• Georgia’s visa-free travel privileges with the European Union will start on March 28

    The resolution on the introduction of a visa-free regime for Georgian citizens was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on the 8th of March. This resolution will enter into force 20 days after publication on the 28th of March.

    The abolition of visas with the European Union will allow Georgian citizens who have biometric passports to enter the territory of Schengen countries visa-free for the period of 90 days in six months. The policy does not grant the right to employment …

  • Ukraine discloses all of its correspondence with Moscow since the start of the conflict

    The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs handed over to the International Court of Justice in the Hague all of the diplomatic correspondence with Russia which there has been since the start of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Evropeyskaya Pravda reported on this with reference to litigator David Zionts of Covington & Burling LLP, Kyiv’s representative at the international court.

    According to him, the reason for such a decision is “false accusations from the Russian Federation that Kyiv did …

  • Russian Army will soon add a new long-range anti-aircraft missile to its arsenal

    Tests of a new anti-aircraft, guided, long-range missile are underway in Russia, and that it should soon go into service. This was stated by Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu, TASS reported.

    "We will also consider how state tests of a long-range guided missile are going," Shoygu said on Russia-24 TV. While speaking about the new long-range missile, as well as the anti-aircraft missile artillery complex for the frigates of the 22350 Project, the Minister noted that "the implementation of these two …

  • Two of Akhmetov’s factories confiscated in Kerch

    Crimea’s “Council of Ministers” decided to proceed with the compulsory buyout of two factories in Kerch affiliated with Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, reported the Russian newspaper “Kommersant” with reference to sources in the companies’ administration and the Crimean “government”.

    According to the publication, on the 6th of March, representatives of the Crimean “government” and the “administration” of Kerch met with employees of the Kerch Switch Plant and the Kerch Metallurgical …

  • European Space Agency launches rocket with Ukrainian engine

    A Vega rocket successfully lifted off from the equatorial Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.

    The launch was broadcast on the website of the French company Arianespace.

    As President Petro Poroshenko announced on Facebook, one of the stages of the rocket engine was produced by the Ukrainian PA Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant named after A.M. Makarov.

    “The RD-843 of the fourth stage of the rocket was developed by the state enterprise Yuzhnoye Design Office and manufactured by the state enterprise …

  • Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance explained the IMF's requirements

    The Minister of Finance of Ukraine, Oleksandr Danylyuk, disclosed the details of the updated memorandum of the International Monetary Fund or IMF, UNIAN reports. The new memorandum contains provisions on pension, land, banking and other important reforms.

    "In fact, we need to understand the main thing that the IMF wants; and what we want is a fair, balanced pension system," Danylyuk said.

    He said that to achieve this goal it would be necessary to carry out pension reform that would balance …

  • French industrial group Saint-Gobain will build two plants in Ukraine

    The French industrial group, Saint-Gobain, intends to invest 65 million Euros to build two plants for the production of construction materials in the Tlumach district of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Interfax-Ukraine reported, citing the President of the Ivano-Frankivsk Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Andrew Levkovich. The first facility will specialize in the production of construction mixes and will be completed by the end of 2017.

    The construction of the second plant that will produce …

  • Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs: The amount of Russian weapons and military in the Donbas is shocking

    The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin, stated that up to one thousand artillery systems, more than 400 tanks, and 200 rocket launchers were sent to the Donbas by the Russian Federation.

    He said this during Senate hearings at a meeting of the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, as reported by UNIAN.

    The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stated that the hybrid war conducted by Russian against Ukraine is …

  • SpaceX will launch Spanish satellite instead of Russia

    The U.S. company, SpaceX, received a contract for the lunch of a Spanish satellite that Russian Kosmotras failed to implement due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. According to information published on the customer’s website, the Spanish company, Hisdesat, has signed an agreement with SpaceX on the launch of the Earth radar observation satellite, PAZ.

    The Falcon 9 carrier rocket will deliver this satellite into orbit. The numerous achievements of other companies that have used it serve as a …

  • Ukraine to consider imposing sanctions on subsidiary of Russia's Sberbank

    The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) issued a statement in which it threatened that it would require the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of the country to impose sanctions against the Ukrainian "daughter" of Sberbank. The statement of the NBU followed the reports that Sberbank has begun to serve customers with passports from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.

    "If this information is confirmed, the NBU will initiate a request to the NSDC to apply sanctions to …