• German Foreign Minister to fly to Moscow and Kyiv for talks

    On Friday 18 January, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas will travel to Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, and then to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, Deutsche Welle reports.

    In Kyiv, the ministers will discuss the situation in the Donbas and the progress of reforms in Ukraine. No other details of Maas’s visit to Ukraine were given.

    In Moscow, the central topic of the negotiations will be the future of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces …

  • Naftogaz CEO: Gazprom’s assets seized in three countries

    In an interview with the Ukrainian magazine Novoe Vremya, Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev discussed the progress that has been made in the implementation of the Stockholm Arbitration Institute’s ruling that awarded Naftogaz $2.56 billion.

    “Gazprom has tens of billions of dollars in property abroad. We have already seized it to an amount which exceeds the amount of Gazprom’s debt to us,” UNIAN cites Kobolyev as saying.

    Kobolyev explained that in the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK, Gazprom’s …

  • Cyprus court arrests Ukrainian oligarch Firtash’s assets in Russian bank lawsuit

    The District Court of Limassol, Cyprus, has arrested nearly $46 million worth of Dmytro Firtashi’s property as part of a lawsuit by Russia’s VTB Bank, Kommersant reports.

    The lawsuit was filed on 20 December 2018, and within the week, the Ukrainian businessman’s property was placed under arrest as an interim measure. The consideration of the case is scheduled for the end of January.

    The lawsuit concerns the debts of PJSC Ukrainian Chemical Products and LLC Titan Investments, which own …

  • Four Russian bobsledders banned for two years for doping

    Four Russian bobsledders, Aleksander Zubkov, Aleksander Kasjanov, Ilvir Khuzin and Aleksei Pushkarev were found guilty of committing an Anti-Doping Rule Violation and have been disqualified from international competition for two years, reported the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation or IBSF. 

    The restrictions against the bobsledders begin on the day of their provisional suspension, December 19 for Zubkov and December 13 for the other three athletes. During this period, they are not …

  • Media: Serbian authorities detain a person suspected of planning Putin's assassination

    Serbian security forces detained a man in the town of Novi Pazar in  Southern Serbia, who was suspected of being a militant of Islamic State, reports the Serbian news outlet the Informer citing its source. Serbian Security forces suspect him of plotting to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

    According to the newspaper Kurir, 21-year-old Armin Alibashevich was detained by police on January 15. A scoped rifle was found in his backpack, leading the police and the Security Intelligence …