At a meeting with public activists in the president’s administration, President Vladimir Zelensky said that putting the question of concluding peace agreements with Russia to a referendum has no legislative initiative, but this is a way to assess popular opinion, according to the President’s website.

 “We must listen to every person. This is not a legislative referendum, but an informational one. Citizens, what do you think? We are having a regular conversation with the people,” said Zelensky. …

With the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) recording a slowdown of Russia’s GDP, which grew by only 0.5% in the first quarter, the least since 2017, half of the country’s regions have already plunged into a recession reports finanz.ru.

At the end of March, an increase in economic activity was documented in only 42 of Russia’s 86 federal subjects, observes the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics (HSE) in its “Commentaries on the government and business”.

The number of …

The Black Sea ports of annexed Crimea and neighboring Russia suffered a loss of more than 760 million rubles (around $11.8 million) in 2018 due to sanctions, reports the Ukrainian Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons.

“By comparison with other years, specifically 2015, 2016 and 2017, the annual revenue of the Black Sea Ports Administration was between 32 and 152 million rubles. In 2018, the Black Sea Ports Administration’s earnings were only 359.6 …