On December 12th, at an international conference entitled “The Policy of Neutrality: International Cooperation for the Sake of Peace, Security and Development” in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, the President of Moldova, Nicolae Timofti, emphasized the need for a full withdrawal of Russian troops from Transdniestria.

“We repeat the need for a completion of the withdrawal of Russian troops and ammunition from the territory of our country,” Timofti stated. Additionally, the Moldovan President has …

The presidential press-service of Ukraine reported that the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, will pay his first official visit to Ukraine on December 14th. President Duda is scheduled to stay in Kiev for two days.

The program of the visit includes negotiations between President Duda and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The two leaders plan to discuss a wide range of issues from safety to strengthening bilateral cooperation.

Readers may remember that Andrzej Duda took his oath of office …

Samantha Power, United States Ambassador to the United Nations has called on Russia to take a path of peace by implementing the Minsk Agreement. At the UN Security Council's meeting on Ukraine, she called on Moscow to "choose the path of peace and implement the Minsk agreements." She cited this as the only hope of restoring peace in Ukraine. According to Power, some progress has been seen through the partial Minsk agreement implementation and ceasefire taken in the past six months.

"The …

At a meeting with representatives of the Russian Ministry of Defense, President Vladimir Putin ordered the military to be ready as the threat of war was imminent, as reported by the Polish newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza.” Putin has ordered the Armed Forces in Syria, "to act with the greatest severity," and will not hesitate to destroy, "all targets that pose a threat to the Air Forces of Russia or its military infrastructure throughout the globe."

In practice, this would mean if, for example, …

One of the leaders of the Crimean Tatar National Movement, Mustafa Dzhemilev, spoke about the results of Crimean blockades achieved so far. The politician admits that these results are only the first step. According to information provided by Mustafa Dzhemilev, the primary goal was to remind the world about the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Although it may have been quickly forgotten, the blockades serve to remind the world of the situation there. Dzhemilev noted that the activists were …

The UN Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights, Ivan Šimonović, noted that the situation concerning human rights on the Peninsula has not improved.

In 2015, the human rights situation in the annexed Crimea has not improved - intimidation and harassment continue, Šimonović stated during his speech at the meeting of the UN Security Council.

"There are no signals that the situation improved in this area in 2015," Šimonović said about the human rights situation in Crimea. According to Š …

The conflict area in Donbass continues to be heavily militarized, and the threat of conflict escalation remains, the First Deputy Secretary General of the UN, Jan Eliasson, said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Dec 11.

"The conflict area remains heavily militarized. We see that a serious threat of escalation remains there," he said. According to Eliasson, most of the items of the "Minsk agreement" have not been achieved. And this situation jeopardizes the political process in …

In an article written in the magazine Delfi, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Linas Linkevičius, wrote that the West has again called for "meaningful dialogue" with Russia, and it shows that the wars in Georgia and Ukraine have no changed much.

"It seemed like we had to learn a lesson. As soon as one country pulls the reins, the Kremlin takes it as a sign of weakness, as an opportunity or even the motivation to act more energetically", he wrote.

However, according to Linkevičius, this …