Новости за 29.12.2017

US President Donald Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign for the 2016 US presidential election and Russia, amid an ongoing federal investigation into alleged links between the two. Read more here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying an agreement enabling Russia to expand operations at its naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus. Read more here.

United States Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker believes that the military clashes in Donbas in 2017 have been the most violent over past three years. However, in the end, Russia has failed to change the political course of Ukraine and obtained “just the opposite result.” Read more here.

The Security Service of Ukraine does not disclose the names and lists of those people whom Ukraine transferred to uncontrolled territories during the exchange of prisoners, because this is personal information. This is reported by Hromadske with reference to the SBU. .

ANKARA – Turkey will buy two S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries from Russia under an accord signed on Friday, with the first delivery planned for the first quarter of 2020, the Undersecretariat for Defence Industries (SSM) said on Dec.29. Read more here.  

The state register of medicines within a pilot project has been integrated into the ProZorro electronic procurement system. According to a report posted on ProZorro, the integration of the register into the system will allow state customers to choose the subject of procurement from the drop-down list under the international non-proprietary name (INN), which standardizes […]

Stanislav Yezhov, the governmental interpreter that is suspected in the espionage in the favor of Russia did not have the access to the classified information and did not work with the confidential data as Interfax-Ukraine reported. Read more here.

Digital forensic expertise of recordings purporting to contain the voices belonging to former Georgia President and Movement of New Forces leader Mikheil Saakashvili and disgraced Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Kurchenko was falsified, Saakashvili’s lawyer Ruslan Chornolutsky has said. “Saakashvili has never made the acquaintance to Kurchenko or spoken with him. Our position is clear. We believe […]

MOSCOW – US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker said he expected to meet with Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov in Jan.2018. Speaking on the Echo of Moscow radio station on Dec.29, Volker said the meeting had not yet been scheduled, the parties were discussing the date acceptable to both of them, and that […]

Two coal ships have arrived from the United States in the Yuzhny sea trading port (Odesa region) for DTEK energy holding and PJSC Centrenergo. Read more here.

Russia plans to limit US military reconnaissance flights over Russian territory under the Open Skies Treaty starting Jan. 1 in response to limits on Russian flights over the United States recently announced by Washington, Russian news agencies reported. Read more here.

The post of chess grandmaster Anna Muzychuk about her intention to boycott the World Chess Championships in Saudi Arabia has broken the record in Ukrainian Facebook segment. Read more here.

Unknown assailants have severely beaten and hospitalized an environmental activist in Russia’s southwestern city of Krasnodar after he filmed illegal construction of a luxury mansion on the Black Sea coast. Read more here.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed decrees that envisage the liquidation of local courts and the creation of district courts. “I have signed decrees on the liquidation and creation of local courts in Ukraine, and I call on lawyers and scientists to actively participate in competitions for the posts of judges,” he wrote on his […]

Mykhailo Halaiko, the head of Mykolaiv International Airport has been caught on offering a Hr 700,000 bribe to Oleksii Savchenko, the governor of Mykolaiv Oblast, prosecutors say. Halaiko was arrested by the National Police of Ukraine and Mykolayiv Oblast prosecutors late on the night of Dec. 28. If found guilty, the airport head faces several […]

MOSCOW — A Moscow court has sentenced the financier who has advocated for a US law targeting Russian officials over human rights abuses to nine years in prison in absentia over tax evasion and funneling money overseas. Read more here.

Facebook says it blocked the social-media accounts of Ramzan Kadyrov because the Kremlin-backed Chechen leader had become subject to financial and travel sanctions imposed by the U.S. government. Read more here.

A phonoscopic examination has confirmed the authenticity of the voices of the leader of the Movement of New Forces party and former Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and fugitive Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Kurchenko, which were recorded by Ukrainian law enforcers, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine (PGO) Larysa Sarhan has said. “The Ukrainian Research […]

Ukraine recorded 274 cases of violations of freedom of speech in 2017, as reported by the Institute of Mass Information (IMI) with reference to its own annual study “Freedom of Speech Barometer”. Read more here.  

ANKARA – Turkey and Russia have signed an accord regarding the supply of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles to Turkey, CNN Turk and other media reported on Dec.29, finalising a deal the two countries have been working on for more than a year. Read more here.

The SBU Security Service of Ukraine has established that the latest hacker attacks on government and infrastructural information systems in the fall of 2017 originated from Russia, SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak has said. Speaking in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine, Hrytsak mentioned a massive phishing email attack this autumn on official e-mail addresses of central […]

MOSCOW — The spokesman for President Vladimir Putin says the Kremlin views deteriorating relations with the United States as a major disappointment of the year. Read more here.

Facebook and Twitter could face sanctions if they continue to stonewall parliament over Russian interference in the EU referendum, the chair of a Commons inquiry has said. Read more here.

An official in Russia’s Foreign Ministry says Russia could host talks between the United States and North Korea if Moscow is asked to do so. Read more here.

Employees of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) units for counter-intelligence protection of Ukraine’s interests in the field of information security ceased in 2017 the activity of 388 offenders involved in the administration and moderation of anti-Ukrainian resources on the Internet, the SBU’s press center reported on Dec. 28. According to the results of the fight against […]