Russia has decided to block Durov’s messenger Telegram in response to founder Pavel Durov’s plans to launch his own cryptocurrency, reports RBC news agency,citing an internal letter of the Federal Security Servicen (FSB).

“The story is not about terrorism. Pasha Durov decided to become a new Sergei Mavrodi [a Russian financial fraudster],” the letter reads. “After such cryptocurrency is laucnhed in Russia, we would have a completely uncontrolled financial system. It is not Bitcoin for a …

Shortly before the USA and its allies sent missile strikes against Syria, Russia identified areas of the Arab Republic considered to be “the red lines” for Russia, stated the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov.

“Even before the plans of the attack of ‘the Western three’ [the USA, Great Britain, France] started to materialize, the Russian Chief of General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, said clearly that if combat actions of the so-called ‘coalition’ harm Russian servicemen, we will …

60 members of the European Parliament called on EU member states to boycott the FIFA World Cup in Russia, DW reports.

The initiator of this appeal is a representative of the Green Party, Rebecca Harms. She believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot be a host of the World Cup while the war continues in Syria and Ukraine. She also pointed out that Russia supports right-wing extremist and anti-democratic parties in the EU and has been trying to influence elections.

Overall, the …

Russia is spreading contradictory statements on the chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma, said the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs in a statement published on the Ministry's website. These statements contradict the facts gathered by Paris, French diplomats stated.

French officials stated that the experts of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) still do not have access to the place where the chemical attack took place. According to the French Foreign …

Two guided-missiles warships of the Russian Black Sea fleet are on their way to Syria to reinforce the flotilla based at Syria’s port city of Latakia, as  reported by the observers monitoring the ship traffic in the Bosphorus Strait.

The two Russian warships have been identified as the 868 Pytilvy Krivak-class frigate and the 870 Smetlivy Kashin-class destroyer.The 868 Pytily specializes is an anti-ship and anti-submarine frigate. The 870 Smetlivyy is a an assault ship capable of  carrying out …

Nerve agent Novichok, which was used to poison former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia, was explored in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and at least one more western country, reports the German newspaper Der Spiegel.

The publication emphasizes that these countries could have studied Novichok only to develop an antidote for it.

In 2006, the U.S. Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) assured the Allies that his …

The Press Secretary of the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov commented on the proposal of the Head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin to temporarily nationalize Rusal, a Russian company that fell under US sanctions.

Peskov noted that the Cabinet of Ministers, on behalf of Chairman of the Government Dmitry Medvedev, is engaged in providing possible support to companies who are faced with the pressure of the sanctions. He noted that this topic is " …

Russian billionaires Alexander Skorobogatko and Alexander Ponomarenko have hired professional lobbyists in the US after they were included in the US Department of Treasury’s “Kremlin list” this past January. A corresponding notice from the lobby firm Qorvis MSLGROUP appeared last week in a special US Senate database.

The services that the company will provide to the Russian businessmen are rather abstract: "business interests [on behalf of Skorobogatko and Ponomarenko] and relations with the …