The European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn, said that the Commission's proposal to abolish visas for Ukrainians may appear before the end of March, as reported by Radіo Svoboda.

"The President and the Prime Minister still have some commitments to fulfill, but we expect that we will obtain those reports very soon, be able to evaluate them, and during the first quarter of this year we will propose visa liberalization," he said.

During …

The Donetsk City Court in the Rostov region rejected a petition from the lawyers of the Ukrainian servicewoman, Nadiya Savchenko, requesting the admission of a video of the defendant's arrest in the Luhansk region of Ukraine in the summer of 2014. The judge explained his decision indicating that the admission of the video "doesn't mean that the defense will acquire anything," according to Anton Naumlyuk a correspondent for Radio Svoboda.

Earlier Savchenko’s lawyers presented evidence that the …

According to Russian State Duma Deputy Dmitry Gudkov, the Kremlin's support for the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, could lead to a sharp drop in the government’s ratings. It would also send the message that to kill, intimidate or terrorize anyone and anywhere is allowed.

There is no doubt that sooner or later the problem of Chechnya will show up on the national level, stated Gudkov on Facebook.  He said that there was evidence of Chechen involvement in the murders of journalist and human …

In an interview with espresso.tv, Russian historian and opposition leader Andrei Piontkovsky said that Ukraine should invite not only the heads of Germany and France to take part in the negotiations to find a solution to the war in the Donbass region, but also representatives of other Western countries.

"Merkel and Hollande have already acquired some kind of Stockholm syndrome in relations with Russia and the Donetsk bandits… The Minsk Agreement is their child. They, as a father and a mother …

According to Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė, the Lithuanian people are better than the most European countries at understanding their Russian neighbor.

In an interview with ICTV, Grybauskaitė stated that most European countries have a certain quality of remoteness in their relationships with the Russian Federation.  "The people of Lithuania in their own skin understand this relationship.  Italy and Greece are too remote.  They never had historical relations with Russia like we have.  …

An investigation conducted by the German magazine, Bild revealed that Russia spends about 1 billion Euros on the salaries and welfare of citizens of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. According to Bild, this amount corresponds to 0.6% of the annual expenses of the Russian budget.

Moscow spends nearly 79 million Euros every month on salaries of state employees and pensions in so-called DPR and LPR, Bild wrote. About 2.4 billion Rubles (approximately 30 million Euros) …

Speaking at American University in Washington on January 15th, the U.S. State Department’s Coordinator for Sanctions, Daniel Fried, stated that the U.S. Government believes that sanctions are an instrument of international policy. According to Fried, economic influences have a greater effect than the use of military force in today’s political climate.

In recent history, there are examples of both successful and unsuccessful sanctions. For the latter, Fried cites the blockade of Cuba, which, …

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, will hold a meeting next week with the National Security Council in advance of the publishing of a report regarding the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. The document is expected to reveal the involvement of the Kremlin in the death of the former officer of the Russian FSB (Federal Security Bureau), the Sunday Times reported on the 17th of January.

The Prime Minister and the National Security Council will discuss the results of the …