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President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian authorities on Saturday to temporarily recognize civil registration documents issued in separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine, a decision strongly criticized by Ukraine's president. The decision will enable people from the conflict-hit region to travel, work or study in Russia. According to Putin's order, published on the Kremlin website, Russia will temporarily recognize identity documents, diplomas, birth and marriage certificates and vehicle registration plates issued in the eastern Ukraine regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Ukraine must have a say in any deal struck between Russia and the United States aimed at ending violence in eastern Ukraine, its deputy foreign minister said on Wednesday. Ukraine, which has been battling pro-Russian separatists in its eastern Donbass region for nearly three years, is worried that U.S. President Donald Trump will cut Kiev out of any peace negotiations as he attempts to improve ties with Moscow. "Because we are talking about the future of our country, we don't want to be excluded from the negotiations," Deputy Foreign Minister Olena Zerkal told Reuters. "We don't want to be a...

<p>Putin is Israelis’ person of the year, according to a Panels Research poll taken for The Jerusalem Post and its Hebrew sister publication Ma’ariv Sof Hashavua.</p>

Turkey relies on Russia for $20 billion of natural gas every year. If that flow is even slightly altered, even for a single day Turkey will grind to a halt. That natural gas engines Turkey's electric grid. Gas is next. Russia will start pulling it. They have already cancelled work on the underwater gas pipeline which, together with the nuclear electric plants, would eventually make Turkey more energy independent. Russia will get away with everything. And despite pressure that Turkey is trying to apply the real pressure will be placed by Russia on Turkey. No one is willing to step...

Lithuania said Friday it would buy 88 German-made armored fighting vehicles in its biggest-ever military purchase amid concerns over neighboring Russia. "We have come to the unequivocal opinion to choose and acquire the Boxer infantry fighting vehicles," said Lithuania's defense chief Jonas Vytautas Zukas. [...] The three Baltic states and Poland have also called for a permanent NATO presence in the region to deter Russia, but the allies have so far stuck to back-to-back troop rotations. ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to form an economic bloc, as an alternative to the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He has asked the government to start making contacts with Asian countries. "I suggest that we and other Eurasian Economic Union countries should kick-off consultations with members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on a possible economic partnership," said Putin, addressing the Russian Parliament on Thursday. SCO includes China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan. Other countries holding observer status with the organization include India, Iran, Belarus, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Belarus.ASEAN unites Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia,...

Russia cut gas exports to Europe by 60 per cent today, plunging the continent into an energy crisis 'within hours' as a dispute with Ukraine escalated. This morning, gas companies in Ukraine said that Russia had completely cut off their supply. Six countries reported a complete shut-off of Russian gas shipped via Ukraine today, in a sharp escalation of a struggle over energy that threatens Europe as winter sets in. Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Croatia and Turkey all reported a halt in gas shipments from Russia through Ukraine. Croatia said it was temporarily reducing supplies to industrial customers while Bulgaria...

There is no end in sight for Russia’s economic crisis, as crippling sanctions and tumbling oil prices leave the country staring into an abyss, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned. Catherine Mann, the OECD’s chief economist, said Russia was moving closer to shutting itself off from the rest of the world, while the West’s sanctions against Moscow over its annexation of Crimea in Ukraine had left no end in sight for the country’s woes.

President Vladimir V. Putin said Monday that he would scrap Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline, a grandiose project that was once intended to establish the country’s dominance in southeastern Europe but instead fell victim to Russia’s increasingly toxic relationship with the West. It was a rare diplomatic defeat for Mr. Putin, who said Russia would redirect the pipeline to Turkey. He painted the failure to build the pipeline as a loss for Europe and blamed Brussels for its intransigence. The decision also seemed to be a rare victory for the European Union and the Obama administration, which have appeared largely...

PUNGESTI, Romania — Vlasa Mircia, the mayor of this destitute village in eastern Romania, thought he had struck it rich when the American energy giant Chevron showed up here last year and leased a plot of land he owned for exploratory shale gas drilling. But the encounter between big business and rural Romania quickly turned into a nightmare. The village became a magnet for activists from across the country opposed to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Violent clashes broke out between the police and protesters. The mayor, one of the few locals who sided openly with Chevron, was run out of...

Seeing its gold-spangled blue flag flown on the barricades of Kiev thrilled the European Union, reviving its self-image as a beacon of democracy at a time of growing doubt and economic gloom. But nearly a year on from the first "EuroMaidan" protests that would topple the pro-Moscow president who had spurned an EU trade deal, some in Brussels are disillusioned by the experience of helping Ukraine. EU generosity in waiving import duties and funding gas supplies from Russia may be being abused, they say.

