Russian leaders told foreign press Monday that Chinese leaders are largely in agreement with the Russian invasion of part of Ukraine.
Russian troops have now surrounded military bases in Crimea and are preventing Ukrainian soldiers from being able to move anywhere within that area as Russian forces reinforce their positions.
Russian forces have also taken control of a port in the city of Kerch on the eastern edge of Crimea. The Crimean peninsula has a large Russian speaking population and the Russian leadership says their forces are there to protect those people.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague told Sky News that we’re in the midst of the most serious crisis that Europe has faced in the 21st century. The news of the invasion and the possibility of impending war have created a major impact on world markets, with Russia’s stock market down 10 percent.
The seven members of the G8 with Russia have called on Russia to respect the sovereignty of the Ukraine and called on them to remove themselves from Ukrainian territory.
The Department of Homeland Security is sending a warning to Americans traveling to the Olympic games that a new kind of bomb threat is facing foreign airlines.
Terrorists have been placing the materials needed to make a bomb inside tubes of toothpaste in attempts to smuggle them onto flights and build explosive devices.
DHS said that there was no threat to America from the toothpaste bombs but that the agency routinely communicates “relevant information with domestic and international partners, including those associated with international events such as the Sochi Olympics.”
A DHS spokesman said that Russian authorities have been informed of the threat.
Security for the Olympic games in Sochi has been on high alert for months after threats from Islamic terrorist groups to hit transportation to the Olympics.
The leader of a Russian Islamic terrorist group believed to be behind the plot to bomb the Winter Olympics was killed in a shootout with security troops while the woman believed to be the suicide bomber remains at large.
Russian security officials say that Eldar Magatov, the mastermind behind the bombings of public transportation in Volgograd last month that killed 34 people, was killed in a shootout after police surrounded a house in the Dagestan region. Dagestan is considered the home base for the Islamic terrorist group that was led by Magatov.
Russian President Vladimir Putin received an offer of support from the United States to combat the terrorists during the Olympics but has not responded to the offer.
Meanwhile, the woman called a “black widow” believed to be planning to attempt a suicide attack on the games is still at large in the Sochi area. In what has not been confirmed by Russian security officials, sources in Sochi say Russian security forces have sent out revised posters to hotels and hostels that show two separate women being sought as possible terrorists.
Russian security forces are frantically searching for a woman they believe is plotting to kill herself with a homicide bomb attack on the Olympic games.
Russia’s internal security service has sent an alert to hotels in the area of the Olympics looking for Ruzanna Ibragimova. She has been described as a “black widow” of an Islamic terrorist who was killed by Russian security forces.
They believe she snuck into the area around Sochi on January 11th or 12th.
“According to our information Ms. Ibragimova may be used by the ring leaders of illegal armed groups for the organization of terrorist acts in the zone of the 2014 Olympics,” the alert reads.
Russia has deployed 40,000 police and security staff to the city of Sochi forming what they call a “ring of steel” to stop attacks by Islamic militants.
Islamic terrorists have released a video from two men who claim to be suicide bombers.
The two men in the video are dressed in street clothes with nothing to identify them as Islamists. They identify themselves as part North Caucasus Islamic Extremist group while standing in front of a black jihadist flag and holding AKMS rifles.
“We’ll have a surprise package for you,” the terrorists say in the clip. “And those tourists that will come to you, for them, too, we have a surprise. If [the Olympics] happens, we’ll have a surprise for you. This is for all the Muslim blood that is shed every day around the world, be it in Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, all around the world. This will be our revenge.”
U.S. Intelligence officials say they have been studying the video trying to determine authenticity. However, the video was posted on a website that is considered credible for the Russian terrorist group. Sources say that U.S. Intelligence officials are working to come up with a rescue plan for Americans who may get trapped in a terror attack at the Olympics.
Russian authorities continue to insist their forces will be enough to protect participants and attendees at the Olympics.
