Sergey Lavrov

As many as 500 000 properties in Eastern Bulgaria are owned by Russian citizens, the country's General Consulate in the country estimates.

At the same time, five Russians have become Bulgarian citizens by paying BGN 1 M in 2014, an option allowed under Bulgarian law.

MOSCOW - Serbia's OSCE chairmanship is a big challenge, but Belgrade can be a fair mediator in conflict resolution, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Moscow on Friday, while his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic said that it is an opportunity to demonstrate creativity, justness and principled conduct to the world.

BELGRADE- First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia Ivica Dacic will begin a visit to France on Thursday, and then travel to the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

"It is hardly any secret that the aim sanctions is to create social and economic conditions to change [the ones in] power in Russia," a deputy minister has told Russia's lower house of Parliament, the State Duma.

BELGRADE - Heidi Tagliavini, special representative of the OSCE chairperson-in-office to the Trilateral Contact Group with Russia and Ukraine, will keep the office on the proposal of future OSCE chairperson, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic.

BASEL - Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has had bilateral meetings in Basel with his Russian, Turkish, Swedish and Moldovan counterparts, and the main topic of the discussions was Serbia's OSCE chairmanship in 2015, for which the country was given backing.

The West does not even conceal its "anti-Russian" sanctions are aimed at toppling down the ones in power, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned Saturday.

Lavrov explicitly said Russia was "not going to shoot itself in the leg" by renouncing cooperation with Europe, "but everybody understands that "business as usual" [the latter phrase said in English] is already impossible."

Ukraine has turned down Moscow's suggestion to talk directly to pro-Russian rebels to put an end to the conflict in the eastern part of the country.

NATO warned on Nov. 18 of a "very serious" build-up of Russian soldiers and weapons inside Ukraine and on its border as Germany's foreign minister urged Kyiv and Moscow to respect a tattered peace plan.
      
The West is keeping up pressure on Russia over Ukraine following a bad-tempered G20 summit in Australia at the weekend which Russian President Vladimir Putin left early.

A long period of severing ties between Washington and Moscow should be expected amid attempts to solve the Ukraine crisis, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned.

In an open lecture organized by the ruling party United Russia, Lavrov declared Russia would strive to expose the utopic nature of any attempts to reinstate a unipolar model in the world.