Russian President Vladimir Putin over the course of the Putin Interviews gives an insight into his personality such as he has never done before.

I have now watched the first three episodes of the Putin Interviews, which is sufficient to give an overview of the series.


In my opinion it is by far the best and most interesting series of programs which have appeared on Western television about Vladimir Putin.

I would say that claims that Oliver Stone fails to raise 'difficult subjects' with Putin are simply untrue. All the usual stories about Putin - his KGB past, his reputed homophobia, his 'billions', his 'murders', his 'aggressions against Georgia and Ukraine' etc - are all there.

The unprecedented demarche of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Austria and Germany unusually harshly criticized the draft law on new anti-Russian sanctions. This shows that the relationship between Washington and Brussels has entered a new era, writes Kommersant publication.

"Firstly, never have high-ranking officials of the EU countries so sharply criticized the course of US policy toward Russia. Second, the informal leader of the European Union, Germany, speaking in tandem with Austria, actually somewhat intervened in domestic political rivalry of the United States, supporting the position of one of the parties. The party of the administration of Donald Trump, which through the words of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, tried to ward off senators from accepting the document in its original form, but has not been heard. European politicians expressed support for "the efforts of the Department of State, aimed at changing the bill."

Third, Moscow has received an encouraging signal that Germany (which expects implementation of the "Nord Stream-2"), and they are ready to defend it - if necessary, even at the cost of a public conflict with the US Senate.

Fourth, Europeans, stung by a number of recent decisions by Washington (and in particular its exit from the Paris Agreement on climate), have made it clear to Donald Trump also, as well as Congress, that they will not automatically support all of their foreign policy initiatives, but will be guided by their own interests and principles, - stated in the publication.

"In general, the relationship between the Euro-Atlantic allies, seems to be entering a new era. And the Russian question - to the surprise of many - has become one of the key issues." - sums up the publication.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have launched a mid-range ballistic missile attack on terrorist positions in the Syrian province of Deir-ez Zor in retaliation for terrorist attacks in Tehran, Tasnim news agency reports.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have reportedly launched ground-to-ground mid-range ballistic missiles from the western Iranian provinces of Kermanshah and Kurdistan into the eastern Syrian province of Deir-ez Zor.

"The spilling of any innocent blood will not go unanswered," Press TV cited a statement by the Revolutionary Guards as saying.

A US-led coalition airstrike in Syria has destroyed a government warplane, the Syrian army has announced in a statement on Facebook. The pilot is missing, it added.

According to the statement, the plane was carrying out operations against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in the countryside around Raqqa when it was targeted, leading to a crash and the loss of the pilot, who is currently missing.

"This attack comes at a time when the Syrian Arab army and its allies are advancing in the fight against ISIS terrorists who are being defeated in the Syrian desert in more ways than one," the statement read.

The statement added that although such attacks seek to undermine the Syrian armed forces' struggle against terrorism, they will not be deterred in fighting for stability and security in the Syrian Arab Republic.

Having succeeded in blocking a recent UN report that accused Israel of maintaining a system of apartheid, Israeli officials are now attempting to remove another UN report, which has charged Tel Aviv with carrying out extrajudicial executions along with a list of other human rights violations.

The report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), which previously accused Israel of apartheid, has come under fire from Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, because it states that in the period from 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017 Israeli security forces killed 63 Palestinians, including 19 children, and wounded an additional 2,276 Palestinians including 562 children.

French President Emmanuel Macron has scored another political victory, this time with his party 'Republic on the Move' (LREM), which is projected to win a majority of seats in the second round of France's parliamentary elections, according to polls.

Republic on the Move (La République En Marche!, or LREM, formerly En Marche!), formed by the 39-year-old former banker a year ago, is bound for between 355 and 425 seats out of 577, exit polls show, one of the highest majorities since Charles de Gaulle in 1968, giving him a strong mandate to start implementing his policies.

