Contents tagged with Russia
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Ukrainian military command: Ukrainian military advised not to visit Crimea
Work is being done among Ukrainian military personnel, including those who have been placed in reserve, to explain the undesirability of traveling to the occupied territories, including the Crimea. This was announced on August 17 by Vladislav Seleznev, spokesperson for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in a broadcast of the Ukrainian Radio Svoboda’s program “Your Freedom”, while commenting on the arrests of former Ukrainian soldiers whom the Russian law enforcement officials …
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Media: Talks between US envoy on Ukraine Volker and Putin’s aide Surkov may be held next week
A meeting between US State Department Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker and the Russian Presidential Aide Vladislav Surkov is scheduled for the first half of next week, and will be held in Minsk. This was reported by Interfax, citing an outside source.
"The meeting is expected to be held in Minsk in the first half of next week," the source said.
The parties intend to discuss the implementation of the Minsk agreements. It is also possible that they will touch upon the topic of the …
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Kremlin adds Jehovah’s Witnesses to list of banned organizations
The Russian Ministry of Justice added the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious organization to the list of organizations which are prohibited and subject to dissolution in Russian territory. In the department’s official announcement, this ruling is explained as the application of the law on opposing extremist activity.
The Russian Justice Ministry noted that the ban extends to the Jehovah’s Witnesses Administrative Center, as well as the 395 regional branches included in its structure.
On July 17, …
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Massive blackouts continue in annexed Crimea
Power supply problems persist in Russian-annexed Crimea, a report from the Russian Ministry of Energy states.
“On August 15, from 12:47 to the present, due to unfavorable weather conditions (rain, thunderstorms) there have been massive emergency power outages of the 6-10 KW distribution grids in Crimean territory,” the Russian Energy Ministry announced.
Due to the bad weather, 13 aerial 6-10 KW lines and 62 transformer substations were switched off. Yesterday, on August 15, 53 settlements had …
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Poll: only three countries in the world have positive perception of Russia
American Pew Research Center surveyed residents of 37 countries around the world regarding their attitude towards Russia.
It turned out that only 34% out of 41,000 respondents have an amiable opinion of Russia. Another 40% have negative feelings about Russia and the rest have not yet decided.
There are three countries where the majority of the population had a positive attitude towards Russia, Vietnam (83%), Greece (64%), and the Philippines (55%).
This year, a negative attitude towards …
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Putin: Russian oil will be supplied to Belarus only if its exports take place through Russian ports
"Belarusian refineries process our raw oil. There is no other oil there and it is unlikely to appear, that is why we need to align their receiving our oil with the requirement of using our infrastructure," as said by President Vladimir Putin at a meeting on transport infrastructure development for the northwest Russia which was held on Wednesday, August 16th, in Kaliningrad, as reported by RIA Novosti.
Belarus has two oil refineries in Mozyr and Novopolotsk. Russia agreed to supply 24 million …
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Russia exported $264 million worth of food and agriculture products to separatist-held territories of Ukraine
Despite sanctions, Russia exports significant amounts of meat to Ukraine, LIGA news website writes. For example, the "State Unitary Company" established in 2015 by the separatist LPR (Luhansk People’s Republic) is listed as a Ukrainian legal entity according to Russian documents, although there is no company with this name in the register of the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice.
In Russia, all operations with companies registered in Donetsk and Luhansk have the status of official export or import …
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Lithuania to send observers to Russia-Belarus Zapad-2017 exercises
Lithuania received permission to send observers to the Russia-Belarus exercise Zapad-2017, which will be held on September 14 to 20, reported Delfi. Lithuania will observe the exercises in Belarus and the Leningrad region of the Russian Federation.
"Lithuania... together with other states of the region received an invitation from Russia and Belarus to observe Zapad-2017 exercises," the representative of the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense, Asta Galdikaitė said.
She said that …
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Polish Minister of National Defense: Only determination and strength can stop the intensification of Russian aggression
In an interview with Polish Radio, The Minister of National Defense of Poland, Antoni Macierewicz, said that the current threat from Russia requires a resolute response.
“Only decisiveness and strength can stop the strengthening of Russian aggression,” he said, adding that because of this, the decisions made at the NATO summit in Warsaw to strengthen the eastern flank of the alliance were very important.
The Polish minister stressed that tensions in the region have increased since Russia …
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USA accuses Russia of oppressing religious minorities
During last year, Russian authorities continued to oppress members of religious minorities and detained them on suspicion of extremism, as stated in the U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report.
Several U.S. citizens were fined and expelled from Russia for their religious activities. In particular, volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) were accused of publicly inciting attacks on representatives of other religions.
In addition, …