The Russian Defense Ministry’s Strategic Missile Forces announced that a Topol RS-12M Intercontinental Ballistic Missile was successfully test fired on Wednesday. The warhead was launched from the Kapustin Yar test site in the Astrakhan region in southern Russia and hit its designated target at the Sari-Shagon test range in Kazakhstan.

The RS-12M is Russia’s latest mobile intercontinental ballistic missile system.  The 45,000 kilogram, 20 meter long rocket has a range of 10,500 kilometers (6,50 …

On Wednesday, Russia’s Central Bank released a new 100 ruble banknote dedicated to the Crimea.

The design features an image of the famous Crimean castle Swallow’s Nest on one side, with the other side showing the Monument to the Flooded Ships in Sevastopol.

The Central Bank said it plans to print 20 million copies of the new banknote.

The Crimean peninsula was occupied and incorporated into Russian territory by Russian forces in early 2014. At the time of the annexation, a 100 ruble banknote …

According to Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Volodymyr Yelchenko, the UN has done very little to solve the Ukrainian conflict. During an interview with European Truth, the new ambassador, appointed two weeks ago,  stressed that he will put forth every effort necessary to make the international community pay more attention to the situation in Ukraine.

"For example, look at the role of the UN Secretary General in resolving our conflict.  Frankly, it is close to zero," Yelchenko said. …

The "Donbass Volunteers Union" hopes that during the next session of the Russian State Duma their members will be granted the status of combat veterans, reports TASS.

"We are applying all efforts to assign the Donbass conflict parties a status of war veterans.  We prepared an appeal to MPs and hope that the Duma will respond to this during the new session,” the Head of the Union, Andrey Pinchuk, said.  He went on to stress that “volunteers” need to be provided with medical assistance.

The …

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, one of the main reasons for starting the war in the Donbas region was the ease with which Russian Special Forces were able to occupy and annex the Crimean peninsula in early 2014. This opinion was expressed by Russian opposition leader Boris Vishnevsky in an interview with Apostrophe.

"The hypothesis that seems plausible to me is that Vladimir Putin doesn't consider Ukraine to be a state, and it's possible that he seriously considered a scenario in which a …

The money laundering scandal in the Russian branch of Deutsche Bank expands.

According to new data, Russian customers conducted illegal bank operations worth 10 billion U.S. dollars, reported Reuters on Tuesday, December 22nd, citing sources familiar with the situation. Previously, the amount was estimated at about $6 billion but the internal investigation into the bank turned up new suspicious transactions.

This September the bank sent the results of the investigation to the authorities …

The US expanded sanctions against Russia in connection with recent events in eastern Ukraine. This was stated on the website of the US Treasury. Sanctions were imposed against individuals (including Ukranian citizens) and institutions alike.

The sanctions list includes the ministers that worked with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, former Science and Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnik and Russian politician Vitaliy Zakharchenko. Sanctions were also imposed on Vladislav Dinega, …

Militants of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) are holding 140 Ukrainian prisoners, many of whom are sick or wounded. This information was posted on the Facebook of the Commissioner of the President for the Peaceful Settlement of the Situation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Iryna Herashchenko.

"We presented the full information on all our efforts to release the hostages—according to SBU the number is 140 Ukrainians—among whom are many people …