• Russia to deploy additional S-400 missile systems in annexed Crimea

    This year air defense units in the Crimea will be equipped with S-400 surface-to-air missile systems and Pantsir-S anti-aircraft missile systems, said the commander of the Russian Southern Military District, Colonel General Alexander Dvornikov.

    "We managed to significantly strengthen security on the western flank, including through forming the new units in the 150th Motorized Rifle Division and 22th Army Corps stationed in the Crimea," said Dvornikov, adding that “strengthening defense on the …

  • Russia blocks expansion of OSCE mission to entire Donbas border

    The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its disappointment that the Russian Federation remains the only OSCE member that "aggressively blocks" the expansion of the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) mandate to cover the entire stretch of the border adjacent to the separatist controlled territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

    The Ministry released a statement detailing its position in response to a decision by the OSCE Permanent Council to extend the mandate of the OSCE SMM at …

  • Russia postpones launch of power plants in Crimea by half a year

    Russian Deputy Energy Minister Andrey Cherezov announced on May 3 that the preliminary start of operations for the first group of Thermal Power Plants (TPP) under construction in Simferopol and Sevastopol is scheduled for October. The second block is scheduled to launch operations in November.

    "These are the preliminary dates for the stations, and those of us in the government will, first and foremost, make adjustments; it [the launch] will be October-November. The first blocks will be put …

  • Moscow warns against depriving Russia of right of veto in UN

    The power of veto in the United Nations Security Council, which is held by Russia, Britain, China, the United States and France, is the cornerstone of the organization’s architecture, without which it will lose its stability, as stated by Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov at the regular meeting of the General Assembly on the issue of Security Council reform.

    The diplomat noted that “ungrounded actions against the right of veto” …

  • Putin fires five generals and two prosecutors

    Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree on May 3 that effectively fired five generals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and the Investigation Committee (IC), as well as two prosecutors. In addition, he appointed 16 people to the posts. The text of the decree was published on the Official Internet Portal of Legal Information.

    The prosecutor of Udmurtia, Sergey Panov and the prosecutor of the Tula region, Alexander Kozlov were dismissed from their posts. Others relieved of their …