Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The meeting between Trump and Putin at the G20 in Hamburg injects new hope into the complicated relationship between the United States and Russia. Only time can confirm whether there is any basis for this hope.
Shortly after Russia's deputy foreign minister slammed the US downing of a Syrian Su-22 jet as an "act of aggression" and "support for terrorists", Russia announced that starting June 19 it was halting all interactions with the US under the framework on the "memorandum of incident prevention in Syrian skies", the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday, thereby assuring the probability of even more deadly escalations between Russia and the US-led coalition.
Former U.N weapons inspector Scott Ritter warned before the start of the Iraq war that claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction were false.
Sunday, Ritter wrote that current claims that the leader of Syria launched a chemical weapons attack was false:
Some sort of chemical event took place in Khan Sheikhoun; what is very much in question is who is responsible for the release of the chemicals that caused the deaths of so many civilians.
A Syrian jet has reportedly been shot down by a surface-to-air missile in Aleppo Province. Islamist rebels shot down the warplane on Tuesday in an area south of the city of Aleppo where insurgents are battling the Syrian army and allied militias. The pilot ejected but was captured by the Al-Qaeda affiliated rebel group. RT reports: The Syrian Army has confirmed that an Su-22 jet was downed near Aleppo, an army representative told RIA Novosti. The pilot of the downed plane has been taken by Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front to one of its bases, according to a rebel source cited by Reuters.