• Putin: former Soviet republics left USSR with ‘Russian lands'

    The republics that were part of the USSR "took with them gifts from the Russian people" during the collapse of the Soviet Union, said Russian President Vladimir Putin in a televised interview.

    Putin noted that the Union Treaty stipulated the right of the republics to leave the Union, but the procedure was not regulated.

    Putin did not specify what kind of gifts were taken. The Russian president also did not specify which republics of the former Soviet Union "took Russia’s lands."

    In the same …

  • Lukashenko orders Belarusian companies to close accounts in Russian banks

    The Belarusian authorities ordered state-owned companies to stop using bank accounts and withdraw money from all Russian banks except state-owned ones, reported Belarusian news outlets Naviny.by and TUT.by, citing sources in financial industry.

    The order of the Belarusian government concerns the banks with Russian capital, one of the bankers said. This includes the subsidiaries of Sberbank and VEB (BPS-Sberbank and BelVEB), which have traditionally been actively working with Belarusian state- …

  • Israel gets hold of Russian Pantsir-S missile

    The Russian anti-aircraft missile systems Pantsir-S deployed in Syria and Libya may face a serious problem, because Israeli military got hold of one of Pantsir missiles, reported the Russian news outlet Avia.pro, noting that a few days ago a Pantsir-S missile landed in the Golan Heights. The missile was reportedly fired by the Syrian air defense trying to shoot down an "Israeli cruise missile".

    The article emphasizes that "Israel could use the Pantsir technology to develop means to counter …

  • Ukraine: Russia may use its private military companies against European countries

    The combat experience, which was gained by Russian private military companies (PMCs) in Ukraine and Syria, gives the Kremlin the opportunity to use these companies to project its military influence in other regions, stated the representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense  Vadim Skibitsky during the meeting of the OSCE Forum for Security and Cooperation, dedicated to the activities of private military companies, Ukrinform reports.

    Skibitsky said that …

  • Kremlin: Russia’s relations with Poland are ‘at their lowest level’

    Relations between Russia and Poland are "at their lowest possible level", this goes against the interests of the two countries, said Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Channel One Russia.

    "Our relations with Poland today do not just leave much to be desired, they are bad. They are probably at their lowest level, which is clearly contrary to the interests of our two countries, because the peoples of our two countries would be interested in the opposite," said Peskov, as quoted by …