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Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has addressed the Chairman of the Russian Legislative Assembly Mr. V.V. Volodin, supporting the initiative to pass a law completely banning the promotion of sexual perversions. There is a moral consensus in Russian society, sustained by the Orthodox Church, that family is the union of man and woman, as it is stipulated by the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Without the affirmation and protection of family values, the future of the institution of family is in jeopardy. There is also no doubt that the goal of preserving the nation, proclaimed by President of...

Regular session of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church was held in Moscow on August 25, presided by Patriarch Kirill. "We are meeting at a time when, as you know, all is not quiet in the expanses of Holy Russia. Many people are suffering today, really suffering, but this suffering did not begin now, as some claim, but has continued for the past eight years," said the Patriarch Kirill in his opening address. - A great many people in Donbass have indeed been subjected to tremendous distress. And wherever justice is violated, there is always resistance to injustice, and...

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu is being 'side-lined' by Vladimir Putin and is constantly mocked by his own soldiers, the British ministry of defence has revealed. In its daily briefing, the MoD said the veteran politician who has held the defence post for 10 years is no longer the confidant and ally he previously was to the leader. Russia's failures in Ukraine after sustaining huge losses to personnel and equipment without making major inroads into the country have led to his ousting from Putin's inner circle. The head of the Russian military is no longer briefing Putin directly, with the...

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has been side-lined by President Putin according to the British Ministry of Defence, as reported on Monday, August 29..... “Recent independent Russian media reports have claimed that due to the problems Russia is facing in its war against Ukraine, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shogun is now being side-lined within the Russian leadership, with operational commanders briefing President Putin directly on the course of the war.”...

On April 10, at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did something unusual during his usual weekly address to the deputies of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). He suddenly paused during his address and called the national education minister, Ismet Yilmaz, to the podium. The two men then murmured for about half a minute in front of the huge audience. Muted microphones did not catch the whole conversation, but the minister was heard speaking about "the report on deism" and “the thoughts of our youth about this.” “No,” Erdogan was heard saying in a definitive tone. “That is wrong.”The report in...

While the White House has continually threatened further sanctions against Russia for non-de-escalation (even as it un-de-escalates itself), the specifics of the additional sanctions have been sparse. German CEO warnings over blowback from economic sanctions... the "nonsense" of replacing Russian gas with US gas... the Russian warnings of "interdependence" and "boomerangs"... all reduce the West's arsenal of financial sanctions. But, as The Times of London reports, perhaps the US has found a crucial pain point for Putin - a sanctions regime that would target Putin's personal wealth, which includes a reported $40 billion stashed in Swiss bank accounts. As The...

Self proclaimed paleo-conservative Pat Buchanan loves him an anti-gay, bear-back ridin’, judo flippin’, ex-KGB operative named Vlad. It’s just about the most absurd thing imaginable, and it’s all under the title “Which Side is God on Now? ... Everybody in the news has been explaining how this Crimean conflict is not comparable to the last Crimean war. But is seems like Putin is dusting off some of the old propaganda, and Buchanan is buying it...

Photo of the day 92 -year-old veteran of World War II came to the headquarters of the National Protection enroll in recruits. Paragraphs recording volunteers into the ranks of special units to protect public order come even veterans who have more than 90 years. It is reported with reference to Ukrinform. 92 -year-old WWII veteran Nikolai Ostashevsky came to the headquarters of the National Protection Dnipropetrovsk region recruits enroll in Dnipropetrovsk, April 17, 2014," - said "volunteer ready once again to defend homeland." Source : http://censor.net.ua/p281605 See also " Tsenzor.NET " : Thousands of people gathered for a rally in...

Dozens of Ukrainian army defectors rode into the disputed eastern town of Slovyansk today on a column of armoured troop carriers bearing the Russian national flag. The defectors, including highly trained paratroopers. were said to have switched sides after being persuaded to defect by pro-Russian insurgents in nearby Kramatorsk, where they were part of a Ukrainian force that secured a military airfield yesterday. With Russian flags flying, the soldiers headed on a convoy of six troop carriers into Slovyansk, stopping first outside city hall, which has been occupied by pro-Russian protesters for several days, before entering the police station.

The intrigue is growing over the Federal Security Service's involvement in Ukraine. On April 11, Ukraine's Deputy Prosecutor General said there was no evidence implicating the FSB in events on Maidan Square. At the same time, it is officially confirmed that FSB generals visited Kiev on Feb. 20 to 21. Recall that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sent a note to Moscow on April 4 demanding to know why FSB Colonel General Sergei Beseda visited Kiev on Feb. 20 and 21, and that the very next day Interfax cited a source in Russian intelligence confirming that visit. The answer as to...

