The first shipment of Norwegian oil arrived at the Naftan refinery in Belarus on January 26, reports BelTA.

"59 containers with 3.5 thousand tons of oil have arrived from the port of Klaipeda to Novopolotsk by rail. The entire shipment of oil, 86,000 tons, from Norway, which was delivered by the ship Breiviken, will be transported to the Belarusian plant within two weeks," Naftan's statement reads.

The contract for the supply of Russian oil to Belarus expired on January 1. The parties failed …

Since January 2018, there has been hardly any Ukraine-related work in the Russian government and it completely stopped after Volodymyr Zelensky became the President of Ukraine, reports the news outlet Meduza.

According to the source of the publication, who worked together with Putin’s aide Vladislav Surkov, Surkov and his team stopped work with the leaders of public opinion and the elite in Ukraine. They stopped forming an ideology, engaging in projects on federalization and destabilization of …

Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov, who oversaw the so-called “Ukrainian direction”, left the civil service. The director of the Center for Current Policy, Alexey Chesnakov, who is close to Surkov, announced this on his Telegram channel. "He will be doing meditation for the next month. After that, he promised to inform about the reasons for his decision and about further plans," Chesnakov wrote.

Chesnakov later confirmed the information about Surkov's resignation from the state service …

The search for alternative oil supplies is "not a bluff" and not a way to raise the stakes before negotiations with Russia, said President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, as quoted by BelTA.

According to Lukashenko, in a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he outlined a picture of how Belarus will act if the Russian side does not change its position. The Belarusian leader listed options for alternative oil supply to the country. According to him, it is the supply of Norwegian …

Bulgaria has notified the Russian Federation that it’s declaring two Russian diplomats persona non grata.

It is noted that the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry will expel a diplomat of the Russian Embassy and an employee of the Russian trade mission. The relevant notes were handed to the Russian Ambassador in Bulgaria, who was summoned to the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry on January 24.

"Officers will leave the host country within the specified dates," the Russian Embassy in Bulgaria said on Facebook. …

Ukrainians held in prisons in the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) but not mentioned by the media actually paid money to be included on prisoner exchange list, former LPR prisoner Denys Sekatsky told Censor.NET in an interview.

“I paid money for my freedom. That is, they demanded a ransom from me, for them not to kill me, and to confirm that they had included me on the list for exchange from the LPR. People came and handed over money through my attorney… I was not the only one. Perhaps I’m the …

Russia has gone up one level on the international corruption perceptions rating published annually by Transparency International, reports finanz.ru.

In the 2019 index, out of 180 countries, Russia tied for positions 137 through 146 with Kenya, Liberia, Mauritania, Papua New Guinea and Uganda.

Just below Russia, in positions 146 through 153, are Iran, Honduras, Bangladesh, Angola and the Comoros islands. Just above are Guinea, Mexico, Myanmar and Mali.

Of the former Soviet states, Russia only …

Kyiv is ready to give control of Ukrainian Railways to the German company Deutsche Bahn AG for 10 years, announced Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The speech was published on his Facebook page.

He explained that it is not merely about developing the Ukrainian railway operator, but also about an “ecosystem-based” decision, which should demonstrate Ukraine’s “unprecedented openness” to investments. The prime minister added that the details of the …