Thirty years after the Chernobyl accident, two Chinese investment companies plan to build solar power stations (SPS) in the 10-km exclusion zone around the Chernobyl reactor. The construction is expected to start in 2017, as was reported on Monday, November 21 by Reuters. GCL System Integration Technology, a subsidiary of the GCL Group, said it would cooperate with China National Complete Engineering Corp. The planned location of future solar power stations was repeatedly checked by technical …

Russia plans to reach an agreement with Syria on the creation of a naval base in Tartus for a term of 49 years. “We came to Syria with serious intentions and for a long time. That is why, the improvement of infrastructure at the airfield as well as in the area of its deployment is a challenge that we will have to face in the foreseeable future,” RIA Novosti quoted the Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, Viktor Ozerov as saying.

Ozerov added that the base will …

US, Swedish, and German reconnaissance aircraft carried out simultaneous missions near Russia’s Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, Interfax reported, citing websites that track the movement of military aircraft.

On Tuesday, a US Air Force RC-135W reconnaissance aircraft with tail number 62-4139 took off from Mildenhall Airbase in the UK and proceeded to monitor the coast of Kaliningrad. Two Russian Su-27 fighters reportedly took off to monitor the RC-135W’s activities.

At approximately the …

Russia has deployed its newest missile systems Bastion and Bal to Kuril islands, as reported by Russia’s Interfax news agency citing the newspaper of the Pacific Navy “Boyevaya Vahta” (Combat Watch).

According to Interfax, the Bastion missile systems were deployed to the island of Iturup while Bal systems were deployed on the island of Kunashir. “The newly deployed units are getting ready for test firing using the Bastion systems,” reports the newspaper

In March, the Russian Minister of …

Interfax has reported that the Russian Defense Ministry has accused the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) of illegally detaining two Russian servicemen, and then transporting them out of the Crimea.

“At approximately 1pm on the 20th of November, employees of the SBU illegally detained two Russian soldiers, warrant officer Maxim Odintsov and junior sergeant of contract service Alexander Baranov, and transported them out of the Crimea to the Mykolaiv region,” the Russian agency said.

The …

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy is unpredictable and, therefore, everyone needs to be "ready for anything.” She made the statement on CNN in response to a question regarding her idea of Putin's current plans in foreign policy concerning the Baltic countries.

"We can only guess what the plans of Putin are. I also have guesses, but it will probably be incorrect to share them publicly. As for Lithuania, I can only say that we …

The President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko said in his Day of Dignity and Freedom speech that Russia is attempting to destabilize the country in order to ensure early parliamentary elections, strengthen pro-Russian positions in the new Parliament and, in the end, cancel the European course of Ukraine.

“The enemy not only attacks from the outside but also undermines our country from the inside. The Kremlin’s purpose includes constant internal destabilization, anarchy, early parliamentary …

At the closing session of the All-Russia civil forum, the head of the Civil Initiatives Committee and the former minister of finance, Alexei Kudrin, compared the situation in modern Russia with the later period of development of the Soviet Union. According to him, Russia now faces the same risks of decentralization and regionalization of the country, Radio Svoboda reports.

“The USSR collapsed not because of the weak army or the weak committee for state security. It collapsed because of an …