By hosting a meeting between the Taliban and other Afghan delegates, Moscow has greatly contributed to a peace process in Afghanistan, ex-President Hamid Karzai said, denouncing years of “failed” US military presence and policies.
The US may slap penalties on two European contractors laying the pipeline for the Russian-led Nord Stream 2. The political pressure is still extremely high over the project, which Moscow defines as purely economic.
Over a dozen troopers from the 2nd US Cavalry Regiment were injured when their Stryker armored vehicles smashed into each other on a country road in Lithuania, near the border with Russia’s Kaliningrad region.
The substance used on Sergei Skripal was an agent called BZ, according to Swiss state Spiez lab. The toxin was never produced in Russia, but was in service in the US, UK, and other NATO states.
Russia will expel 60 US diplomats and close the US Consulate in St. Petersburg in response to similar actions by Washington over the Skripal poisoning case. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced the retaliatory measures against the US.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg wasted no time backing the UK’s accusations against Moscow in the Skripal case, but the absence of facts did not seem to matter in this case or other “examples” of Moscow’s “reckless behavior.”