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Orthodox Christianity and Islam are based on the same fundamental values, President Vladimir Putin said in an address to a religious conference in Kyrgyzstan. The conference, titled "Orthodoxy and Islam — Religions of Peace," aimed to promote interethnic and interreligious dialogue between Russia and Kyrgyzstan. "Islam and Orthodox Christianity, just like other world religions, are based on fundamental humanistic values that are of enduring importance — on mercy and love for one’s near, justice and respect for human beings," the state-run TASS news agency quoted Putin as saying Thursday. The address, which was read out to the conference by Russian...

It’s been six years since the start of the Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine, which led to the ousting of then-President Viktor Yanukovych. By the time his successor Petro Poroshenko was elected in May 2014, the domestic political scene in Ukraine and the geopolitical dynamics in the contested EU-Russia neighbourhood surrounding it had fundamentally altered. Today, the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who replaced Poroshenko in April 2019, is now facing a series of domestic and foreign policy challenges reminiscent, though not identical, to the events that preceded the 2013 Euromaidan. Presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine in April and July...

Denmark's decision to approve the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, designed by Moscow to bypass Ukraine, strengthens Russia and weakens Europe, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday. Ukraine's fragile economy is at risk of losing billions of dollars in transit fees if Moscow deprives it of Russian gas transit to Europe. Russia and Ukraine, which have been at loggerheads since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014. Moscow is building new pipelines to Europe, such as Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream, to bypass Ukraine, which is now a major route for Europe's Russian gas supplies. Following the completion of the new...

Video from the talk show worth watching. Pundits include former chief of Israel's foreign intelligence.

KIEV (Reuters) - The Israeli ambassador to Ukraine asked police on Thursday to find and punish people who left a red paint-spattered effigy of tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, who holds a Ukrainian Jewish community leadership post, on the steps of the main synagogue in Kiev. Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine's richest men, is in the public eye over his business ties to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who came to fame as the star of TV show on a channel Kolomoisky owns. The tycoon has been in a protracted legal battle with the authorities over control of Urkaine's biggest bank. Kolomoisky is president of...

The West’s Kurdish allies on Sunday night announced they had agreed to a Russian-brokered deal to allow the Assad regime into their territory in a bid to spare their cities from a Turkish assault after they were abandoned by Donald Trump. Hours after the US said it was withdrawing all of its troops from northern Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it had reached an agreement to allow Bashar al-Assad’s troops into their territory. “If we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people,” said Mazloum Kobani Abdi,...

A 26-year-old woman with dual American and Israeli citizenship who has been jailed in Russia since April after authorities allegedly found nine grams of cannabis in her luggage, has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, her sister said. Naama Issachar's sister, Liad Gold, told Fox News on Sunday that her sister was sentenced Friday and the family has reached out to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for her. She said the prime minister called their mother the day of the sentencing to let her know that he will do everything he can to have her released...

THE COUNTDOWN for settling Ukraine’s geopolitical position within Europe and greater Eurasia is entering its final stages. Barring his resignation or removal from office, the denouement will occur under the watch of Ukraine’s populist-comedian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky and his “Servant of the People” political movement won an overwhelming mandate from Ukrainian voters in 2019 by promising to succeed where Zelensky’s immediate predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, and the Ukrainian political establishment (which was largely voted out of office) had failed: to settle the conflict with Russia while presiding over Ukraine’s eventual integration into the Euro-Atlantic world. Time, however, is not on...

Iran’s army has launched unannounced military drills in the northwest of the country bordering Turkey, Iranian state media reported. The semiofficial ISNA news agency reported on October 9 that the exercises included rapid reaction units, mobile and offense brigades, and helicopters. The maneuvers in Iran’s Western Azerbaijan Province are being overseen by Iran’s army chief, Major General Abdolrahim Musavi, according to state TV. The reports did not mention the number of troops taking part. The announcement of the drills comes as Turkey says it is about to launch an offensive into northern Syria. Tehran, a key ally of President Bashar...

CAIRO (REUTERS) - ARAB League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday led Arab foreign ministers in lambasting Turkey's military operation in northeast Syria as an "invasion of an Arab state's land and an aggression on its sovereignty". Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali Alhakim, president of the current Arab League session, also condemned Turkey's offensive into Syria during an emergency meeting of the body, called by Egypt. The offensive "will exacerbate humanitarian crises, increase the suffering of the Syrian people, and strengthen the ability of terrorists to reorganize their remnants," Alhakim said. Alhakim and Lebanon's Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil called...

