BAKKACIMA BLOG

  From its 2023 budget, the German government has allocated an additional 1 billion euros ($1.03 billion) to support Ukraine. According to a document, funding is set aside to protect Ukraine from Russian hackers and gather proof of war crimes. "The Ukraine budget makes clear that our support goes much beyond the crucial and necessary weapons delivery," said Robin Wagener, a Green lawmaker and chair of the parliamentary Ukraine group. "We heavily put money into promoting peace in Europe and Ukraine." The third-largest military donor to Ukraine is Germany.

  In negotiations with the US for restarting nuclear arms inspections, Russia says it does not anticipate a speedy breakthrough. Due to the pandemic, the two nations decided in March 2020 to cease their mutual inspections under the New START treaty, the final remaining agreement restricting their strategic nuclear arsenals. They have yet to agree on a deal to restart them, in any case. The deputy foreign minister of Russia, Sergei Ryabkov, downplayed hopes for a breakthrough at the Cairo summit, which he suggested would happen in late November or early December. Russian news outlets quoted him as adding, "This is not a problem that started today or yesterday, and it will scarcely be feasible to address it in a few days."

  20 Czech diplomats were on Sunday Expelled from Russia in retaliation for a slew of diplomatic expulsions by Prague and gave the affected Czech diplomats just over 24 hours to leave the country, the RIA news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying. Recall that the Czech Republic on Saturday Expelled 18 Russian diplomats, giving them 72 hours to leave, after saying that two alleged Russian spies accused of a nerve agent poisoning in Britain in 2018 were behind a deadly explosion at a Czech ammunition depot four years earlier. The Czech Republic said it had notified NATO and European Union allies that it suspected Russia of causing the 2014 blast, and European Union foreign ministers were set to discuss the matter at their meeting on Monday.

  Alexei Navalny has been jailed by a Russian Court over alleged parole violations in an embezzlement case dating back to 2014, which the Kremlin opponent argues is politically motivated. Judge Natalya Repnikova ordered a suspended three and half years sentence Navalny received in 2014 to be changed to time in a penal colony, the TASS news agency reported. “The court has ruled to satisfy the motion of the Federal Penitentiary Service,” said judge Natalya Repnikova as she announced the decision. Tuesday’s ruling at the

  A ccording to Bartin Governor Sinan Guner, a  Palau-flagged freight ship has sunk off the coast of Turkey’s Black Sea province of Bartin, killing at least three(3) crew members. Governor Guner had said earlier on Sunday that the ship, the Arvin, was a Russian dry freight vessel that sank off the coast of the Inkumu region in poor weather, but later corrected that. “The Arvin ship attempted to take refuge at the Bartin port due to poor weather conditions as it carried cargo from Georgia to Bulgaria,” Guner was quoted as saying by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency. The coastguard said the ship had sunk after taking in water amid poor weather. Meanwhile, six(6) crew members had been rescued and efforts were under way to rescue others, it said in a statement. Anadolu said that all of them were hospitalised and were in good condition. The Russian state agency overseeing sea and river fleets said that only two crew members were Russian nationals and that the vessel belonged t...

Voting is ongoing now in a seven-day referendum on constitutional amendments that would allow President Vladimir Putin to run for re-election twice more and potentially remain in the top job for the next 16 years. Election officials said they were opening polls on Thursday across the country before the official July 1 vote to avoid overcrowding that could spread coronavirus infections. Meanwhile, masks and disinfectant gels are being made available to 110 million voters across 10 time zones, from the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Pacific Ocean.

Denis Popov, a 17 year  old goalkeeper was one of a number of teenagers who had to step in with the first team suffering from coronavirus. It was so unfortunate that Rostov were thrashed 10-1 by Sochi on Friday, but their teenage goalkeeper Denis Popov set a new all-time Russian Premier League record for a stunning individual performance. They had actually gone 1-0 up in the first minute of the game, but were eventually beaten by nine goals away from home. Aleksandr Kokorin scored a hat-trick, Antonin Zabolotny and Dmitry Poloz bagged two each, while Andrei Mostovoy, Ivan Novoseltsev and Nikita Koldunov all got on the scoresheet. Rostov released a statement after seeing themselves go viral, explaining the result. It read: “A lot of supporters of our club who don't speak Russian cannot really understand how today's tie could end with a 10-1 score." “We would like to explain. Six players of our club have been infected with coronavirus, and thus, the entire team had to be qua...