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.
When making foreign policy decisions, one must be careful not to view the world prescriptively (the way we want it to be), but rather to view it descriptively (the harsh reality of what is). That’s easier said than done. After President Donald Trump announced May 21 that the United States would withdraw from the 1992…
Borscht, or beet soup, is a staple of Eastern European cuisine. Its dense, complex flavor derives in part from the sour cream that is often mixed in. In the thick soup of the Libyan civil war, the shadowy group of Russian paramilitaries known as the Wagner Group is the sour cream. Its involvement has made…
Democrats are raising a ruckus about a news report that Russia plans to meddle in the 2020 presidential campaign to help reelect President Donald Trump. But further Russian election interference was expected, as special counsel Robert Mueller told Congress last year after his report about Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 campaign. Here’s what to know…
The Trump administration announced Tuesday it has imposed sanctions on a Russian state-controlled oil company that does business with the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro, the socialist strongman clinging to power as an illegitimate president in the South American nation more than a year after the country’s legislature voted to remove him from office. The…
On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced the U.S. Navy has deployed the W76-2 low-yield nuclear weapon on its Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles, an achievement that fills a critical gap in the United States’ deterrence posture against Russia. The official announcement marks the completion of a short-yet-controversial process of modifying the Navy’s W76-1 nuclear warhead to…
Aggression by Iran and trade with China may dominate U.S. foreign policy headlines, but a plan recently announced by Russia to increase its presence in the Arctic should command our attention. The Northern Sea Route Development Plan—known as Plan NSP—marks a 15-year effort by Russia to strengthen its involvement in the Arctic by focusing on…
KYIV, Ukraine—As the Russian shells and rockets rained down on them in the frontline town of Debaltseve in February 2015, Ukrainian troops began to receive curious, anonymous text messages on their cellphones. “Your comrades nearby already left their positions, so you should leave yours as well,” one message read. The messages also claimed that Petro…
To understand communism, it’s important to look at the man who was the first to institute a government dedicated to Karl Marx’s ideals: Vladimir Lenin. When I was in college, I recall a conversation with several classmates who joked about throwing a get-together and naming it “The Communist Party.” They mocked the idea that anyone…
America’s military is stronger than before, but lacks the capacity to fight more than one war with a major power as adversaries such as China and Russia grow more ambitious, according to the 2020 Index of U.S. Military Strength. The Heritage Foundation released the 500-page report Wednesday, grading all four branches of the U.S. military…
Under the misleading guise of being a British company, a firm connected to a Russian oligarch is seeking to expand its investments and business dealings across the United States. Only a few months after Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s companies were scandalously removed from U.S. sanctions, they have wasted no time trying to enter the U.S….
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 with the use of so-called “little green men” and Moscow’s subsequent meddling in elections across the transatlantic community, “hybrid warfare” has become the term du jour in Western foreign policy circles. Perhaps the best definition of hybrid warfare is offered by the new European Centre of Excellence for…
ABOARD A U.S. AIR FORCE AIRCRAFT—The U.S. has announced a new round of sanctions on Russia for its use of a chemical weapon in 2018 during an attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter on British soil. In the March 2018 attack in the town of Salisbury in the United Kingdom,…
President Donald Trump put more sanctions on Russia via executive order Thursday as required by law in response to Russia’s use of chemical weapons in a 2018 attack on an ex-spy in the U.S., two U.S. officials said. The attack was made on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his adult daughter Yulia Skripal, who…
The United States is withdrawing this week from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a 31-year-old agreement with Russia. The decision to withdraw is the right move. Russia has failed to comply with the treaty in recent years, allowing it an advantage over the United States, which has continued to abide by the treaty. At this…
Some surprising events transpired in Moscow last weekend. Violent protests—the largest in Russia in a decade—erupted, and more than 1,300 people were detained. Protesters demanded that dissident figures be allowed to run in the local city council elections set for Sept. 8. Authorities declared the protests illegal, but thousands of people showed up anyway, chanting…
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced recently on Twitter the “need” for a federal investigation into the popular Russia-based image-editing technology for smartphones called “FaceApp.” “BIG: Share if you used #FaceApp: The FBI and FTC must look into the national security and privacy risks now because millions of Americans have used it; it’s owned by…
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Attorney General William Barr reiterated his intention to find out why the Obama administration launched an investigation into the Republican Party presidential candidate’s campaign during the 2016 campaign. If the political parties in the sentence above were reversed, we would be in the midst of the…
Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said Wednesday that Russia is likely conducting low-yield nuclear weapons tests. That’s an indication that Russia doesn’t share the same understanding of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that the U.S. does. In the United States’ understanding, the treaty prohibits any nuclear weapons experiments that produce…
The entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative was always implausible. One, the Washington swamp of fixers such as Paul Manafort and John and Tony Podesta was mostly bipartisan and predated Trump. Two, the Trump administration’s Russia policies were far tougher on Vladimir Putin than were those of Barack Obama. Trump confronted Russia in Syria, upped defense spending,…
The crisis in Venezuela is only getting worse by the week. And with Russian backing, it looks less likely that dictator Nicolas Maduro will step aside. Ana Quintana of The Heritage Foundation explains what’s at stake, and what’s going on. Read our interview, posted below, or listen to it on the podcast: We also cover…