The Donbass region separatists are still holding 131 people hostage. Yari Tandit, advisor to the chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), told Radio Freedom that they can only confirm the fate of 57 of those people. “We are looking for information on the places in which the remaining 74 hostages are situated,” said Tandit.

On December 8th, Irina Gerashchenko reported that the insurgents of Donbass are still holding 140 Ukrainian prisoners. She is the chairman of the Parliamentary …

Russia fears of Baltic countries arranging a blackout of Kaliningrad

Moscow fears this blackout because work began laying cables between Lithuania and Poland, and a further cable to Sweden will soon be added. This means that the Baltic states could soon be in a position to implement such a blackout. As a preventative measure, Russia will have to invest billions of dollars to ensure supplies to Kaliningrad, and it seems as though Russia plans to build four new power plants there. The opinion on …

The "Islamic State" organization has received approximately half a billion dollars from the oil trade.  Most of this amount is directed to the Syrian authorities and some part goes to Kurdish areas and Turkey.

According to the Treasury of the United States, about one third of the capital of the terrorist organization Islamic State (ISIS) comes from trading black market oil.  The IS’s holdings are estimated at about $1.5 billion, said a senior official of the U.S. Treasurer on Thursday, …

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko delivered a warning against "calming" reports on the first stage of anti-corruption actions. He claimed that the results of current efforts to fight corruption were unsatisfactory and that more decisive steps would be required at the start of next year.

"We have to prove that the system, carefully crafted during the entire year of 2015, finally works for Ukraine and is able to bring good results," Poroshenko said during the second meeting of the National …

On Thursday, December 10th, Interfax reported on the findings of the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation (Rosstat). The data indicates that the number of poor in Russia from January to September 2015 increased by millions of people and reached 20.3 million.

2.3 million Russians joined the poverty line this year.  The total poverty rate in the country amounted to 14.1%, an increase of almost 2% compared to the year 2014.  The largest number of poor in 2015 was in the …

At a hockey game in the United States people honored the memory of a Ukrainian-American soldier killed near Ilovaisk.

During the hockey match in Newark between the New Jersey Devils and the Washington Capitals a photo of Mark Paslavskiy appeared on the scoreboard. The whole stadium lit up with the inscription “Heroes Among Us.” According to VIDIA, Paslavskiy was posthumously honored with the title of Hero of the Game.

Paslavskiy, also known by the codename “Franko” was a former American Army …

The Ukrainian Embassy in France reported that at least one Russian propaganda film won’t be seen by the French.

In the French City of Bordeaux the film “Crimea - Path to the Motherland” was scheduled for screening in one of the city municipal halls on December 11th. Shot by TV channel “Russia-1”, the film tells about the annexation of Crimea by Russia and purports to justify the events that led to the war in Donbass.

The Ukrainian Ambassador asked the mayor of Bordeaux to cancel the screening …

The Kremlin has not yet decided what measures will be taken to punish Turkey for the downed Su-24.  For now, the Russian government had decided to strike Turkey financially.  Turkish imports were banned and a one-sided visa regime for Turkish citizens entering Russia was introduced.  In Turkey, the visa-free regime for Russian citizens was never cancelled.Putin, and more precisely the Russian government, is trying to kill two birds with one stone. In situations in which the Russian budget …