Section: European Voice (EU)
Trump confronts firestorm over Russia allegations
Ten days before he’s sworn in as U.S. president, Donald Trump is facing a potential crisis amid reports that intelligence officials had delivered a report to the president-elect last week outlining allegations that Russia could have compromising information about him. Although the details of these revelations remain murky and...
Lawmakers broach possible Trump campaign coordination with Russia
Members of U.S. Congress made clear Tuesday they’re increasingly willing to broach a taboo topic: possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Their emboldened approach comes amid a bombshell CNN report that intelligence officials last week presented Trump with alleged claims by Russian operatives that they...
Sweden’s PM warns of cyberattack threat
Cyberattacks and extremism are among the problems that Sweden will have to tackle in the year ahead, according to Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, AP reported. Löfven wrote in Dagens Nyheter that although he was wary of reports of increased Russian military activity in the Baltic region — “especially in light of...
5 Russian words that explain Vladimir Putin
When the Soviet Union belatedly began reinventing itself in the 1980s under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Western press was full of Russian buzzwords like Perestroika (reform) and Glasnost (openness) that explained the Kremlin’s worldview. With Vladimir Putin on the ascendance, and Russia dominating the headlines, it’s baffling...
How a KGB assassin used the death of his child to defect
Shortly before 5 a.m. on August 10, 1961, Bogdan Stashinsky was waiting near his apartment building in Moscow to be picked up by his case officer, Yurii Aleksandrov. Before leaving, he put his household effects in order and destroyed the list of code phrases that he and his wife, Inge, had used in their correspondence over the past six months, he...
Vladimir Putin, war criminal
NEWARK, New Jersey — Russia’s criminal behavior in Syria is just the latest in a long string of crimes perpetrated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration may be unwilling to admit it, but Putin is a war criminal. The U.S. government may need to negotiate...
Marine Le Pen asked to repay €9 million bank loan: reports
French National Front leader Marine Le Pen was told to repay €9 million of a loan from a Russian-based bank, according to media reports. The Russian Bank Deposit Insurance Agency is calling in part of the loan granted by the First Czech-Russian Bank, which has since been dissolved, Le Monde reports. The National Front is operating...
What’s the biggest test Trump will face in 2017?
It is going to be so easy.†Those were the words candidate Donald Trump used in October, imagining a future where he, as president, would replace the Affordable Care Act with something “great.†In reality, no presidency is easy — the office’s unique role at home and around the world...
Insecurity is cash cow for Europe’s defense firms
After a decade of slashing defense budgets, European leaders are about to start investing significantly more in arms, citing “a challenging geopolitical environment.” A resurgent Russia on Europe’s eastern flank, increased terrorism on the Continent and an incoming U.S. president who has questioned America’s commitment to NATO may...
Putin’s real long game
A little over a year ago, on a pleasant late fall evening, I was sitting on my front porch with a friend best described as a Ukrainian freedom fighter. He was smoking a cigarette while we watched Southeast DC hipsters bustle by and talked about ‘the war’ — the big war, being waged by Russia against all of us,...
