U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet in Switzerland on Saturday in order to discuss Syria despite high tensions between Moscow and Washington, Reuters reported.

Russian and U.S. attempts at a coordinated peace effort in Syria came to an abrupt halt after the Syrian government launched a renewed offensive on the war-torn city of Aleppo last month, aided by Russian bombers. A Russian and U.S. backed ceasefire deal, which lasted barely a week, …

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania summoned the Russian ambassador to Lithuania, Alexander Udaltsov, and handed him a note of protest regarding regular provocations of the Russian navy in the Baltic Sea. That is how Lithuania called on Russia to adhere to the norms of international law and principles of good-neighborliness, and intended to ensure that similar incidents don’t occur in the future, Delfi reported.

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry reiterated its concerns about the …

Small missile ships of the Russian Navy will be equipped with the close-in weapon system (CIWS) "Pantsir-SM", which will provide the highest level of vessel security, Izvestia newspaper reported.

Russia's new Buyan-M small missile ships will be armed with these missile systems.

Compared to their land-based "Pantsir-S1" counterparts, the naval air defense missile system has double the capability of detecting and destroying targets, able to detect all air and water activity at a distance up to 7 …

The presidential administration has advised Russian officials, up to the highest levels, to bring their children who are studying abroad back home. This was reported by Znak.com news portal citing five sources who are directly affected by this request.

This recommendation concerns employees of the presidential administration, regional administrations, deputies of all levels, as well as employees of state corporations.

The website added that the children are required to return even if they …

The Prime Minister of Ukraine, Volodymyr Groysman, stated that the doubling of Ukraine's economic growth rate can happen in a year contingent on industrial development and economic transition, UNIAN reported.

“We have great opportunities. We achieved 3% growth but that can be doubled. We can give an impetus to the development of production in order to cease to be the raw type of economy that we are today,” Groysman said. Earlier, the Prime Minister announced the creation of the National …

The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Jens Stoltenberg, expressed the opinion that Russia has followed a habitual course of action by deploying Iskander-M missile systems to Kaliningrad.

“We saw that they deployed missile systems in the Kaliningrad region. This is all part of a mosaic that is being assembled over a certain period of time,” TASS quoted Stoltenberg as saying.

According to him, the military bloc has already conducted the strongest program of …

In a recent report published on its website, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) called for Ukraine to speed up the implementation of anti-corruption reforms.

The organization recommends that Ukraine remove obstacles that impede effective implementation of electronic declaration.

It is reported that OECD will continue to closely monitor the implementation of this recommendation during the next monitoring round regarding Ukraine, which began in October 2016. …

A new NATO reconnaissance aircraft with long-range radar detection and AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) will land at the Lithuanian Air Force airbase in Šiauliai this week, the Lithuanian authorities reported.

“It will be a symbolic visit of the NATO E-3A reconnaissance aircraft to Lithuania, one of more than a thousand flights conducted by its crew members to ensure the security of NATO’s eastern borders since the beginning of the Russian Federation’s aggressive actions in Ukraine," …