The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached an agreement with Ukraine on an updated Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies. As a result, during the second half of March, IMF’s Executive Board will consider the allocation of another tranche of $1 billion to Kyiv, as was indicated in the Fund’s press release on Saturday, March 4th.

In March 2015, the IMF approved a four-year loan program worth USD 17.5 billion to support economic reforms in Ukraine. It provided for quarterly …

Iran conducted a successful test of its Russian made S-300 surface-to-air missile system.

According to Iranian Tansim news agency, the Iranian military carried out tests against a wide range of aerial targets, as well as worked out the detection, identification, interception and destruction of targets.

Additionally, IRNA news agency reported that the missile systems successfully hit targets during conditions of radar jamming and the appearance of decoy targets. During the test firing the …

According to the Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States, Valeriy Chaly,the new bill of the House of Representatives providing for the allocation of $150 million in military aid to Ukraine is only part of $350 million previously approved for this purpose in the budget of the Pentagon, as reported by Ukrinform news agency.

Chaly stated that the remaining funds will be allocated after October 1, 2017.

"There is a budget for 2017. The current budget allocates $350 million in aid [to Ukraine] …

The second regiment of S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft missile systems will be stationed in the Crimea during the second half of 2017, reported the Russian News Agency TASS, citing a source in Russian military.

"Defense in the Crimea will be strengthened in the second half of 2017 by a second S-400 regiment,” the agency reported. According to TASS, the regiment will be located in the western part of the Crimean peninsula.

TASS’s source noted that in 2018, the combat strength of two regiments of …

Yehor Soboliev and Semen Semenchenko, deputies of the Verkhovna Rada from the Samopomich party, went to Konotop on Saturday. Judging by their communication on Facebook, they are preparing to block the railway line to this cross-border station.

“Only today, at least three hundred train cars came over from Russia with liquid gas, fertilizers and coal. The local railway workers are not allowed to show us documents about the contents of the closed wagons and the destination stations. Veterans of …

The US State Department released its annual report on the status of human rights in the world.

Out of almost 200 countries reviewed in the first report by the new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, some of the harshest criticism is directed towards Russia, which contrasts sharply with the largely reconciliatory rhetoric of US President Donald Trump with respect to Moscow and his avoidance of public statements about human rights in Russia or anywhere else in the world.

In the section devoted to …

Recent events in the Middle East have shown that the US and Russia could end up confronting each other militarily, thus, to prevent this it’s necessary to form a new balance of power between stakeholders, and Turkey can play a key role, said Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey Numan Kurtulmuş, as reported by Turkish news agency Anadolu.

According to him, the attempts by a number of powers to ensure supremacy in Syria by supporting individual groups are hopeless. "If the current process continues, …

The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) announced the expansion of "broadcasts" of their own television and radio stations to three Ukrainian regions: Kharkiv, Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk. This was stated by the head of the DPP, Alexander Zakharchenko, as reported by separatist media.

It is reported that he gave the order to start the broadcasts to the Ukrainian territory directly at the press conference."It's time to launch this process. From now on, our television and radio …