• Russian Gazprom to receive 2 billion euro loan from Chinese bank

    Gazprom and the Bank of China have signed an agreement granting the Russian gas monopoly a €2 billion loan for a period of five years as reported by the press service of the company.

    It is the largest funding deal coming directly from one credit institution in the history of Gazprom. It was also noted by the company that it was the first bilateral loan agreement with the Chinese Bank.

    In August 2015 Gazprom secured a loan from a consortium of Asian Banks for $1.5 billion at LIBOR + 3.5% for …

  • Klimkin hands statement from relatives of Ukrainian prisoners to Normandy Four Foreign Ministers

    The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pavlo Klimkin, handed a statement written by the mothers and relatives of Ukrainian prisoners to the Foreign Ministers of the Normandy Four.

    “I have sent an letter written by the mothers and relatives of our prisoners. It is about their relatives, who should be released immediately,” he wrote in his Twitter account following the results of the Normandy Four meeting in Paris.

    Earlier, Klimkin reported that no conclusions were agreed on by the participants of …

  • Dzhemilev: Putin has no choice but to return Crimea to Ukraine

    “Putin's plan to put the puppet government in Kiev has fallen. Crimea will have to return”, the leader of the Crimean Tatar People, Mustafa Dzhemilev, said during an open lecture at the Kyiv Institute of International Relations.   

    Dzhemilev recalled that during the annexation of the peninsula, Putin asked for support from the Crimean Tatars, promising them a bright future.

    "In conversation with Putin on the 12th of March, 2014, he told us how happy we will be living in the Russian Federation …

  • Average salary of Russian federal officials increased by 2 percent last year amid economic crisis

    According to Rosstat, the average monthly salary of civil servants in federal government agencies in Russia had increased by 2% in 2015.  The average is now almost 111,300 rubles.

    The salaries of civil servants within the legislature division rose by 35.2%, which equates to approximately 150,000 rubles.  This amount does not take into account any social payments.  The salaries of employees of the Federation Council increased by 42%, and the salaries of the State Duma employees increased by 30%. …

  • Mayor of Nice says Crimea is Russian territory during visit by Mayor of Yalta

    The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, met with a delegation from the occupied Crimea and signed a letter of intent with the Administration of Yalta, as stated on Christian Estrosi’s website.

    The delegation of the mayor of Yalta was on an official visit in Nice from February 26 – March 1st. The Ambassador of the Russian Federation to France, Alexander Orlov, was also present at the meeting.

    The delegation’s visit was referred to as symbolic, as it was the "first time since the referendum on …