• Lithuania and Russia prepare to exchange captured spies

    Lithuania and Russia have agreed to exchange a number of prisoners accused of espionage, the Lithuanian news agency BNS reported, citing informed sources.

    Lithuania will hand over Nikolai Filipchenko, a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agent who was convicted two years ago. In turn, Russia will release the Lithuanian citizens Yevgeny Mataitis and Aristidas Tamosaitis.

    The exchange agreement also includes a Norwegian citizen who was convicted in Russia and one other Russian citizen. …

  • Israel uses Turkish invasion to strike Syria

    Journalist Babak Taghvaee reported on his Twitter account that Israel had used the Turkish offensive against Kurdish militias and the chaos in Northern Syria to conduct airstrikes in another part of Syria.

    According to the journalist, Israel conducted the airstrike on military bases in Eastern Syria near the city of Abu Kamal. Israeli aircraft had previously attacked the surrounding areas of this city, and Israeli media claimed that Iranian and Pro-Iranian forces were the target of the strikes. …

  • Russian officials remove US diplomats from train during official trip to Severodvinsk

    Three US embassy employees were removed from the Nyonoksa – Severodvinsk train in Russia since they lacked authorization to enter the restricted territory, Interfax reports, citing an informed source.

    The US diplomats included Navy Attache Curtis, Attache Arriola and Attache Colonel Dann.

    “Since this territory is restricted, the US embassy staff were removed from the train, and signs of an administrative offense have been perceived in their actions,” the report reads.

    The source noted that …

  • Former ambassador: Ukraine didn’t give permission to declassifying Trump-Zelensky phone call

    Former Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Valeriy Chaly confirmed to the LB.ua in an interview that Ukraine has not agreed to declassify the transcripts of the phone calls between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.

    “If Ukraine agrees to publish the relevant phone call, according to procedure, it must agree to declassify it… Phone calls have a certain restricted access. In the US, it’s very closely regulated, you saw an example of this in the last scandal, …

  • Skripal poisoner spotted at wedding of GRU general’s daughter

    Ruslan Boshirov, one of London’s chief suspects in the Skripal poisoning case and identified by Bellingcat to be the same person as GRU Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, has been spotted in the wedding photographs of GRU Major-General Andrey Averyanov’s daughter, Radio Liberty reports, based on a joint investigation with Bellingcat.

    According to the journalists, the photographs were taken six months before the poisoning of the Skripals. The wedding was held in a hotel on the shore of Lake Senezh, 15 …