I personally don't believe that Russia and China are on Maduro's side - they are simply protecting their investments here in Venezuela.
Israel has good reason to be concerned about its intelligence making its way to Moscow: Russia is a major player in the war in Syria on Israel's northern border, where it has also become a close ally of Iran and Hezbollah, Israel's sworn enemies.
The most hopeful approach to peace in Ukraine is the Minsk Agreement, which includes Moscow.
[ James Comey] was acting in concert and coordination with the House Republicans. End of story. He gave a letter to them. They gave it to FOX News. Also, we have this extraordinary case of the KGB being involved in this race and selectively leaking things from the [Hillary] Clinton campaign that they hacked.
I would like to repeat: I know absolutely nothing about [hacker's attacks], and Russia has never done anything like this at the State level.
I don't understand this thing about [Bashar] Assad. He has to go. Assad is aligned with Iran and Russia. The one thing we want to prevent is we want to prevent Iran being able to extend a Shia crescent all across the Middle East. Assad has got to go.
We know that Russia was involved in hacking our democracy. We know that the evidence or information is sufficient to warrant an FBI investigation of this. We are trying to do as much of this as we can in the public eye transparently. Obviously, some of it will have to be done in closed session.
Аt the end of the day, unless Iran and Russia want to have a rump Allawite state and a rump Sunni state, and a Kurdish state, then they're going to have to come to the table and bring about an end to this regime.
The one way, possibly, out of this is for [Bashar] Assad to abdicate and plead, perhaps to Russia or somewhere else. Would save another wave of civilian casualties if we could get him to abdicate.
I think [Republicans] would really like to rip up that [Iran nuclear agreement] and get a new one, but that's going to be very difficult. You, of course, have Russia involved in that.
We know that the Russian's interfered in our election and they did it to benefit President Trump. The intelligence agencies confirmed that.
We have President-elect [Donald] Trump out there calling the CIA assessment that Russia was trying to help elect him ridiculous. He also questions - says he doesn't believe the earlier findings of all 17 intelligence agencies that Russia was trying to get involved in our elections.
If Russia is there [in Syria] alone fighting them [ISIL], guess what? Russia becomes the target and Russia starts seeing - who knows - MANPADs will find their way in there, airplanes will fall out of the sky. They will become vilified. They'll become the new magnet, together with Assad, for the jihadis.
This country cannot tolerate the fact that someone worked with Russia to undermine our democracy.
I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia. I don't deal there. I have no businesses there. I have no loans from Russia.
I think what we do really want to do is make sure that we take chemical weapons away from Syrians. And I do as well believe that because of the threats that have come from the United States, that Russia and Syria both understand that there needs to be some action.
Russia hasn't paid any attention to ISIS. They're interested in keeping Assad in power.
The president has largely taken a hands-off approach in Syria and granted it as a legitimate sphere of interest to countries like Iran and like Russia. This is very bad policy, and it's going to lead to very dangerous consequences for our partners in the region, which is why so many of them are so opposed to U.S. policies.
Perhaps the seemingly never-ending quest by Democrats to delegitimize the will of the American people and the election of Trump as president was really designed to distract from what we now know to be true: In 2016, the only presidential campaign that colluded with foreign nationals, Russia included, was the Clinton campaign.
Syria is no longer Syria. Syria is Russia and it's Iran, who Hillary Clinton made strong and Kerry and Obama made into a very powerful nation and a very rich nation, very, very quickly, very, very quickly.
I just have to tell you that the provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. And if Russia chooses to be involved and continue, I should say, to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime to prevent them from this humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Aleppo.
We know that weapons, heavy weapons continue to flow across the border from Russia into Ukraine. And we have now, in recent days, indications that Russians - Russian military units themselves have, on occasion, fired into Ukraine.
Russia is doing all it can to promote early stabilisation in Ukraine.
A lot of the issue that is happening in Syria is Assad is still there. And after years now, the administration, of saying Assad has to go, the pressure is not being applied to Russia, to Iran - the folks that are propping up Assad - and Assad himself to be able to actually be removed there and to transition to another leader.
There is crisis in Europe, where Russia is the principle intriguer and player, which affects a major source of international business and flow of capital.
