Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

The Week reports: On Monday, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) released a letter to National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien expressing his deep concern about “reports that the Trump administration is withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty” and urging the administration to abandon “such a reckless action.” The treaty, in force since 2002 with 34 nations as signatories, …

Agence France-Presse reports: A Russian court has ruled that two popular LGBT networking sites be blocked for disseminating “anti-family values”, including a major online group with nearly 200,000 members. The court in Saint Petersburg on Wednesday announced the decision against the groups on VK, a Russian platform similar to Facebook. “An inspection showed they contain information available to the public, …

The Associated Press reports: Russia voiced hope Friday that the U.S. administration wouldn’t publish private conversations between the two nations’ presidents, like it did with Ukraine. The rough transcript of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy released by the White House Wednesday shows that Trump urged Ukraine to “look into” his Democratic political rival Joe Biden. The July 25 …

The New York Times reports: A potentially explosive complaint by a whistle-blower in the intelligence community said to involve President Trump was related to a series of actions that goes beyond any single discussion with a foreign leader, according to interviews on Thursday. The complaint was related to multiple acts, Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for American spy agencies, told …

The Huffington Post reports: President Donald Trump on Thursday denied having made an “inappropriate” comment to a foreign leader during a phone call, as The Washington Post reported a day earlier. Trump questioned whether anybody is “dumb enough” to believe that he would say something “inappropriate” on the phone with a foreign leader. The Post reported Wednesday that a U.S. …

The Washington Post reports: The whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense showdown between the U.S. intelligence community and Congress involves President Trump’s communications with a foreign leader, according to two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the …

CNN reports: In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN. A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump …

Second Nexus reports: President Donald Trump spent much of this past weekend’s G7 summit advocating for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched an attack on the sanctity of American democracy in 2016 and has continued to do so. Now Russian state television is mocking Trump for being such an unwavering ally to Putin. Russia was booted from the G7—then the …

Reuters reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered a like-for-like response to a recent U.S. missile test, which he said showed that Washington aimed to deploy previously banned missiles around the world. The Pentagon said on Monday it had tested a conventionally-configured cruise missile that hit its target after more than 500 km (310 miles) of flight, its first …

The New York Times reports: American intelligence officials are racing to understand a mysterious explosion that released radiation off the coast of northern Russia last week, apparently during the test of a new type of nuclear-propelled cruise missile hailed by President Vladimir V. Putin as the centerpiece of Moscow’s arms race with the United States. American officials have said nothing …

CNBC reports: U.S. President Donald Trump offered his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin help in putting out vast wildfires that are raging in Siberia, the Kremlin said late on Wednesday, a move it said Putin took as a sign that battered ties can be restored. The Kremlin said the two leaders had spoken by phone at Washington’s initiative, hours after Putin …

“Last week I stopped Democrats from passing an election law bill through the Senate by unanimous consent, a bill that was so partisan that it only received one Republican vote over in the House. My Democratic friends asked for unanimous consent to pass a bill that everyone knows isn’t unanimous and never will be unanimous. So I objected. “Over the …

ABC News reports: A doctor for Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, has suggested the activist has been poisoned after he was hospitalized Sunday after falling mysteriously ill in a Moscow jail. Navalny was taken by ambulance to the hospital early on Sunday morning from the jail with what authorities said was a “severe allergic reaction,” his spokeswoman Kira …

Director Oliver Stone writes on his Facebook page: As to gay/LGBTQ beliefs in Russia, again much misunderstood. Mr. Putin made himself clear in “The Putin Interviews” — he’s not anti-gay/LGBTQ. Nor am I. Have another look at “Alexander,” for which we took a beating in 2004. Beyond the Hephaestion story in the sexuality department, I prominently featured Alexander’s love for …

Bowling Green’s NBC News affiliate reports: A new billboard along I-65 in Hart County is raising some eyebrows. The sign reads, “Putin’s Mitch” and features a photo of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Mad Dog Political Action Committee paid for the sign and another anti-McConnell sign elsewhere. “That’s what our campaign is about, it’s about putting up billboards that bring …

The Daily Beast reports: Filmmaker and conspiracy theorist Oliver Stone has made no secret of his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but now he has taken it to a whole new level by trying to make him his 22-year-old daughter’s godfather. “Does she want to become an Orthodox Christian?” Putin asked when Stone floated the idea during a sit-down …

Open Secrets reports: The Russian government sent more than $1.4 million to a Florida-based company airing Kremlin propaganda in the nation’s capital over the last two years, according to recent foreign agent registration records. Florida-based company RM Broadcasting LLC has officially registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department after a federal judge ordered it to do so in …

The Hill reports: The Russian troll farms that carried out a sophisticated disinformation campaign on U.S. social media platforms in 2016 may have influenced President Trump’s standing in public opinion polls during the campaign, according to a new study released Monday. Researchers at the University of Tennessee said that for every 25,000 retweets each week by the Internet Research Agency …

Newsweek reports: President Donald Trump insisted he did confront Vladimir Putin about the prospect of Moscow meddling in the U.S. 2020 election, following criticism of his light-hearted admonishment of his Russian counterpart at this week’s G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan. Trump smirked when he waved his finger and said to Putin “don’t meddle in the election, please,” after he was …

Politico reports: Former President Jimmy Carter questioned the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s presidency on Thursday, saying he would likely not be in the White House if the Russians did not interfere in the 2016 presidential elections. “I think a full investigation would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election, and he was put …