German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin held telephone talks on Tuesday, April 16, during which they discussed the situation in Syria, Ukraine, and Nord Stream 2.

The politicians agreed on the need to focus on the political process to resolve the "long-standing bloody conflict" in Syria, German official Steffen Seibert said.

In the conversation, Putin "pointed out once again that the actions taken by a group of Western countries that committed an act of aggression …

Ukraine will not denounce agreements within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the fields of transit, recognition of diplomas and employment, the representative of the President in the Verkhovna Rada, Iryna Lutsenko reported.

"The Commander-in-Chief urges the government to carry out an inventory of all multilateral treaties between the members of the CIS to denounce separate treaties, leaving only those that are pragmatically needed by Ukraine, such as the recognition of diplomas, …

In the Svitlodarsk salient in the Donbass, Ukrainian military destroyed the so-called Furunkul reinforced position of the separatists and "thinned the troops of the invaders,” Ukrainian volunteer Yuriy Mysyagin reported on Facebook.

According to him, "terrorists and admirers of the ‘Russian world’ in the Donbas" are in dire straits, especially with several internal problems to deal with. "They also suffer serious losses in military equipment and manpower because of their provocative actions," …