With Washington undertaking the greatest military expansion in world history, oblivious to the global ramifications of its sheer arrogance and audacity, the time is ripe for Russia to make a symbolic gesture in America's backyard.

At the time of this writing, three US B-52 Stratofortress Bombers have just departed from a US airbase in North Dakota, en route to the Baltic States where they will participate in a NATO war game that goes by the cuddly codename 'Saber Strike'. This two-week gang bang will involve 10,000 troops from 13 NATO countries, as well as several coveted candidates for future membership, like Sweden and Finland.

If you think Russia is comfortable with these annual war dances, you're probably watching too much Western television.

But this reckless provocation on Russia's doorstep is just a little sampling of the US-led military adventures now happening across Eastern Europe, which are directly responsible for dragging bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington to their worst levels since maybe forever.

Last month, for example, President Putin commented on the US missile defense system that has just gone live in nearby Romania.

"At the moment the interceptor missiles... have a range of 500 kilometers, soon this will go up to 1,000 kilometers, and worse than that, they can be rearmed with 2,400 km-range offensive missiles... and it can be done by simply switching the software, so that even the Romanians themselves won't know," Putin told reporters during a two-day visit to Greece.

More than 270 civilians were killed and hundreds more were injured by militants' bombings in Syrian cities, the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria reported.

More than 270 civilians were killed and hundreds more were injured by militant groups' shelling of Syrian cities, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

"As a result of the Syrian cities being shelled by terrorist groups, more than 270 civilians were killed, hundreds were injured," the ministry said in a daily bulletin posted on its website.

An internal Defense Department investigation into one of the most notorious night raids conducted by special operations forces in Afghanistan — in which seven civilians were killed, including two pregnant women — determined that all the U.S. soldiers involved had followed the rules of engagement. As a result, the soldiers faced no disciplinary measures, according to hundreds of pages of Defense Department documents obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of Information Act. In the aftermath of the raid, Adm. William McRaven, at the time the commander of the elite Joint Special Operations Command, took responsibility for the operation. The documents made no unredacted mention of JSOC.

Although two children were shot during the raid and multiple witnesses and Afghan investigators alleged that U.S. soldiers dug bullets out of the body of at least one of the dead pregnant women, Defense Department investigators concluded that "the amount of force utilized was necessary, proportional and applied at appropriate time." The investigation did acknowledge that "tactical mistakes" were made.

The Defense Department's conclusions bear a resemblance to U.S. Central Command's findings in the aftermath of the horrifying attack on a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, last October in which 42 patients and medical workers were killed in a sustained barrage of strikes by an AC-130. The Pentagon has announced that no criminal charges will be brought against any members of the military for the Kunduz strike. CENTCOM's Kunduz investigation concluded that "the incident resulted from a combination of unintentional human errors, process errors, and equipment failures." CENTCOM denied the attack constituted a war crime, a claim challenged by international law experts and MSF.

The events in Ukraine have shown very distinctly the extent of fascism in Ukrainian society. The revival of neo-Nazi tendencies in the form of ultra-Ukrainian nationalism began on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

Anticipating a quick path to independence, the patriotic Ukrainian intelligentsia and the bureaucracy pulled from the dust of the past long forgotten legends and half truths of an arduous nationalist past. New political parties were established along with public organizations with nationalist views. All that was considered unacceptable until the 1980's, is now declared to be the only true manifestation of patriotism.

The social and political changes in Ukraine have been noticed in Eastern European capitals, especially in Warsaw. Since the late 1980s, Poland recognized that Ukraine had gained its sovereignty, which it considered to be a main condition for the consolidation of its own security. Since then it has supported the nationalist tendencies in this country, knowing that only a Russophobe Ukraine would be able to play the role of a buffer between Europe and Russia.

It was in the interests of Poland to inflate the level of Russophobia in Ukraine to the maximum level, and to achieve this, the only way was to bet on the Ukrainian nationalists. The Polish authorities were loyal to the alarming processes initiated by Ukrainian politicians: the glorification of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the revival of the of the Bandera and Shukhevych cults, and a playful attitude to the phenomenon of the Ukrainian Collaboration during World War II in the face of the SS "Galicia" Division or the "Nachtigall" special forces.

A Dutch-led investigation team has said that their probe into the downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine will reveal the type of weapon used and the launch site "after the summer." Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines is being sued by the victims' relatives.

The investigation is at a "very advanced stage," the international Joint Investigation Team (JIT) tasked with establishing the circumstances surrounding the July 2014 tragedy and finding those responsible said in a statement.

However, the team noted that it findings would be included in a criminal file for ensuing court proceedings and would not be made public.

The JIT also claimed that it is "still waiting for information from the Russian Federation about BUK [missile defense systems] installations" - despite Moscow's repeated calls for it to consider the satellite and technical data it has already provided.

In February, Oleg Storchevoy, the deputy head of Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency, penned an official letter that accused the Dutch Safety Board and JIT of "showing no interest" in working with Russia.

