As reported by diplomats on Wednesday, Russia, Turkey and Iran could not come to an agreement on zones of de-escalation of violence in Syria during the talks in Kazakhstan.

Russia and Iran, who support the Syrian President Bashar Assad, agreed to cooperate with Turkey, which provides assistance to the insurgents, in order to create four zones of "de-escalation" in the war-ravaged country.

The country-participants of the negotiations hoped to come to an agreement by the end of August, before …

A Russian citizen, Yury Martyshev, who was extradited by the Latvian authorities to the US, is now in an American prison in Alexandria, Virginia, as reported on Wednesday by the Russian Embassy in the US, according to TASS.

Preliminary information indicates that the Russian is suspected of cyber fraud, for the theft of personal information of credit card holders.

The diplomatic mission noted that "they consider this arrest as another case of the kidnapping of a Russian citizen by US …

The United States has not decided on whether to provide weapons Ukraine to yet, though Washington is aware of Kyiv’s requests, as relayed to journalists by a representative of the State Department on Wednesday during a teleconference briefing.

"The US has not decided on supplying weapons to Ukraine yet," he said. At the same time, the US representative did not specify which weaponry is in question - defensive or lethal.

"The talks [with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko], which took place …

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the press service of the Ukrainian leader said.

They discussed the situation in the Donbas and coordinated their positions regarding the implementation of the Minsk Agreements in preparations for the G20 summit in Hamburg and, in particular, the meeting between Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Angela Merkel assured Petro Poroshenko that …

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is ready to leave the adoption of pension reform as the main condition for the allocation of the next tranche of the loan to Ukraine. This means that the adoption of land reform will be excluded from the requirements, reported by Interfax-Ukraine, citing a source that is close to the negotiations.

According to the news agency, the IMF made this decision in view of the fact that there is no agreement between the Fund and the Ukrainian government with regard …

Russia is entering into two contracts with Egypt: one relating to ship systems for the Mistral helicopter carriers, and the other relating to the Ka-52K helicopters which the ships will be equipped with, Rosoboronexport Director General Alexander Mikheev told Ria Novosti in an interview.

According to him, the Mistral helicopter carriers which Egypt purchased from France need to be retrofitted with additional systems in order to make use of Russian helicopters.

“This will be a separate …

Iran has put the S-300 surface-to-air missile systems into operation, announced by General Amir Farzad Esmaili, commander of Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Base, as reported by TASS.

The commander announced that the S-300 have been “placed on combat duty and are operational”, but did not specify in which region the systems were deployed. The general also spoke of the preparation and testing of the Iranian-developed Bavar 373 missile system towards the middle of March 2018. According to the him, …

The head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Vasyl Hrytsak, states that as part of the Ukraine-NATO trust fund for cyber security, Ukraine has received technical equipment and software worth a million euros.

According to him, in the near future this equipment will be installed "as directed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs".

The Deputy Secretary General of NATO for new security challenges, Sorin Ducaru, said that training will be provided for Ukrainian experts, as well as technical support …