Tens of thousands of Syrians fled an intensifying Russian assault around Aleppo on Friday, and aid workers said they feared the major city could soon fall under a full government siege.
Nadezhda Azhgikhina: The Abyss Between Russian and US Media Just Got Wider
Hasty decisions made on both sides of the Atlantic are causing irreparable damage to journalism as a whole.
POPE, RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PATRIARCH TO MEET IN HISTORIC STEP (AP)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis and the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church will meet in Cuba next week in a historic step to heal the 1,000-year-old schism that divided Christianity between East and West, both churches announced Friday.
Doug Bandow: Donald Trump Prepares to Escalate Confrontation with Russia over Ukraine
Most Americans were told Donald Trump won the presidential election last year. But his policy toward Russia looks suspiciously like what a President Hillary Clinton would have pursued.
New RAND Report Claims If Russia Started a War in the Baltics, NATO Would Lose (FP)
If Russian tanks and troops rolled into the Baltics tomorrow, outgunned and outnumbered NATO forces would be overrun in under three days. That’s the sobering conclusion of war games carried out by a think tank with American military officers and civilian officials.
Politico: Macron and Merkel urge peaceful solutions to Ukraine crisis
The statement from the French and German leaders came in response to an uptick in ceasefire violations in Eastern Ukraine.
Russia and Turkey trade accusations over Syria (Reuters)
Russia said on Thursday it suspected Turkey was preparing a military incursion into Syria, as a Syrian army source said Aleppo would soon be encircled by government forces with Russian air support.
Jackson Lears: What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Russian Hacking
Sceptical voices, such as those of the VIPS, have been drowned out by a din of disinformation. Flagrantly false stories, like the Washington Post report that the Russians had hacked into the Vermont electrical grid, are published, then retracted 24 hours later. Sometimes, like the stories about Russian interference in the French and German elections, they are not retracted even after they have been discredited.
Ukraine Launches First Military UAV To Combat Insurgents (Defense News)
WARSAW — The Ukrainian state-owned defense company Ukroboronprom has built the country’s first military unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to bolster Ukraine’s combat against Russia-backed insurgents in the country’s east.
WNYC’s On the Media Interviews Glenn Greenwald on Media Malpractice
Bob Garfield talks to Glenn Greenwald about his article on the CNN debacle and why the media need to do better if they want to regain public trust.
Kissinger’s Vision for U.S.-Russia Relations
According to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, fresh off a meeting with Vladimir Putin, US-Russian relations “are probably the worst they have been since before the end of the Cold War. Mutual trust has been dissipated on both sides. Confrontation has replaced cooperation.”
Aaron Mate Interviews Luke Harding, Author of ‘Collusion’
Amid news the Mueller probe could extend through 2018, Guardian reporter Luke Harding and TRNN’s Aaron Mate discuss Russiagate and Harding’s new book “Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win”
Economic minister’s resignation plunges Ukraine into new crisis (Guardian)
Ukraine has been thrust into a new political crisis after the economic minister and his team tendered their resignations complaining of ingrained corruption, which has replaced the simmering separatist conflict as the country’s main obstacle to reform.
Patrick Lawrence: When Putin Talks, It Is Worth Listening
Putin again had some interesting things to say, though one could scarcely glean this from Western press reports, and certainly not from the US media. Beelzebub is never deserving of serious attention.
Russia and the Saudis: A 10-billion barrel game of oil bluff (CNBC)
As oil prices continue to cause market uncertainty, and with low fuel prices wreaking havoc on some countries’ economies, notably Russia’s, the world’s top oil producer has been at the forefront of trying to figure out whether or not a production cut should be implemented in order to support and stabilize prices.
Leonid Nersisyan: If the INF Treaty Dies, America and Russia Could See an Arms Race
The United States and Russia have been accusing one another of violating the INF Treaty in recent years.
The Obama Administration Has Just Recklessly Escalated Its Military Confrontation With Russia (Stephen F Cohen)
Nation contributing editor and ACEWA Founding Board Member Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold war. This installment focuses on the Pentagon’s announcement that it will quickly quadruple the positioning of US-NATO heavy military weapons and troops near Russia’s eastern borders. The result, Cohen argues, will further militarize the new Cold War, making it more confrontational and likely to lead to actual war with Russia. The move is unprecedented in modern times.Except during Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Western military power has never been positioned so close to Russia, making the new Cold War even more dangerous than was the preceding one. Russia will certainly react, probably by moving more of its own heavy weapons, including new missiles, to its Western borders, possibly along with a large number of its tactical nuclear weapons. The latter reminds us, Cohen points out, that a new and more dangerous US-Russian nuclear arms race has been under way for several years, which the Obama Administration’s decision can only intensify. The decision will also have other woeful consequences, undermining ongoing negotiations by Secretary of State Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov for cooperation on the Ukrainian and Syrian crises and further dividing Europe itself, which is far from united on Washington’s increasingly hawkish approach to Moscow.
Cohen ends by expressing despair that these ongoing developments have been barely reported in the US media and publicly debated not at all, not even by current presidential candidates and the moderators of their “debates.” Never before has such a dire international situation been so ignored in an American presidential campaign. The reason may be, Cohen adds, that everything that has happened since the Ukrainian crisis erupted in November 2013 has been blamed solely on the “aggression” of Russian President Putin—a highly questionable assertion and media-policy narrative.
Paul Robinson: Sanctions, The Evidence
I have acquired a copy of a recent report which analyzes the effect of sanctions on the Russian economy. I thought, therefore, that I should share the report’s conclusions with you.
The Big 5 and the Sad State of Foreign Policy in 2016 (Stephen Walt)
According to Prof. Stephen Walt, one of the many problems with Hillary Clinton is that “Clinton and her advisors are deeply committed to the familiar strategy of liberal hegemony the United States has followed ever since the end of the Cold War.”
Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor: Why Russians Think ‘America Is Waging War Against Russia’
Russiagaters allege, with no evidence, that “Russia attacked America” in 2016, but many Russians believe-with reasonable cause-that the US has been attacking their country for 25 years.