The Ukrainian Embassy may initiate sanctions against the Swiss delegation headed by Edward Belzer, a former member of the Council of States of Switzerland, for visiting the annexed Crimea.

As the diplomatic mission reported on September 10, this visit was “a violation of the Ukrainian legislation and contradicts Switzerland's official position on the non-recognition of the attempt to annex the Crimea to Russia”.

“We are sorry, but despite the well-known observance of the supremacy of the …

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have no intention of inviting other world leaders to join him in attending  the Vostok 2018 military exercises. His press secretary Dmitry Peskov said there are no plans “[to invite other leaders to visit the exercises] together with the President of Russia,” Interfax reports. Peskov added that does not know if the leaders of other countries will attend the exercises separately.

The Vostok 2018 exercises will be held in Siberia and in the Far East …

One of the two newly created Russian offshore companies on Oktyabrsky Island, cannot be realized, since the island does not exist as a geographical entity, writes the newspaper Vedomosti.

The publication refers to the words of Deputy Finance Minister Ilya Trunin, who complained that his “Kaliningrad colleagues have a basic problem".

”As it turns out, there is no Oktyabrsky Island in the Kaliningrad region. This geographical entity does not exist,” the official noted.

According to the former …

The Russian government’s nominally low foreign debt of $50 billion, at 3.6% of the GDP, is only the tip of the iceberg with respect to the government’s lending to western creditors, finanz.ru reports.

If one takes into account the loans of the state banks and the state corporations and structures which are more than 50% owned by the government, the total foreign debt of the government sector exceeds the official figure by a factor of five, at $255 billion.

These were the figures cited by the …

The arbitration court of the annexed Crimea decided that the Titan plant in the Crimean town of Armyansk should pay 736.9 million rubles ($10.5 million USD) to the Russia budget for the negative impact on the environment, as reported by Rosprirodnadzor (Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Use of Natural Resources) in a press release on their website. According to the report, the inspection found that the enterprise was discharging liquid industrial waste into the acid storage.

The …

With the assistance of the Roshen Company, 430 sniper rifles Zbroyar Z-10 and Savage-110 were acquired and handed over to paratrooper assault units of the Ukranian Armed Forces, reported on Facebook the Advisor of Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Yuriy Biryukov. Biryukov also reminded of the 98 sniper rifles sent directly by Petro Poroshenko to the soldiers of the Special Operations Forces a year ago.

Earlier, Roshen has repeatedly provided assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In …

A Russian submarine came close to Latvia’s borders on September 11, the Latvian National Armed Forces posted on Twitter.

According to the tweet, the Russian Navy’s Dmitrov submarine (NATO classification: “Kilo”) was spotted three nautical miles outside of Latvia’s territorial waters.

At the start of May, the Russian Navy’s SB-121 and Kashtan ships were spotted 12 nautical miles from Latvia’s territorial waters. A large project 775 landing ship (NATO classification: Ropucha) was also seen six …

The opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) was told by Turkey to prepare for the possible movement of a large contingent of fighters into Syria’s Idlib province,  reported the pro-government Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak on Monday.

According to the report, Ankara ordered the FSA to draft reports on the opposition forces’ personnel, the existing weapons and ammunition. If needed, roughly 20,000 armed FSA members will be transferred to Idlib, where they will join the other divisions of the armed …