Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that he will discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin the deployment of the Syrian army in a "security zone" in Northern Syria.

Urgent talks between Putin and Erdoğan on further steps in the region are scheduled for the next week in Sochi, reports Voice of America.

Erdoğan warned that Ankara would continue to "implement its plans in Syria" if Turkey and Russia fail to agree on any further steps.

The Turkish authorities, after talks with the …

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed preparations for the Normandy Four summit during a telephone conversation, reports RIA news agency, citing the spokesperson  of the German Cabinet Steffen Seibert.

"The main topic of their talk was the preparations to hold the Normandy Four summit as soon as possible. Also, they discussed the situation in Syria and Libya, as well as ongoing negotiations on the continuation of gas transit through Ukraine," said …

The German Armed Forces and its NATO allies are participating in secret exercises, the scenario of which involves simulation of a nuclear war. During the Steadfast Noon military drills, it is planned to practice the use of fighter-bombers that can be equipped with nuclear weapons, reports Deutsche Welle with reference to Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) news agency.

The participants of the exercise will also work out the safe transfer of nuclear weapons from underground storage facilities to …

Bohdan Bondar, the Deputy Commander of the Joint Forces Operation, said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would not surrender their  their positions, reports Hromadske TV channel.

"We will not surrender and will not give up our positions. What is being carried out now and what is proposed to be carried out in the future are certain steps towards a real cessation of hostilities. Five years is a period that has sufficiently shown that it is necessary to use other options to end the hostilities," …

"Naftogaz of Ukraine intends to demand from Gazprom compensation for alleged losses from the termination of gas transit from Russia to Europe. On November 1, we will send our claims to Gazprom for more than $11 billion," wrote Chief Commercial Officer of Naftogaz Yuriy Vitrenko on his Facebook page.

A day before, during a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Gazprom's CEO Alexey Miller stressed the need to settle legal disputes before the conclusion of a new contract with Kyiv. …

An unnamed Kurdish politician in an interview with the Israel Army Radio (Galey Tzahal or IDF Radio), appealed to the Israeli government for help. According to the Kurdish politician, "the whole region will suffer" if no one stops the Turkish operation in Syria.

He also warned of severe consequences not only for the Middle East but for the whole world if former militants of the Islamic State group, who fled because of the Turkish invasion, will get out of Syria.

Earlier, representatives of …

Russia is continuing to tumble into the demographic abyss. Between January and August, the natural population loss accelerated by a further 30%, the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), announced on Thursday.

Over eight months, 994,300 people were born and 1.21 million died. Although mortality fell (by 33,700 people), the birth rate declined more than two and a half times faster (by 83,900 people).

Overall, the number of deaths exceeded the number of births by 20%. In 32 of …

13 members of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, have created an interparty coalition called “Kuban”. The new group will work on the return of Ukrainian ethnic territories and ethnic Ukrainians to the cultural and social field, MP Oleksiy Honcharenko, elected head of the union, wrote on Facebook.

“First and foremost, we will work on Kuban. But other regions that are densely inhabited by Ukrainians will also be under our close attention,” Honcharenko wrote.

The MP also published a copy …