The Serbian president has criticized European countries for pointing finger at Russia in the Skripal case without any proof. Alexandar Vucic said it's impossible just to accept 'highly likely' claims by the UK.

"We denounce chemical weapons attacks all around the world, but in the absence of proof in the Skripals' case it's absolutely impossible to condemn Russia," he told channel Russia-24.

"The British respond 'Highly likely' Russia did it to all questions about the proof," Vucic said, noting that the EU decided to condemn Russia based on this an English expression.

"The Dance"

What just happened this morning in Syria was nothing more than a carefully "choreographed" dance between the US and Russia that allowed both rivals to "save face" and avoid further escalating the situation.

The US launched over 100 cruise missiles at Syria together with its French and British allies, although the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that 71 of them were intercepted by the targeted country's Soviet-era air-defense systems.

"Superficial" vs. "Substantial"

As predicted, the strike was mostly "superficial" and lacked the "substance" needed to escalate tensions further between the West and Russia over their Syrian proxy war, but so too was the response somewhat "superficial" as well.

It's difficult to imagine how such decades-old defense systems downed so many state-of-the-art cruise missiles, especially when considering that Iraq's similar systems were largely ineffective during the 2003 "shock and awe" campaign against comparatively more dated munitions.

It was widely reported in the run-up to this strike that the US intended to target certain facilities in Syria, and this "leak" was deliberately planned in order to "telegraph" the locations to Russia and its on-the-ground partners.

In addition, it has also been confirmed that the US and Russia were communicating this entire time through the so-called "deconfliction channel, so it's very possible that Washington warned Moscow in advance of the exact targets that it planned to hit and maybe even when.

This would explain why Syria's Soviet-era air-defense systems were surprisingly more effective against modern-day cruise missiles than Iraq's exact same ones were 15 years earlier against much more dated weapons at the time.

Political turmoil usually leads to a money flow to safe havens like the Swiss currency. But this week, an unusual pattern led to the biggest decline of the franc against the euro since January 2015.

The Trump administration issued an expanded list of sanctions last Friday, targeting Russian businessmen and companies. Separately, Trump threatened Russia with missile strikes on Moscow's ally Syria.

The political instability caused a sell-off on the US stock markets, and strengthened safe havens like gold and the Japanese yen. But another safe haven, the Swiss franc, took a hit.

The latest round of US penalties targeting Russian businesses paradoxically helps the country's budget instead of harming it, said Konstantin Korischenko, former deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).

Talking to RT, he pointed to the rebounding Russian currency which weakened initially after the announcement of penalties. "This trend for strengthening will continue, mainly because Russia currently has a balance of payments surplus," Korischenko said, explaining that "this is largely due to rising oil prices."

Dutch diplomat Stef Blok said there is no new Cold War after meeting his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. The two also touched upon Syria, the downing of the MH-17, and the Skripal case.

"It's Friday 13th today and it seemed a good time to visit Moscow," Blok joked, addressing reporters after Lavrov finished his part of the joint news conference. Both sides seem to have kept the tone light during the talks, despite touching upon issues like the MH-17 tragedy and the spiraling Syrian crisis.

Russia has been blamed in recent years for a seemingly endless list of problems around the world, while much of the Western media has begun to speak about a new Cold War. The Dutch foreign minister said he does not buy into this, though relations between Europe and Russia are indeed going through "difficult times."

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is calling for changes to the Russian Constitution that would allow Vladimir Putin to be re-elected president after his current term expires in 2024.

"As long as our incumbent president is in good health we must not think about any other head of state. This is my personal opinion and I am not changing it. Right now there is no alternative to Putin," Kadyrov said in a recent interview with Interfax news agency.

The head of the Chechen Republic went on to say that the constitutional norm that disallows the same person from being elected president of the Russian Federation for more than two terms in a row should be cancelled.

He noted that many other nations do well without this type of restriction. "Why can China do this and Germany can do this, but not us? If this is in the people's interest, why can't we make changes to the law?" he said.

So the moment we've been holding our breaths for a week finally came. In the end, I am mighty glad that this particular strike seems more like the impotent thrashing of the neocon snake that didn't dare to attack places where Russian servicemen were likely to be killed, than it does the start of World War III. For the moment, at least, thank God.

