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Susan Rice: Russian Military Intervention in Ukraine ‘Would be a Grave Mistake’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Efrem LukatskyAny Russian decision to send forces into Ukraine to restore a government it views as favorable “would be a grave mistake,” national security advisor Susan Rice said Sunday, after dramatic turns in the country’s standoff saw President Viktor Yanukovich effectively removed from office.

“It’s not in the interest of Ukraine or of Russia or of Europe or of the United States to see a country split,” Rice said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “It’s in nobody’s interests to see violence return and the situation escalate.”

Asked whether President Obama had told President Vladimir Putin to “back off” when the two spoke by phone on Friday, Rice replied, “The president’s message was, ‘Look, we have a shared interest in a Ukraine that remains unified, whole, independent, and is able to exercise the will of its people freely.’ At that point, Putin was in agreement.”

Russia and the U.S. have accused each other of interference in the crisis, which began when Yanukovich last November ditched a plan to strengthen economic and political relations with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia. Opposition supporters occupied Kiev’s independence square to protest the decision, which was cemented when Putin offered Yanukovich a $15 billion bailout.

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Kremlin Party Youth Protest Disallowed Goal in US-Russia Match

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsAfter a heated U.S.-Russia hockey match at the Sochi Olympics on Saturday, many Russian spectators have decided the cold war is back — and not just on the ice.

Demonstrators gathered in Moscow on Monday to protest a referee’s call disallowing a Russian goal in the match that Russia ultimately lost in a penalty shootout.

The protesters, organized by the Kremlin party’s youth group, donned Russian hockey jerseys and shouted, “Make soap out of the ref!” — a common expression among Russian soccer fans.

Wielding a banner with a photograph of the American referee, Brad Meier, the protesters used a cheese grater to grate soap into buckets.

The goal, which would have given Russia to a 3-2 lead with less than five minutes on the clock, was disallowed after officials ruled that the net had come loose from the ice before the goal was scored. Russian fans, who had leapt to their feet in celebration, howled with rage as the call was announced.

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Cold War Echoes: Sochi Not Thawing US-Russian Relations

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Photo Credit: APThe Olympic Games, created to bring countries together around sports, appear to be having the opposite effect on U.S.-Russia relations.

Rising animosity between the former Cold War powers was on full display Friday when Russia chose a former figure skater who tweeted out a racially charged picture of President Obama for the symbolic lighting of the Olympic cauldron…

To be sure, there are hard feelings in Russia toward the U.S. and the Obama administration, too.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped hosting the first Games since the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which the U.S. boycotted, would showcase a “new Russia” emerging from the ashes of the Soviet Union as he enters his 15th year in power.

Instead the U.S. and its western allies have consistently painted the picture of a corrupt autocracy.

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Gunman Kills Nun, Parishioner, Wounds 6 in Russian Cathedral

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/ Dmitriy SindyakovRussian investigators say a gunman opened fire in a cathedral on Sakhalin Island off the Pacific coast, killing a nun and a parishioner and wounding six others.

The federal Investigative Committee said law enforcement officers detained the man, who works as a security guard.

A man employed as a private security guard opened fire Sunday in a cathedral on Russia’s Sakhalin Island in the Pacific, killing a nun and a parishioner and wounding six others, investigators said.

Law enforcement officers detained the 24-year-old man at the scene and were trying to determine why he had attacked the Russian Orthodox cathedral in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the federal Investigative Committee said in a statement. The man worked for a private security firm in the city and was armed with a rifle. His name was not released.

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Olympic Threat: US Warns Airlines About Toothpaste Tube Bomb

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Photo Credit: Wong Maye-E/AP PhotoThe Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning to U.S. and some foreign airlines traveling to Russia for the Olympic Games to be on the lookout for toothpaste containers, which some intelligence indicates may actually hold ingredients that could be used to construct a bomb aboard a plane, a senior U.S. official told ABC News.

The official did not provide further details about the warning or the intelligence that prompted it, but an official with the Department of Homeland Security, while declining to discuss the specific warning, said the department “regularly shares relevant information with domestic and international partners, including those associated with international events such as the Sochi Olympics.”

“While we are not aware of a specific threat to the homeland at this time, this routine communication is an important part of our commitment to making sure we meet that priority,” the official said. “As always, our security apparatus includes a number of measures, both seen and unseen, and DHS will continue to adjust security measures to fit an ever evolving threat environment.”