Islamic terrorists have released a video from two men who claim to be suicide bombers.
The two men in the video are dressed in street clothes with nothing to identify them as Islamists. They identify themselves as part North Caucasus Islamic Extremist group while standing in front of a black jihadist flag and holding AKMS rifles.
“We’ll have a surprise package for you,” the terrorists say in the clip. “And those tourists that will come to you, for them, too, we have a surprise. If [the Olympics] happens, we’ll have a surprise for you. This is for all the Muslim blood that is shed every day around the world, be it in Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, all around the world. This will be our revenge.”
U.S. Intelligence officials say they have been studying the video trying to determine authenticity. However, the video was posted on a website that is considered credible for the Russian terrorist group. Sources say that U.S. Intelligence officials are working to come up with a rescue plan for Americans who may get trapped in a terror attack at the Olympics.
Russian authorities continue to insist their forces will be enough to protect participants and attendees at the Olympics.
Security for the February Sochi Russia Olympic Games is being called into question after back-to-back days of terror attacks in a major transportation hub north of the Olympic city.
A deadly homicide bombing on a bus in Volgograd has killed at least 11 and wounded dozens the day after a female homicide bomber detonated a backpack of explosives and shrapnel at the security checkpoint for the city’s main train station. At least 17 people are dead from that attack and hospital officials say the number of critically wounded patients means the death toll is likely to rise.
No group has claimed responsibility for the terror attacks.
Investigators say there is strong evidence linking the two attacks.
Volgograd is a major railroad hub for the region and thousands pass through the city every day heading to Moscow. The town is expected to be a major route for international visitors who will fly into Moscow and then travel to Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
At least one terrorist group has vowed to carry out attacks on the Winter Olympics.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that will ban abortion advertising as part of a crackdown on the country’s advertising restrictions on medicine.
Reuters reports Russia’s abortion rates are among the highest in the world and that it has become one of the most common methods of birth control in the nation.
“As long as society fails to recognize the value of human life, and wantonly destroys it in large numbers, it will be difficult to establish a new three-child norm. Abortion must cease being a way of life in Russia if her people are to survive,” Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute, told LifeSite News.
Pro-abortion advocates are furious over the new law saying that it violates a woman’s rights by not allowing abortion clinics to advertise. They said the move just increases persecution of women in the nation that began in 2011 when Russia passed a law banning abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy and required a 48 hour waiting period for an abortion.
The head of Iran’s atomic energy organization confirmed long spread rumors that Russia will help the nation build a nuclear reactor.
Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, announced Tuesday that he hopes to see the construction of the country’s second nuclear power station start in 2014 and that it will be lead “by the Russians.”
The plant is one of 34 potential new nuclear sites identified by the Iranian government.
Experts point out that Iran’s building of a new nuclear power plant would allow them more access to plutonium which can be used to fuel a nuclear weapon. Iran also continues to enrich uranium, another nuclear powered fuel.
The White House has asked Congress to not pass a new round of sanctions against Iran for the expansion of their nuclear program. House members said that because Iran has not slowed down their nuclear program the Congress should not slow down increasing sanctions.
The main opposition group in Syria’s civil war had told U.S. and Russian negotiators they would be willing to come to the bargaining table if certain conditions are put in place.
The Syrian National Coalition said if the Syrian government allows humanitarian relief into besieged areas and they release women & children who have been taken captive by military troops they will agree to meet in Geneva.
However, the group refused to waive their demand any future government not include current president Bashir al-Assad. The Syrian government said they would not negotiate if that remains a condition of peace.
The Syrian government had agreed to ease the blockade on the rebel held town near the capital of Damascus. Food and flour entered the town of Qudsaya after the government was told markets had run out of food and poor civilians trapped by the fighting were unable to feed their children.
The war’s focus has shifted again to Aleppo where rebels are attempting to take control of the airport. Aleppo International Airport has been closed for a year because of the continual attacks.