Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement Tuesday that Moscow is suspending its participation in the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms control treaty will have an immediate impact on U.S. visibility into Russian nuclear activities, but the pact was already on life support. Putin's decision to suspend Russian cooperation with the treaty's nuclear warhead and missile inspections follows Moscow's cancellation late last year of talks that had been intended to salvage an agreement that both sides have accused the other of violating. In his state-of-the-nation address to the Russian people, Putin said Russia was withdrawing from the treaty because of U.S. support to Ukraine, and he accused the U.S. and its NATO allies of openly working for Russia's destruction. The U.S. had previously walked away from the treaty. During the Trump administration, the U.S. declined to engage in negotiations to extend it, accusing Moscow of flagrant violations. But when President Joe Biden took office in
Russia's refusal to allow on-the-ground inspections to resume is endangering the New START nuclear treaty and US-Russian arms control overall, the Biden administration charged on Tuesday. The finding was delivered to Congress and summarized in a statement by the State Department. It follows months of more hopeful US assessments that the two countries would be able to salvage cooperation on limiting strategic nuclear weapons despite high tensions over Russia's war on Ukraine. Inspections of US and Russian military sites under the New START treaty were paused by both sides because of the spread of the coronavirus in March 2020. The US-Russia committee overseeing implementation of the treaty last met in October 2021, but Russia then unilaterally suspended its cooperation with the treaty's inspection provisions in August 2022 to protest US support for Ukraine. "Russia's refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the trea
The European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have agreed to set up a task force to better protect critical infrastructure and increase resilience
Russia's Foreign Ministry warned Thursday that if the U.S. delivers sophisticated air defense systems to Ukraine, those systems and any crews that accompany them would be a legitimate target for the Russian military, a blunt threat that was quickly rejected by Washington. The exchange of statements reflected soaring Russia-U.S. tensions amid the fighting in Ukraine, which is now in its 10th month. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the U.S. had effectively become a party to the war by providing Ukraine with weapons and training its troops. She added that if reports about U.S. intentions to provide Kyiv with Patriot surface-to-air missile system prove true, it would become another provocative move by the U.S. and broaden its involvement in the hostilities, "entailing possible consequences. Any weapons systems supplied to Ukraine, including the Patriot, along with the personnel servicing them, have been and will remain legitimate priority targets for the Russian
The Pentagon will expand military combat training for Ukrainian forces, using the slower winter months to instruct larger units in more complex battle skills, the Defense Department and U.S. officials said Thursday. The U.S. has already trained about 3,100 Ukrainian troops on how to use and maintain certain weapons and other equipment, including howitzers, armored vehicles and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS. But senior military leaders for months have discussed expanding that training, stressing the need to improve the ability of Ukraine's company- and battalion-sized units to move and coordinate attacks across the battlefield. Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told Pentagon reporters Thursday that the U.S. expects to train about 500 Ukrainian troops each month and will begin in the January timeframe. Ryder, the Pentagon's press secretary, added that it is not likely to require additional U.S. forces to conduct the training. According to U.S. officials, the
The unprecedented move by one set of countries to try to impose a price at which another can sell a commodity has drawn confusion among traders, and - from Moscow - a threat of retaliation
Wider October trade deficit, contraction in exports drag down rupee
The United States and Russia will soon hold talks on resuming suspended nuclear arms control inspections that had been put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic and languished after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the State Department said Tuesday. State Department spokesman Ned Price said negotiations on the inspections would take place in the near future under the terms of the New START treaty and would not include any discussion of the conflict in Ukraine. He would not give a date or a venue for the talks but other officials suggested they would be held before the end of the year, likely in Egypt. The meeting of the treaty's so-called Bilateral Consultative Commission will be the first in more than a year, and is intended to show that the two countries remain committed to arms control and keeping lines of communication open despite other differences. We believe deeply around the world in the transformative power and the importance of diplomacy and dialogue, Price told reporters in
