• 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 …

  • 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 …

  • 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 …

  • 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 …

  • Barack Obama called on Putin to withdraw Russian forces from Ukraine

    While meeting with President Putin at the G20 Summit, President Obama raised the issue of withdrawal of the foreign troops from Ukraine, the release of hostages and return of the control over the Ukrainian border. The information on the meeting of the two Presidents has been made available through an official report of the US National Security Council.According to the White House, the talks between Putin and Obama lasted about 35 minutes.Talking about the situation in Ukraine, the US President …