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A senior ally of President Vladimir Putin warned on Friday that Moscow would regard any move by Britain to deploy a military contingent to Ukraine as a declaration of war against Russia. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, made the comments in response to a visit by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to Kyiv to announce an increase in military funding to help Ukraine purchase new military drones. "I hope that our eternal enemies - the arrogant British - understand that deploying an official military contingent to Ukraine would be a declaration of war...

MOSCOW, September 25. /TASS/. Ukraine is fated either to capitulate on Moscow’s terms or cease to exist as a state, Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament), said. "When speaking about the conflict in Ukraine, [US President Joe] Biden, [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg and other Western officials have started calling it 'a war of attrition.' They have put huge amounts of money into militarizing the Kiev regime. Where has it gotten them? The simple facts are these: the West is experiencing weapons and ammunition shortages, people in Europe and the US have lost trust...

An Israeli merchant ship that embarked from the Port of Ashdod Monday became the first vessel to openly defy Russia’s blockade of the Black Sea since they pulled out of a deal with Ukraine allowing the country to export grain from its ports in mid-July, Ukrainian news outlet Militarnyi reported on Monday. Israeli vessel Ams1 seemingly ignored Russian threats and entered the Ukrainian branch of the Danube Monday afternoon, according to Ukrainian reports. It crossed the Black Sea on a direct route from Ashdod Port while the American aircraft P8 Poseidon provided aerial security, the reports added. Ams1 was followed...

President Joe Biden said on Monday the threat of Russian President Vladimir Putin using tactical nuclear weapons is "real", days after denouncing Russia's deployment of such weapons in Belarus. On Saturday, Biden called Putin's announcement that Russia had deployed its first tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus "absolutely irresponsible". "When I was out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado river drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy," Biden told a group of donors in California on Monday. "They looked at me like when I said I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons....

The Russian authorities may have shut down his newspaper, but journalist Dmitry Muratov refuses to be silenced. When we meet in Moscow, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta and Russia's Nobel Peace Prize laureate is worried how far the Kremlin will go in its confrontation with the West. "Two generations have lived without the threat of nuclear war," Mr Muratov tells me. "But this period is over. Will Putin press the nuclear button, or won't he? Who knows? No one knows this. There isn't a single person who can say for sure." Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in...

“The U.S. should be mindful that no matter how desperately it may seek to disarm (North Korea), it can never deprive (North Korea) of its right to self-defense and that the more hell-bent it gets on the anti-(North Korea) acts, it will face a more fatal security crisis,” she said in a statement carried by state media.

The US and Russian spy chiefs held a rare face-to-face meeting in Ankara Monday on Moscow's nuclear threats in Ukraine and Americans held prisoner by the Kremlin, the White House said. In what appeared to be the highest-level direct talks between officials of the two countries since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns met with Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman confirmed the meeting, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said it came as "an initiative of the American side," according to Russian media. Peskov declined to...

A demonstration in the streets of Moscow reportedly shows Russians calling for Vladimir Putin to launch a nuclear strike on Washington, D.C. "Meanwhile in Russia: a rally, demanding for Moscow to strike Washington," Russian state TV blogger Julia Davis tweeted with a video of the demonstration. "They cite Putin's words: "We will go to heaven as martyrs and they will simply croak." The video shows a man chanting to the sounds of drums beating. "Strike the decision-making centers!" a translation of his words read on the chyron. "On Washington!" the marchers replied, according to the translation.

Two U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News on Wednesday that senior Russian military officials discussed in mid-October how and when they might use nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine. The intelligence concerned U.S. officials because the relevant discussions came not long after Putin, seeing Ukrainian forces claw territory back from his troops, hinted that he could resort to nuclear weapons. The discussions among Russian officials, first reported by the New York Times, were not detailed by the U.S. officials who confirmed the intelligence to CBS News. In a statement shared with CBS News, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby...

Have you ever found yourself completely losing your temper in the middle of a heated struggle of some sort? Whether it is a hotly contested sporting event, an actual fist fight or a bitter battle against an online foe, it can be way too easy to lose your temper. And when tempers flare, you can end up losing control and doing things that you deeply regret later. Unfortunately, the same thing is true on an international level. Russia and NATO have both become absolutely obsessed with “winning” in Ukraine, and leaders on both sides are getting angrier and angrier. And...

