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 …

Criminal cases were brought against a number of judges, bailiffs and employees of the National Bank of Moldova. Through a statement posted on their official website, the Prosecutor General's Office of Moldova described the details of an ongoing investigation about the laundering and removal of $22 billion from Russia.

According to the statement, charges were brought against 16 judges, four bailiffs, four employees of the National Bank of Moldova including the deputy head, as well as nine …

On March 22, at a meeting with BASF CEO Kurt Bock, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia still hopes to restore relations with Germany.

"We have not lost hope that we will be able to restore full-format cooperation," the President said.

He also noted that the latest developments in the economic sphere had a negative impact on the volumes of mutual trade. Putin said that according to the Eastern Committee of German economy, at least 150,000 Germans lost their jobs as a result of …

For the period of March 1 to 20, more than three thousand gondola cars loaded with coal crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border. This is evidenced by the statistical data of JSC Russian Railways or JSC RŽD.

According to the data, 3,400 thousand open-top wagons of coal were sent to Russia from the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions uncontrolled by Ukrainian government during the first twenty days of March.

This amounts to more than 230,000 tons of anthracite exported to Russia or about ten …

The combat crews of the missile formation in the Central Military District which are equipped with Iskander-M tactical missile systems have been conducting multiple launches aimed at destroying an imaginary enemy airfield during exercises in the Orenburg region of the Russian Federation.

"The tasks were executed in conditions as close as possible to combat ones. The units were put on alert in the morning, made a 40 km march to the rendezvous point where they met with deployed military vehicles …

Russia sent a message to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) confirming its willingness to accept Ratko Mladić, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb forces, for medical treatment. This was reported by TASS on Wednesday, March 22nd.

“The contents of the message are confidential and meant for the ICTY. But what’s mentioned in the petition (sent to Mladić’s defense team in the ICTY on March 20th) is true,” stated Victoria Goncharova in an interview with the …

Russian military equipment is supplied to 52 countries, and the portfolio of orders for export is at about $50 billion, said Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, Izvestia reported.

“Russian military products are in strong demand and are supplied to 52 countries around the world. Last year, new contracts were signed for a total of $9.5 billion, so the domestic defense industry’s portfolio of orders for export remains at $50 billion,” the president said at a meeting of the committee for …