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Ukraine's Naftogaz demands $8 billion from Russia for loss of Crimean assets
The Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz has responded to Russia’s counterclaim regarding the compensation amount for Naftogaz’s loss of assets in Crimea, the company announced on Twitter.
According to Naftogaz’s statement, Russia filed a claim in December 2019.
Naftogaz also confirmed the amount of damage compensation it is demanding – around $8 billion, a figure which includes net losses and interest.
The company said in its tweet that the losses were caused by the illegal expropriation …
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Ukraine suspends prosecutors investigating MH17 case
All of the Ukrainian prosecutors who had been investigating the MH17 catastrophe have been suspended from work as part of departmental reforms, the Dutch newspaper NRC Next reports, citing one of the dismissed prosecutors.
A total of six prosecutors were involved in the investigation on Ukraine’s behalf, two of them as part of the Joint Investigation Team. In recent months, the JIT has not had a single participant from Ukraine.
Commenting on the dismissal of the prosecutors, Ukrainian Foreign …
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Putin’s confidence level hits 7-year low
The resignation of the government, the constitutional reforms and the promises to spend 4 trillion rubles (around $63 billion) on assisting the poor and families with children have been powerless to halt the downward slide of the Russian government’s ratings.
Russian citizens’ level of confidence in President Vladimir Putin lost another 4 percentage points in January 2020, falling to 35%, the Levada Center reports, based on a survey carried out in 50 of Russia’s federal subjects.
Compared to …
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Kremlin names three conditions for improving relations with Europe
Russia is “carefully analyzing” French President Emmanuel Macron’s offer to improve dialog with Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, as cited by RBC news agency. The deputy minister remarked that Russia “is appraising the situation on the basis of reality”, and understands that, in order to bring about systemic changes to the status quo, Europe needs to take concrete steps towards cooperation.
According to Grushko, …
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Kremlin instructs regional governments to create festive atmosphere during voting on constitutional amendments
The Russian regions have been instructed to create a “festive atmosphere” in order to increase turnout on the day the population votes on Putin’s proposed constitutional reforms, RBC news agency reports, citing two participants of a seminar for vice governors dedicated to voting. The seminar was conducted by the Presidential Administration between February 13 and 15.
According to RBC’s sources, the seminar did not give any concrete guidelines, because “everyone knows what needs to be done”. “ …