Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz has made another prepayment for Russian gas deliveries Saturday.

The World Bank has agreed with President Vladimir Putin’s comment that Russia has successfully managed to overcome the worst of its current economic difficulties due to the government’s fiscal and monetary policy.

The US-backed Ukrainian leadership is making every effort to sabotage the Minsk accord, Stephen F. Cohen emphasized, warning that the alternative to the Minsk 2 agreement is a larger war between Moscow and Washington.

Russian companies are not always able to offer competitive solutions in the sphere of equipment for prospecting, exploration and production of mineral resources

According to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Russia was the final holder of Ukraine's Eurobonds issued on December, 2013.

Russia plans to start operating its analogue of Silicon Valley in Crimea by 2020 with the total revenue of its enterprises expected to reach more than $1 billion in five years.

The journalist and former MP murdered in Kiev this week were labeled as “enemies of the state” by a blog that also published the men’s personal information days before they were gunned down.

The Canadian government has committed as many as 200 soldiers to train Ukraine’s military. It says they not be training neo-Nazis and far-right extremists there. Some former Canadian diplomats warn, however, that Canadian instructors may end up training members of Ukraine’s fascist groups that are now being enrolled in Kiev’s regular forces.

A European MP and leader of Poland’s conservative KORWiN party said that the 2014 Euromaidan riots in Kiev were organized by the CIA and also by Polish spooks.

The SMM monitored the implementation of the “Package of measures for the implementation of the Minsk agreements”. The SMM, based on its monitoring – which was restricted by third parties and by security considerations (cf. below) – observed on-going fighting in and around Donetsk airport, albeit at a lower intensity compared to previous days. The situation, however, remained relatively calm in the Luhansk region and in the rest of the Donetsk region, notably around Shyrokyne, where for the first time the SMM maintained an overnight static presence.

The organization claims responsibility for the "elimination" of ex-MP Mikhail Chechetov, politician Alexander Peklushenko, ex-lawmakers Stanislav Melnik, Oleg Kalashnikov and journalist Oles Buzina