This year’s international aviation exercises, Clear Sky 2018, will take place in October and will become the largest aviation exercise since Ukraine’s independence, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense stated on Thursday, June 21.

“More than 40 aircraft, dozens of anti-aircraft missile systems, hundreds of servicemen from Ukraine and almost 10 NATO countries will be engaged in the largest-scale international exercises of aviation units,” the Ministry’s statement reads. 

The Clear Sky 2018 …

Lyudmila Denisova, the Verkhovna Rada-appointed Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights, said during a broadcast of Hromadske that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has lifted a ban on entry to Ukraine for Russian ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova, so that the Russian official can visit Russians in the country.

"The ban on entering Ukraine that was imposed on Moskalkova because she violated the rules for traveling to Crimea has been lifted," Denisova stated.

She noted that, according to …

US National Security Adviser John Bolton will visit Moscow next week to begin preparations for a meeting between the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Interfax reports with reference to sources in Washington. The Russian President’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov confirmed this information.

"As far as we know… such a trip will take place. This is all we can say for now," Peskov replied to the journalists’ question about whether Bolton is …

Two positions held by Syrian forces in the Homs Governorate were hit by missile strikes shortly before midnight on June 22, the Russian news outlet Daily Storm reports. The first strike targeted the village of Al-Halba, which lies south of Palmyra, and the second strike was directed further south, at Al-Qaryatayn, south-east of Homs. At least one Syrian soldier was killed and several were wounded. Sources report that the air strike was made by the US-led coalition in order to counter the Syrian …

Iran’s oil minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, who was invited to the meeting of the OPEC monitoring committee in Vienna, left the meeting about an hour after it started and said he did not consider it possible to reach an agreement with OPEC on quota adjustments.

“I do not think it is possible to reach an agreement,” said the Iranian minister to reporters in a hotel. “It was a protocol meeting. It wasn’t good,” he told reporters. He did not state exactly why he left the meeting.

However, …

On Thursday June 21, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asked Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone to ensure that Ukrainian Ombudsperson Lyudmyla Denisova is given access to Oleg Sentsov and other Ukrainian prisoners, Poroshenko’s press service reported.

“The head of the Ukrainian state urged [Putin] to release the Ukrainian prisoners held in Russian prisons and in its occupied territories. He also pointed out the importance of giving Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmyla Denisova …

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has begun an offensive in the south against the opposition forces in the Daraa Governorate. Artillery and aircraft have bombarded the eastern regions of the territory, including regions previously classified as de-escalation zones in agreements between Russia and the US. The SAA’s offensive is the largest since the assault on Ghouta in the spring of 2018.

SAA infantry forces encountered intense resistance from the Syrian opposition regiments, Turkish news agency …

Ukraine's international reserves are sufficient to meet public debt payments until the end of 2020, said the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, Yakiv Smolii, the bank’s press service reported.

"The volume of Ukraine's international reserves is enough to go through a period of peak payments on public debt until the end of 2020 and without external financing but further prospects for the country’s economic growth will directly depend on progress in the implementation of structural reforms, …