The EU won't provide any new funds for Ukraine to pay off its gas debt to Russia, and Moscow has no guarantees should Kiev use agreed funding elsewhere, said the EU Energy Commissioner's spokeswoman Marlene Holzner. The European Commission is allocating €760 million ($954 million) of financial aid to Ukraine earlier than scheduled to help it pay for gas deliveries, said Mrs. Holzner on Friday [...]

The vote taking place this weekend in Kiev-controlled territories is part of the Maidan junta's desperate quest for legitimacy. Nazis still dominate Ukrainian politics, while Kiev dreams of a military "final solution" for the east. In 2001, the Austrian economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote a book titled ‘Democracy: The God that Failed’, in which he – among other things – compared the proc [...]

Moscow never put Kiev's right to develop closer ties with the EU into doubt, it only wanted to escape risks that Ukraine's economic integration into the European Union might have brought about, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. “I stress this: we never questioned Ukraine’s right to develop partnership with the EU,” Lavrov told the Verdens Gang (VG) Norwegian newspaper, when he [...]

An Interview with “The Saker” The Saker is an ex-military analyst who was born in Europe to a family of Russian refugees. He now lives in Florida where he writes the Vineyard of the Saker blog and is a regular contributor to Russia Insider. The international community of Saker Blogs includes, besides the original Saker blog, French, German, Russian, Oceania and Serbian members and will soon in [...]

Since 3 October the Russian Embassy in the UK has been waiting for a positive response from the Financial Times on publishing a letter from Ambassador Yakovenko's as part of the debate on Ukraine. We have only heard that it is under consideration. So, we have decided to publish the text of this letter on our website for the British public to see for themselves that there is nothing subversive, [...]

Ukrainian National Guard troops are protesting outside the presidential administration office in Kiev as they demand demobilization. They are refusing to return to their barracks outside the capital. About 200 soldiers have surrounded the building claiming they have served six months longer than their contracts stipulated. [...]

Haunting images taken at the shelled Donetsk airport recall the nuclear ghost towns of Chernobyl and Pripyat. After half a year of fighting in eastern Ukraine, the once regional airline hub has now been abandoned and left in ruins. [...]

The recent Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist Kailash Satyarthi has condemned the violence against children in Ukraine urging Kiev to act against it amid the ongoing crisis. “It is the responsibility of the Ukrainian government to save their citizens particularly children. [...]

Ukrainian CyberBerkut hacktivists claim that they have penetrated the internal network of Ukraine's Defense Ministry and found proof that Kiev is getting secret data from MH17 crash investigators, including information which implies its involvement. A document, posted on the website cyber-berkut.net, and allegedly downloaded from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry network, dates back to August 7 and [...]

A Reuters examination of Ukraine's probes into February's Maidan shootings, which left over 100 dead and nearly a thousand injured, uncovered 'serious flaws' in the case against Berkut officers, arrested by the country's officials. The research, carried out by journalists, is based on interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys, protesters, police officers and legal experts. [...]

The Ukrainian economy, weakened by war, needs additional funding from sources beyond the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stay afloat, the fund's head Christine Lagarde has said. The IMF’s December estimate of the cash needed has turned out to be insufficient following the continued conflict in the country. [...]

The Russian Lower House is calling on international organizations and national parliaments and governments to investigate crimes against civilians in south-east Ukraine, and to step up efforts to find a peaceful settlement in the region. The motion was passed by 428 votes in favor with only one abstention. [...]

Students at the Complutense University of Madrid kicked out several radical Ukrainians who stormed into a lecture, trying to provoke a fight. Posters reading, 'Ukraine besieged by fascism will not happen,' appeared in campus halls after the incident. The university faculty of political sciences and sociology is currently hosting an exhibition titled, "Humanitarian crisis in southeastern Ukraine [...]

As President Petro Poroshenko signed the lustration law, the trash dumping of lawmakers in Ukraine is gaining momentum. The General Prosecutor warned that there is a thin line between the so-called "trash lustration" and lynching. Poroshenko signed the law that establishes the legal framework for checking government officials linked to the rule of ousted President Yanukovich. [...]

Ukrainian Security Service seeks to reach the crash site of the Malaysian MH17 flight to fabricate at least some evidence which will allow Kiev to conceal the true causes of the catastrophe from the world, said Russia's Defense ministry. “One cannot but feel angry about yet another attempt by the Ukrainian security service chief to use absolutely groundless allegations in a bid to persuade th [...]

Winter is around the corner, and Kiev will not have enough time to fill its underground storage facilities with the 18-20 billion cubic meters of gas needed to survive the winter, and ensure EU supplies, warns Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller. Every year before winter, Ukraine stores up gas in its underground storage facilities in preparation to distribute it to homes and buildings when the cold weat [...]

Kiev doesn't have full control of its military and paramilitary forces, who continue to violate the principles of international humanitarian law, highlights the latest UN report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. The UN has stated that at least 3,660 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since April – including 330 since the ceasefire brokered on Sept. 5. [...]

As the mainstream Western press keeps lamenting Belarus's rising influence, very few commentators dare to explain why "the last dictatorship in Europe" became the only possible venue for peace talks between the warring Ukrainian parties. The explanation is not quite flattering for the countries of the EU: it turned out that they all were biased in their attitude to the conflict in Ukraine, all [...]

At the Autumn Meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA), Russian official Sergey Naryshkin made the Ukrainian crisis a top European security issue, while speaking at a conference on new security challenges in the region. At a meeting on "New Security Challenges: The Role of Parliaments" on Friday, Naryshkin, the Head of the Lower House of Russian Parliament, who leads the Moscow delegatio [...]

The Swiss Red Cross worker, who died in Donetsk shelling on Thursday, was killed on a rebel-held territory as a result of an attack from the position controlled by Kiev's armed forces, Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “We note the hectic reaction of the Kiev authorities, who hurried to shift the blame for the death of the employee of this established international organization [ [...]

Moscow is ready to support Ukraine in its overcoming of the crisis, as the recovery of the bordering country is in Russia's national interests, President Putin said, adding that the state is keen to have a 'reliable, predictable partner and neighbor.' Speaking at VTB’s Russia Calling! annual investment forum on Thursday, Putin said Russia's “closest, fraternal” nation is now in deep polit [...]

Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia have together re-exported 1.7 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Ukraine, Gazprom, Russia's biggest gas exporter said Friday, questioning the legality of the practice. “There is every reason to believe that Russian gas is being delivered to Ukraine that isn’t intended for them, but for other European customers. [...]