Breaking News, 20th of June, 2018

Despite the protest in the US Congress, The Pentagon will being the transfer of the first batch of F-35 fighter bombers to Turkey on Thursday. According to US Defense Secretary Mike Andrews — the transfer ceremony will take place in Fort Worth, Texas. «After that — two fighters will be sent to the Air Force Base ‘Luke’ in Arizona» — he added. On Monday the US Senate passed the bill on the budget of the Pentagon for the 2019 financial year. The budget takes into account the cancelation of sending of the newest F-35 fighters to Turkey in connection with Ankara’s plans to purchase Russian S-400 systems.

While speaking at the plenary session in the Russian Parliament with the annual report on the activities of the Accounts Chamber in 2017 — the Chairman of the Accounting Chamber, Alexei Kudrin, stated that more than 40% of violations, worth of 760 billions of rubles total, were identified by the Accounts Chamber during the year of 2017 in «Roscosmos». According to Alexei Kudrin, the results of the inspections have already formed the basis for criminal cases. «The total amount of violations, shortfalls in income and misuse of the funds have reached 1 trillion 865 billions of rubles. This is almost twice as much as in 2016, and 3.5 times more than in 2015.» — Alexei Kudrin concluded.

The United States will withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council. This statement was made by the permanent representative of the United States in the organization — Nikki Haley. According to her, the decision was made after the unsuccessful attempts of reforming of the organization, and also because of its «chronic anti-Israeli bias». The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, thanked Washington for the decision. The UN announced that they would rather prefer to keep the US on the council.

The American Council on Foreign Policy will hold a working lunch in the US Congress on 27th of June during which the so-called »Russian threat», allegedly created by the Nord Stream-2 project, will be discussed. Earlier, Donald Trump linked the development of ties with Europe with the construction of the Nord Stream-2.

n the DPR, during the past day, the Ukrainian troops violated the ceasefire 6 times, firing 152 shells at the front-line regions of the DPR. The western outskirts of Gorlovka — the settlements of Shirokaya Balka and Gagarin Mines, as well as the village of Belaya Kamenka and Novolaspa in the Telmanovsky district in the south of the DPR were under attack.

Ukrainian troops fired at the positions of the LPR twice over the past day. This was reported in the defense department of the LPR. The areas around the villages of Donetskii and Zelenaya Roshcha, located near the city of Lugansk, were under fire. Mortars and heavy machine guns were used in the shelling.