Wartime propaganda gone bad.

After months of attacking each other and not speaking, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his nemesis, Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, will meet on Thursday morning at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem. Netanyahu repeatedly told Likud leaders that there is no point in speaking to Liberman, because the Yisrael Beytenu leader is determined to end the prime minister's political career. But after Blue and White leader Benny Gantz canceled a meeting with Netanyahu, he called Liberman on Wednesday evening. "There is no point in wasting the country's time," Netanyahu told Liberman. "We will meet and see if it is...

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said nuclear power should either be free for all states or banned completely. He warned that the “inequality” between states who have nuclear power and who do not undermines global balances. This comes amid global concern following news that Iran has exceeded limits to its uranium stockpile and was enriching the chemical to beyond limitations imposed by the Iran nuclear deal. Earlier this month, Tehran announced it would use advanced centrifuges prohibited under the deal. President Erdogan said: “The position of nuclear power should either be forbidden for all or permissible for everyone.” …

The statement was given after an impromptu meeting with Liberman ahead of Rivlin-brokered talks with Netanyahu Blue & White leader Benny Gantz may be ready to concede his party's position against joining a government with incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he faces possible indictment in a number of corruption cases. "We'll see what happens," Gantz told i24NEWS when asked if he would form a unity government with incumbent Prime Minister Netanyahu ahead of their meeting with President Reuven Rivlin Tuesday night. The statement was given following an unannounced meeting between Gantz and Yisrael Beitenu's Avigdor Liberman in Jaffa. Meanwhile,...

A deadly surprise. Key point: Japan had a track record of surprise attacks. At midnight the Russian fleet slept. A few minutes after the clock struck 12 a.m. on February 9, 1904, Tsarist Russia's Pacific squadron peacefully bobbed at anchor at the Russian naval base nestled in the Manchurian town of Port Arthur. Ashore, the mood that night was festive as the garrison's army and naval officers availed themselves of refreshments at a birthday party for the admiral's wife. Soon their revelry was disturbed by flashes in the night and the dull thud of torpedoes slamming into metal hulls. Some...

MOSCOW, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Russia on Friday accused the United States of brazenly threatening it after a senior U.S. general said Washington had drawn up a plan in case it needed to destroy air defences in Russia's Kaliningrad exclave in Europe. U.S. General Jeffrey Harrigian said on Tuesday that "If we have to go in there to take down, for instance, the Kaliningrad IADS (Integrated Air Defense System), let there be no doubt we have a plan to go after that," the Breaking Defense magazine reported. Kaliningrad is a Russian region that lies on the Baltic Sea between EU...

Two U.S. senators say that they were denied visas as part of an official delegation to Russia for talks with their counterparts in the country's parliament. Amid tensions over arms control, human rights, and Russian aggression in Ukraine, Venezuela, and Syria, it's a sign of the frayed ties between Washington and Moscow, despite President Donald Trump's consistent calls for better relations with President Vladimir Putin's government -- including its readmission to the G-7. Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut were scheduled to leave on their trip next week, according to aides, with stops in Ukraine,...

Former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili opens up over the disappointments, betrayals and deals made in the run-up to the 2008 war. This is a full transcript of the exclusive interview the former president of Georgia gave IWPR. IWPR: Looking back at things from a decade-long perspective, do you think the West has learned any lessons from the 2008 war? Saakashvili: The thing is, the West is motivated by several instincts and one of the main instincts is appeasement. They always want to delay the problem, they always want to refer to the past, to the future, anything but the...

Nearly 50,000 Russian opposition activists and their supporters have taken to Moscow’s streets for a fifth consecutive weekend in spite of a government crackdown as support from citizens and celebrities grows across the county. The protests, which demand that Moscow authorities allow independent candidates to appear on the ballot in the city’s upcoming elections, have been the largest wave of demonstrations in Russia since 2011-2012. Independent polling this week said that Moscow residents are more likely to support the protests than oppose them. Moscow police have detained more than 2,300 people at rallies this summer protesting the candidates' exclusion. While...

The US has formally withdrawn from a key nuclear treaty with Russia, raising fears of a new arms race. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was signed by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. It banned missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km (310-3,400 miles). But earlier this year the US and Nato accused Russia of violating the pact by deploying a new type of cruise missile, which Moscow has denied. The Americans said they had evidence that Russia had deployed a number of 9M729 missiles - known to Nato as SSC-8. This accusation...