WASHINGTON -- This may shock you. During the eight years of the Reagan Presidency I was not his biggest fan. I looked not so much at what he accomplished but what he didn't accomplish. My expectations were that government would get smaller under President Reagan. It didn't. I was disappointed. I looked at the agencies left in place -- the National Endowment for the Arts, the Legal Services Corporation (which has done so much damage) and A.I.D. -- and I felt that the Reagan Administration did not make a real effort to curtail them. I was disappointed. Also there was...

The sharp escalation of the Ukraine crisis virtually puts the country on the brink of civil war, Russian President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a telephone call. Putin and Merkel discussed the upcoming Ukrainian crisis talks between Russia, Ukraine, the EU and the US, scheduled to be held on Thursday in Geneva. Merkel’s press office noted that, despite some differences of opinion, the upcoming talks were the main focus of the telephone conversation.

Fact Sheet Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC April 13, 2014 “No amount of propaganda can make right something that the world knows is wrong.” – President Obama, March 26 Russia continues to spin a false and dangerous narrative to justify its illegal actions in Ukraine. The Russian propaganda machine continues to promote hate speech and incite violence by creating a false threat in Ukraine that does not exist. We would not be seeing the violence and sad events that we've witnessed this weekend without this relentless stream of disinformation and Russian provocateurs fostering unrest in eastern Ukraine. Here are...

The United Nations Security Council will meet for an emergency session to discuss the escalating crisis in eastern Ukraine at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday. "The Council will meet at 8 at Russia's request," a council diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Another diplomat said negotiations were under way on Ukraine's participation. Russia's Foreign Ministry said earlier it would put an urgent discussion of the situation in Ukraine on the Security Council agenda, calling Kiev's plans to mobilize the army to put down a rebellion by pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine "criminal".

“Strong and brave young women.”That’s what former U.S. Secretary of State and potential presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called the members of Pussy Riot, a Russian anarchist punk band whose members have been convicted in Russian courts of “hooliganism” and inciting religious hatred.Clinton posed with two members of the band while in New York for the Women in the World Summit. On Friday, she posted the photo on Twitter, saying,Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina served nearly two years in prison after their unauthorized performance February 21, 2012, in Moscow’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The two were stopped by...

Russian lawmakers approve bill making Holocaust denial illegal Russian lawmakers approved a bill that would make Holocaust denial illegal. The lower house of the Russian Parliament, or Duma, passed the measure Friday on its first reading, the Voice of Russia reported Monday, making it illegal to deny the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal and punishing the “rehabilitation of Nazism.” Those found guilty of the crime could be fined up to $8,300 or imprisoned up to three years. Public officials or media personalities would be fined nearly double or face up to five years in prison. The bill also needs the...

The head of the Russian Pensioners' Party has come up with an initiative to change the Constitution and define marriage as only being between a man and a woman. Igor Zotov, who is also a Lower House MP has explained his move by his assertion that Russia's traditional values are under threat from the latest modern tendencies. "I got this idea from members of the Pensioners' Party. These people are extremely concerned over the processes that are currently taking place all over the world, in particular by the fact that the laws allowing gay marriage have been passed in 15...

The Kremlin has confirmed that the divorce of Russian President Vladimir Putin from his wife of 30 years, Lyudmila, has been finalised. The country's best-known couple, who have two daughters in their late 20s, went on TV in June to announce they were breaking up. Mr Putin, 61, was still officially listed as "married" only last week.

At least 7,000 reservists have been recalled to the colours for immediate exercises lasting between 10 and 30 days. They’re told by the Polish authorities that the call-ups are “routine”: but the men say they haven’t been asked before and they’re well aware of the growing alarm in Warsaw at President Putin’s aggression. Three weeks ago, their Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, called a press conference to warn that “the world stands on the brink of conflict, the consequences of which are not foreseen… Not everyone in Europe is aware of this situation.”

I remember our daily food always coming from a long, long line at the end of which was a loaf of bread, a liter of milk, a stick of butter, a bottle of murky cooking oil, or a kilo of bones with traces of meat and fat on them. [...] If we wanted to eat, we learned at a very young age that we had to stand in long lines every day, often in bitter cold at 4 a.m. in hopes that the store would not run out of bread or milk by the time we made it to the...