote throws European unity into question. French President François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to soothe worries...

Russian President Vladimir Putin called on European leaders on Friday to improve ties with his country despite sanctions after meeting with European investors who said they want to expand their businesses there. Speaking at Russia’s top economic conference, Putin said top German and French investors expressed their plans to invest more in Russia despite the weight of the sanctions, some of which the European Union extended just as Putin was speaking. “Politicians should meet the businessmen halfway, show wisdom, long-term thinking and flexibility,” Putin said. “We need to bring back trust to Russia-European relations and restore the level of cooperation.”...

NATO’s secretary-general says the NATO-Russia Council will meet for the first time since 2014 within the next two weeks. The announcement Friday from Jens Stoltenberg was a sign both sides might be seeking an improvement in relations, which have been in the deep freeze since Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. NATO accuses Moscow of violating its international obligations by annexing Crimea, and of backing a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine. …

The Dutch government said on Wednesday it may have to reconsider ratifying a treaty on closer European Union ties with Ukraine after a vast majority of voters rejected the agreement in a non-binding referendum. The outcome was too close to call, with early tallies indicating that a 30% turnout required for it to be valid was only marginally met. Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, said: “It’s clear that ‘no’ have won by an overwhelming margin; the question is only if turnout is sufficient. “If the turnout is above 30% with such a large margin of victory for the no...

The change in rhetoric (and apparent shift in strategy) comes just days after the US seemingly prepared the public for what might be coming by releasing helmet cam footage of what Washington says was a raid on an ISIS prison by Delta Force (accompanied by the Peshmerga). 70 prisoners were allegedly freed although not before the US suffered its first combat death in Iraq since 2011. The timing of the video is suspect, to say the least. It came just days after Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford visited Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi in an effort to dissuade Baghdad...

Welcoming China’s leader to two summits in a Russian city, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia and China can overcome their countries’ difficulties by working together. Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping both arrived Wednesday in the Russian city of Ufa for summits of the BRICS trade group and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The BRICS group also includes Brazil, India and South Africa, while the SCO, which also focuses on regional security and political issues as well as economics, includes the former Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran, India and Pakistan are observer SCO...

On May 9, Russia is holding an enormous military parade to commemorate the end of World War II 70 years ago. With tensions between Russia and the West high, most European Union leaders are staying away from the event. […] Russia would have liked to showcase the Armata and a host of other military technology to the foreigners who were supposed to be sitting in the VIP stand on May 9. The Kremlin had invited 68 leaders of foreign countries to the victory celebration, including the most important politicians in the Western world. So far, only 25 have accepted Moscow’s...

In post-Soviet Russia, you don’t make memes. Memes make (or unmake?) you. That is, at least, the only conclusion we can draw from an announcement made this week by Russia’s three-year-old media agency/Internet censor Roskomnadzor, which made it illegal to publish any Internet meme that depicts a public figure in a way that has nothing to do with his “personality.” Sad Keanu? Nope. Sad Putin? Absolutely not. “These ways of using [celebrities’ images] violate the laws governing personal data and harm the honor, dignity and business of public figures,” reads the policy announcement from Roskomnadzor. To be clear, this isn’t a new law passed by parliament...

ASTANA, March 16. /TASS/. The presidents of Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus will meet in Astana on March 20, a spokesman for the Kazakh leader said on Monday. The spokesman said Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko had already confirmed they would attend the meeting. "The heads of state will discuss bilateral trade and economic cooperation," the spokesman said adding that they would also focus on global economic issues and the Ukrainian crisis.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he considered activating nuclear forces to annex the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine after the fall of a pro-Moscow government in Kyiv early last year. “We were ready to do it,” Putin said of putting nuclear forces at the ready, in a nearly three-hour documentary that aired on state television Sunday. The president added that he had fielded many calls from foreign leaders and told them “that this is our historical territory and Russian people live there, they were in danger, and we cannot abandon them.” He said: “It was a frank and open position....

During a visit to Brussels, the President of Bulgaria, a country that depends on Russia for over 90 percent of its gas supplies, accused Vladimir Putin of planning to destroy the EU from the inside. Speaking at a conference organized by the Center of European Policy Studies (CEPS), Bulgaria’s Rossen Plevneliev said that Putin’s propaganda machine was attempting to split the member states of the European Union. The leaders who rule by force across the world have one thing in common—breaking the rules, Plevneliev said, as quoted by Vesselin Zhelev, the correspondent of ClubZ. “See how Mr. Putin today is...

RIGA - NATO commanders have given the green-light for the creation of rapid-response force command and control centres in the Baltics and three other countries, National Armed Forces Commander Raimonds Graube confirmed to Latvian Radio. According to the portal lsm.lv, this means that a new unit will be set up in Latvia, and this unit will man and operate the new command and control centre. The unit will be responsible for logistics and organisational exercises, as well as receiving rapid-response forces in crisis situations. NATO already has a rapid-response force model in place, however, after Russia’s aggression in Ukraine —...

Whilst threatening Russia with more sanctions, US Secretary of State John Kerry has condemned the country’s behavior toward the Ukraine ceasefire. Separatist rebels, however, have reported a planned prisoner exchange. During his meeting with his British counterpart Philip Hammond in London on Saturday, Kerry said Russia’s conduct was “completely counter to what the international community” worked for in the Ukraine ceasefire. Over a week since the repeatedly violated ceasefire was agreed in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, Kerry said the US and its allies were “not going to play this game” with Russia and “be part of this kind of extraordinarily...