The "Donbass Volunteers Union" hopes that during the next session of the Russian State Duma their members will be granted the status of combat veterans, reports TASS.

"We are applying all efforts to assign the Donbass conflict parties a status of war veterans.  We prepared an appeal to MPs and hope that the Duma will respond to this during the new session,” the Head of the Union, Andrey Pinchuk, said.  He went on to stress that “volunteers” need to be provided with medical assistance.

The …

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, one of the main reasons for starting the war in the Donbas region was the ease with which Russian Special Forces were able to occupy and annex the Crimean peninsula in early 2014. This opinion was expressed by Russian opposition leader Boris Vishnevsky in an interview with Apostrophe.

"The hypothesis that seems plausible to me is that Vladimir Putin doesn't consider Ukraine to be a state, and it's possible that he seriously considered a scenario in which a …

The money laundering scandal in the Russian branch of Deutsche Bank expands.

According to new data, Russian customers conducted illegal bank operations worth 10 billion U.S. dollars, reported Reuters on Tuesday, December 22nd, citing sources familiar with the situation. Previously, the amount was estimated at about $6 billion but the internal investigation into the bank turned up new suspicious transactions.

This September the bank sent the results of the investigation to the authorities …

The US expanded sanctions against Russia in connection with recent events in eastern Ukraine. This was stated on the website of the US Treasury. Sanctions were imposed against individuals (including Ukranian citizens) and institutions alike.

The sanctions list includes the ministers that worked with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, former Science and Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnik and Russian politician Vitaliy Zakharchenko. Sanctions were also imposed on Vladislav Dinega, …

Militants of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) are holding 140 Ukrainian prisoners, many of whom are sick or wounded. This information was posted on the Facebook of the Commissioner of the President for the Peaceful Settlement of the Situation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Iryna Herashchenko.

"We presented the full information on all our efforts to release the hostages—according to SBU the number is 140 Ukrainians—among whom are many people …