• 15 Ukrainian sailors imprisoned in Russia declare themselves prisoners of war 

    According to lawyer Sergey Badamshin, 15 of the 24 captured Ukrainian sailors being held in a Moscow jail have identified themselves as prisoners of war and demanded that they be treated as such in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention. 

    Badamshin added that the Crimean court hearing their case has been deliberating for two days now on the Ukrainian military’s appeal against illegal arrests. “The ‘Court’ rejects all complaints. But we must understand that the ‘court’ shows no …

  • Ukraine plans to build new naval base in the Sea of Azov

    Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak ordered to prepare the required documentation for the construction of a new naval base in the Sea of Azov. "I have instructed the Naval Commander to send estimates for the construction of a naval base in the Sea of Azov. We definitely should strengthen our presence there. We should respond to the threats in the Sea of Azov,” the Defense Minister said on the Ukrainian TV.

    At the meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk, Ukraine proposed to …

  • Kremlin: Russia will target US missiles in Europe

    During the Big Game program on Channel One, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke about the possible consequences of the withdrawal of the United States from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF).

    “The thing is that the withdrawal from the INF Treaty may potentially entail the deployment of short-and medium-range missiles in Europe, as was during the Cold War. The deployment of those missiles there and the possibility of them being aimed at Russia …

  • Kremlin: Moscow hopes that Israel and Turkey will recognize Crimea’s annexation by Russia

    Moscow hopes that Israel and Turkey will eventually recognize the "legitimacy of the reunification of the Crimea and the Russian Federation", said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

    “There are several issues where our positions diverge. In the context of Crimea, neither Ankara nor Tel Aviv are yet ready to agree to our reasons that the process of Crimea’s reunification with Russia was fully compliant with the international law, and that no other term can be applied here,” Peskov …

  • Russian money-laundering scandal puts Latvia on verge of financial catastrophe

    After becoming one of the primary “laundromats” for laundering shady capital from Russia, the Latvian banking system is now facing the threat of international isolation.

    Due the scandal surrounding the country’s second largest bank, ABLV, which was caught transferring billions of dollars from Russia and former Soviet states into offshore accounts, Latvia risks being blacklisted by the FATF, observed the US ambassador to the country, Andris Teikmanis.

    This blacklist includes governments that …