According to Sergei Naryshkin, the Russian Duma Speaker, the sanctions against Russia have been entered into without the consent of the people of the EU.  The sanctions against Russia are humiliating and illogical for the EU, said Naryshkin, in an article he wrote for the newspaper Izvestia, released on Monday.

"Brussels’ approach to modern Russia is a strategic miscalculation.  Talking to us in the language of illegal sanctions is illogical and obviously embarrassing for European diplomacy," …

Illegally armed pro-Russian rebels continue trying to provoke Ukrainian Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) forces, according to the operation's press center.

"Since the beginning of the day nearly 35 cases of ceasefire violations by the Russian-terrorist gangs have been reported," according to a post by the official press center on Facebook on Sunday.

The press center sayid that the majority of the attacks have occurred around the Donetsk airport where small arms and grenade launchers of various …

BRUSSELS – The European Union on Monday extended its economic sanctions against Russia for six months, after the Kremlin had failed to fully respect a peace agreement in east Ukraine.

The sanctions target Russia's financial, energy and defense sectors as well as some dual-use goods.

Despite a cease-fire declared in February, Ukraine says it still has not regained complete control over its border with Russia and that Russian-backed rebels are not respecting the cease-fire conditions.

The …

As reported by the press service of the head of state, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will pay a state visit to Israel on December 22-23.

The agenda of the visit includes a meeting with President R.Rivlin, Prime Minister B.Netanyahu, Speaker of the Knesset Y.Edelstein and Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem.

Mr.Poroshenko will deliver a speech to the Knesset (Parliament) of the State of Israel.

A number of bilateral documents are due to be signed during the visit.

Turkey is determined to cooperate with Ukraine economically, said the Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Dzhemilev. The two countries may sign an agreement on a free trade zone, said Dzhemilev, while commenting on the results of the working visit of the leaders of the Crimean Tatars to Turkey.

According to him, at a meeting with the leadership of the Republic of Turkey, they mainly discussed the development of relations between Ukraine and Turkey. This …

Russia didn't send military experts to Ukraine, said the President's Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov. He claims that the Russian presence in the southeast of Ukraine consisted entirely of volunteers. According to Interfax, those were his comments on the words of Vladimir Putin during his end-of-the-year press conference on December 17th. Putin said that the Russian citizens fighting alongside the separatists in eastern Ukraine were there as volunteers, though he also admitted to the presence of …

NATO plans to increase its presence at the Turkish border due to the unstable situation in the region.

Representatives of NATO member states agreed in Brussels on Friday on the need to strengthen its control of Turkish airspace. This plan will be implemented through the use of fighters and AWACS reconnaissance aircraft. NATO also plans to increase its naval presence in the region. In addition to military training, several naval vessels will be deployed via Turkish ports.

It has not yet been …

The state-owned Ukrainian aerospace company, Antonov, signed a preliminary agreement with Saudi firm Taqnia Aeronautics which will see the delivery of 30 multipurpose Antonov An-178 aircraft to the Royal Saudi Airforce.

Taqnia Aeronautics President Mohammed Al-Ghamdi said that “The signing of this memorandum is the next significant step in the development of our cooperation. We have already signed documents on the cooperation on the project of a new transport aircraft An-132 and the joint …