Military & Security

In the wake of the recent escalation of tensions between Russia and Turkey and, de facto, between Moscow and NATO, experts consider if the rhetoric of a hot war between Russia and the West is not “before time?” Political analyst Ian Kearns believes the situation actually reminds “playing …

Guess who just popped up in the Kremlin? Bashar al-Assad, Syrian dictator and destroyer, now Vladimir Putin’s newest pet. After four years holed up in Damascus, Assad was summoned to Russia to bend a knee to Putin, show the world that today Middle East questions get settled not …

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s high-profile meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on November 23 has triggered speculationthat the two sides are weighing some serious policy choices about Syria. The key question, as always, is the fate of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. There is no …

Trita Parsi A senior German official told me in 2010, quite proudly, that under the leadership of Angela Merkel, Germany’s Iran policy had become a function of its relations with Israel. Whether Germany would sanction Iran or engage in diplomacy very much depended on Israel’s reaction. In its …

President Vladimir Putin is actively misinforming his domestic audience and the international community about Russia’s first military intervention outside the former Soviet Union since its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Putin has created a false narrative about the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) to disguise the true objectives …

Moscow isn’t likely to bomb Turkish military facilities, but it has other ways of undermining Ankara’s presence in Syria: Russia is now aiding Kurdish rebels — a group that has been labeled as “terrorists” by Turkey. The Syrian Kurdish forces (YPG) are considered extremely valuable in the fight against ISIS. …

Entering the Syrian conflict, Moscow has faced the challenge posed both by Daesh and its covert backers, Canadian Professor Michael Jabara Carley notes; he questions whether French President Hollande has the guts to escape Washington’s “spider web” and join Russia’s coalition in Syria. Professor Michael Jabara Carley of the …

The Russian military will receive five new regimental units of S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft missile systems in 2016, according to arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey. “Thanks to the efficient work of our employees, we are completing most of our government contracts ahead of schedule. According to our plans for 2016, the company will provide Russia’s Ministry of Defense …

French politician Nicolas Dhuicq believes that the Turkish government may be attempting to carry out a campaign which amounts to an indirect form of ethnic cleansing in northern Syria, resettling abandoned villages in the north of the country with Turkic-speaking peoples.  Speaking with Radio Sputnik France on Tuesday, Dhuicq, …