Ahead of the visit by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople to Mount Athos, one of the centers of the Eastern Orthodox monasticism, sprayed slogans against him have appeared in one of the monasteries, Romfea news agency reported on Thursday

President Donald Trump instructed US diplomats to work with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine policy, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told Congress in prepared testimony on Thursday

Progress on lifting the European Union's sanctions against Russian can be reached in 2020 if there is a positive outcome from the upcoming Normandy format talks, Ralf Stegner, a co-chair of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and its leader in Schleswig-Holstein, told Sputnik on Thursday

Around 8,000 militants of the Taliban Islamist movement and the Islamic State terror group (IS, outlawed in Russia) remain in Afghanistan near the border with Tajikistan, aggravating security situation in the region, Chairman of the Coordination Service of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Council of Border Troops' Commanders, Col. Gen. Alexander Manilov, said on Thursday

The first joint military exercise between Ukraine and the United Kingdom, dubbed Warrior Watcher, began on Thursday in the city of Mykolaiv, the Ukrainian Naval Forces said

The Commonwealth of Independent States is concerned over the boost of NATO activities near its borders, CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev said on Thursday

The next meeting on the Ukrainian settlement in the Normandy format is expected to bring progress to the issue, Ralf Stegner, a co-chair of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Germany and leader of the SPD party in German's Schleswig-Holstein state, told Sputnik on Thursday

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will meet with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger October 31 to in particular discuss the situation in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday

The construction of the Serbian section of the TurkStream gas pipeline is proceeding as scheduled and will be completed by the end of the year, Serbian Ambassador to Russia Miroslav Lazanski confirmed in an interview with Sputnik