The EU has imposed personal sanctions on the officials who were involved in the organization of elections in Crimea, including the chairman of the council of ministers of Crimea, the current governor of Sevastopol, and several members of the City Election Commission.

The EU’s Ukraine-related sanctions will now apply to seven people whose actions relating to elections the EU believes undermined or threatened the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, and whose …

The Russian government has approved a bill on the state regulation of email services that was put forward by a group of senators led by Andrey Klishas in October last year.

The bill, which requires providers to identify email users by passport and to block accounts which break the law, has received positive feedback from the cabinet of ministers.

Interfax reports that the government has approved Klishas’s idea in general, but has proposed to clarify the concept of “organizers of message …

Russia is considering the possibility of refusing to comply with the USA/USSR Maritime Boundary Agreement, which delimited the maritime area of the Bering Strait.

Important committees of Russia’s Federation Council discussed the expediency of continuing to observe the agreement in a closed-door session on Monday, Konstantin Kosachev, head of the international affairs committee, told Interfax.

According to him, representatives of the Foreign Ministry, FSB and Federal Fishery Agency were …

During a discussion in Washington, the Ukrainian filmmaker and former political prisoner of Russia Oleh Sentsov called for Russia to be disconnected from the SWIFT interbank communications system. In his opinion, this would be the most effective way to put pressure on the Kremlin, Ukrinform reports.

When asked how the US could influence Russia, Sentsov said: “I have a very short answer to this: disconnect SWIFT… It’s a more realistic step than extremely lengthy negotiations. My messages here, …

Ukraine and Poland should emphasize those aspects of their history which unite them, and not those which divide them, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a press conference after meeting with his Polish colleague Andrzej Duda in Warsaw.

“In our relations, we are focusing on that which unites us (and I am convinced that this will continue). For example, the Battle of Warsaw, the hundredth anniversary of which we will commemorate in August,” he said.

During this battle in 1920, …

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) intends to appeal the Russian delegation’s credentials on Monday, said Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko, Ukrinform reports.

Honcharenko said that the relevant procedure is initiated by delegates standing up during the voting to support the credentials of national delegations. This will be the first item on the agenda for the PACE winter session, which began on January 27.

“We will stand. We need the support of 10 and 30 delegates,” …

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his Polish colleague Andrzej Duda might visit Ukraine in 2020.

“This year we are planning to hold a number of joint events. I believe that one of them will be a visit by Mr President Duda to Ukraine,” said Zelensky during a joint press conference with Duda in Warsaw.

In May 2020, Poland will hold presidential elections.

During the first four years of his presidency, Duda visited Ukraine four times.

However, Duda’s last visit was accompanied …

The Donbas could return to Ukraine’s control on its own if the country’s government demonstrates persistence, said Ukraine’s first ever president, Leonid Kravchuk.

“He (Russian President Vladimir Putin) has not yet taken the Donbas. I believe that the Donbas could come back to Ukraine on its own with the help of the global community, with the help of our active, persistent, goal-oriented, systematic day-to-day work,” Kravchuk told the TV channel Pryamiy in an interview.

He believes that a …