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On Tuesday, March 7th, Russia’s top parliamentarian dealing with the Ukrainian refugee influx into Russia — dealing, that is, with the people who have fled Ukraine as a result of U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2014 coup overthrowing Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych — presented the first-ever comprehensive number of asylum-applicants from Ukraine who have received asylum there after that February 2014 coup. The Russian government had never before publicly provided a number, but does have an established system of processing refugees, including assignment of official refugee status, which «allows the recipient various social benefits, including unemployment compensation» and so...

President Barack Obama's gaffe Tuesday night during his State of the Union address when referencing Russia has gone largely unnoticed by listeners and pundits alike. "Even as their economy contracts, Russia is pouring resources to prop up Ukraine's and Syria - states they see slipping away from their orbit," said Obama. There's a key discrepancy here: While Russia has been "pouring resources" into the conflict, it certainly has not been to "prop up" Ukrainian government, it has instead gone to those who seek to bring it down. Russia made headlines across the world starting in 2014 when Russian forces were...

It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn't holding perfectly, but it was holding. On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again "upped the ante" in eastern Ukraine -- with "well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense,...

'Brief' video clip at link. "...because he (President Putin) was caught, uh...off balance by the protests in the Maidan and, uh... Yanukovych (president voted by Ukrainian people) then fleeing after we've brokered a deal, uh... to transition power in Ukraine".

Mikhail Gorbachev accuses the United States of drawing Russia into a new Cold War saying he fears hostilities could escalate into armed conflict. The last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has accused the United States of drawing Russia into a new Cold War and said he feared hostilities could escalate into armed conflict. The United States "has already drawn us into a new Cold War, trying openly to achieve its main idea of triumphalism," Mr Gorbachev said in an interview with the Interfax news agency. "Where will that lead all of us? A Cold War is already being waged openly. What's...

PRESIDENT OBOLA: "...You'll recall that three or four months ago, everybody in Washington was convinced that President Putin was a genius... And he had outmaneuvered all of us and he had, you know, bullied and, you know, strategized his way into expanding Russian power. And I said at the time we don't want war with Russia but we can apply steady pressure working with our European partners, being the backbone of an international coalition to oppose Russia's violation of another country's sovereignty, and that over time, this would be a strategic mistake by Russia."INTERVIEWER: Are you just lucky that the...

As new U.S. sanctions against Russia loom, the Kremlin has shut down—at least for now—intensive high level communications between top U.S. and Russian officials. Since the invasion of Crimea, President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama have had regular phone calls in an often half-hearted attempt to deescalate the ongoing crisis inside Ukraine. But as the U.S. and EU prepare to unveil new sanctions against Russia, Putin has decided the interactions should stop. The Kremlin has ended high-level contact with the Obama administration, according to diplomatic officials and sources close to the Russian leadership. The move signals an end to...

President Obama said Thursday that new sanctions targeting Russia are "teed up" in the wake of a fresh warning by the Russian foreign minister that attacks on Russian citizens or interests in Ukraine would bring a firm response.

The United States' government said on Monday it will decide "in days" on additional sanctions if Russia does not take steps to implement an agreement to ease tensions in Ukraine reached in Geneva last week. The steps include publicly calling on pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine to vacate occupied buildings and checkpoints, accept an amnesty and address their grievances politically, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. "If they don't take steps in the coming days, there'll be consequences," she said at a Monday news briefing. "Obviously, we would have to make a decision in the matter of - in a...

No one wants to say so, but the Obama administration has backed the wrong horse in Ukraine, and the misguided wager is a big loss. It is hardly the president’s first failure on the foreign side, but it may prove the costliest of his many to date. For a while it was possible to pretend, just barely, that supporting the coup against Viktor Yanukovych, the elected president hounded into exile in February, would prove a sound judgment. Obama always came across as a welterweight in the ring with Vladimir Putin, simply not up to the Russian leader’s command of all...

Edward Lucas: I hope I'm wrong but historians may look back and say this was the start of World War III 'Vladimir Putin is striking at the heart of the West''We can chose to surrender any responsibility we have to protect Ukraine and the Baltic states''Or we can mount a last-ditch attempt to deter Russia from furthering its imperial ambitions''If we choose to resist Putin, we will risk a terrifying miltary escalation''I do not think it an exaggeration to say this could bring us to the brink of nuclear war' It is about brute power. It is about whether Putin’s...

