Contents tagged with War in Ukraine

  • Russia calls Connecting EU Sanctions to Situation in Donbas Groundless

    The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that connecting the EU sanctions to the regulation of the conflict in the Donbass is “groundless.”

    "The fact that the EU binds their sanctions to the settlement of the conflict in southeastern Ukraine is artificial and groundless. This conflict was started not by Russia, but by the current Ukrainian government," the Ministry said.

    "The lack of logic in the behavior of the European Union is obvious. It's trying to 'punish' Russia for something that it has no …

  • Yatsenyuk explains the moratorium on "Yanukovych's debt"

    The Prime Minister of Ukraine has cited ‘political bribery’ as the rationale for the suspension of payments on the Ukrainian debt to Russia in the amount of $3.5 billion. This was stated during his "10 minutes with the Prime Minister about unity" speech on the 5th channel, as reported by the Ukrainian news agency UKRINFORM.

    "This debt was nothing more than a political bribe by Moscow to its puppet who ruled Ukraine.  This bribe was to ensure that Ukraine would not have a visa-free regime or …

  • John Kerry: Solving the Ukrainian problem is our main task

    “The United States and Russia can work together,” said U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry.  The main focus of American-Russian cooperation is the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis.

    "In September (during a speech by the U.S. President, Barack Obama, at the UN General Assembly) the main issue was the Ukrainian crisis, but since then we have made considerable progress.  I am now in Moscow, proving that, despite differences, Russia and the United States are able to and want to work together. We …

  • Russian Duma Speaker: Sanctions against Russia are humiliating and illogical for the EU

    According to Sergei Naryshkin, the Russian Duma Speaker, the sanctions against Russia have been entered into without the consent of the people of the EU.  The sanctions against Russia are humiliating and illogical for the EU, said Naryshkin, in an article he wrote for the newspaper Izvestia, released on Monday.

    "Brussels’ approach to modern Russia is a strategic miscalculation.  Talking to us in the language of illegal sanctions is illogical and obviously embarrassing for European diplomacy," …

  • Militants continue aggressive shelling of ATO forces in eastern Ukraine

    Illegally armed pro-Russian rebels continue trying to provoke Ukrainian Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) forces, according to the operation's press center.

    "Since the beginning of the day nearly 35 cases of ceasefire violations by the Russian-terrorist gangs have been reported," according to a post by the official press center on Facebook on Sunday.

    The press center sayid that the majority of the attacks have occurred around the Donetsk airport where small arms and grenade launchers of various …

  • Russian sanctions extended

    BRUSSELS – The European Union on Monday extended its economic sanctions against Russia for six months, after the Kremlin had failed to fully respect a peace agreement in east Ukraine.

    The sanctions target Russia's financial, energy and defense sectors as well as some dual-use goods.

    Despite a cease-fire declared in February, Ukraine says it still has not regained complete control over its border with Russia and that Russian-backed rebels are not respecting the cease-fire conditions.

    The …

  • Peskov denies reports of military interference

    Russia didn't send military experts to Ukraine, said the President's Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov. He claims that the Russian presence in the southeast of Ukraine consisted entirely of volunteers. According to Interfax, those were his comments on the words of Vladimir Putin during his end-of-the-year press conference on December 17th. Putin said that the Russian citizens fighting alongside the separatists in eastern Ukraine were there as volunteers, though he also admitted to the presence of …

  • Chuck Hagel: America didn’t lead the world in supporting Ukraine

    Former US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that during the fighting with pro-Russian separatists, the US government insisted on providing the Ukrainian Armed Forces with communications and non-lethal weapons. During the most intense moments of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the United States did not show itself as a world leader, said Hagel in an interview about foreign policy.

    The former Defense Secretary said that in 2014, during meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff against …

  • Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Issue to Be Raised at Next EU Summit

    The construction of the second branch of the gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea for transporting natural gas from Russia to Germany is causing heated debates in the European Union.

    The controversial issue of the construction of the new gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 will be, according to reports from the diplomatic community, one of the themes of the EU summit in Brussels on Friday, December 18th. According to the DPA agency, the final document of the meeting of the Heads of State and Government …

  • Dzhemilev met with Erdoğan

    On 17th December, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with the Ukrainian presidential envoy for Crimean Tatar People’s Affairs, Mustafa Dzhemilev, Anadolu reported. The meeting took place in a hotel in Konya. The Turkish Vice Prime Minister, Yalçın Akdoğan also participated in the meeting, which lasted about 40 minutes. Neither of the parties has disclosed the details of their discussions.

    A sizeable portion of the Crimean Tatar Diaspora (more than 1000 people) live in Turkey. In …