US citizen Paul Whelan was arrested by police shortly after receiving a storage device with information about a Russian state secret – a classified list of persons that American intelligence has been interested in for some time. 

A source in Russia’s intelligence agency told Rosbalt that the operation to arrest Whelan was carried out in his room at the Metropol hotel. The American reportedly received an electronic medium with a list of all the staff of one of the classified Russian departments. …

French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in Ukraine and the Kerch crisis in a phone call, the official Kremlin website reports. 

Putin told the press service that he and Macron had continued the “exchange of opinions” on the topic, but did not provide any further details on the discussion. 

The two presidents also considered the problems of the Syrian situation in detail. 

According to a communique from the Élysée Palace, Macron …

There will be no referendums or polls in the Kuril Islands about incorporating the islands into Japan, member of the Duma Committee on International Affairs Anton Morozov told RIA Novosti. 

Earlier, in an interview with the Asahi TV channel, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that Japan intends to incorporate the Southern Kuril Islands. However, Japan's position on the territorial dispute with Russia does not imply the eviction of Russians living there. 

“The Russian Federation has a …

The US Anti-Doping Agency called for the exclusion of Russian athletes from competitions because of the delays in providing access to the Moscow anti-doping laboratory data, Radio Svoboda reports. 

As reported by ESPN, the CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Travis Tygart believes that they should stop being led on by Russia. In late December, a group of experts from WADA received access to the Moscow anti-doping laboratory but Russian officials prevented WADA from extracting …

The Bill on the State Budget of Ukraine for 2019 came into force on January 1 and was officially published in the Holos Ukrayiny newspaper in mid-December. 

Consolidated budget revenues in 2019 are estimated at 1.3 trillion UAH (about $47 billion), including the general fund of the consolidated budget that is 1.18 trillion UAH. Next year’s consolidated budget spending and provision of loans amounts to 1.41 trillion UAH (about $50 billion), including the general fund of the consolidated budget …

Svetlana Petrenko, the Official Representative of the Russian Office for the Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Investigative Committee of Russia stated that the committee would investigate the causes and circumstances of the recent explosion in Magnitogorsk that destroyed a block of apartments and killed at least 21 people. 

Petrenko said that witnesses are now being questioned. According to her, investigators seized documents that could clarify the situation, Echo of Moscow …

In an interview on the TV channel Asahi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that if Russia hands over some of the Kuril islands, Japan will definitely take into account the opinion of the local residents. 

According to Abe, the negotiations with Russia will not initially mean a forced relocation of Russians from the islands. 

“It must happen in such a way that the Russians living there agree to the transition of ownership to Japan,” the Japanese prime minister explained. 

He noted that …

Washington could send Kyiv weapons and impose new sanctions on Russia within the next two or three months, former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told Radio Liberty in an interview. 

“Within 2-3 months we will see the US giving Kyiv weapons and announcing new sanctions against Russia in connection with this aggression [in the Kerch Strait]. I think that, in the course of the next 8-10, or at most 12 weeks, this more forceful US response will appear. And, in addition to the sanctions, this …