• Russian warships leave Tartus naval base as US prepares to strike Assad

    Russian ships have left the Syrian port of Tartus, according to the satellite images that have been published today by Image Satellite International (ISI).

    One of the images taken earlier shows at least seven ships docked in the port. The image taken today shows no ships. According to ISI only one Kilo-class submarine remained in the port.

    Among the ships that have left the port are frigate Admiral Grigorovich which is equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles, Ropucha landing ship, cargo ship …

  • Russia intends to create offshore zones to help oligarchs under sanctions

    Russian authorities are discussing a project to create special offshore zones to support businessmen who fell under US sanctions, reported Vedomosti newspaper.

    Vedomosti’s sources say that offshore zones could be establoished on Oktyabrsk Island in Kaliningrad and on Russky Island in the Far East. The draft bill was developed by the Ministry of Economic Development and it is now under peer review by the relevant departments. The Ministry plans for its adoption during the spring session.

    As …

  • Russia's Gazprom claims it doesn’t plan to stop gas transit through Ukraine

    Alexey Miller, CEO of Gazprom, said that the company has never raised the issue of stopping gas transit through Ukraine, RIA Novosti reported.

    According to him, Russia’s resource base is currently shifting “north”, so the central gas-transport corridor “won’t have the same level of resources.” Miller emphasized that the gas transit through Ukraine can remain at a rate of 10-15 billion m3 of gas per year, but Kyiv must justify “the economic feasibility of a new transit contract.”

    German …

  • Russia's Channel One takes its interview with former head of Pentagon off the air

    Vladimir Pozner’s interview with Former United States Secretary of Defense William Perry was taken off the air. According to Pozner, the program would eventually air but he did not specify when that would happen, Meduza reports.

    The program was scheduled to be aired on April 9 according to an announcement on Pozner’s website. The announcement has since been deleted but a cached copy was saved in Google’s search engine. Pozner’s explanation was that the management of Channel One decided the …

  • Poland: Smolensk air disaster was caused by an explosion onboard the aircraft

    The cause of death for members of the government delegation that crashed near Smolensk in 2010 was an explosion that occurred aboard the Tu-154M plane, as stated by Antoni Macierewicz, Chairman of the Sub-commission on the investigation of the Smolensk disaster and former Polish National Defense Minister, during a live broadcast on the TV channel TVP1.

    "The passengers were killed by an explosion in the center wing before colliding with the ground. This [explosion] was their cause of death," …