Breaking News, 19th of April, 2018

Russia ceased supplying aluminum to Japan because of US sanctions against »Rusal», the director of the company »Rusal Japan» Kunihiko Higashi announced. «Further supplies of aluminum have been canceled. Our customers reported that they cannot give payments to the company «RusAl» for the aluminum, which in its turn has a connection with the recent US sanctions. Such notifications came to us one after another.» — Kunihiko Higashi explained, according to TASS news agency. Kunihiko noted that «the already loaded in ships aluminum will not be unloaded, but all further planned deliveries will not be carried out.»

The plenipotentiary of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in the contact group on the Donbass, Denis Pushilin, called the Avakov plan on the return of Donbass to Ukraine a »Massacre». «This is not the first time of the announcing of such »freeing» plan for Donbass by Ukrainian politicians. Avakov can’t be considered the author of this idea — the people of the DPR are already well aware of the prospects and desires of Kiev, and they perceive them without illusions.» Earlier, Avakov said that Kiev must return control of the Donbass in stages.

In the DPR, over the past day, Ukrainian troops disrupted the ceasefire 20 times, firing 396 shells at the front-line areas of the Republic. The northern and western outskirts of Donetsk, the areas of Yasinovatoy, Spartak, Zhabychevo, Mineralnoye, Dokuchaevsk and southern villages — Kominternovo, Dzerzhinskoye and Leninskoye — were under fire. During the shelling, tanks, mortars of various calibers, grenade launchers and small arms were used.

The Syrian army is continuing a major military operation in the Eastern Kalamun region in order to force the local opposition to sign a peace agreement with the government, and move out to the north of the country. After the successful storming of the strategic mountain Batra — the elite «Tiger Forces» have entered the territory of the village of Harnub and began firing at militant positions in the city of Jairud.

A spokesman of the Armenian police told to Interfax that the police of Armenia, in the course of actions of unblocking the government buildings on the Republic Square in the center of Yerevan, detained over one hundred protesters participating in mass protests against the appointment of Serzh Sargsyan to the post of the prime minister of the republic. Today in the morning, protesters blocked government offices in the city center. In addition, several hundred demonstrators organized a march through the streets of Yerevan.

Ukrainian troops fired at LPR positions four times over the past day. The areas of settlements Kalinovo, Kalinovka and Zhelobok were under attack. Mortars of various caliber, IFV weaponry, grenade launchers and small arms were used in shelling.