48 thousand Russian servicemen took part in the  military operation in Syria in 2015-2017, as stated by the chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee Vladimir Shamanov at a briefing for foreign military attaches in Moscow, reports DW.

At the same time, he said that the Russian military killed 60 thousand fighters, including about three thousand who were Russian by birth.

It should be noted that Russian air forces have been repeatedly accused of falsifying reports about numbers of air …

In Spain, State Duma Deputy Vladislav Reznik faces up to five and a half years in prison and a €100 million fine in the case of the “Russian mafia”, reported La Opinion de Malaga.

On Monday, February 19, the court began to hear the case about money laundering in Spain by Russian immigrants. According to the investigation, the crimes were committed in the 1990s.

Among the defendants of the case is the current State Duma deputy Vladislav Reznik. He attended the trial. “I came to the session …

In 2018, three times more military personnel from Germany will take part in NATO exercises to contain Russia, reported Spiegel Online, citing as a source a statement from the German Ministry of Defense.

Plans are for 12,000 German soldiers to participate in the exercises on the eastern and northern flanks of NATO.

The cost for the German military to participate in the exercises will be €90 million. In 2017, 4,000 Bundeswehr soldiers participated in the NATO exercises.

In particular, 8,000 …

At least 54 Russian mercenaries from private military companies were killed in Syria in September 2017, the BBC Russian service reported, after investigating documents provided by the mother of one of the mercenaries.

The documents were submitted for publication by Nina Atyusheva, mother of Yevgeny Alikov from Severoonezhsk in Russia’s Arkhangelsk province. Atyusheva said that she had been contacted in the middle of September 2017 by a man from Rostov-on-Don who introduced himself as Andrei. …

The Syrian government army is amassing forces in the Eastern Ghouta region. Yesterday a convoy arrived containing Two T-55 tanks, a T-72, five BMP-1s, as well as a ZPU-4, a ZU-23-2s and a “Tochka-U” tactical operational missile complex. All of this equipment will be involved in a massive offensive both on Eastern Ghouta and on the region south of Damascus – the Yarmouk refugee camp, which is partially controlled by ISIS militants. The Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) operation has been dubbed “Damascus …

The Nefterudovoz 45 M oil and ore tanker sailing under the Ukrainian flag has delivered approximately 10,000 tons of ilmenite ore from the city of Samsun in Turkey to the Kerch Strait, re-loaded it in a harbor for further delivery to the closed port in Kerch in the Russian-annexed Crimea and returned to Kherson (Ukraine).

The information was reported on February 17th by the Ukrainian Center of Investigative Journalism, citing data from the Marine Traffic online tracking service, which …

In 2017, Russia drastically increased its investment in US government bonds. The US Treasury Department reported that over the year the Central Bank, which oversees Russia’s gold and foreign currency reserves, bought $16.1 billion worth of US securities. At the start of January, Russia held $102.2 billion in the treasuries, equivalent to 23% of the total gold and foreign currency reserves, Finanz.ru reports.

30% of all the Russian Central Bank’s foreign currency ($345.5 billion excluding gold …

The World Bank is discussing a budget support program with the leaders of Ukraine which provides guarantees in the amount of $800 million, as stated by Cyril Muller, Vice President of the World Bank, in an interview with ZN.UA.

“This assistance will, in fact, partially fund the costs associated with repayment of Ukraine’s debts. The program provides for the provision of 800 million dollars to the government of Ukraine. Also, we are now discussing a number of projects in the energy sector, and …