As reported by the press service of the head of state, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will pay a state visit to Israel on December 22-23.

The agenda of the visit includes a meeting with President R.Rivlin, Prime Minister B.Netanyahu, Speaker of the Knesset Y.Edelstein and Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem.

Mr.Poroshenko will deliver a speech to the Knesset (Parliament) of the State of Israel.

A number of bilateral documents are due to be signed during the visit.

According to Sergei Naryshkin, the Russian Duma Speaker, the sanctions against Russia have been entered into without the consent of the people of the EU.  The sanctions against Russia are humiliating and illogical for the EU, said Naryshkin, in an article he wrote for the newspaper Izvestia, released on Monday.

"Brussels’ approach to modern Russia is a strategic miscalculation.  Talking to us in the language of illegal sanctions is illogical and obviously embarrassing for European diplomacy," …

BRUSSELS – The European Union on Monday extended its economic sanctions against Russia for six months, after the Kremlin had failed to fully respect a peace agreement in east Ukraine.

The sanctions target Russia's financial, energy and defense sectors as well as some dual-use goods.

Despite a cease-fire declared in February, Ukraine says it still has not regained complete control over its border with Russia and that Russian-backed rebels are not respecting the cease-fire conditions.

The …

Illegally armed pro-Russian rebels continue trying to provoke Ukrainian Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) forces, according to the operation's press center.

"Since the beginning of the day nearly 35 cases of ceasefire violations by the Russian-terrorist gangs have been reported," according to a post by the official press center on Facebook on Sunday.

The press center sayid that the majority of the attacks have occurred around the Donetsk airport where small arms and grenade launchers of various …

“The United States and Russia can work together,” said U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry.  The main focus of American-Russian cooperation is the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis.

"In September (during a speech by the U.S. President, Barack Obama, at the UN General Assembly) the main issue was the Ukrainian crisis, but since then we have made considerable progress.  I am now in Moscow, proving that, despite differences, Russia and the United States are able to and want to work together. We …