Problems around Nord Stream 2 could lead to the increase in oil prices for the EU, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. At the same time, he is convinced that the project will still be completed.

Earlier, Germany rejected the application of Nord Stream 2 AG, the operator of Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which asked to exempt the project from the requirements of the EU gas directive. This means that Nord Stream 2 may not be running at full capacity. Nord Stream 2 AG is appealing the decision. …

The Office of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General plans to transfer the obteined evidence of war crimes committed by the former DPR Defense Minister,Igor Girkin (Strelkov), to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Among the evidence will be a video recorded interview of Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon with Igor Girkin, reports Ukrainian news outlet LB.ua with reference to a source in the Office of the Prosecutor General.

"The Office of the Prosecutor General plans …

The heads of the so-called Donets and Luhansk People’s Republic said that they had increased the combat readiness of their troops.

The leader of LPR Leonid Pasechnik said that on May 16, the shelling damaged the power line, "which was feeding critical infrastructure facilities." He threatened that if the shelling continued, the militants would try to "move the line of contact away from that power line."

"I have already given appropriate instructions to put the units of the People's Militia on …

The 7-billion-euro Turkish Stream pipeline appears to be going to share the sad fate of Nord Stream 2.

Amid the economic crisis and cooling relations with Moscow, which lead to confrontation of the Turkish and Russian military in Syria and mercenaries of the Wagner Private Military Company in Libya, Turkey is sharply reducing the purchases of Russian gas.

At the end of March, Gazprom's supplies to Turkish state-owned Botas and independent Turkish operators collapsed sevenfold, to 210 million …

Large transnational business continues to curtail its presence in Russia.

Morgan Stanley - one of the largest U.S. financial institutions with assets of $900 billion - will become the first U.S. bank to completely eliminate full representation in Russia.

According to RIA Novosti, the group filed a request with the Central Bank of Russia to revoke the license to carry out banking operations and decided to voluntarily liquidate its banking operations in Russia.

Earlier, on April 30, the …

The Russian army has no plans to conduct exercises near the borders of NATO countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and has generally scaled them down, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a video conference press briefing.

"For the period that we are now going through, during the period of coronavirus infection, our military has reported that they are reducing the scale of the exercises and do not plan any exercises near the line of contact with the North Atlantic Alliance," said …

Former Defense Minister of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Igor Girkin (Strelkov) sold the medal for the annexation of Crimea.

According to Strelkov, the medal for the annexation of Crimea was presented to him by the Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeev.

"I recently sold it because of the material difficulties that every honest person in Russia has," the former defense minister said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon.

The fact that Strelkov put the medal, …

First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy announced an informal video conference at the UN Security Council with residents of annexed Crimea on May 21.

"On Thursday, 21 May at 3 pm NYC time UN Security Council will for the first time hold informal VTC with participation of the residents of #Crimea. This will be a good opportunity to learn real facts about life in this Russian region," Polyanskiy wrote on Twitter.

The permanent mission of Ukraine to the UN …