Vladimir Putin

With a range of 400 kilometers, S-400 Triumf is designed to shield from air strikes, strategic, cruise, tactical and operating tactical ballistic missiles and medium-range ballistic missiles [Russian MoD]
Despite US objections and the threat of sanctions, India says it will go ahead and purchase advanced Russian defense systems.
Chief of India’s Army Staff Bipin Rawat told the media on Monday that New Delhi will determine a military procurement of its own choosing.

Speaking at the Russian Energy Week International Forum in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin weighed in on the Sergei Skripal hoax, calling the former double agent as a “traitor” and “scum.”
In a quick and sharp trolling of embattled UK PM Theresa May, Putin said the whole Skripal affair had been blown out of proportion, adding that “the faster [the media campaign] ends, the better.”
Putin told the audience at the forum…

Syrian jihadist groups in Idlib are rejecting the Turkish-Russian Idlib deal.
The jihadist faction, Huras al-Din has already rejected the agreement that requires radical terrorist insurgents in Idlib to withdraw from a demilitarized zone. Huras al-Din urged other jihadist factions to launch new military operations.
Huras al-Din is not the main Islamist militant group in Idlib, but its statement points to objections that may complicate the implementation of the agreement signed last week by Russia and Turkey.

When news broke that Rod Rosenstein had given his verbal resignation to the White House Chief of Staff, news outlets all over the world jumped on this story, including us here at The Duran. The initial breaking story turned out not to be so – and Mr. Rosenstein is still holding the post of Deputy Attorney General. But the day was no less chaotic for him, and although the initial story may be premature, it is still clear that an upheaval is definitely in progress.
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Originally posted at strategic-culture.org:

Candidate Donald Trump sounded different from his predecessors. He criticized endless war-making in the Middle East and wanted U.S. forces out of Syria. But U.S. administration officials recently said they are in no hurry to exit the Syrian civil war and threatened military strikes if the Assad government again used chemical weapons.
Why?

By the end of his second term, President Ronald Reagan, who had called the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” was strolling through Red Square with Russians slapping him on the back.
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.
And how have we husbanded the fruits of our Cold War triumph?
This month, China’s leader-for-life Xi Jinping stood beside Vladimir Putin as 3,000 Chinese troops maneuvered with 300,000 Russians, 1,000 planes, and 900 tanks in Moscow’s largest military exercise in 40 years.
It was an uncoded message to the West from the East.

Seeking to maintain its credibility, The New York Times dispenses with the criminal justice system and basic principles of journalism to weigh in again on Russia-gate, reports Joe Lauria. By Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News We’ve seen it before:…Read more →

Bill Clinton and America ruled over Russia and Boris Yeltsin during the 1990s. Yeltsin showed little love for Russia and more interest in keeping power, and pleasing the oligarchs around him.
Then came Vladimir Putin, and everything changed.
Nearly 600 pages of memos and transcripts, documenting personal exchanges and telephone conversations between Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, were made public by the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Al Masdar News reports…
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has sent a letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin, expressing his condolences over the recent Russian Il-20 plane crash in Syria, local media reported.
Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad wrote in his letter to Vladimir Putin that the Russian Il-20 plane crash near Hmeymim air base was a result of Israeli arrogance, SANA news agency reported.