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Ukraine-EU Visa-Free Regime may Appear before the Middle of March
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 …
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Court says Video Footage of Nadiya Savchenko's Arrest is Inadmissible Evidence
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 …
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Piontkovsky: More countries should participate in the Ukrainian peace process
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 …
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Russia Spend €1 Billion per Year on State Salaries and Pensions in DPR and LPR
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) …
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Daniel Fried: Russia is now Taking Sanctions Seriously
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, …