america

RT reported on November 28 that President Vladimir Putin had some very strong words about the clash between Russian and Ukrainian naval ships in the Kerch Strait this past Sunday and the actions taken since then by President Petro Poroshenko.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said the clash between Russian and Ukrainian military ships was a result of foreign nations’ failing to hold Kiev accountable for bad behavior as long as it remains confrontational towards Russia.

The President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, continues to ratchet up tensions, at least he continues to ratchet up the optics of tensions. On November 27, the order went out from the Combined Forces Operation Commander to the combat troops in Donbass to go on full alert. According to TASS:

The March 1 announcement by President Vladimir Putin that Russia has viable hypersonic weapons was finally accepted and taken seriously by the United States. Now, the American military has placed new urgency on hypersonic weapons development.

A November 24 piece from Strategic Culture reports that the United Kingdom has added more fuel to the fire in Ukraine by committing more military forces to the conflict in that country. Strategic Culture’s Arkady Savitsky writes (emphasis added):

News broke a few days ago, on Nov 19th, and has spread across the Orthodox world, that the United States paid Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I some $25 million dollars to foment the disruption of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. James Jatras reported on this, and his report has been republished on RT and across several independent news websites.

On November 5th, Russia observed US spy planes and other aircraft operating near its borders, with other surveillance aircraft operating over Syria. This is nothing particularly new, as American / Western policy has been to try to place pressure on Moscow by its use of military force for wargames and exercises. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed this behavior in very direct terms in a talk he gave in Portugal:

President Trump moved the ball of perception about stopping illegal immigration in a most notable fashion. On November 22, Thanksgiving Day, the American president was interviewed after his holiday phone call to the military, and discussed the authorization of the use of lethal force against immigrants in the caravans who try to forcibly enter the United States’ territory (points of emphasis added):

Western Ukraine wanted to be European. They wanted to be with the United States, and of course in the efforts to “contain Russia,” the American government was only too happy to help, sending people like the late Senator John McCain, Sam Brownback and others to remake the land that is historically the very heart of Russia into just another Western enclave. But the opening of a US-based Kentucky Fried Chicken store in a building that served as a makeshift hospital in the bloody days of the coup has drawn the ire of these same Ukrainian people.

America’s foreign policy is often a subject of massive criticism in the world outside the United States. One of the biggest areas of criticism is the US set of policies for the Middle East, most notably Saudi Arabia and Israel. Not only are these policies severely criticized by non-Israel-aligned countries there, but the mainstream American media waxes hot and cold by turns on the matter.

Two local jurisdictions within the Eastern Orthodox Church announced their refusal to accept the legitimization of two schismatic groups in Ukraine, a move authorized by the Ecumenical Patriarch, but spurred by powers in the United States and Petro Poroshenko’s secularist-oriented Ukraine.