Contents tagged with Russia
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Pentagon Expresses Scepticism towards Russian Aviation Tactics in Syria
U.S President Barack Obama called Russia a constructive partner in searching for a political solution to the conflict in Syria. He promised to continue cooperation with Moscow despite all existing disagreements. However, according to Colonel Steve Warren, a representative of the International Coalition that conducts operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, there is no reason yet to talk about the full cooperation of Russian and U.S. forces. Warren stated that Russians use ordinary unguided …
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Islamic State Trying To Develop Chemical Weapons
Western nations and their allies in the Middle East are trying to keep a close eye on an ambitious program on the use of chemical weapons by the terrorist group “Islamic State.” A few days after terrorist actions were carried out in Paris that resulted in 129 casualties, the Prime Minister of France Manuel Valls delivered a warning speech. “We bear in mind that there is a threat of the use of chemical or bacteriological weapons. We aren’t ruling anything out,” he stated, in his speech at the …
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President of the European Commission offers Putin a deal if the truce is observed in Eastern Ukraine
The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Junker wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin, offering closer trade relations between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union in the observance of the truce in Ukraine. Reuters refers to this letter that was written after the G20 Summit in Turkey. In his letter, Junker stressed the importance of stable relations with Moscow, which, unfortunately, have been difficult to maintain over the past year. According to Junker, he appealed to the European …
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Can Ukraine free itself from its dependence on Russian electricity?
Ukraine is going to continue to import electricity from Russia because the Soviet power system in place does not have the ability to generate sufficient electricity. The Ministry of Energy and Coal Mining stated the import of electricity from the Russian Federation is necessary because, “Electricity is a good which can’t be stored. It has to be generated at the very moment when consumption occurs.” There are several reasons why the current Ukranian system is not able to generate adequate …
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Trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine Finds Serious Ceasefire Violations
Following a recent meeting in Minsk, the Trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine (TCG) made a public statement. In the statement, the TCG indicated that the situation along the boundary line in the conflict area has worsened. The Trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine made an appeal to the parties in the conflict in Donbas to avoid the renewal of military actions and urged them to comply with the conditions of the Minsk agreement.
On November 17, Special Representative to the Organization for …
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Sanctions over Ukraine to be extended despite Russian cooperation in Syria
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, US and EU are prepared to keep pressure on Kremlin and renew their sanctions despite new Russian cooperation in the wake of the Paris attacks.The sanctions are expected to be discussed at EU leaders mid-December summit, and the decision must be backed by all 28 member states.
Officials say there is a broad agreement that economic pressure should be kept on Russia until the peace is fully implemented. The options discussed are: extending the sanctions …
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Russian court to overturn international court decisions
As reported by RIA Novosti, a group of Russian Parliament members has introduced a draft bill that would authorize the Russian Constitutional Court to overturn international court decisions “if they run counter to the provisions of the Russian constitution”.
The main goal of the proposal was “to safeguard Russian legal sovereignty,” one of the bill's co-sponsors, the Communist party lawmaker Vasily Likhachev, was quoted as saying.
The bill's authors explicitly mentioned the European Court of …
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Ukrainian Prime Minister: Russian embargo will cost Ukraine $600 million
At the Cabinet meeting, the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, stated that Ukraine has to get ready for Russian embargo . “We are also getting ready for new import restrictions imposed by Russia to come into effect. Our preliminary estimate for 2016 is that Ukraine will lose $600 millions of export to the Russian Federation" – stated the Prime Minister. Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that three years ago Ukraine was almost 35% dependent on the Russian market, and now the number has been …
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Will Ukraine accept Russia's debt restructuring offer ?
Putin has agreed to restructure Ukrainian debt but Kiev may reject his offer. After a long period of negotiations, Russia has agreed to restructure the Ukrainian debt, which the previous government, headed by Viktor Yanukovich and Nikolay Azarov, loaned from Moscow at the end of 2013. Russian President, Vladimir Putin has proposed the restructuring scheme and called it “the best conditions”.
Experts believe that Ukraine, which refused to pay the debt earlier, will reject Putin’s offer. However, …
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Increased risk of renewed fighting in Eastern Ukraine
The situation in the East of Ukraine remains tense. Militants shelled Ukrainian positions 25 times in the last 24 hours. The majority of the attacks occurred in Donetsk area. Towns of Marinka, Troitskoe, Verhnetoretskoe, Krasnogorovka, Peskov and Avdeevka were shelled with anti-aircraft systems, mortars, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms. The Ukrainian positions in the towns of Shirokino, Zaitseve and Novgorodskoe also came under direct fire.
After 20 pm, the towns of …