The first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, when offered to conclude a deal with Kyiv, under which Crimea would be given to Russia, and Ukraine, in turn, would receive free gas for ten years, said: "Whey do we need this Crimea, this Sevastopol. We have free piers in St. Petersburg, we will move the fleet there," said Mikhail Poltoranin, a well-known Soviet and Russian politician, in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon.

"It was a good deal, not only to snatch Crimea for free, …

Radio France Internationale (RFI) published an investigation into the crimes of Russian "instructors" in the Central African Republic (CAR), which is based on the stories of dozens of witnesses and reports of human rights organizations.

The main source of information in the article under the headline "In the Central African Republic, victims of Russian atrocities broke the law of silence" is the report of a special working group of the UN. It reports that between January and mid-April this …

Russia continues to record a sharp acceleration of natural population decline and double-digit increase in mortality on a scale that official statistics have not seen for more than 70 years.

As of March, 191,320 people died in the country, Interfax reports, citing data of the Federal State Statistics Service, Rosstat.

Compared to February, the mortality rate increased by 18,648 people, or 10.7%. The increase in mortality was 25.3% annually and compared to February it accelerated by 4.7 …

Military targets in Syria were attacked by Israeli warplanes at around 2 a.m., reported the Syrian new agency SANA.

According to SANA, “some of the enemy's missiles have been shot down."

"The Israeli enemy carried out air aggression from the side of Latakia at several targets in the coastal zone," Sana reported.

According to the Syrian military, "Israeli aggression resulted in the death of a civilian and six injured, including a child and his mother, in addition to some material losses, …

The permit for the construction of Nord Stream 2 in Germany economic zone in the Baltic Sea has been suspended, reports Interfax citing German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH).

The permit, which was in effect until the end of May and applies to a 16-kilometer stretch of pipeline under construction, has been suspended due to a lawsuit filed by environmentalists, said a representative of BSH.

In April, Germany's Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) tried to challenge …