US special operations forces have conducted a military operation in eastern Syria, targeting a senior Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) commander and his wife, the US defense secretary has announced. The terrorist leader was killed in the raid.

Abu Sayyaf, a senior Islamic State leader, was killed by US forces, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Saturday, adding the terrorist was involved in the group's military operations, as well as helping to direct its "illicit oil, gas and financial operations."

"During the course of the operation, Abu Sayyaf was killed when he engaged US forces," National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Friday there is no alternative to complete fulfillment of the Minsk agreements.

"Today, there is no alternative to complete fulfillment of the Minsk agreements - and this is a clear position coordinated with the United States and with our Normandy format partners - Germany and France," Poroshenko said at a meeting of the National Reform Council.

Commenting on the results of talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, and on his meetings with European leaders, Poroshenko said, "Ukraine has reliable partners in the person of the European Union and the United States."

According to the Ukrainian president, the situation in Ukraine tops the United States' foreign policy agenda. He hailed U.S.' diplomatic efforts in bilateral dialogue with Russia to ensure complete fulfillment of the Minsk agreements.

The U.S. and Russia are currently involved in heated competition amidst the New Cold War, with their latest rivalry threatening to turn hot over Macedonia. They had already duked it out over Ukraine (and still are, to a large extent), and a deadly stalemate has now settled over Syria as the U.S. covert war on the country drags through its fourth year.

The latest flare-up between the two Great Powers is now gearing up to be for Macedonia, with the U.S. following the template it's learned in the previous two cases to throw the country into chaos during the forthcoming 17 May Color Revolution offensive. The terrorists intercepted last weekend in Kumanovo were supposed to have coordinated their attacks with the Color Revolutionaries during this Sunday's destabilization, which would have symbolized the strategic merger between the Color Revolution and Unconventional War elements of the U.S. regime change toolkit.

With all eyes on Macedonia to see what will happen this Sunday, it's worth recalling the previous two rounds of their confrontation in better understanding how Round Three represents the seamless continuation of their New Cold War rivalry.

After Sunday's anti-government rally, thousands of opposition activists will camp out in front of the government HQ in Skopje until Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski resigns, the opposition said.

Opposition Social Democrats, SDSM leader Zoran Zaev told a press conference on Friday that after the planned mass rally, a non-stop sit-in protest will maintain the pressure on Gruevski and his government.

"Some 4,600 activists have decided on their own initiative to sleep out in front of the government building and to continue the protest. Knowing that we are not the only organizers of this protest, we have decided that we will remain until the end, until Gruevski resigns," he said.

Zaev said his party was doing all it could to ensure a peaceful protest on Sunday and foil any attempts to provoke violence and incriminate the opposition.

"All SDSM members have got instructions to record every possible violent act. Let us open our eyes so that no one can frame us," Zaev said.


Tens of thousands of people - not just SDSM supporters, but also supporters of other smaller parties, both Macedonian and Albanian, as well as human rights activists, workers' unions, and students', professors' and teachers' movements - are expected to attend the rally on Sunday.


At Friday's press conference, the opposition released the latest in a series of wiretapped conversations allegedly between government officials which have sparked a mass surveillance scandal in the country and highlighted claims of corruption and other serious wrongdoing within Gruevski's administration.


The new tapes, the opposition claimed, illustrate the brutality and malice of senior state officials as well as their hatred towards the country's large Albanian minority.

The tapes involve the alleged voices of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, outgoing Transportation Minister Mile Janakieski, outgoing interior minister Gordana Jankulovska, the PM's chief of staff Martin Protugjer, outgoing secret police chief Saso Mijalkov and police spokesperson Ivo Kotevski.

In one tape, the voices of Mijalkov and Jankuloska are allegedly heard plotting how to retaliate against a police officer who came out to protest against the arrest of rightist opposition leader Ljube Boskoski.

"Let's sack him," Jankuloska appears to suggest. "We should put him in the worst possible place," Mijalkov says.

In another tape, what is alleged to be the voice of the Prime Minister is heard instructing Transport Minister Janakieski to prepare to tear down a small park in central Skopje so that a new building, part of Gruevski's grand makeover plan of the capital dubbed 'Skopje 2014', can be erected.

After Janakieski warns that local residents may complain, Gruevski instructs him to check whether they are ruling party voters or not. "If they are 'commies' [a derogatory word for the opposition members], fuck them," Gruevski says.

There is much speculation about US Secretary of State John Kerry's rush visit to Russia in the wake of Russia's successful Victory Day celebration on May 9. On May 11, Kerry, who was snubbing Russia on the 9th, was on his way to Russia, and Putin consented to see him on May 12.

