• Russian Foreign Minister rules out possibility of UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas

    Commenting on the differences between Russia and the West’s approaches to the peacekeeping mission, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a press conference on Wednesday that no UN peacekeeping mission will be sent to the Donbas in the form that Ukraine wants to see.

    “When the OSCE observers’ mission began to experience safety problems – there were incidents, one mission member was killed – in response to the alarm from Germany and France, we proposed to arm the observers with light …

  • EU prepares sanctions against four Russian military intelligence officers

    The ambassadors of 28 EU countries agreed impose of sanctions against four Russian military intelligence officers, TASS reports with reference to its sources in EU council. Among them are Russians suspected of attempting to kill Sergei and Yulia Skripal, known as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. The names of the other two people, the diplomat did not name. They will be known after the EU Council approves the decision of the ambassadors. "As expected, the foreign ministers will approve this …

  • Journalist expelled from Russia has been arrested in Ukraine

    Ukrainian journalist Elena Boyko (Vischur), who was deported from Russia by a court decision, was arrested by a Kharkiv court upon her return to Ukraine, Galina Perfileva, her Russian lawyer, told TASS.

    Elena Boyko will soon be sent to a prison in Lviv. “When I last spoke to her, she was being taken to a Kharkiv court to be indicted. At the moment, the court has arrested her, after which my client will be sent to a prison in Lviv. Local investigators are investigating the case under Part 1 of …

  • LGBT community: 40 gays arrested in Chechnya since end of December

    Nearly 40 members of the LGBT community have been arrested and two have been killed in the Chechen Republic since the end of 2018 according to the human rights organization LGBT Network. The Chechen authorities have denied this information, Interfax reports.

    “The Russian LGBT Network has learned that, since the end of December 2018, there has been a new wave of men and women being arrested in connection with their presumed or real sexual orientation. According to the Russian LGBT Network, …

  • Russian court extends the arrest of all captive Ukrainian sailors for three months

    The Joint Group for Public Monitoring of the observance of the Constitutional freedoms of the Russian Federation reported on Twitter that the Moscow Lefortovo Court extended for three months the arrest of all 24 Ukrainian sailors captured near the Kerch Strait. It is noted that Judge Ryabtsev left Viktor Bespalchenko, Volodymyr Varymez, Vladyslav Kostyshyn and Volodymyr Lisovy in a pre-trial detention center until April 24. "The result. All but the wounded sailors remain in the remand prison …