With heavy fighting underway in south-eastern Ukraine, the distribution of humanitarian aid from Russia has started in the city of Lugansk, which is besieged by the Kiev forces. The first 12 points distributing food have already begun working. The minimum offering includes rice, buckwheat and sugar, three canned meats, a packet of tea and 10 liters of water, Novorossiya news agency reports. [...]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has announced plans for a second humanitarian convoy to be sent to eastern Ukraine, urging foreign actors and agencies to participate in continuing efforts at relieving the crisis. Failure to do so would constitute a violation of international law, he warned. [...]

Further delays in the delivery of Russian aid to eastern Ukraine, which is facing a humanitarian disaster, would have been unacceptable, President Vladimir Putin has said in a phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Given the obvious protractions by Kiev on the issue of the delivery of Russian aid to southeast regions of Ukraine, which are suffering a humanitarian catastrophe, a dec [...]

Moscow has accused Kiev of placing political interests above humanism, adding that it is confident it made the right decision to order a convoy with Russian humanitarian aid to proceed to the conflict zone without waiting for further Ukrainian permission. The Russian aid convoy on Friday finally reached Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, which has been devastated by repeated shelling. White Kamaz truc [...]

Russia’s consumer watchdog has shut down four McDonald's restaurants in central Moscow – including the first-ever outlet in the country – over “administrative violations.” More of the company 430 Russian franchises are under investigation. “Multiple violations of sanitary norms were detected in the sourcing of food and waste disposal in McDonald’s restaurants during inspections ca [...]

Switzerland has said it will not re-export European agricultural products to Russia that now can't get access to the country's market. “We have had requests from European countries, including the producers of fruits, vegetables, dairy products and meat, but we didn’t give permission to have their products imported to Switzerland and then exported to Russia,” as ITAR-TASS quotes Jurg Jordi [...]

Kiev should make public the records of communications between the Ukrainian air traffic control and the Malaysian Airlines flight 17 in the hours before it was shot down over Ukraine’s turbulent east, Russia’s UN envoy said. The issue was among several Russia raised at a UN Security Council meeting, which was called by Russia to discuss the progress of the investigation into the tragic inci [...]

OSCE observers stationed at two Russian border checkpoints, the Ukrainian counterparts of which are controlled by the Ukrainian military, have not witnessed any movements of weapons across the border. The monitors did witness young people “dressed in military style” moving across the border into Ukraine, Paul Picard, acting chief observer of the OSCE Mission, told journalists. However, all [...]

Russia and China plan to increase technology cooperation, with Moscow set to increase exports of software in exchange for data storage, Russia's Communications Minister said. Nikolay Nikiforov, head of Russia's Ministry of Communications, announced via Twitter that Russia and China have agreed to increase the supply of Chinese servers and storage systems and production in Russia, and to boost t [...]

All operations on Russia's Gazprom-led project South Stream have been suspended, as they do not meet the requirements of the European Commission, Bulgaria's Ministry of Economy and Energy said on its website. “Minister of Economy and Energy Vasil Shtonov has ordered Bulgaria’s Energy Holding to halt any actions in regards of the project,” the ministry said. This specifically means enterin [...]

Some European food producers have reportedly asked Switzerland to provide an alternative supply corridor for goods embargoed by Russia. The agriculture import ban imposed by Russia does not apply to Switzerland as it is not an EU member. [...]

Ukraine government and rebels blame each other for attack, which has killed evacuees trying to escape the conflict. Dozens of people, including women and children, were killed on Monday when a convoy carrying refugees was hit by rocket fire near the eastern city of Luhansk, a Ukrainian military spokesman said. [...]

MOSCOW: Russia may tighten retaliatory sanctions against Western nations to include a ban on imports of cars, among other things, if the United States and the European Union impose additional sanctions on Moscow, Vedomosti daily newspaper said on Monday. Following Russia’s stand off over Ukraine, western nations imposed sanctions on Moscow including on its financial and energy sectors, and pu [...]

With over two weeks since his disappearance in eastern Ukraine, the whereabouts of Russian photojournalist Andrey Stenin remain unknown. His colleagues suggest that he may soon be freed as part of a large exchange of captives. Stenin’s employers at Rossiya Segodnya news agency (formerly RIA Novosti), said that they have so far failed to get any information on their journalist from the Kiev au [...]

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has urged a rethink of the European Union's sanctions policy toward Russia, saying the measures are like "shooting oneself in the foot." “The sanctions policy pursued by the West, that is, ourselves, a necessary consequence of which, has been what the Russians are doing, causes more harm to us than to Russia,” Reuters quoted Orban as saying on the radio [...]

Forget Visa and MasterCard. After the two American credit system payment companies froze accounts without notice in March, Russia has been looking for an alternative in China UnionPay. China UnionPay plans to have 2 million cards in Russia in the next three years. [...]

While the West is continuing to try and punish Russia via economic sanctions, the response of the Russian Central Bank has been to diversify away from the euro and dollar – and to buy up more gold. As the geopolitical situation in Ukraine deteriorates, Russia is moving to protect itself from currency risks associated with the euro and the greenback. [...]

Russia's Security Service (FSB) has denied reports that the country's troops have crossed the border into Ukraine. Border guards have been deployed to provide security near the frontier, but they operate only on the Russian side, the FSB said. The mobile military teams “operate strictly within the territory of the Russian Federation,” a spokesperson for the FSB Border Guard Service in Rosto [...]

A Russian convoy to deliver humanitarian aid has reached the Ukrainian border. Some western journalists were given the opportunity to monitor its progress, as well as being allowed to see what they were carrying. The Ukrainian government had been adamant that this was little more than a 'Trojan Horse' being used to transport Russian military hardware to anti-government troops in the east of the [...]

Russians must consolidate and develop their country, neither sliding into isolationism nor sacrificing their dignity for the sake of pleasing anyone, President Vladimir Putin declared. “We have to develop our country with calm, dignity and efficiency, without barricading ourselves from the outer world or breaking ties with partners, but also without allowing anyone to treat us with disrespect [...]

The Ukraine crisis has shown that Russia has been strong in getting its message across to international audiences, a meeting of US international media chiefs concluded, outlining the need for Washington to create a Russian-language TV news channel. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a bipartisan agency that supervises government-sponsored media, targeting international audiences, met We [...]

Some 82 percent of Russians with firm political preferences say they would vote for Vladimir Putin if a presidential poll were to be held on the nearest weekend, according to the latest research by independent pollster the Levada Center. Of all people who took part in the poll, 52 percent said they were ready to vote for Putin. In January 2014, the share of such people was about 29 percent and [...]