As time passes we will find out why Kerry was snubbing Putin on May 9 and 3 days later was criticizing Washington's puppet regime in Ukraine. For what is known at this time, a possible explanation is that Washington is coming to its senses.

If you watched the 1 hour 20 minute video of the Victory Day Parade, you are aware that the celebration sent a powerful message. Russia is a first class military power, and Russia is backed by China and India, whose soldiers marched with Russia's in the parade.

So, while the increasingly irrelevant West, absorbed in its own self-importance, snubbed the celebration of the victory that the Red Army gave them over Hitler, the three largest countries in the world were present united. Russia has the largest land mass, and China and India, also large land masses, have the world's largest populations.

The celebration in Moscow made it clear that Washington has failed miserably to isolate Russia. What Washington has done is to make the BRICS more unified.

With the President of China sitting at the right hand of Putin, the celebration also made it completely clear even to the morons in the Obama regime that Washington is no longer the Uni-power.

Israel is offering illegal immigrants $3,500 and a one-way ticket home as it begins to crack down on refugees, who face prison if they don't take up the deal. Rights groups are appalled at the move, saying Israel should be doing more to protect them.

Israel says the tough move is necessary to send a message to migrants that making the journey is not worthwhile in the first place. As deterrents it has built a steel fence along the border with Egypt, houses migrants in a detention camp in the middle of a desert, and has stopped issuing work permits to deter would-be migrants

The real Masters of the Universe in the U.S. are no weathermen, but arguably they're starting to feel which way the wind is blowing.

History may signal it all started with this week's trip to Sochi, led by their paperboy, Secretary of State John Kerry, who met with Foreign Minister Lavrov and then with President Putin.

Arguably, a visual reminder clicked the bells for the real Masters of the Universe; the PLA marching in Red Square on Victory Day side by side with the Russian military. Even under the Stalin-Mao alliance Chinese troops did not march in Red Square.

As a screamer, that rivals the Russian S-500 missile systems. Adults in the Beltway may have done the math and concluded Moscow and Beijing may be on the verge of signing secret military protocols as in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The new game of musical chairs is surely bound to leave Eurasian-obsessed Dr. Zbig "Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski apoplectic.

And suddenly, instead of relentless demonization and NATO spewing out "Russian aggression!" every ten seconds, we have Kerry saying that respecting Minsk-2 is the only way out in Ukraine, and that he would strongly caution vassal Poroshenko against his bragging on bombing Donetsk airport and environs back into Ukrainian "democracy".

The ever level-headed Lavrov, for his part, described the meeting with Kerry as "wonderful," and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the new U.S.-Russia entente as "extremely positive".

So now the self-described "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" Obama administration, at least apparently, seems to finally understand that this "isolating Russia" business is over - and that Moscow simply won't back down from two red lines; no Ukraine in NATO, and no chance of popular republics of Donetsk and Lugansk being smashed, by Kiev, NATO or anybody else.

Thus what was really discussed - but not leaked - out of Sochi is how the Obama administration can get some sort of face-saving exit out of the Russian western borderland geopolitical mess it invited on itself in the first place.

An unidentified drone reportedly conducted surveillance on NATO's large-scale military exercises in Estonia codenamed Siil-2015 (Hedgehog-2015).

Siil-2015 (Hedgehog-2015), NATO's largest-ever war games in Estonia, were monitored by an unknown drone, according to the Estonian newspaper Eesti Päevaleht; a spate of NATO countries is involved in the drills that are wrapping up on Friday.

Ukraine and China have signed a currency swap agreement worth $2.4 billion, according to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). Ukraine expects it will relieve pressure on its currency which has lost above 40 percent against the US dollar in a year.

The three year agreement was signed in Shanghai by the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine(NBU) Valeria Gontareva and the governor of the People's Bank of China Zhou Xiaochuan, according to NBU's press release published on Friday.

Ukraine will provide some 54 billion hryvnia and China 15 billion yuan within the swap line.

Russia Direct interviewed Russian and American experts as well as former diplomats to assess the importance of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's recent high-profile diplomatic mission to Sochi.

Both Russian and American experts have greeted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Sochi on May 12 with cautious optimism. After all, it was Kerry's first visit to Russia in two years - marking the first time since the start of the Ukrainian crisis that Kerry had set foot on Russian soil.

With both sides admitting that the Ukraine crisis has reached a critical point, steps to preserve the momentum of the Minsk II agreement as well as reach some new consensus on what to do next have become even more vitally important.

In an attempt to assess the results of the meeting, Russia Direct interviewed Russian and American experts as well as former diplomats for their opinions.