Numerous US agents are helping the coup-appointed government in Ukraine to “fight organized crime” in the south east of the country, the German newspaper Bild revealed. According to the daily, the CIA and FBI are advising the government in Kiev on how to deal with the ‘fight against organized crime’ and stop the violence in the country’s restive eastern regions. The group also helps to investigate... 

Self-defense squads have reportedly taken down at least two Ukrainian army helicopters, with one pilot confirmed dead. Another pilot is being operated on, and the fate of the others is currently unknown. There was no evidence of any wreckage. The Ukrainian government claimed one of them was brought down by a surface-to-air missile. That hasn’t been verified yet, but U.S. sources are treating... 

If Putin needed a pretext to finally drive across the Ukraine border, he got it following first the death of nearly 40 pro-Russian protesters in Odessa during a confrontation between pro-Russia and pro-Kiev forces, and then, what appears to be a storming in progress right now by the Ukraine national guard of yet another separatist-controlled city in east Ukraine: Kramatorsk. According to RT, Ukraine’s... 

US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have called on Russia to de-escalate immediately the crisis in Ukraine or face the consequences of devastating new sanctions. “If in fact we see the disruptions and the destabilization continuing so severely that it impedes elections on May 25, we will not have a choice but to move forward with additional… severe sanctions,”... 

Canadian Forces CF-18 fighter jets Six CF-18s and hundreds of Canadian Forces personnel left for Romania to help NATO forces in Eastern Europe amid uncertainty over the scope of the mission. It is the biggest deployment of military aircraft to Romania from another NATO member since the Ukraine crisis broke out. “There is a lot of uncertainty about what we’re going to be doing over there,”... 

The crew members of Expedition 40/41 pose in front of a Soyuz spacecraft simulator in Star City, Russia. A number of US senators express concern that the widening diplomatic rift between Washington and Moscow could derail the US space program or even cause Russia to abandon American astronauts in space. Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee told NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Thursday... 

The Russian Ministry of Defense has ordered brigades of military medical teams to be urgently dispatched to the Ukrainian border, another sign that Moscow is preparing for war after tens of thousands of troops were sent to the border region for drills. According to a translated report by St. Petersburg’s Rustlegraph news agency: By order of the Ministry of Defense in the Military Medical Academy... 

Russia says it reserves the right to take appropriate action if the West continues its anti-Moscow moves with regard to the crisis in Ukraine. Speaking at a news conference in the Chilean capital Santiago on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “We want to give our fellow governments the opportunity to calm down.” Lavrov, however, noted that if the West continues its actions,... 

New round of Western sanction against Russia will target seven individuals and 17 companies. They are meant to affect Moscow’s stance over the ongoing Ukrainian crisis. The individuals listed by the US Department of Treasury on Monday include Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, chair of the parliamentary commission on Foreign Affairs, Aleksey Pushkov, chief of presidential office, Vyacheslav... 

An ominous new report prepared by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) on President Putin’s order yesterday to accelerate the opening of the St. Petersburg Exchange (SPE), where prices for Russian oil and natural gas will be set in rubles instead of US dollars, is warning that this “catastrophic blow” to the petrodollar amounts to nothing less than “all-out war” against the West and that an “Armageddon... 

The US’s newly developed radar-evading F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will not be able to escape Russian radars. “The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter… is not, in fact, stealthy in the eyes of a growing number of Russian and Chinese radars,” the Aviation Week said. It said the jet, which the Pentagon hopes would be stealthy, is “having all sorts of shortcomings.” The report said the jet is not... 

Russia has raised concern over Ukraine’s military build-up in the region, urging members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to address the issue in an upcoming meeting. According to a statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday, Kiev interim authorities have deployed 11,000 troops, 230 armored vehicles, 160 tanks and 150 artillery pieces to southeastern... 

Ecuador has ordered 20 US military staff working at the US Embassy in Quito to leave the country by the end of the month. US embassy spokesman Jeffrey Weinshenker said on Thursday that the group was ordered to halt work on April 7, The Associated Press reported. Officials in Washington say the 20 people have not yet left the South American country. They say the expulsion does not affect the embassy’s... 

This satellite image dated April 25 shows Ukrainian armored vehicles positioned near the city of Slavyansk, eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian tanks and armored vehicles have been stationed en masse around the Donetsk region city of Slavyansk, satellite images leaked to media reveal. A Russian defense source says that artillery and rocket systems have also been deployed to the area. RIA Novosti on Saturday... 

A Russian Yak-130 combat training jet. The war of words between the United States and Russia has heated up over Crimea and eastern Ukraine with US military officials now saying that Russian fighter jets crossed into Ukrainian airspace several times over the past 24 hours. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists about the issue, said...