• Switzerland seizes Gazprom’s revenue from Nord Stream

    The gas dispute with Ukraine may cost Gazprom its profits from pumping gas through the Nord Stream pipeline, which has been operational since 2012, and through which 61 billion cubic meters of gas were pumped to Europe last year, a third of Russia’s entire gas export.

    A Swiss court has seized payments made by the pipeline operator, Swiss-registered Nord Stream AG, to Gazprom, the operator’s 51% shareholder.

    The seizure was imposed as part of the interim measures for the ruling by the …

  • Austria accuses Russia of espionage

    Six months after the attempted poisoning of the former double agent Sergei Skripal in the UK, Russia found itself in the middle of a new “espionage scandal.”

    The Austrian Defense Ministry on Friday reported the arrest of a 70-year-old retired colonel, who engaged in espionage for Russia more than 20 years.

    “The military counterintelligence service through international cooperation opened the espionage case. The retired officer of the Austrian army from the 1990’s spied on the Bundesheer ( …

  • Ukrainian politician: Russia plays Transnistria’s scenario in Donbas

    Deputy Minister for the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, Georgiy Tuka, announced on Hromadske Radio that Russia is organizing so-called “elections” in the occupied Donbas to repeat Transnistria’s scenario.

    The official noted that Russia organized “elections” in the “occupied territories” of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in order to legitimize the leaders of the “republics”. Thus, the Russian Federation is trying to push Ukrainian authorities into direct negotiations, same as it …

  • Putin’s friend Prigozhin took part in negotiations with Libyan marshal Khalifa Haftar in Moscow

    Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman with ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, was captured on video among the members of  the delegation headed by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu during negotiations with the commander of the Libyan National Army, Khalifa Haftar. The video recording was published by the Libyan Defense Ministry on its Youtube channel.

    Prigozhin is the co-owner of the Concord group of companies and he has been repeatedly associated with the Wagner private …

  • EU allocates 25 million euro to the UN development program in Donbas

    The European Union will allocate €25 million to the United Nations development program in Ukraine to support the Donbas. The European Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn signed an agreement in Kyiv with the Permanent Representative of the UN Development Program in Ukraine, Osnat Lubrani.

    In 2017, the EU decided to allocate 50 million euro for the reconstruction of the Ukrainian conflict-stricken regions. These funds will be distributed to four …