Pakistan and Russia began annual joint military exercises to strengthen cooperation in the war against terrorism and the growing threat from the Islamic State group in neighboring Afghanistan.

According to officials, the Friendship III exercise began on Monday at the National Center for Counterterrorism in the mountain city of Pabbi. A Pakistani Special Forces headquarters is also located there.

The official representative of the Pakistan army, Major General Asif Ghafoor, said that this was …

During a meeting with the Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Sevastopol, “was legally always a part of Russia.”

Sobyanin noted that Moscow and Sevastopol are sister cities, and “at all times, even when Sevastopol was not a part of Russia,” the Russian capital always helped it. Putin interrupted Sobyanin, saying that Sevastopol formally has always been a Russian city.

“Sevastopol has always been legally part of Russia. It was a city under central …

The Russian Finance Ministry published draft amendments to the federal budget for 2018, in which it, for the second time in the last 6 months, proposes to reduce expenditure on the social articles and to increase funding for the law enforcement and defense departments, state organizations and state banks, finanz.ru reports.

Due to the spike in oil prices and the weak ruble, the budget surplus is five times higher than the initial prediction, at 2.14 trillion rubles instead of the pledged 481.7 …