An attorney for President Donald Trump was adamant on Sunday that the president is not under investigation, despite the president's tweets this week referring to one as a "witch hunt." "Let me be clear here," said Jay Sekulow, a member of the president's legal team, on NBC's Meet The Press. "The president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction."

On Friday morning, President Trump sent a tweet that seemed to confirm that he was under scrutiny, writing, "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt." But Sekulow claimed the president wasn't referring to an actual investigation in the message, but instead a news report about one.

"The tweet from the president was in response to the five anonymous sources purportedly leaking information to the Washington Post," he said, referring to the Post's report this week that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the election now also includes a look at whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice.

Sekulow claimed the president is not spending a lot of time composing the tweets, but defended them as a means of speaking directly to voters, saying "he's responding to what he's seeing in the media in a way in which he thinks is appropriate to talk to those people that put him in office.

"He's not afraid of the investigation — there is no investigation," Sekulow said, adding, "there is not an investigation of the President of the United States, period." On Face The Nation on CBS, Sekulow clarified that he's so confident that there isn't any investigation into the president because they have not received any notification from the special counsel's office.

One of the main driving forces behind Russian President Vladimir Putin's politics is to strive for international law and order.

Such an opinion was stated today in an exclusive interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, with the American director Oliver Stone. His new documentary about the Russian president made its debut on television in the United States from 19 to 22 June, and will be soon shown in Russia's "First Channel".

The Russian leader criticized those politicians who do not look 25 to 50 years in advance, and are guided by short-term interests.

"Putin is committed to a working international order" - Stone said when asked about the long-term facilities of the Russian leader. - "He constantly repeats it, the concept of fundamental law, mutual understanding between the two countries, based on sovereignty -be it Iraq, Libya, Syria or any other state in the Middle East. "

"He is a lawyer by training" - recalled the director. "Without this framework, if the United States continue to operate in a unipolar world, and it would be more correct to say acting unilaterally, this will collapse the existing world order" - Stone said. - " Putin wants to return to a balance."

"He does not seek to expand Russia" - says Stone - "I've never heard him talk about it. He took the new Russian border, although the 25 million Russian remained abroad. " (After the collapse of the USSR.)

Donald Trump is not under investigation for firing FBI Director James Comey, the president's lawyer said, in seeming contradiction to a tweet the US leader had sent out earlier complaining of a "witch hunt" against him.

"Let me be clear here. The president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction," lawyer Jay Sekulow from Trump's legal team told NBC's Meet The Press program.

The comment came after the president tweeted on Friday: "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt."

This article examines the forces behind former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purna's recent imprisonment and the subsequent political upheaval in Indonesia. It delves into the murky ties between President Donald Trump's most important Indonesian business partner, multi-billionaire Hary Tanoesodibjo and the latter's relationship with pro-Islamist politicians and the military to evaluate the consequences of political turmoil on the future of Indonesia.

The recent defeat in Jakarta of progressive reformer Basuki Tjahaja Purna ("Ahok"), a Chinese Christian, followed by his imprisonment for blasphemy, has alarmed western observers. Some in the west have attributed it to the increasing influence of Islamic extremism fueled by Saudi wealth. Others have pointed to nativist resentment of Ahok's Chinese background. Recently Allen Nairn attributed it to a deep-rooted campaign by the once powerful Indonesian military to oust Ahok's progressive mentor, Indonesia President Joko Widodo ("Jokowi").

There is merit to all three analyses, which as we shall see are not mutually exclusive. But there is also another force in Indonesia at odds with the progressive reform tendencies represented by both Ahok and Jokowi. Importantly, Jokowi's taxation and environmental policies have set him on a collision course with Indonesia's largest foreign investor, the Phoenix-based Freeport-McMoRan mining company, whose third-largest stockholder, Carl Icahn, is the richest billionaire in the new billionaire Trump White House. We should remember also that Trump's principal friend and business partner in Indonesia, multibillionaire Hary Tanoesoedibjo, announced a month before Ahok's defeat that he had decided to back Anies Baswedan, the eventual winner.¹