INTERVIEW of Grigorij Mesežnikov: Why did Putin decide to start mobilization? Should we take the Kremlin's claims about a nuclear strike seriously? What can protests in the Russian Federation lead to? — Why did Putin decide to start mobilization? Did the people who stood for the war to the end win? — He decided to mobilize, because he no longer had a way out. In fact, he is a rat that has cornered itself. The Russian army is losing, and if such dynamics continue, then Ukraine could liberate a significant part of the territory that was captured by Russia by...

Ponder this: hundreds or thousands may have to freeze to death in order to help slow global warming. Huh?! Could there be a sadder and more preposterous statement than that? The BBC, a publicly-funded broadcaster implicitly entrusted with disseminating vital messages to the U.K. citizenry during times of national crisis, has allegedly already begun preparing emergency broadcasts designed to reassure the people of Britain should extensive winter blackouts be necessary in the coming months. These potential blackouts would inevitably cause disruptions to the Commonwealth’s banking systems, internet access, mobile phone networks, and traffic lights, among other things. And would, of...

U.S. President Joe Biden warned that global hunger could increase because of Russia’s suspension of a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage for ships carrying Ukrainian grain. “It’s really outrageous,” said Biden speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday. “There’s no merit to what they’re doing. The U.N. negotiated that deal and that should be the end of it.” Biden spoke hours after Russia announced it would immediately halt participation in the agreement, alleging that Ukraine staged a drone attack Saturday against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships off the coast of occupied Crimea. Ukraine has denied the attack.

Russia announced Saturday that it will immediately suspend its implementation of a U.N.-brokered grain deal that has seen more than 9 million tons of grain exported from Ukraine during the war and has brought down soaring global food prices. ... The Russian declaration came one day after United Nations chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain export deal, which was scheduled to expire on Nov. 19. Guterres also urged other countries, mainly in the West, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertilizer exports. The U.N. chief said the grain deal — brokered...

US companies specializing in the construction of next-generation smaller nuclear power plants aimed at improving the country's energy security find it difficult to obtain fuel for those power plants. There is only one company that sells such fuel, and unfortunately for them, the company is located in Russia, Reuters reports. The energy crisis that broke out as a result of Russia's special operation in Ukraine and ensuing Western sanctions pushed Washington to develop nuclear industry faster. The USA already has designs for new modern reactors known as Small Modular Reactors. They are more efficient, faster and cheaper to build. However,...

Russia has said it is suspending its participation in the agreement to ensure the continuation of Ukrainian grain exports — vital for food supplies to poor countries — linking the decision to a drone attack on Russian ships in occupied Crimea on Saturday morning. The defence ministry announced the move, and it was also reported by the state news agency TASS. "Taking into account the terrorist act carried out by the Kyiv regime with the participation of British experts against ships of the Black Sea fleet and civilian vessels involved in the security of grain corridors, Russia suspends its participation...

Russia is considering shooting down commercial Western satellites as payback for aiding Ukraine in the war, which could put the US and Kyiv’s other allies on a collision course with Moscow. Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy head of Russia’s delegation at a UN arms control panel, said the use of Western satellites to help Ukrainian forces on the battlefield was “an extremely dangerous trend.” “Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” he told the UN First Committee, adding that the West’s use of such satellites to support Ukraine was “provocative.” “We are talking about the involvement of components...

Over the past ten years, China’s Communist Party (CCP) has strategically relied on its $4 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to boost its image and influence with at least 149 countries to date. But success has eluded its efforts, and the BRI strategy may be doomed as a result. Consider for example the CCP’s stalled attempts at pushing the BRI strategy across countries in Europe. Not anticipated were the barriers and delays created by sanctions imposed on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. Before the sanctions, China used Russia as a convenient transit point for the shipment of BRI...

"China is our most important partner," says Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on the prospect of Afghanistan becoming part of the New Silk Road initiative

An understandable desire to avoid a nuclear war could actually make the world more dangerous if it means rushing to implement a "peace" in Ukraine that serves Russian interests, an expert told Insider. Such a move, which some influential figures have called for, risks setting a precedent that atomic blackmail is the way to win wars and take territory troops can't otherwise hold, a model that could be copycatted by even the weakest nuclear-armed states, and may only succeed at delaying another war. Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russia's nuclear doctrine and capabilities at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research,...