But the fact that it was a fairly limited strike - compared to what it might have been - in which the majority of missiles failed to hit their targets, having been eliminated by Soviet-era air defences, does not in anyway absolve those who ordered the strike from the grave and reckless action they have taken and for which they are responsible. Not only did they authorise this action before an investigation had been carried out in Douma, and in fact hours before the OPCW inspectors were due there, they did so without consulting their respective legislative bodies, without knowing how many of their missiles would or would not hit their targets, or - and this is crucial - knowing for sure whether their actions would elicit a response from Russia.

In other words, if you live in Britain, France or America, you now know just how cheaply the leaders of your country hold your life, and the lives of your fellow countrymen. They have taken action which could have resulted - and might still result - in a direct clash with the Russian military, and while you have breath left in you, you must never forget this, and do all you can to hold these people to account for their lawless, reckless and enormously dangerous actions.

You must also remember that they did so not because they cared about ordinary Syrians, but because their diabolical attempts to topple the Syrian Government, by backing Islamic terrorist groups such as Jaysh al-Islam, has been thwarted.

Last night France, the UK and the U.S. launched an illegal attack on Syria and bombed several military and civilian sites within the country. They justify their attack as revenge or punishment for an alleged 'chemical attack' that had taken place a week earlier.


The 'chemical incident' on April 7 in Douma was designed to reverse Trump's publicly announced decision to order the U.S. military out of Syria. The Saudi financed Salafi 'rebels' in Douma collected bodies, probably from another incident, and stacked them up in one apartment to stage a scene and to create fake videos of a 'chemcial attack' which they falsely attributed to the Syrian government.

Trump pretended to fall for the videos and tweeted threats against Syria and Russia. Russia threatened to respond with strong force should any U.S. attack hurt its soldiers or interests in Syria.

The UK and France, who like the U.S. were only recently visited by the Saudi clown prince and showered with fresh Saudi billions, jumped onto the case. France now admits that its 'intelligence' of the Douma incident is solely based on the obviously staged youtube videos and claims made by 'western' financed propaganda operations who cooperate with the Jihadis.

Yesterday the Russian Defense Ministry accused Britain of having organized the 'chemical incident':

Today, there are other evidences at the disposal of the Russian military department, which testify to the direct participation of Great Britain in organizing this provocation in the Eastern Ghouta.

The Russian party knows for certain that from April 3 to 6, representatives of the so-called White Helmets were influenced by London for the speedy implementation of the provocation prepared in advance.

The White Helmets received information that Jaysh al-Islam militants were to conduct a series of powerful artillery shelling of Damascus on April 3 to 6.

This will promote a response from the government troops, which the White Helmets' representatives will have to use to carry out provocations with alleged chemical weapons.

The 'White Helmets' are financed by the British government and are led by a 'former' British military intelligence officer. The direct accusations against Britain may have been a factor in the hasty launch of last night's strike. Another was surely the arrival of technicians of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in Damascus. These will today investigate the alleged incident in Douma and will likely find that it did not take place. That the three countries did not even wait for preliminary results from the investigation must be seen as an admission of guilt. They know that the 'chemical attack' did not take place.

The U.S. military was wary of any potential conflict with Russia. Intense negotiations took place over the last week between the Pentagon and the Russian defense ministry. Secretary of Defense Mattis is said to have talked Trump out of a more serious strike. World War III was avoided.

[Update April 14, 5:00 UCT]

Last night the U.S., UK and France launched a symbolic attack on Syria. It was not intended to hurt the Syrian government, its people or its allies. It did not hit any of Syria's allies. So far there is no report of anyone being killed or wounded.

This was a one-off:

Mattis [...] said the assault was a "one-time shot," so long as Assad does not repeat his use of chemical weapons.

The only purpose of the attack was to do 'something' and to somewhat calm down the warmongers within those three 'western' countries. It was probably insufficient for that.

As we wrote yesterday in the piece below. World War III had been called off.

A Russian draft resolution calling to stop aggression against Syria has been turned down by the UN Security Council due to a lack of support during the vote. It was only supported by Russia, China and Bolivia.

The Russian draft urged the US and its allies to "immediately and without delay cease the aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic' and refrain from further aggressive acts in violation of the international law and the UN Charter."

The paper also pointed out that the aggression "took place at the moment when the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Fact-Finding Mission team has just begun its work to collect evidence of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma." It also called for all necessary conditions to be provided for the OPCW experts to do their job properly.