News

The presence of 3,500 U.S. soldiers, who will be joined by another 1,600 as well as helicopters and aircraft next month, is part of a wider, multinational build-up of NATO nations.

U.S. soldiers will also deploy to Bulgaria and Romania.

Little noted in the press, on January 11, a bipartisan group of US Senators (Ben Cardin, John McCain, Bob Menendez, Lindsey Graham, Jeanne Shaheen, Marco Rubio, Amy Klobuchar, Ben Sasse, Richard Durbin, and Rob Portman) introduced legislation “To impose sanctions in response to cyber intrusions by the Government of the Russian Federation and other aggressive activities of the Russian Federation, and for other purposes.” Read the bill here.

Hersh said many media outlets failed to provide context when reporting on the intelligence assessment made public in the waning days of the Obama administration that was purported to put to rest any doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the hacking of the DNC and Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s emails.

One of Donald Trump’s most important and precarious cabinet picks, former oil executive Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, was narrowly approved by a Senate committee on Monday as the last Republican holdout in the upper chamber declared his support.

Asked why the Républicains party was so keen on Russia, Fillon said: “There is no fascination for Russia on the part of the leaders of my political family. There is just a big sense of historical continuity, as General de Gaulle well understood that peace in Europe relies on having political relations with Russia.”

A bipartisan group of senators is seeking to hamstring President Donald Trump from lifting sanctions on Russia without approval from Congress, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. John McCain said Sunday.

From fiscal 2017 to 2026, it will cost $341.78 billion, including inflation, to buy and sustain new nuclear submarines, aircraft, missiles, bombs, warheads and associated computers, according to the report.

Transcript of interview with Donald Trump (excerpt re Russia)

Q: Do you think that what’s happened in Syria now with Putin intervening is a good thing or a bad thing?

Nah, I think it’s a very rough thing. It’s a very bad thing, we had a chance to do something when we had the line in the sand and it wasn’t – nothing happened. [Read more…] about Transcript of interview with Donald Trump (excerpt re: Russia)

Some 300 U.S. Marines landed in Norway on Monday for a six-month deployment, the first time since World War Two that foreign troops have been allowed to be stationed there, in a deployment which has irked Norway’s Arctic neighbor Russia.

Parliamentarians in Russia gave a mixed reaction on Monday to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to strike a deal on nuclear arms cuts in exchange for Washington lifting sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.

A Russian United Nations representative, members of the NYPD color guard, the Bayonne Fire Department, and the veterans’ color guards, were present for the ceremony. On what was Christmas Day in Russia, the chorus presented a wreath and sang the Star Spangled Banner and the Russian National Anthem.

The skies above Syria are an international incident waiting to happen, according to American pilots.

What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. That is a significant omission…

The Democratic National Committee tells BuzzFeed News that the bureau “never requested access” to the servers the White House and intelligence community say were hacked by Russia.

The ex-British Ambassador to Syria has accused the Foreign Office of lying over the country’s civil war and said British policy there has “made the situation worse”.

Countries have agreed proposal that should come into force by midnight, says Turkish foreign minister

Russia said on Tuesday that a U.S. decision to ease restrictions on arming Syrian rebels had opened the way for deliveries of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, a move it said would directly threaten Russian forces in Syria.

Less than two hours before announcing his resignation as president of the Soviet Union on Dec. 25, 1991, Mikhail S. Gorbachev placed a telephone call to President George H. W. Bush, who was celebrating Christmas with his grandchildren at Camp David.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed “normalization” of the situation in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

UN Ambassador Samantha Power continues in her efforts to undermine John Kerry’s diplomatic efforts in Syria.