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US believes that Syrian opposition was not represented at Congress in Sochi
The American administration believes that the Syrian National Dialogue Congress held in Sochi was unbalanced and played into the hands of the authorities in Damascus, as stated on Thursday at a regular briefing for journalists by Heather Nauert, head of the State Department's press service.
"We took a look at that and we determined that it [the Congress] was far too heavily tilted toward the regime; the opposition wasn’t sufficiently represented.," said the official representative of the US …
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Lithuania detains three persons suspected of spying for Russia
Three citizens of Lithuania have been detained for selling information about military and strategic facilities of the Baltic republic to Russian special services, reported Lrytas news agency.
The suspects were detained in connection with two separate pre-trial investigations.
The first investigation concerns a civilian employee of the Šiauliai Military Base, who previously served in the Lithuanian Air Force, as well as a citizen of Lithuania with a residence permit in a foreign country.
The …
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Swiss subsidiary of Russian GazpromBank banned from accepting new clients after money laundering audit
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has uncovered serious inadequacies in the anti money laundering procedures of GazpromBank’s subsidiary company in Switzerland (GazpromBank (Switzerland) Ltd.) and has banned it from taking on new private clients.
The decision was made earlier, following a two-day investigation prompted by the Panama Papers – material on the offshore accounts and companies of politicians and high-ranking officials from more than 50 countries.“The bank was …
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Russia promises to escort all American reconnaissance planes flying near Crimea
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that all US reconnaissance planes flying near to Crimea will be escorted by Russian fighters.
This was Russia’s response to the United States’ accusation that there was a reckless interception of their EP-3 Aries II over the neutral waters on the border of annexed Crimea.
“I would like to remind Commander Bill Ellis of the 67th tactical aviation group of the US 6th Fleet that Crimea is an integral part of Russia. By directing their pilots to carry out …
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Mejlis: 248 Crimean Tatars were detained in the annexed Crimea over the past year
The Russian security services in the annexed Crimea detained 248 Crimean Tatars in the last year, 99 were fined, and another 42 were arrested, said Eskender Bariev, a member of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, at a press conference on January 31st, according to Ukrainian News.
Bariev noted that the representatives of the indigenous population of the Crimea are subjected to massive pressure from the law enforcement.
Bariev said, "For 2017, our compatriots were fined more than 5 million rubles ($90,000 …