Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said that the plane crash near Smolensk that took the life of President Lech Kaczynski and other Polish officials was an act of terrorism. Macierewicz said that the act was aimed at depriving Poland of the people who led the country to independence. The Minister did not directly say that Moscow was responsible, BBC reported.

Earlier, an inquiry found that the plane crashed due to pilot error, but Poland recently opened a fresh probe into the crash. …

The Belarusian KGB confirmed on Sunday that it has detained prominent businessman Yury Chizh on suspicion of large-scale tax evasion, Interfax reported. 

Chizh, the owner of the Belarusian firm Triple, has been a close adviser to President Alexander Lukashenko since the early 1990s, and has long been referred to as one of the President’s main sponsors.

Sources indicate that Chizh has recently fallen out of favor with the Belarusian government.

If convicted, Chizh could serve up to 7 years in …

Prohibiting national banks from opening branches in Ukraine and other unfriendly countries can disrupt their commercial and financial activities, as stated by Russian Federation Council member Sergey Kalashnikov.

The Federation Council called the proposal made by the Communist party to prohibit Russian banks from opening branches in Ukraine and other unfriendly countries senseless. According to the Deputy Chair of the Economic Committee of the Russian Duma Sergey Kalashnikov, "so we can build …