Washington and Moscow are working together to develop the military strength of the Syrian Kurds, allegedly to combat Daesh, but in reality to fight President Erdoğan, whom the two great powers would be happy to remove. But the apprentice dictator of Ankara is preparing to turn the tables. He has begun to re-shuffle the population at the Syrian frontier in order to catch the Turkish Kurds in a vice, and is preparing to use his Syrian Kurdish spy, Salih Muslim - armed by the United States and Russia - to create a Kurdistan in Syria to which he can expel the Turkish Kurds.

In December 2015, the United States and Russia made an agreement to bring down President Erdoğan.

From the Russian side, it's the support of Erdoğan's friends - the NGO's IHH and İmkander— for the Caucasian jihadists from 1995 to the end of the year 2000, then, today, the personal support by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for Daesh, and finally the planned destruction of a Soukhoï over Syria last November which have triggered their anger. Given that the Turco-Mongol empires were always the historical enemies of Russia, Moscow is not worried about the future of the country, but want only to overthrow its chief whatever the cost.

All of the attempts to resolve the numerous conflicts of the previous two decades militarily have solved no real problems, and only led to the erosion of international law and the glorification of force, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said.

"Problems and conflicts of the last two decades that could well be solved through peaceful political and diplomatic ways... were dealt with through the use of military force. That was the case in former Yugoslavia, in Iraq, in Libya, and Syria," Gorbachev said in an address to the participants of a conference in Moscow on Friday. The event was dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Reykjavik meeting between the former Soviet president and his US counterpart, Ronald Reagan, in 1986.

Gorbachev warned that invasions have brought no real solutions to problems, and only resulted in eroding international law and establishing a "cult of force."

The former Soviet leader expressed deep concern about the growing militarization of politics, calling it "a departure from the... principles that allowed us to end the Cold War."

While very little is said in the Western media about Turkey's crackdown on the Kurds in southeast Turkey, and journalists are virtually banned from the afflicted region, RT Documentary turned to locals for help in finding out what's really going on there.

Journalists from RT Documentary channel (RTD) were introduced to Hilal, a reporter who lives in Turkey's troubled city of Diyarbakir. With the Turkish army in the region fighting Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) forces, whom they call "terrorists," constant gun fights and explosions just a few blocks from her home have become a familiar sight for the journalist. The Kurds in the country's southeast are seeking more autonomy from the Turkish government. "For us it's normal. When I go to another city, I feel very weird, when I don't hear [any bombs going off]. Or, when I don't see any vehicles on the street, like our army everywhere, I feel weird. I think I got used to live with this," Hilal told RTD's Marina Kosareva.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government denies international journalists and independent Turkish reporters access to the area under various pretexts, but Hilal has made it her mission to show the world what's happening in Turkey's southeast. "When I hear the sounds of bombs from my balcony, I can't just stay here and do nothing," she said.

It is extremely difficult for foreign journalists to work anywhere near the Turkish-Syrian border. Many reporters have been detained and deported after trying to film news stories in the area. To overcome the news blackout, RTD asked Hilal to go to the border with her own cameraman to report on the situation in the frontier regions that Syrian refugees fleeing from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) try to reach. During her investigation, the Turkish reporter learned of an illegal route by which people can be led across the border - for a fee. One teenager told Hilal that he had to pay a lot to a man at the border to have his mother transported out of Syria.

RT correspondent William Whiteman has also struggled to work out exactly what is happening in southeastern Turkey. Risking his life, he illegally traveled to the town of Cizre - the scene of one of the bloodiest episodes in the Turkish government's campaign against the Kurds. The town near the Turkish-Syrian border was besieged for several months with tanks and heavy artillery. "The thing that was most striking about the place was just the silence. When you're going around, it's just completely silent. You can only hear people sifting through the ruins of their former homes," he recalled. One of his most horrifying impressions was the smell "of rotting bodies." "The smell in the basements where people supposedly have been burnt to death is really overpowering... [Locals] just said that Erdogan had killed civilians there," the reporter said, adding: "An old woman showed me around her neighbors' houses and she specifically said that Erdogan's soldiers who are operating [there] looked and behaved like ISIS."

Former US Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey Jim Jeffrey said in an interview with Sputnik said that Turkish troops deployed in Iraq is "a very positive contribution" in Baghdad's efforts to conquer Daesh on its territories.

The Turkish forces deployed to northern Iraq can help in the fight against Daesh (ISIS) despite Baghdad's concerns over foreign troops on its soil.

"Iraq has many other problems, and the most important is to defeat ISIS [Islamic State]. If the Turks and Turkish trained troops can help, that is a very positive contribution," Jeffrey said on Friday.


In December 2015, Turkey deployed more than 150 troops and 25 tanks to the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh. Ankara claimed the troops were intended to protect Turkish forces training local militias in the fight against IS.

Russian-backed Syrian troops have reportedly advanced into Raqqa province after defeating Islamic State militants in a fierce battle on Friday. The offensive coincides with Kurdish and rebel forces pressing terrorists in Syria and Iraq's move on Fallujah.

Troops loyal to President Bashar Assad have been rapidly advancing on Islamic State's (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, claiming a victory over IS fighters at the Zakiyah Crossroad, the strategic area at the border between Hama and Raqqa provinces, Al-Masdar News reported from the ground.