At a meeting with participants of the World Festival of Youth and Students in Sochi, Vladimir Putin said that Russia is interested in those citizens “who were here and who can work here” returning to Russia, reported RBC news agency.

“Not all at the same time,” added the president. He added that, as far as citizens are concerned, “we are interested in all our citizens returning, but when speaking about science, those who can work toward scientific advancements.”

Putin’s comments were in …

49 people were detained for holding unauthorized solitary pickets in the Crimea, as reported by Interfax, citing the press service of the Crimean Ministry of Internal Affairs. Those participating in the pickets were released from police stations after “preventive talks.”

As previously reported, the pickets were organized to oppose the local authorities’ actions directed against the Crimean Tatars. Specifically, participants in the rally protested against the arrests of Crimean Tatars who were …

At a rally in Kharkiv, the former Georgian President and former Governor of Odessa Oblast, Mikheil Saakashvili, stated that the Ukrainian authorities might eliminate him, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

"I know for a fact that they [the authorities of Ukraine] will try to get rid of me. They can subdue, deport, even kill me; it's not a problem. I am not afraid of it," Saakashvili said. According to the agency, 700-800 people took part in the rally.

“Let's show all those hucksters on October 17 that …

Speaker of the Syrian Parliament Hamoudeh Sabbagh said that Damascus demands the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Turkish troops from the country.

Speaking at the plenary session of the Assembly of the International Parliamentary Union in St. Petersburg, he noted that a large number of military vehicles and ambulances had been moved to the region of the Turkish province of Hatay. The Turkish General Staff announced the beginning of a reconnaissance operation in Idlib, Syrian, which is …

Sevastopol has recognized that the issue of resuming ferry service with Turkey cannot be resolved, as stated by Director of the Crimean Sea Agency LLC (ferry operator) Stanislav Gvozdilov, Crimea News reports.

According to Gvozdilov, such questions will have to be discussed by Moscow and Ankara.

"The ferry service, which was interrupted in March, has not been resumed. For now, there is no opportunity to do so. The issue here must be resolved at the governmental level," he said.

The …

The tests of the new Skif anti-tank guided missile system, which took place both in Ukraine and abroad, in particular, in the ultra-high temperatures in the desert, were successful, according to the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksandr Turchynov.

The ATGM rockets "accurately, without a miss, hit targets at a distance of up to 5.5 kilometers," the website of the National Security and Defense Council quotes Turchynov as saying.

Turchynov said that the ATGM Skif …

On Saturday, during a meeting with the representatives of Polish media, Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said that the commission to investigate the Tu-154 crash that killed the country's President, Lech Kaczynski, found a recording of the explosion on one of the recorders.

During the meeting, the Defense Minister was asked about the progress of the investigation of the plane crash near Smolensk on April 10, 2010.

"We’ve identified the moment of explosion in a flight recording. It …

The State Duma of the Russian Federation is working on a draft bill on countering the US sanctions policy as stated by the Russian State Duma Chairman, the Speaker of the Lower House of the Russian Parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, RIA Novosti reports.

"We are working on this issue, but we can’t present it yet and talk about specific content," he said, answering the question of whether the work on the relevant draft bill is going on in the State Duma.

The United States recently strengthened …