Before the informal EU summit in Porto, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis appealed to the leaders of the European Union to expel at least one Russian diplomat from their countries in solidarity with Prague amid worsening of its relations with Moscow, Interfax reports, citing Czech radio.

On April 17, the Czech Republic announced the expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats, accusing Moscow of involvement in the 2014 explosion at an ammunition depot in Vrbetice. Two people were killed in the explosion. …

During the meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the U.S. side fully supported Ukraine's admission to the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), said Head of the Presidential Administration Andriy Yermak.

"We received today another confirmation of the full support from the United States for Ukraine's admission to the MAP. But there are a lot of members in the Alliance, so the work continues. The U.S. once again confirmed that it is our …

A new scandal erupted in Sudan after the country’s authorities banned any further construction of the Russian military base in the Red Sea. The Sudanese authorities demanded that the Russian military stop all construction work, immediately remove equipment, including radars and communications devices, and leave the country, reports Sudan Tribune, citing government sources.

A week ago, the Sudanese authorities suspended the Russian project. The newspaper believes that the agreement was …

Ukraine has asked the United States to expand the training mission for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on air of the TV channel 1+1, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

"We have it on the agenda. We have already announced this to the American side, and they have already started working on it. It is an expansion of the training mission of the U.S. Army for the Armed Forces of Ukraine," Kuleba said.

According to him, during the visit to Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of …

The first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, when offered to conclude a deal with Kyiv, under which Crimea would be given to Russia, and Ukraine, in turn, would receive free gas for ten years, said: "Whey do we need this Crimea, this Sevastopol. We have free piers in St. Petersburg, we will move the fleet there," said Mikhail Poltoranin, a well-known Soviet and Russian politician, in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon.

"It was a good deal, not only to snatch Crimea for free, …

Radio France Internationale (RFI) published an investigation into the crimes of Russian "instructors" in the Central African Republic (CAR), which is based on the stories of dozens of witnesses and reports of human rights organizations.

The main source of information in the article under the headline "In the Central African Republic, victims of Russian atrocities broke the law of silence" is the report of a special working group of the UN. It reports that between January and mid-April this …

Russia continues to record a sharp acceleration of natural population decline and double-digit increase in mortality on a scale that official statistics have not seen for more than 70 years.

As of March, 191,320 people died in the country, Interfax reports, citing data of the Federal State Statistics Service, Rosstat.

Compared to February, the mortality rate increased by 18,648 people, or 10.7%. The increase in mortality was 25.3% annually and compared to February it accelerated by 4.7 …

Military targets in Syria were attacked by Israeli warplanes at around 2 a.m., reported the Syrian new agency SANA.

According to SANA, “some of the enemy's missiles have been shot down."

"The Israeli enemy carried out air aggression from the side of Latakia at several targets in the coastal zone," Sana reported.

According to the Syrian military, "Israeli aggression resulted in the death of a civilian and six injured, including a child and his mother, in addition to some material losses, …