Breaking News, 8th of May, 2018

A Russian helicopter KA-52 crashed during the scheduled flight over the eastern regions of Syria. Russia stated that the bodies of two dead pilots have been delivered to their assigned airport by the search and rescue team. According to the preliminary data, the cause of the accident could be a technical malfunction.

The head of the Russian Center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria, Major-General Yury Yevtushenko, announced that on Monday, as part of earlier agreements, the relocation of terrorists and members of their families from the de-escalation zone «Homs» has began. «For these purposes, a humanitarian corridor with a checkpoint near the settlement of Er-Rustan has been opened today.» — Yevtushenko explained, according to TASS. Before the relocation, the terrorists surrendered to the government troops two armored vehicles, 44 weapons of various types with ammunition, added the major-general.

French Minister of Defense, Florance Parley, announced that there could be more strikes on Syria if France receives reports of chemical weapon attacks in there. «If this happens — we could consider the possibility of repeated strike» — said the French minister. She underlined that the attack during 14th of April «was a warning», and now France is expecting «an appropriate reaction». The Minister also stated that «all the targets were destroyed» — thus refusing to comment on the information that a number of French missiles could not be launched because of technical problems.

Turkish Foreign Minister announced that «Turkey will strike back at the USA if Washington cancels the delivery of F-35 fighters to Turkey.» In his view, the proposal of US lawmakers to temporarily stop the supply of weapons, including F-35 aircraft, was wrong and illogical.

The Armenian parliament, during a special meeting on Tuesday, elected Nicola Pashinyan, the leader of the protest movement and also the head of the opposition faction «Elk», as the prime minister of the republic, Interfax reports. For his candidacy, 59 deputies voted ‘for’, and 42 voted ‘against’. The candidate required a minimum of 53 votes to be elected. Earlier, the ruling ‘Republican Party of Armenia’ stated that to resolve the situation in the country — they will provide the necessary number of votes for Pashinyan’s election as prime minister, but they are still against his candidacy in general.

In DPR, over the past day, Ukrainian troops violated the ceasefire agreement 13 times, firing 559 shells at the front-line regions of the Republic. The most intense fire from the positions of Ukrainian troops was concentrated on Gorlovka, and Zaitsevo, as well as Dolomitnoe and Gagarin Mine. In addition, the vicinity of Yasinovatoy and the southern village of Kominternovo were under attack.