The main difficulty in working to resolve the crisis in Donbas is that Russia continues to deny its role in the fighting, stated Kurt Volker, the U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, as reported by Voice of America.

“Russia is continuing to deny its own role in this and that it has nothing to do with the separatist governments that it has set up, and that it changes the leaders at will as they did in Luhansk just last month,” Volker said.

According to him, by dragging out the …

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has said that the new US national security strategy "is of an imperial nature, and shows a persistent unwillingness to abandon a unipolar world", TASS news agency reports.

"A cursory reading of [the strategy], particularly those parts in which our country is mentioned in one way or another, in general [shows that] the imperial nature of the document is evident; there is an unwillingness to abandon the unipolar world, with …

The Ukrainian delegation is preparing an appeal to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly regarding the presence of Serbian mercenaries in the Donbas, as reported on Facebook by the chairman of the permanent delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, People's Deputy Iryna Friz.

"We are preparing an appeal from our delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly regarding this issue and I am sure that it is necessary to contact all international institutions to inform them about the shameful fact of …

The Ministry of Defense of Russia has shipped a batch of small arms, artillery, armored hardware, anti-aircraft weapons and also paramedical, land surveying and other equipment, for free, to its counterpart in the Republic of Tajikistan, t RBC news agency reported cutting the Russian Ministry of Defense.

In particular, the Tajik Army received three T-72B1 tanks, nine BTR-80, BTR-70 armored personnel carriers, BMP-2 armored fighting vehicles, three D-30 howitzers, three 23M1 air-defense systems, …

The Vienna Court of Appeals has decided to refuse Spain’s request for the extradition of Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash. The court's decision, which was reported by Levyy Bereg, is final and cannot be appealed.

The court thus confirmed the legality of the decision taken in October by the Higher Regional Court of Vienna.

The Court of Appeals decided to refuse Firtash’s extradition to Spain due to the absence of a crime, place and time.

"The Court ruled to deny the Spanish request for …

The Russian Armed Forces were involved in the bombardment of the Novoluhanske settlement in the Donetsk province, as stated by Andriy Lysenko, spokesperson for the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, on Facebook.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the bombardment of Novoluhanske was carried out by the Grad multiple rocket launcher systems that were stationed in Horlivka. At least 40 projectiles were fired on the settlement.

Lysenko reports that DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) …

Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili published an open letter to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on his Facebook page.

“Our relations were friendly to begin with. But today they have reached a state where we are on different sides of the barricade,” Saakashvili observed.

He mentioned that last week he sent Poroshenko a personal note, in which he suggested that they begin talks “about the future fate of Ukraine and preventing the destabilization of the situation in the country”. “ …

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced new licensing and export restrictions against two Russian companies that work in the military-industrial sector: missile designer Novator and research and production center Titan-Barricade, reports Radio Svoboda.

According to the agency’s December 19 announcement, these companies are responsible for the production of cruise missiles which are banned by the 1987 arms control treaty between the USSR and the USA (on the elimination of small and medium- …