The leader of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Alexander Zakharchenko, has stated that he will not adhere to the Minsk Agreements with regard to the local elections. He said this on Saturday while at a press conference in Donetsk.

“We will hold the primaries in order to gauge people’s reactions and to show the world that we are ready to hold elections without the consent of Kiev,” Zakharchenko said.

“I am not going to dance to the tune of Ukraine, France and Germany who want us …

The Latvian National Armed Forces have recorded the presence of four Russian military aircraft in the Baltic air space. The information was published on the official Twitter account of the Latvian National Armed Forces.

“On the 29th of May, two Su-27 and two AN-26 were identified flying over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea near the territorial waters of Latvia,” the message said.

Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, and the subsequent tense relations between the west and …

The Ukranian military have reported heavy losses in the clashes with the sepratits in eastern Ukraine . On the 28th of May, five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and four were injured in attacks on the Ukranian positions.

“It is unfortunate that in one day, five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and another four of our soldiers were wounded,” this was said by the speaker of the Administration of the President on ATO issues, Oleksandr Motuzyanik, at a briefing held on the 29th of May.

As previously …

The price of Russian gas supplied to Belarus to likely to remain at the current level of $142 per thousand cubic meters, Radio Svoboda reported.

This was announced by Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak.

According to him, the current contract for 2015-2016 “has not been cancelled”. Russia believes that Belarus owes $125 million to Gazprom. Minsk does not recognize the debt, saying that, according to their own calculations based on the fall of the ruble against the dollar, their price …

The Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pavlo Klimkin, will visit Iran on May 29th to 30th at the invitation of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic, Mohammad Zarif, according to the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.

"The purpose of the visit is to discuss the current state of and prospects of developing bilateral cooperation between Ukraine and Iran. Among other things, the parties will exchange views on current regional issues and challenges of our time on a global …

The President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, met on Saturday, May 28th with Nadiya Savchenko. They discussed the "Savchenko-Sentsov" sanctions list and coordinated joint actions to speed up the release of Ukrainian prisoners.

"We are in the active phase of the release of our hostages and we have no right to stop the work. On the contrary, we must intensify it," the press office of the President said, quoting Poroshenko.

The President also passed on congratulations from US Vice President Joe …

Members separatist groups continue to obstruct the activities of the Special Monitoring Mission of the OSCE in Donetsk and Luhansk, said First Deputy Head of the Mission Alexander Hug at a briefing in Mariupol on Saturday.

"Today at lunch time on the way to Novoazovsk to the east, on approach to the DPR checkpoint, the checkpoint staff fired warning shots into the air. The patrol had to turn back to Mariupol," news portal Novosti Donbassa quotes Hug as saying. According to Hug, the majority of …

Russian and Chinese servicemen carried out their first computer-assisted, staff-command, missile defense exercises named Aero-Space Security 2016, Korrespondent.net reported with reference to the press service of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

“The main purpose of staff-command exercises is the training of joint actions of operationally formed groups of Russian and Chinese air defense and missile defense against random and provocative strikes of ballistic and cruise missiles,” the statement …