The Biden administration is committed to work with India on its transition away from Russia, the White House has said. It said there are a number of countries that have learned the hard way of the fact that Moscow is not a reliable source of energy or security. When it comes to India's relationship with Russia, the US has consistently made the point that it is a relationship, that developed and was cemented over the course of decades, really came to be during the Cold War at a time when the United States was not in a position to be an economic partner, a security partner, a military partner to India, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters at a news conference here Tuesday. That has changed. That's changed over the past 25 or so years. It's really a legacy, a bipartisan legacy that this country has achieved over the course of the past quarter century. President George W Bush's administration was really the first to put this into effect, he said Price said the US has
"If it was not for the Iranian supply of weapons to the aggressor, we would be closer to peace now," Zelensky said Sunday evening in his daily address
Tetra Tech will strengthen the Government of Ukraine's capacity to locate and remove landmines, unexploded and abandoned ordnance, improvised explosive devices
In rare talks, US and Russian Defence Ministers spoke on the phone during which they discussed the Ukrainian war, according to official statements issued by Washington and Moscow
The White House laid out a national security strategy Wednesday aimed at checking an ascendant China and a more assertive Russia even as it stressed that domestic investments are key to helping the US compete in the critical decade ahead. The administration's first national security strategy, a document required by statute, stresses the need for a foreign policy that balances the interests of global allies with those of middle-class Americans. We understand that if the United States is to succeed abroad, we must invest in our innovation and industrial strength, and build our resilience, at home, the strategy states. Likewise, to advance shared prosperity domestically and to uphold the rights of all Americans, we must proactively shape the international order in line with our interests and values. In broad brushstrokes, the strategy sketches a decisive moment for national security, as President Joe Biden faces an arguably more complicated world than when he took office 21 months ago
For the first time in 20 years, a Russian cosmonaut rocketed from the U.S. on Wednesday, launching to the International Space Station alongside NASA and Japanese astronauts despite tensions over the war in Ukraine. Their SpaceX flight was delayed by Hurricane Ian, which ripped across the state last week. I hope with this launch we will brighten up the skies over Florida a little bit for everyone, said the Japan Space Agency's Koichi Wakata, who is making his fifth spaceflight. Joining him on a five-month mission are three new to space: Marine Col. Nicole Mann, the first Native American woman bound for orbit; Navy Capt. Josh Cassada and Russia's lone female cosmonaut, Anna Kikina. They're due to arrive at the space station Thursday, 29 hours after departing NASA's Kennedy Space Center, and won't be back on Earth until March. They're replacing a U.S.-Italian crew that arrived in April. Kikina is the Russian Space Agency's exchange for NASA's Frank Rubio, who launched to the space ..
EU leaders are expected to discuss Kyiv's financial requirements, which the draft budget for 2023 has placed at $38 billion, at a summit in the Czech Republic this week
Russia has covertly spent more than $300 million since 2014 to try to influence politicians and other officials in more than two dozen countries, the State Department alleges in a newly released cable. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who signed the cable released Tuesday, cites a new intelligence assessment of Russia's global covert efforts to support policies and parties sympathetic to Moscow. The cable does not name specific Russian targets but says the U.S. is providing classified information to select individual countries. It's the latest effort by the Biden administration to declassify intelligence about Moscow's military and political aims, dating back to ultimately correct assessments that Russia would launch a new war against Ukraine. Many of President Joe Biden's top national security officials have extensive experience countering Moscow and served in government when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a wide-ranging campaign to influence the 2016 and 2020 U.S. ..
The US Deputy Secretary of Treasury Wally Adeyemo on Wednesday said there is "no evidence" of Indian companies circumventing the sanctions imposed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "I've seen no evidence of Indian companies circumventing sanctions that have been placed on Russia," Adeyemo told reporters during a visit to IIT-Bombay here. He added that companies around the world, including those in India, the US and Europe, are taking the sanctions seriously and implementing them as well. The remarks come days after reports quoted RBI Deputy Governor Michael Patra saying that the US is concerned over India being used to export fuel made from Russian crude in violation of sanctions imposed by Washington. According to Patra, transfers of Russian crude are taking place on the high seas and the ships come to a port in Gujarat, where the oil is refined and shipped on. Adeyemo also said that the coalition of the sanctions is broadening, with many countries joining. The Treasury ..
Putin also cited the AUKUS security pact between Australia, Britain and the United States as evidence of Western attempts to build a NATO-style bloc in the Asia-Pacific region
Russia has accused the United States of direct involvement in the Ukraine war, while the first ship carrying Ukrainian grain to world markets since Moscow's invasion is due to be inspected in Turkey
Russian officials have visited an airfield in central Iran at least twice in recent weeks to view weapons-capable drones it is looking to acquire for use in its ongoing war in Ukraine: The White House