Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered an urgent inspection of Russia’s aerospace forces in readiness for a potential war with NATO.  Putin’s unannounced inspection on Tuesday comes after Moscow announced that it would be ramping up efforts to counter provocative NATO drills in the Black Sea. Ibtimes.com reports: “In accordance with the decision by the Armed Forces Supreme Commander, a snap check of the Aerospace Forces began to evaluate readiness of the control agencies and troops to carry out combat training tasks,” Shoigu said at a meeting, according to Russian news Agency TASS.

It was only a matter of time before Trump commented on his controversial interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, in which he denied to paint Putin with broad "killer" brush strokes as his interview host suggested, and he did so this morning in his latest tweet moments ago, in which the President said that "the haters are going" crazy after his recent comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin sparked criticism. At the same time, Trump used the oppotunity to attack Obama's deal with Iran "#1 in terror", which the "haters" seem to have "no problem" with.

Submitted by Alexander Mercouris of The Duran

In a telephone conversation, President Trump fails to give strong support to Ukrainian President Poroshenko, as other US officials also signal desire by US to put Ukraine crisis behind it in order to focus on detente with Russia and war against Jihadi terrorism and ISIS.

Is The Trump Administration Already Over?

Paul Craig Roberts

Hopes for the Trump administration are not burning brightly. Trump’s military chief, Gen. Mattis, is turning out to be true to his “mad dog” nickname. He has just declared that Iran “is the single biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.” https://sputniknews.com/politics/201702041050338034-mattis-iran-terrorism/

He has declared Russia to be the number one threat to the US.

He has threatened intervention in China’s territorial affairs.

Having caused quite a stir domestically when in an interview with Donald Trump airing just before the Superbowl, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly described Putin as "a killer" as he tried to press the U.S. president to explain more fully why he respected his Russian counterpart, on Monday the Kremlin slammed O'Reilly's "factual statement" and said it wanted an apology from Fox News over what it said were "unacceptable" comments.

Kremling spokesman Dmitry Peskov