• French banks refused to issue a credit for the election campaign of Marine Le Pen

    The leader of the National Front (FN), Marine Le Pen, is facing difficulties with financing her campaign for the upcoming presidential elections in France. As the politician herself has said on BFM-TV, she currently lacks about €6 million in funding needed to run a successful campaign.

    "No French bank has agreed to issue a loan for me to conduct an election campaign," the politician said.

    The FN leader noted that "French banks freely lend money to other parties. I regard this as a political …

  • NATO fighters made 110 flights from the Baltic states to escort Russian Air Force aircraft in 2016

    Last year, NATO fighter jets stationed in Baltic countries scrambled 110 times to escort Russian military aircraft flying near the borders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as reported by postimees.ee, citing information from the Ministry of Defence of Lithuania. The activity of Russian aircraft still remains higher than before 2014.

    According to data provided by the Ministry of Defense to the Baltic News Service, in 2013 NATO fighters scrambled 47 times, in 2014, 140 times, in 2015, about 160 …

  • Lithuania called the militarization of Kaliningrad a challenge for NATO

    The Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Linas Linkevičius, said in an interview with The Times that he considers the Russian military build-up in Kaliningrad a challenge for NATO. 

    Particularly, Linkevičius called on NATO to stop "Russian military hooliganism” stating that “the military build-up in Kaliningrad is a challenge for NATO."

    Earlier, Lithuania stated that Russia is trying to limit the arrival of NATO allied ships to the Baltic States with the help of the new coastal missile complexes in …

  • Four Dutch fighters arrived in Lithuania as part of NATO mission

    On the 2nd of January 2017, four F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets of the Dutch Air Force landed at the Lithuanian airbase in Šiauliai. As delfi.lt reported, the contingent of the Royal Netherlands Air Force will take over the NATO air policing mission in the Baltics from the 5th of January. It will consist of approximately 120 people.

    The Dutch servicemen will replace their French colleagues, who have been on duty with four Mirage 2000 fighter jets for four months. The contingent of the …

  • US Congress is preparing tougher sanctions against Russia

    A Member of the House of Representatives of the US Democratic Party Congressman, Adam Schiff, said that Donald Trump will receive a resolute answer from the Congress if he decides to ease the sanctions against Russia.

    The American politician said this in an interview with ABC.

    Schiff believes that the recently imposed sanctions against Russia do not go far enough. He believes that Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham will present even tougher sanctions against Russia.

    "We believe that …