ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov (A still image from RT video) Some Western states and Kiev rushed to find Russian involvement in the MH17 crash having no evidence to back their claims, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister told RT. He invited Ukraine to answer 10 questions to prove their commitment to an impartial probe. Speaking to RT, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov has criticized Western countries for jumping to conclusions just “24 hours after the crash” while there is no evidence. “They try to show to the whole world that we are responsible for the crash. It is very strange that without any evidence my colleagues from western media would like to find somebody who is responsible for the crash,” Antonov said. “It seems to me that this is part of information warfare which has been started against the Russian Federation and armed forces.” Instead of using the incident as the pretext for groundlessly blaming one of the sides, the catastrophe over Ukrainian

A journalist takes photographs at the site of Thursday's Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash near the settlement of Grabovo, in the Donetsk region July 18, 2014 (Reuters / Maxim Zmeyev) Put yourself in the position of a certain passenger boarding the Malaysian Airlines flight at Amsterdam for the twelve hour trip to Kuala Lumpur on Thursday morning. Given a previous Malaysian flight's mysterious disappearance it's likely he was not the only boarding passenger who was a little nervous when he joked on social media, "If we disappear, this is what the plane looks like." Settling down on the flight then watching the moving map display on the seat in front, you might perhaps see the word 'Ukraine' edge its way across from the right of the screen. Would you not be a little uneasy in the knowledge that quite a lot of planes have been blown out of the skies there recently? That there's a war on? Check out David Cenciotti's 'Aviationist' blog a

An armed pro-Russian separatist stands at a site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014 (Reuters / Maxim Zmeyev) What is happening in the east is a humanitarian catastrophe, with cities under siege, civilians killed, bombing of innocent people, and now on the top of that we have this terrible tragedy with 300 losing their lives, journalist Neil Clark told RT. RT:Do you think there is any connection between this tragedy and the conflict in eastern Ukraine? Neil Clark: It’s very hard to say, isn’t it? It is still early days but there seems to be a remarkable coincidence that this plane just went down for technical reason in this region which faced fighting in the last few weeks. I think it is very wrong for President Poroshenko, the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people to be trying to blame other people for this, to blame the so-called rebels, because there is no evidence of this. We already heard how the s

Filipino and American marines storm a beach to "rescue" American soldiers held by enemies as part of joint military exercises in Ternate Cavite, 70 kilometers South of Manila (AFP Photo / Jay Directo) Neither China nor the US are interested in full-on military confrontation but both want to play up the potential for it as it allows them to divert more government funds to the defense sector, editor of an independent news web site James Corbett told RT. Amid increasing tension in the South Pacific region, especially over America’s growing military footprint , it is reported the Philippines is transforming Ulugan Bay and nearby villages into a major naval base that may host US warships. Ulugan is only 160 kilometers from the Spratly archipelago, a fiercely contested area in the South China Sea. RT: What will this "military upgrade" mean for the villagers themselves? The Philippines and the United States signed a 10-year security pact when US President Barack Obama visi

While there are various questions that have already emerged from what was supposed to be Ukraine's "slam dunk" proof confirming Russian rebel involvement in today's MH-17 tragedy, perhaps one just as gaping question emerges when one looks at what is clearly an outlier flight path in today's final, and tragic, departure of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777. Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today's tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk. Why is the diversion from the traditional flight path and passage over the highlighted zone a concern? Because as the following map from the WSJ shows this is precisely where the restricted airspace is. How come the USA was able to "confi

By George Friedman The current confrontation in Gaza began June 12 after three Israeli teenagers disappeared in the West Bank the month before. Israel announced the disappearance June 13, shortly thereafter placing blame on Hamas for the kidnappings. On June 14, Hamas fired three rockets into the Hof Ashkelon region. This was followed by Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the Jerusalem region. On July 8, the Israelis announced Operation Protective Edge and began calling up reservists. Hamas launched a longer-range rocket at Tel Aviv. Israel then increased its airstrikes against targets in Gaza. At this point, it would appear that Israel has deployed sufficient force to be ready to conduct an incursion into Gaza. However, Israel has not done so yet. The conflict has consisted of airstrikes and some special operations forces raids by Israel and rocket launches by Hamas against targets in Israel. From a purely military standpoint, the issue has been Hamas's search for a deterrent to I

Click to Enlarge The sixth BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit began July 14 in Brazil. The three-day summit is expected to produce finalized plans for a new financial institution to be known as the BRICS Development Bank and a currency pool to be known as the Contingency Reserve Arrangement. The bank will start lending in 2016 with an initial capital base of $50 billion ($10 billion will come from each member), with plans to increase the capitalization to $100 billion over the next five years. The institutions are part of a larger plan by non-Western developing countries to build lending mechanisms with fewer conditions than those imposed by multilateral Western institutions. It also represents an effort to insulate from future crises in the Western-led financial system, which will continue to dominate the world's financial markets, BRICS' efforts notwithstanding. Within the new BRICS mechanism itself, China will dominate because its economy an

Rubble of buildings after a reported regime airstrike July 14 in Aleppo.(BARAA AL-HALABI/AFP/Getty Images) Summary The enduring and often back-and-forth battle for Aleppo is entering another phase yet again. The rebels entrenched in the city have already allocated forces to counter recent loyalist advances in the east, and they may also be pushed to reinforce their position against Islamic State militants encroaching from the north, potentially stretching their resources dangerously thin. If Aleppo falls to the loyalists, the momentum of the Syrian conflict will shift significantly in favor of the regime. Analysis Loyalist forces continue to make notable gains in the ongoing offensive, having captured the villages of Kafr al-Saghir and Moqbila in the past 10 days, and they continue to advance on the rebel-held infantry academy. Ever since the loyalists reached the Aleppo central prison in late May, the regime has increasingly been able to threaten important roads running from the Turk