Ukraine

When we reported yesterday about Putin's surprisingly harsh response to last week's House legislation to launch new sanctions against Russia, which also binds Trump from unilaterally removing sanctions without getting Congressional approval, we concluded that "now we await the US re-retaliation in what is once again the same tit-for-tat escalation that marked the latter years of the Obama regime, as the US Military Industrial Complex breathes out a sigh of relief that for all the posturing by Trump, things between Russia and the US are back on autopilot."

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Just a few short days after President Trump's 'relative' rapprochement with Russian President Putin, his 'allies' in NATO have stepped up the rhetoric in a very sensitive area for Putin, as NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg pledged support for Ukraine during a visit to Kiev on Monday.

As Military.com reports, Ukraine and the West accuse Moscow of smuggling weapons and troops across the porous border in support of the separatists, a charge has repeatedly denied.

With the shift in the "Russian collusion" narrative over the last 24 hours, which has seamlessly drifted away from Donald Trump (Senior) and now seeks to pin the Putin-Puppet tail on his son, Donald Trump Jr, it appears The New York Times is also once again shifting the narrative. Having admitted he took a meeting regarding potentially compromising information on Hillary as part of opposition research - just as the Clinton campaign did against Trump, only using Ukraine sources - NYT now reports that three people have told them that Trump Jr.

Following their first ever, 2+ hour meeting which was originally supposed to last only 30-40 minutes, the question on everyone's mind was what did the two discuss.

So, in addition to the previously discussed ceasefire agreement in Southwest Syria unexpectedly announced by the two nations, speaking at the beginning of his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Vladimir Putin said that during his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, the two discussed Syria, Ukraine, counterterrorism, and drumroll, the "fight against cyber crime."