The Russian Foreign Ministry believes that the Group of Seven (G7, which includes France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Canada, the US and Japan) has lost its significance as an instrument of global governance, since most important matters are resolved in other formats, for example at G20 summits, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Interfax in an interview.

According to him, Moscow does not wish to return to the organization, and has not received an invitation to the next G7 summit …

Deliveries of oil from Russia to Belarus’s Naftan oil refinery in the Vitebsk Region resumed on the evening of January 4, said Vladimir Sizov, deputy head of the Belarusian state oil concern Belneftekhim, as cited by BelTA.

According to him, the pumping units were switched on at 17:05. “Oil deliveries towards Naftan have begun. As routing instructions are issued, quantities will be added and will be delivered even to the Mozyr refinery,” Sizov added.

News that oil deliveries to Belarus had …

Bulgaria has started receiving Russian gas through the Turkish Stream pipeline. The Bulgarian gas company Bulgargaz reported that on December 30 it signed an agreement with Gazprom Export regarding new fuel deliveries.

As of January 1, natural gas has been received at Strandzha 2, with the fuel coming from Turkey, instead of at the Isakcha and Negru-Voda intake points in Romania.

The company estimated that it would save the equivalent of $46.2 million per year thanks to the change of intake …

Russia shelled Ukraine from its own territory at least 150 times in the summer of 2014, Bellingcat writes in a report titled “Putin’s undeclared war. Russian artillery strikes against Ukraine in summer 2014”.

The extensive bombardment of Ukrainian positions began in June 2014 after the Ukrainian military began an offensive aiming to regain control over the cities captured by separatist militants. Bellingcat counted 408 objects that were bombarded across the border from Russia. 127 of them are …

Russia's large landing ship Orsk has suffered serious damage off the Syrian coast and is only able to move with the help of a tugboat, reports the Russian news outlet Avia.pro.

The publication notes that, at the moment, it is not clear where exactly the incident could have happened - in the Mediterranean Sea off the Syrian coast or when the ship was passing through the Bosphorus.

The publication writes that the Russian Navy has not yet commented on the information about the damage at Orsk, …

The Russian news outlet Military Industrial Courier writes that Russian missile submarines have become easy targets for enemy anti-submarine ships. According to the Courier, if there is a war, the Russian submarines will be destroyed before they even have time to launch their missiles.

The article notes that Russian missile submarines set out into the open ocean on combat duty, but even at their own bases they are visible to satellite tracking and vulnerable to a preventative strike.

“The …

Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said that the US tried to disrupt joint naval exercises of Iran, Russia, and China, reports Tasnim news agency.

"During the joint naval exercises of Iran, Russia, and China, the Americans and their allies held an emergency meeting to disrupt our exercises with our two allies," said Khanzadi. He noted that the participants of the military drills conducted diversionary maneuvers, which did not allow the Americans to implement their plan. …

In 2019, the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine went up by 3%, even though it was supposed to go down. Kyiv was assisted by Warsaw, which in court managed to have additional restrictions placed on the ground-based continuation of the Nord Stream pipeline in Germany.

According to the operational data of the Ukrainian national oil and gas company UkrTransGaz’s , 89.2 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas was transported through Ukraine in 2019, 2.7 bcm more than in 2018. The Ukrainian gas …