American spies have spotted all the signs of an all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why won’t they tell the Ukrainians about the forces on their border? U.S. intelligence agencies now have detailed information that Russia has amassed the kind of forces needed for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the Obama administration hasn’t shared with Ukraine the imagery, intercepts, and analysis that pinpont (sic) the location of the Russian troops ready to seize more Ukrainian land, The Daily Beast has learned. President Obama has repeatedly and publicly expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian people—and warned Russian leader Vladimir Putin that there...

US President Barack Obama has urged Russia to "move back its troops" on Ukraine's border and lower tensions. Russia is believed to have massed a force of several thousand troops close to Ukraine's eastern frontier. Mr Obama told CBS News it may "be an effort to intimidate Ukraine, or it may be that [Russia has] additional plans." Meanwhile, a Russian security official has said intelligence measures are being stepped up to counter Western threats to Moscow's influence. Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine after voters in the region backed the move in a 16 March referendum. But both actions...

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton saw President Obama’s speech in Brussels today as deeply concerning for the United States and a grave insight into how Obama views international relations. Bolton, speaking directly after the speech on Fox News, was flummoxed that President Obama’s chief concern appeared to be that Russian President Vladimir Putin violated international law by invading Ukraine. Absent, Bolton noted, was any mention of Russia’s imperialist motivations or the need to implement further deterrents against Putin. “There’s nothing in the speech about understanding force and power and international affairs the way the Russians do and how they proceeded,...

One of the biggest divisions in the conservative movement right now is how to respond to Vladimir Putin's aggression in the Ukraine. On the one hand are the neo-cons who apparently want to flex America's muscles and open a new Cold War; on the other are the neo-isolationists who believe that this is a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.

Vladimir Putin running rampant in Ukraine showcases how the Obama administration's abdication of global leadership is making the world a more dangerous place. Instead of providing clarity to our nation and our allies, the Obama administration offers tortured semantics. "Kinetic action" glamorizes the failed policy of leading from behind in Libya. A "spontaneous protest" explains the coordinated al Qaeda attack on American officials in Benghazi. The interim agreement over Iran's nuclear program -- described by one of our closest allies as a "historic mistake" -- is in this universe referred to as a display of "international unity." And on Friday,...

With diplomacy having failed miserably to resolve the Russian annexation of Crimea, and soon East Ukraine (and with John Kerry in charge of it, was there ever any doubt), the US is moving to the heavy artillery. First, moments ago, the US DOE announced in a shocking announcement that it would proceed with the first draw down and sale of crude from the US strategic petroleum reserve, the first since June 2011, in what it said was a "test sale to check the operational capabilities of system infrastructure", but is really just a shot across the bow at Putin for...

KEY LARGO, Fla. – No matter what’s going on in the world – or where in the world he happens to be – President Obama never stops being president, his aides say. So on Friday, a week into a tense international standoff half a world away, Obama loaded his aides and his family aboard Air Force One, left chilly Washington and arrived here in sunny South Florida for a weekend getaway at the exclusive Ocean Reef resort. There were golf courses, tennis courts, pools and immaculate beach fronts. There was also, White House spokesman Josh Earnest assured reporters, the “regular...

Vladimir Putin has mocked diplomatic efforts to end the Ukraine crisis as Russia threatened to disrupt European gas supplies by cutting off sales to Kiev over its unpaid debts. The Russian president said through his official spokesman that, despite deep disagreements with the West, he did not want a confrontation over Ukraine to spiral into a “new cold war”. Nevertheless Dmitry Peskov ridiculed Western demands for direct talks between the Kremlin and the new Kiev government, claiming that the loss of credibility involved “puts a smile on our face”. The remarks were broadcast during the opening ceremony of the Paralympic...

(Reuters) - Russia said any U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine will boomerang back on the United States and that Crimea has the right to self-determination as armed men tried to seize another Ukrainian military base on the peninsula. In a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned against "hasty and reckless steps" that could harm Russian-American relations, the foreign ministry said on Friday. "Sanctions...would inevitably hit the United States like a boomerang," it added.