Ukraine, Russia and the European Union signed a deal on Thursday that will see Moscow resume vital supplies of gas to its ex-Soviet neighbor over the winter in return for payments funded in part by Kiev's Western creditors. After several failed rounds of talks in recent weeks as conflict rumbles on despite a ceasefire with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, the accord also eases concerns that a new "gas war" could disrupt winter supplies if energy to EU states, notably through pipelines shut down across Ukraine since June. With overnight temperatures already nudging below freezing in Ukraine, European Commission President...

Who stands to benefit if Denton bans fracking? Those behind the petition drive say it will benefit the Denton residents because they won’t have to worry about wells being fracked less than 300 feet away from their homes, which is what happened to several neighborhoods in South Denton. Economist Ray Perryman said the result will be millions of dollars and jobs lost for Denton, costing the city up to $251.4 million over 10 years. Being the oil capital of the country and one of top producers of oil and gas worldwide, the stakes will be high when Denton voters cast...

Poland said on Wednesday the volume of gas it has received so far this week from Russian gas monopoly Gazprom was down by at least 20 percent. Some European countries believe Moscow may use a disruption of gas to Europe as a trump card in its confrontation with the West over Ukraine. The row has already dragged ties between Moscow and the West down to their worst since the Cold War. Ukraine's gas transport monopoly Ukrtransgaz was quoted by a Russian news agency as saying Gazprom was limiting flows to Poland to disrupt supplies of gas in the opposite direction,...

According to NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen, Russia’s myriad intelligence agencies, which now include the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the military intelligence directorate, or GRU, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), and the Federal Protective Service (FSO) are working directly with European environmental groups to fund anti-fracking campaigns. Putin is doing this to slow the spread of the U.S. shale revolution across the Atlantic so Russia can hold on to its monopoly of the European natural gas market. Europe’s energy insecurity – its dependence on Russian gas – has proven to be Putin’s favorite tool of geopolitical...

Testimony ofMr. Edward LucasSenior Fellow and Contributing EditorCenter for European Policy AnalysisWashington, DCJuly 8, 2014Senate Foreign Relations CommitteeSubcommittee on European AffairsGood afternoon. Thank you for inviting me here today. It is an honor and a privilege to give testimony to this committee and I would like to thank Chairman Murphy and Ranking Member Johnson for this opportunity. I will give a short oral version of my written testimony and then look forward to taking questions.I have been dealing with European security for more than thirty years, as an activist for freedom and democracy during the Cold War, as a foreign...

Slovyansk greeted the Ukrainian military. Local cuddled with the Defence Minister and take pictures with members of ATU, thanking the soldiers for osovoboždenie from terrorists and cried from happiness. We have previously published video release Of. It also shows how people meet Ukrainian military: "Finally! We have been waiting for you so much! ". Yesterday, a number of other cities of slovyansk and Sealy ATO liberated from terrorists. Video: inforesist.org

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday it has notified Kiev about plans to send 60 metric tons of humanitarian aid to eastern regions of Ukraine caught in the fighting between the government forces and independence supporters. "The note states that Russia has prepared a truck convoy to deliver a total of 60 metric tons of humanitarian aid comprising food and personal hygiene supplies," the ministry said in a statement. "The trucks are expected to depart to Luhansk and Donetsk on June 28, they may later proceed to other regions of Ukraine hosting internally displaced population," the statement said. Moscow has...

As the debate over how to regulate fracking — and whether to permit the process at all — rages in the U.S. and Europe, there are powerful interests that can benefit from blocking its expansion, namely, existing oil and gas producers, such as the Gulf States and Russia. There have been plenty of rumors that the governments of such places have supported anti-fracking activists, but now NATO has more or less officially accused Russian intelligence agencies of supporting anti-fracking NGOs in Europe. The FT reports: Russian intelligence agencies are covertly funding and working with European environmental groups to campaign against...

Ukraine faces the threat of Russia cutting off gas supplies when a 06:00 GMT deadline passes on Monday after talks on a long-running gas pricing dispute failed. Russian natural gas producer Gazprom said it was not extending the deadline for Ukraine to start paying off its gas debts after the discussions ended in the early hours of the morning in Kiev, raising the prospect of disruptions to gas flows to the European Union via Ukraine. The breakdown of the talks is likely to increase political tensions that have mounted in the past few days between Kiev and Moscow as Ukrainian...