Dmitry Peskov called untrue reports that French presidential candidate Francois Fillon organized a meeting for Lebanese billionaire Fouad Makhzoumi and Total CEO Patrick Puyanne with Russian President Vladimir Putin for a fee. Interfax reported on this.

Earlier, the media wrote that Fouad Makhzoumi, a Lebanese businessman, paid Francois Fillon $50 thousand for organizing a meeting with Putin and the CEO of French oil giant Total.

"We saw these media reports. To be honest, they remind us of …

On March 22nd, the Russian Parliament in the annexed Crimea approved amendments to the budget for 2017 which will reduce the revenues and expenditures of the peninsula’s budget by 1.55 billion rubles (27 million USD). The budget bill was published on the official website of the Crimean Parliament.

As reported by Kryminform, the Minister of Finance of the peninsula, Irina Kiviko, said during a committee meeting that "this amount is approved, less the receipts under the federal target program." …

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and military counterintelligence announced the detention of several members of a Russian spy ring in Odessa, as reported by the press service of the SBU.

As counterintelligence states, the leader and coordinator of the group is a Ukrainian citizen. She was trained in the annexed Crimea, and participated in the events at Kulikovo Field on May 2, 2014.

"The detention of all active members of the group in Odessa was carried out during a transfer of important …