Ukrainian MP Mustafa Dzhemilev said in an interview with Ukrinform that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan instructed the Turkish Foreign Minister to press Russia about the recent Kerch Strait issues. 

"Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated that President Erdogan instructed him to raise on all platforms the issue of free navigation through the Kerch Strait and the need to return our captured ships," said Dzhemilev. 

Dzhemilev said the question about the imprisoned sailors’  …

Russian President Vladimir Putin amended the decree from January 1, 2016 "On Measures to ensure economic security and national interests of Russia during the transit of goods from Ukraine to the Republic of Kazakhstan or the Kyrgyz Republic through the territory of the Russian Federation." He extended it for half a year, until July 1, 2019,  the Russia’s government website of legal information. 

The decree entered into force on December 31, 2018. It stipulates that inter-country transportation …

The construction of the training center called “Urban warfare” has been completed at the Yavoriv military base in the Lviv region, reported the Ukrainian military portal on Monday, December 31. The tender for construction was first announced in May 2018. The cost of the construction was about 40 million hryvnia ($1.5 million). 

Three squadrons can train simultaneously there during the day and one squadron can train at night. “This training center will conduct training in urban offensive and …

From January 1, 2019, the price of Russian gas for Armenia will be raised to $165 per thousand cubic meters, the press service of Gazprom reported on Monday. 

The new price is 10% higher than the price established by the agreement of April 2016. 

“In accordance with the supplementary agreement signed to the contract between Gazprom Export LLC and Gazprom Armenia CJSC, determining the price of gas supplies to Armenia in 2019, the price of Russian gas will be $165 per one thousand cubic meters …

Russia is maintaining vast military forces along the Ukrainian border, with as many as 53,000 soldiers there at the end of December 2018, reports Uninform with reference to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

 “The Russian Federation is continuing to expand its military groups close to the Ukrainian state border. Notably, as of the end of December 2018, on Ukraine’s border and in the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea, 28 tactical battalion groups were deployed. The total number of the …

In Moscow there has been a series of solitary protests against the possibility of Russia handing over the Kuril islands to Japan, Radio Liberty reports. 

Activists reportedly took to the streets with banners outside the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State Duma, and the Border Guard Academy. 

According to Sergey Ponomarev, a member of the “Russian Kurils” movement, the protesters are “concerned about Russia’s territorial integrity”. They do not approve of Russia beginning the peace …

The President of the Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman "publicly called on Prague to officially protest against the glorification of Ukraine's war criminals,” his representative Jiří Ovčáček wrote on Twitter, Radio Svoboda reports. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, particularly its head, Tomáš Petříček ‘fearfully keeps silent’ regarding the glorification of Bandera’s followers in Ukraine,” the statement said.

Petříček responded to Ovčáček’s statement by saying he would discuss …

The counterintelligence department of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has discovered that three out of the 42 prisoners from Luhansk who were handed over to Ukraine at the start of December had been recruited by the Luhansk People’s Republic’s (LPR) Ministry of State Security. 

The SBU press service reported that prisoners had been coerced to sign tacit collaboration pledges through threats and psychological pressure. Presumably, they were expected to collect information about the …