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. [...]

At least 11 people have been killed and 40 others have been injured in Donetsk, where a school and a bus stop came under fire - reportedly from Ukrainian Army positions. Two people are reported to have died at the school, and nine at the bus stop, according to Donetsk People Republic's Depity Prime Minister Andrey Purgin. [...]

Amid the ruins of a small Lugansk Region village, elderly residents are crying as they try to rebuild their lives. The Ukrainian army “liberated” them from everything they held dear, including their homes, Raisa Repey tells RT’s Maria Finoshina. “[The Ukrainian army] call themselves liberators – they liberated me from everything I own, from my home. [...]

One more mass grave has been found in a village in eastern Ukraine, say self-defense forces. The site was located days after OSCE mission confirmed the discovery of three mass burial sites in areas recently abandoned by Kiev forces. The new site of the suspected murders is near Nyzhnia Krynka village, not far from the town of Makeevka, self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) First Dep [...]

Prisoner swaps in Ukraine are in danger of stalling as rebels say they will no longer tolerate Kiev's practice of producing random people for exchange instead of actual members of militia and political prisoners. Prisoner exchanges are a crucial part for consolidating the shaky truce in eastern Ukraine. The peace deal signed in Minsk, Belarus, on September 5 states that all captives must be eve [...]

Mass graves with bodies bearing signs of violent death, and grieving relatives of those who were identified: That was the blood-curdling scene witnessed by an RT crew in a village near the city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine. Four bodies were found in two shell craters behind a burned-out coal mine near the village of Nyzhnia Krynka, 35 kilometers northeast of Donetsk. RT’s Maria Finoshina re [...]

RT correspondent Paula Slier faced strong anti-Russian bias during an OSCE panel on the freedom of journalism. She was invited to speak about her experience as a reporter while covering the situation in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine. Slier was attending a panel entitled ‘Professional Journalist: How to escape a deadly danger’ inWarsaw, Polandon Thursday, where she wanted to share her [...]

There is no draft law on creating a special status for the restive regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko said, adding that Ukraine is only to be decentralized. “There will be no law on the special status of the Donbass region,” Poroshenko said on Thursday, speaking at a press conference in Kiev. [...]

Moscow is bewildered by Washington's warmongering rhetoric, which accompanied President Petro Poroshenko's visit to the US. Russia has also noted all the Russia-unfriendly opinions voiced recently by hawkish American politicians. “We’ll keep in mind all signals, including those unfriendly towards Russia, that were heard during the visit of the Ukrainian president to Washington,” commented [...]

A reported claim by Ukraine's Defense minister that Russia used tactical nuclear weapons against his troops sparked sarcastic comments from Moscow and criticism from the rival Ukrainian Interior Ministry. “So Russia did use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukrainian troops,” the journalist wrote on his Facebook page, citing Geletey’s words. [...]

The families of German citizens killed in the Malaysian plane crash in eastern Ukraine are planning to sue the Ukrainian authorities in the European Court of Human Rights, accusing them of manslaughter by negligence. Ukraine should have closed its airspace if it couldn’t provide for the safety of flights over its territory, Elmar Giemulla, a professor of aviation law representing the three fa [...]

A preliminary report on the crash of the MH17 released this week by the Netherlands has answered no questions Russia was interested in, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. "International experts have spent three weeks in Kiev, [they] talked with Ukrainian authorities. [...]

President Petro Poroshenko has requested NATO give “special” security status to Ukraine. Addressing the US Congress, he called on Washington to provide Kiev with “more military equipment, lethal and non-lethal” to “keep peace” in the east of his country. While President Barack Obama previously pledged only non-lethal assistance to Kiev, such as bullet-proof vests and helmets, Porosh [...]

$30 million will be given to those who help identify the perpetrators of the downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine that killed all 298 on board, said an independent German fraud investigation company. Two months have passed since the Malaysia Airlines plane on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot-down in eastern Ukraine on July 17 with 298 crew and passenge [...]

The Ukrainian parliament has approved laws on special status for the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, as well as amnesty for those participating in the hostilities. The special status law has received 277 ‘yes’ votes from a total of 450 MPs, while the amnesty law was approved by 287 parliamentary members. The session of the Verkhovna Rada is underway during which MPs are to ratify an agreement [...]

While most civilized people view the Swastika and other Nazi symbols as abhorrent reminders of unspeakable evil, the Washington Post trotted out a new way of seeing them – as “romantic” – a sign that apologists for Ukraine’s coup regime know no limits, reports Robert Parry. The U.S. mainstream media’s deeply biased coverage of the Ukraine crisis – endlessly portraying the U.S.-bac [...]

A total of 1,300 troops from 15 nations, either active NATO members or would-be members, have come together for a military exercise in western Ukraine – even as the fragile truce in the east of the country barely holds. The exercise, code-named “Rapid Trident” has been an annual event since 2006, and has been organized by the Germany-based US European Command (EUCOM). It was initially pla [...]

NATO member states have started supplying weapons to Ukraine, the country's Defense Minister said on TV. His comments came a few days after a similar statement by a Ukrainian presidential aide sparked a diplomatic scandal and a rash of denials. In an interview with Channel 5, Ukrainian Defense Minister Valery Geletey said that he had held verbal consultations with the defense ministers of the � [...]

The last truck from Russia's second humanitarian aid convoy to the Eastern Ukrainian city of Lugansk has returned home after delivering its cargo. All vehicles had reached the Ukrainian-Russian border without incidents and the last of them crossed the border in the direction of Russia at around 6:30 pm local time (2:30 pm GMT). [...]