Russia News
Explore in-depth coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine, its global influence, and how American policymakers respond. The Daily Signal provides news and perspective on this critical issue.
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news
Syria Cease-Fire Collapse Highlights How Far US-Russia Relations Have Fallen
KYIV, Ukraine—The story is depressingly familiar. On Friday, the cease-fire in Syria, which was brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, collapsed as Russian and Syrian warplanes resumed their scorched earth airstrike campaign in Aleppo. “Russia has no vested interest in stability in the Middle East,” Stephen Blank,… -
news
Russia’s Military Exercises Fuel Fears of Continued Aggression
KYIV, Ukraine—As the late summer weather begins to cool, Russian military exercises have kept the tensions hot in Ukraine and across Eastern Europe. Periodic flare-ups in the ongoing war in Ukraine’s embattled Donbas region this summer have renewed fears of a full-on Russian invasion and spurred an unprecedented post-Cold War redeployment of NATO military forces… -
opinion
Russia Continues to Dominate Arctic as US Struggles to Procure Icebreakers
The Arctic is shaping up to be one of the most strategically important regions in the 21st century. However, the United States has fallen far behind in building the specialized ships necessary to traverse the region’s treacherous waters. On June 10, Russia launched its first new military icebreaker in half a century. The Ilya Muromets,… -
news
Russia’s Moves, Terrorism Fuel Talk of War in Europe
KYIV, Ukraine—Whether referring to Russian aggression in the east or to the threat of Islamist terrorism in the West, Europe’s political, media, and religious elite are increasingly using the word “war” to describe the Continent’s security challenges. The day after the July 14 terror attack in Nice, in which a man drove a large truck… -
news
Russia’s Pattern of Influencing Foreign Politics
KYIV, Ukraine—If the FBI proves Russia is behind Friday’s leak of embarrassing Democratic National Committee emails, the revelation would be consistent with Russia’s pattern of clandestine and overt gambits to influence the politics of its perceived adversaries. “In the Putin era, Russia has been aggressive on many fronts, including invasions of Georgia and Ukraine,” said… -
opinion
Russians Turn Up the Diplomatic Heat on US Broadcasting Chief
The Russian government just turned the heat up a notch on U.S. officials in what is an already heated diplomatic climate. In the past few weeks, Russia and the U.S. have expelled several of each other’s diplomats. This past Tuesday night, U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) chairman Jeff Shell was summarily detained by Russian… -
news
Russian Threat Takes Center Stage at NATO’s Warsaw Summit
WARSAW, Poland—Russian aggression, radical Islamist terrorism, the refugee crisis, Brexit, Afghanistan. The list of challenges NATO leaders faced at the biennial summit here over the weekend was diverse, highlighting what some consider to be a post-Cold War moment of truth for the alliance to prove it still matters. Speaking to reporters Saturday, President Barack Obama… -
opinion
Snapshots From a Trip to Russia to Talk ‘New Era’ Journalism
I traveled halfway around the world earlier this month for a journalism conference in an unlikely place: Moscow. It was an invitation-only event, attended by about 300 international journalists, focusing on censorship and what was termed to be a “farewell to mainstream” by Russia’s state-run Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today) International Information Agency. We debated dicey… -
opinion
How Russia Is Lying to Us About Syria
What seemed like an encouraging headline a few weeks ago was really all smoke and mirrors—far from pulling out of Syria, Russia has been rolling in even more troops and equipment. Russian President Vladimir Putin has once again proven that he cannot be trusted. On March 14, Putin began ordering troops to return home from… -
news
Former Soviet Fighter Pilot: Russian Jets ‘More Aggressive’ Than During Cold War
KYIV, Ukraine—As the NATO-Russia Council prepared to meet for the first time in almost two years, U.S. and Russian officials traded barbs over who’s to blame for a recent spike in military tensions. The ambassadorial level meeting set for Wednesday at alliance headquarters in Brussels was to be the first time the format, which comprises NATO… -
opinion
The Russian Propaganda War on Reality
The Russian government’s reliance on propaganda to advance its aggressive agenda and control its own population should give the West pause before partnering with Vladimir Putin. In an April 14 three-hour marathon call-in show on Russian television, for instance, Putin attacked American “imperial ambitions”—hardly an accusation that fits the Obama administration’s approach to the world. It… -
opinion
Failed Obama ‘Reset’ Has Encouraged Russian Aggression
People seem a bit surprised—even perplexed—by the breathless news reports and video of Russian warplanes “buzzing” an American warship operating in international waters in the Baltic Sea this week. The reality is that they shouldn’t be. That, of course, isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be deeply troubled for the safety of our sailors on… -
opinion
Russia and China Increase Defense Spending While US Continues Cutting
Every year at this time, we see the same kind of headlines: “U.S. biggest military spender in the world.” They’re all based on the release of the global military spending database, an annual report compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). What the headlines usually miss is that U.S. defense spending is going… -
opinion
Russia’s Nuclear Treaty Violations and the Obama Administration’s Tepid Response
Russia continues to violate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by fielding a prohibited ground-launched cruise missile system. Rose Gottemoeller and Brian McKeon, two high-level administration officials dealing with arms control issues, testified earlier this month before a joint hearing of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees on how the Obama administration is… -
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How Will Downing of Russian Plane Impact Campaign Against ISIS?
President Barack Obama on Tuesday used the downing of a Russian warplane as evidence to support the view of the international community that the Kremlin get with the program in the fight against the Islamic State. While the move by Turkey, a NATO ally, to shoot down a Russian jet that it says was flying… -
opinion
Why Turkey Shot Down a Russian Fighter Jet
On Tuesday morning a Russian Su-24 warplane was shot down by Turkish F-16s after violating Turkish airspace. According to the latest media reports one Russian pilot was killed and another has been captured by local rebel forces on the ground. To discuss what this means for NATO, the U.S., and the on-going conflict in Syria… -
opinion
The Obama Administration Still Lacks a Strategy to Counter China and Russia
Last week, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter gave a major speech at the 2015 Reagan National Defense Forum outlining the Obama administration’s new strategies to respond to Russia and China. While it is certainly clear that the United States is in need of new strategies to respond to these two countries—who seem to be outmaneuvering… -
news
Bernie Sanders Says US Should Curb Fossil Fuels to Clean Up Russia, China
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wants to pledge American resources to clean up the Chinese, Indian, and Russian environments. Flanked by environmental activists Wednesday on the Capitol’s East Lawn and joined by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., the Vermont senator touted the pair’s legislation to prohibit all new fossil fuel developments on federal land, a measure aimed… -
opinion
Thanks, Russia, for Spurring American Action on ISIS
I never thought I’d say this, considering recent events, but we may have to—gulp—thank Russia for something: a potential positive (and long overdue) shift in our Iraq/Syria/Islamic State/al-Qaeda policy, which has been both flailing and failing. While the White House would deny it, it’s very likely that the Kremlin’s intervention into the Syrian civil war…