The U.S. Senate has banned the sale of fifth-generation F-35 fighters to Turkey because of Turkey’s intention to purchase S-400 surface-to-air missile systems from Russia. Turkey expressed regret over the U.S. Senate’s decision and noted that companies from the Middle East country manufactured parts for the fighters. Now Ankara has to look for alternatives or speed up the development of its own military aircraft.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said it was unfortunate that the U.S. …

Russian filmmakers Andrey Zvyagintsev, Pavel Lungin, Alexander Sokurov and other public figures have asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to pardon the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment in Russia. The petition was posted on the website of the Echo of Moscow radio station.

“The man is dying. We don’t think that his guilt is so great he should be given 20 years for it. He is sincere and honest in his convictions – his indefinite hunger-strike …

On June 19, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and the leadership of Israel agreed that they are ready for a free trade agreement between the two countries,reported the press center of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.

In Jerusalem, the 11th meeting of the Joint Ukrainian-Israeli Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation was held. It was attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin, and the Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Minister of Environmental Protection, …

Polish Deputy Minister of Energy Michał Kurtyka said that Warsaw has demanded that the EU gas directive be changed as soon as possible to prevent the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Polskie Radio reports.

According to Kurtyka, the ambassadors of the European Union will amend the document in late June. The deputy minister said this has become possible as a result of "the hard, painstaking and months-long work of Polish diplomats." These amendments will extend EU legislation to all …

The US State Department's Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction has announced a tender for the monitoring of open source information about arms deals involving the Russian Federation and the CIS countries. The data will be collected in Russian, English, Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Urdu, and several other languages.

The information will be used for decision-making and planning the sanctions against foreign states. It particularly concerns the violation of UN Security Council resolutions and of …

All regions of the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula may soon shift to an hour-by-hour water supply system, Vladimir Bazhenov, the Director General of the State Enterprise Voda Kryma, stated.

 “I am afraid that soon the whole Crimea will receive water by the hour. There is no rain at this temperature. There is terrible evaporation of water in all surface reservoirs. Soon, daily water intake from reservoirs to the water supply network will equal evaporation into the sky. It applies to all …

The Ukrainian authorities are creating a group in the European Union to halt construction of a second line of Nord Stream 2, the Russian gas pipeline intended to bypass Ukraine. The group will also negotiate with Germany on the creation of an international consortium for the management of the Ukrainian gas transportation system, Interfax-Ukraine reports, citing the Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko

 “Nord Stream 2 is an absolutely political project against Ukraine, which has no economic …

In an interview with the Finnish publication Hufvudstadsbladet, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed that Russia was completely opened to Western countries after the end of the Cold War, but it was deceived.

"We opened up completely for the West. Not because we were defeated - we did it ourselves. Nobody invaded us; Gorbachev simply wanted to put an end to the arms race. He wanted to put an end to the Cold War. So we opened [our country], and you deceived us. You …