The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement has overcome its first hurdle in Dutch Parliament. On Thursday, February 23rd, the lower house of Dutch Parliament (officially the “Second Chamber”) approved a bill for ratification of the agreement by The Netherlands. The roll-call vote resulted in 89 voting in favor of the agreement and 55 against it.

Now the bill will go to the Senate. According to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the vote in the Senate will take place after March 15th, when elections …

The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, Margot Wallström, stated in an interview with Dozhd that European sanctions imposed against Russia will be maintained as long as the Crimea remains under Russian control.

“Our sanctions, the decision on which was made by the European Union, were imposed due to the events that took place in the Crimea… The territory was illegally taken from another European country. This is prohibited by the European security policy,” Wallström said.

“Our sanctions …

Former Prime Minister of Montenegro Milo Đukanović accused Russia of trying to destabilize the situation in the Balkans. He stated on the 21st of February that pro-Moscow groups “deployed a lot of destructive material in Montenegro” in the attempt to organize a coup.

“A new puppet government would serve only the interests of Moscow, which wants to send a message to Europe and NATO, that they can’t expand to the Balkans without Russian consent,” said Đukanović, who was the initiator of his …

The Russian Ministry of Defence plans to complete the formation of four new divisions in 2017, and included in this will be the protection of the Kuril Islands. This was announced on February 22 in the State Duma on the television show “Parliamentary Hour” (Parlamentsky Chas) by Minister of Defence Sergey Shoygu, TASS reported.

“This year we hope to fully put in place three divisions on the western border and in the southwest. We are actively protecting the Kuril Islands. We must place a …

In a speech to the key military personnel, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko claimed that at present the threat of a full-scale military invasion by Russia in Ukraine remains unchanged, and that the buildup of Russian military presence near the Ukrainian border has continued.

Poroshenko made the comments during a speech to senior personnel at the information-collection headquarters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Kyiv, as reported by Interfax-Ukraine.

"The threat of a full-scale Russian …