• Ukrainian President will visit Germany to discuss Nord Stream-2

    President Petro Poroshenko intends to visit Germany before April and discuss with German authorities the issue of the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, as he stated in an interview with Ukrainian TV channels.

    "In the coming days, within 2-3 weeks, I'm going to visit Germany ... This topic (Nord Stream-2) will certainly be on the agenda of our talks," he said, answering a question about Germany's reluctance to abandon the project.

    Poroshenko stressed that many European countries are …

  • Commanders of Russia’s Wagner private military company speak to media about the operation in Syria

    Commanders from the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) have spoken to the media under conditions of anonymity and provided information on the PMC’s activity in Syria.

    The PMC’s Syrian campaign began in 2015. The Wagner Group carries out military assignments, and numbers roughly 2,000 mercenaries, the unnamed commanders claim. The PMC is seconded by the Karpaty detachment, which is made up of 300 cossacks with Ukrainian citizenship. One commander claimed that there may be as many as 8,000 …

  • Ukrainian President: Russia's Gazprom will pay for everything to a penny

    In an interview with Ukrainian television channels on Wednesday, March 7, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that he is convinced that the Russian company Gazprom will fully pay Naftogaz $2.56 billion following the results of two arbitration disputes in the Stockholm Arbitration Court.  

    "I have no doubt that Ukraine will get everything to a penny. I declare that this issue is absolutely not about money. This issue has geopolitical significance ... The position of the Russian Federation, …

  • US Special Representative for Ukraine: it's time to think about tougher sanctions over Crimea

    US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker stated that "it's time to think about tougher sanctions over the Crimea." Ukrinform reports on March 7 that he made the statement during his speech at the Warsaw office of the German Marshall Fund.

    "It is important that the US, EU, Ukraine and other countries do not recognize Russia's annexation of the Crimea. I believe it's time to think about how we can make our position tougher, including consequences for trips [of politicians], trade and …

  • Putin says that Russia was forced to annex Crimea

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow was consciously led to annex Crimea.

    “Sometimes it seems to me - and I think that there are certain grounds for this - that someone consciously led us to such a line, and once there, we had to act the way we acted. Not many expected that we would act so quickly, so resolutely, if not boldly,” said Putin in TV host Vladimir Soloviev’s film “World Order 2018.” The film is on Soloviev’s Vkontakte page.

    According to Putin, he did not doubt that …

  • European Parliament decides to not send observers to elections in Russia

    The European Parliament will not send observers to the presidential elections in Russia on March 18, nor will they send them to Azerbaijan on April 11.

    This was announced on Wednesday by the co-chairs of the European Parliament’s group on democracy support and election coordination David McAllister and Linda McAvan, Ukrinform reports.

    “The European Parliament will not observe these electoral processes and, consequently, will also not comment on these processes and the results which will be …

  • Large US landing ship with 500 marines enters the Black Sea

    On Wednesday, March 7, the USS Oak Hill LSD 51 landing ship entered Black Sea waters. A photograph of the vessel’s passage through the Bosphorus Strait was published by the Istanbul information portals, Interfax reports.

    “A large American landing ship, with divisions of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit with roughly 500 marines on board, is currently moving north towards the coast of Romania,” the report states.

    The command of the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet said that the ship is going to take …

  • More than a third of Russians do not understand the objectives of the operation in Syria

    Two-thirds of Russians follow the course of the Russian military operation in Syria, which started in the autumn of 2015, and has been declared finished three times since, according to data provided by the Public Opinion fund (POF) based on a survey conducted in February.

    But despite the interest, people are not well informed about the goals pursued by Russia within the military campaign. According to Reuters, hundreds of Russian have been killed  during the operation.

    Of those polled, 18% …

  • Poland establishes a hotline to protect the rights of Ukrainian workers

    A hotline for questions concerning legal employment and protection of rights has been established in Poland for Ukrainian workers, PAP news agency reports.

    According to Polish Chief Labor Inspector Wiesław Łyszczek, there are cases where Polish employers who use Ukrainian migrant workers are paying them lower salaries or not ensuring adequate working conditions.

    According to Łyszczek, over 2.5 million foreigners work in Poland and 800,000 of them work illegally.  "The thing is, everyone …

  • Putin: 400 foreign agents were caught in Russia last year

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said that during the past year, the activity of 72 personnel from foreign intelligence services and 397 foreign special services agents were detained in Russia.

    On March 5th Putin spoke at the board of the Russian FSB, noting that in recent years, the activity of foreign intelligence agents was growing. According to Putin, they use the most modern methods of agent and technical intelligence.

    He urged the Russian special services to prevent any attempts by …