The Russian Federation would not have annexed Crimea if Ukraine had been a NATO member as of 2014, because other members of the Alliance would have stood up for Ukraine, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in his speech at the College of Europe in Bruges, RBC-Ukraine reports.

"My short answer is that this would not have happened, because the purpose of NATO is to protect every ally," Stoltenberg said.

He added that NATO uses a "one for all and all for one" rule if one of the Allies …

The completion of the Nord Stream-2 pipeline continues to be postponed.According to Interfax, the operator of the project, Gazprom's Swiss-registered subsidiary Nord Stream 2 AG, has postponed the completion date in Danish territorial waters by another five months. About 160 km of pipe remain to be laid there.In a new Notice to Mariners published by the Danish Maritime Authority, the company says it plans to continue work until September 2021. Two months ago, in a similar document, the deadline …

According to RT itself, Ruptly GmbH (RT video agency) and RT DE Productions GmbH (RT's Website in German) received notices on February 26 about the closure of accounts in Сommerzbank from May 31 this year. This happened a month after the announcement of the upcoming launch of Ruptly’s German TV channel scheduled for December 2021.

Ruptly has sent dozens of requests to other German banks, as well as to European banks with branches in Germany, asking to open an account. But none of them agreed. …

A court in Hamburg has sentenced two German citizens for violating an arms embargo on Russia imposed after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, reported the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

One of the convicts is a 41-year-old businessman from Augsburg in southwestern Bavaria. He was sentenced to 3 years 9 months in prison, as fine of almost €8 million.

The first of the accused, Alexander S., was detained in February last year. According to investigators, from January 2016 to January 2018, …

Any attempt by the Belarusian authorities to demand the extradition of ex-presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya from Lithuania is doomed to failure, said Lithuanian Deputy Foreign Minister Mantas Adomenas in an interview with Deutsche Welle.

"Lithuania does not extradite people who are subjected to political persecution. Minsk is well aware of the answer we will give them," the deputy foreign minister said.

According to him, any request for Tikhanovskaya's extradition would be a " …

The self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic allowed the militants to open "warning" fire on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donbas, reported the publication Ostrov.

"Due to the lack of response from international observers to the shelling of the settlements of the Republic, in order to protect the population from Ukrainian terror, the units of the People's Militia have been given permission to open fire to suppress and destroy the enemy's firing positions," said the "people' …

Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl will join the board of directors of Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft.

56-year-old Kneissl, who served as Austria’s Foreign Minister from 2017 till 2019, was nominated to the board as an independent director along with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has held a position in the company for more than three years, TASS reported citing the Russian government’s decree.

Kneissl, a law doctor and middle East specialist, who spent …

Self-proclaimed president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has not ruled out the possibility of deployment of Russian warplanes to Belarus, reports Lukashenko’s press service.

Lukashenko recalled that in 2014, during the Ice Hockey World Championships, Russian planes were in the country and were on duty together with the Belarusian Air Force. According to Lukashenko, the countries could continue to use this experience.

"Give us these planes. Both Russians and Belarusians should fly these …