Over the next 15 years, Poland will allocate additional $55 billion to army modernization due to Russia’s continued aggressive behavior, said Polish Deputy Minister of National Defense Tomasz Szatkowski, Reuters reports.

 “Poland will allocate an additional 200 billion zloty ($55 billion) to defense in the next 15 years to modernize its army due to the signs of growing aggression from Russia,"  he stated. According to Szatkowsky, this step corresponds with Polish government plans to gradually …

In an interview with Deutsche Welle on August 23, the leader of the liberal Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), Christian Lindner proposed to "freeze" the issue of the annexation of the Crimea by Russia, but not to legitimize the occupation of the peninsula.  

"The annexation of the Crimea is a violation of international law. We do not recognize it. The sanctions remain in effect,” he emphasized. The leader of the German Liberals also proposed a return to the "traditional German policy of …

Two Ukrainian observers will go, by invitation, to Belarus to monitor the Zapad (West) 2017 military exercise, according to a statement of the Office of Public Relations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The statement was published on Wednesday on the page of the General Staff of the Armed Forces on Facebook.

"The Ukrainian side confirms the fact that Ukrainian representatives were invited to monitor the West 2017 military exercises, which are to be held on the territory of the Republic of …

President Petro Poroshenko has said that Ukraine is launching a program of technical modernization for the army.

"We must bring our weapons to the level of the 21st century," the president said at the opening of an arms show in the center of Kyiv on Wednesday.

"Scientists, instructors, [and] heads of defense enterprises face important tasks in developing and setting up the production of new missile weapons, cruise missile systems, modern artillery systems, precision munitions, unmanned aerial …

Ukraine expects that partner countries will provide it with lethal weapons. To date, only Lithuania has provided such assistance to the state, stated the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Stepan Poltorak.

"Since the first day of aggression by the Russian Federation, we have appealed to all countries of the world to provide us with lethal weapons. We received such assistance only from Lithuania. We are ready to receive lethal weapons, but this requires the decision of the partner countries," …

National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov met with Estonian Defense Minister Jüri Luik, the NSDC website announced.

The two discussed the matter of deepening bilateral collaboration in military technology. Furthermore, they devoted a lot of attention to discussing the Zapad 2017 strategic staff and command exercises.

According to Turchynov, against the background of the difficult economic situation in Russia, such large-scale drills “cannot be simply regular …

In a meeting with his Lebanese colleague Ya’qub as-Sarraf, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said that the civil war in Syria has ended, Interfax reports.

“In Syria, having separated the ones from the others [opposition from terrorists], we have managed to create four de-escalation zones, and to effectively stop the civil war,” Shoygu noted.

He added that the Russian military “is satisfied to watch Lebanon’s successes in the north-east of the country” in the fight against the terrorist …

Yuriy Lutsenko, Prosecutor General of Ukraine, signed a letter to the prime minister requesting the dismissal of Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk. He spoke about this on Wednesday, August 23, during a work visit to the Dnipropetrovsk province.

During the visit with the prosecutors of the Dnipropetrovsk province, Lutsenko expressed dissatisfaction with Danylyuk’s work, accusing him, amongst other things, of not increasing the prosecutors’ salaries.

“The thing is that since September, …