• Russia Unlikely To Participate In PACE In 2016

    The Russian delegation will be unable to participate in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe this year. The President of PACE, Anne Brasseur, reported this in her statement, published on the organization’s website on January 19th.

    Brasseur confirmed that she received a letter from the Chairman of the Council of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the State Duma, which says that, the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation will not file documents for a Russian delegation to …

  • EU Presses Ukraine on Anti-Corruption and Judicial Reforms

    After a session of the EU Council, at a meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs on January 18th, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier stated that the European Union expressed concern about the insufficient progress of Ukraine in carrying out reforms. Steinmeier noted that it is important for Ukraine to reform the justice system and put anti-corruption measures in place. According to him, these are the key steps to solving the economic problems in the country.

    The High …

  • Ukraine-EU Visa-Free Regime may Appear before the Middle of March

    The European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn, said that the Commission's proposal to abolish visas for Ukrainians may appear before the end of March, as reported by Radіo Svoboda.

    "The President and the Prime Minister still have some commitments to fulfill, but we expect that we will obtain those reports very soon, be able to evaluate them, and during the first quarter of this year we will propose visa liberalization," he said.

    During …

  • Lithuanian President: Sanctions against Russia will remain in force

    According to Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė, the Lithuanian people are better than the most European countries at understanding their Russian neighbor.

    In an interview with ICTV, Grybauskaitė stated that most European countries have a certain quality of remoteness in their relationships with the Russian Federation.  "The people of Lithuania in their own skin understand this relationship.  Italy and Greece are too remote.  They never had historical relations with Russia like we have.  …

  • Russia Spend €1 Billion per Year on State Salaries and Pensions in DPR and LPR

    An investigation conducted by the German magazine, Bild revealed that Russia spends about 1 billion Euros on the salaries and welfare of citizens of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. According to Bild, this amount corresponds to 0.6% of the annual expenses of the Russian budget.

    Moscow spends nearly 79 million Euros every month on salaries of state employees and pensions in so-called DPR and LPR, Bild wrote. About 2.4 billion Rubles (approximately 30 million Euros) …