A federal law enforcement source said the information is largely intended for foreign carriers and the generic threat is not directed at the U.S. homeland. The Russian government has been informed, the source said.

Still, Rep. Peter King, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Sub-Committee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, said he has been briefed on the threat and said it should be taken seriously by American travelers, the airlines and officials at the Olympic Games.

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Russian Security Forces Searching Sochi for Suspected Terrorist

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Photo Credit: Telegraph

Photo Credit: Telegraph

Russian security forces are searching Sochi for a suspected terrorist who is feared to be planning to target the Olympic Games, according to a notice distributed throughout the city.

A description distributed to hotels in the area says that the FSB, Russia’s internal security service, has received information that Ruzanna Ibragimova, the widow of an insurgent “neutralised” by security forces, may have travelled from Dagestan to the Sochi area on January 11 or 12.

“According to our information Ms Ibragimova may be used by the ring leaders of illegal armed groups for the organisation of terrorist acts in the zone of the 2014 Olympics,” the notice says.

While the notice does not mention the term, the widows of fighters killed in the on-going conflict between Islamist separatists and Russian forces in the North Caucasus have been used in the past as suicide bombers.

Russia has deployed 40,000 police and security personnel in a “ring of steel” around Sochi to deter attacks by Islamist militants from the nearby North Caucasus republics.

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Investigators Believe Snowden May Have Stayed with a Russian in Hong Kong

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Investigators do not believe Edward Snowden stayed at the Mira hotel in Hong Kong as he travelled from Hawaii to Russia last summer, but rather at the residence of a non-Chinese national, possibly a Russian, who is suspected of facilitating his travel to Moscow, a source familiar with the case tells Fox News.

The new allegation about Snowden’s contacts in Hong Kong comes as the leadership of the House and Senate intelligence committees also claimed the NSA leaker may have had help.

On the Sunday talk shows, the CIA’s former deputy director, Mike Morrell, along with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, for the first time publicly weighed in on that possibility — though neither pointed to specific evidence.

“The disclosures that have been coming recently are very sophisticated in their content and sophisticated in their timing, almost too sophisticated for Mr. Snowden to be deciding on his own,” Morrell told “Face the Nation.”

“And it seems to me he might be getting some help.”

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17 Year-Old Russian Suspected of Recent Cyber-Attacks on US Stores (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox

Photo Credit: Fox

It appears more credit card numbers may have been stolen in another string of cyber-attacks.

According to the cybercrime firm Intel Crawler, there are at least 6 ongoing attacks on US stores.

New York News

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Mitt Romney Says That if it Were His Choice, Russia Would Not Be Hosting the Olympics (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Former Gov. Mitt Romney said today “were it my choice,” Russia would never have been awarded next month’s Winter Olympics — let alone any future Summer Olympics — because of the political message it sends.

“But it’s not my choice. They are a player on the global stage. They have a right to make their bid. But, they do strain the view of people like myself as to their leadership and their characterization of the Olympic spirt,” Romney told FOX News Sunday host Chris Wallace.

Russia got the green light to host the games from the International Olympic Committee in 2007. Romney indicated his concerns are more the political message that was sent rather than the logistical success of the games, though he also questioned the cost.

Pointing out that the 2014 Winter Olympics’ $51 billion pricetag is more money than was spent on all previous winter games combined, and that Putin signed a law last summer empowering police to arrest anyone who shows tolerance toward gays, Wallace asked Romney, “At some point, does the country hosting the Olympics … does that country’s values undercut what the Olympics are supposed to be all about?”

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Vladimir Putin Vows ‘Total Annihilation’ of Terrorists (+video)

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Vladimir Putin has vowed to pursue terrorists to their “total annihilation”, in his first public comments since the Volgograd suicide bombings.

In his traditional New Year’s Eve address, which was broadcast at midnight from the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, (5pm in Moscow), he praised Russia’s unity in the face of both terrorism and natural disasters and promised to continue an unrelenting fight against the bombers.

“In the past year we have faced problems and serious challenges including the inhuman terror attacks in Volgograd and unprecedented disasters in the Far East,” he said.

“Dear friends, we bow our heads in memory of the victims of these terrible attacks. We will strongly and decisively continue the battle against terrorists until their total annihilation,” he said.

Mr Putin earlier provoked a storm of condemnation on the Russian internet on Sunday after the message broadcast an hour earlier in Kamchatka, Russia’s most easterly timezone, made no mention of the attacks.

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