Itar Tass

The US government has announced that military training will be provided to 600 Ukrainian national guards in March.

The new development was revealed a day after US President Obama announced his support for the diplomatic solution to the conflict in Ukraine. 

Romania's President-elect Klaus Iohannis has argued that the country is in need of deep change.

Speaking at his first press conference after Sunday's presidential runoff, Iohannis said that voters had made it clear that the country was in need of thorough change.

He claimed that the election results were a signal to him and to the political class.

The EU may file legal action the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the Russian food embargo, according to EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht.

De Gucht said in an interview for German newspaper Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung that the complaint was being prepared and it could be filed in mid-September, adding that no final decision had been made on the step.

A Russian convoy of 280 trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine set off on Tuesday amid Western warnings against using help as a pretext for an invasion.
   

Russia's federal veterinary and phytosanitary control authority (Rosselkhoznadzor) has banned imports of bovine cattle, beef and by-products from Romania over an outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, the Russian ITAR-TASS reads.

MOSCOW - Two more planes of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations will deliver humanitarian aid to Serbia which was hit by the most severe floods in the past 120 years, Head of the Ministry's Centre for Crisis Management Oleg Voronov said.

The suspension of the South Stream gas pipeline is not being discussed, according to Dominique Ristori, Director-General of Directorate-General Energy of the European Commission.

Serbs in Crimea send 'false message,' experts and citizens say

A group of extremists who have joined the Russian paramilitary forces in Crimea do not represent the state, experts tell SETimes.

A group of Serbs said they are supporting the Russian forces in Crimea. [AFP]

MOSCOW - The Russian State Duma, lower house of parliament, ratified on Friday two intergovernmental agreements on military cemeteries, which Russia had signed with Serbia and Slovenia.

“Our aim is to support the Russian people in the name of the Serbian people,” a Serbian volunteer named Milutin Malisic said.

“We are representing Chetnik movement, which is similar to the Russian Cossacks,” he told the Russian agency Itar Tass.