If a presidential election was held in Ukraine today, current President Petro Poroshenko would have received 13.6 percent of the vote instead of 54.7 percent he secured last May in what is a dramatic fall in popularity.

Western countries are not united in their stance on relations with Russia and the Ukrainian crisis, as evidenced by the recent visit of the Russian president to Italy, an Italian political analyst said.

Eight or nine EU countries speak against the anti-Russia sanctions and their prolongation, a senior Russian lawmaker said.

With the Ukrainian economy in a tailspin, ordinary Ukrainians now face the unnerving reality of having to pay “new European prices” while getting their “old Ukrainian salaries,” a German newspaper wrote.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s intention to deploy air defense systems on the border with the self-proclaimed republic of Transdniestria clearly pursues the aim of dragging Russia into another regional conflict to which NATO might be a party, which should certainly ring the alarm bell for the EU countries, the president of the International Centre for Geo-Political Analysis, Leonid Ivashov, told TASS in an interview.

The prove-a-negative trap is the Big Lie technique of Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels: there is no substance to the allegations and there is no obligation to present evidence to verify, thanks to the dutiful and unquestioning nature of Western corporate “journalism”.

Washington does not want to bear the burden of the collapsing Ukrainian economy, which may soon default on its debt, according to French economist Jacques Sapir, head of the Research Center of Industrialization.

General Kunchukov gives his reading of the security situation around Transdnistria

Macedonian leaders, some of the early joiners of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project, have now reneged on their initial commitment. The nation’s PM Nikola Grujevski that the local Maidan look-alike protesters want to go, says the project will need to be cleared with Brussels first and reiterated his country’s allegiance with their Euro-Atlantic choice. By making concessions Grujevski is following the same path as [Ukrainian President] Viktor Yanukovich before him before losing it all.

Former Polish army commander and ex-Deputy Defense Minister Waldemar Skrzypczak says that Poland and the Baltic states prepare for 'hybrid war' with Russia, while adding that NATO's combined military power comfortably exceeds the forces at Russia's disposal.

There is an enormous gap between the Kiev authorities and ordinary Ukrainian people, as if they live in different countries, Luca Ribustini, Italian journalist for Italian daily newspaper Fatto Quotidiano told Sputnik after visiting Kiev and Donbass.