Cold War II

The first of a group of 60 US diplomats who have been expelled from Russia in the wake of the poisoned spy row departed from Washington's embassy in Moscow early Thursday, an AFP reporter on the scene said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, separately, over the phone late on March 16, according to a diplomatic source. 

The U.S. State Department has approved the proposed sale of Javelin antitank missiles and launch units to Ukraine in a deal worth about $47 million, the U.S. military says.

Deputy Prime Minister for Public Order and Security and Defense Minister Krasimir Karakachanov is on a working visit to Brussels.

He participates in the meeting of NATO defense ministers. Deputy Prime Minister Karakachanov is expected today to hold talks with US Defense Secretary James Matisse.

The United Nations should consider a force of some 20,000 soldiers from non-NATO countries and 4,000 police to help resolve the crisis in Ukraine, according to a new report to be presented to top officials this week.

Ukraine security service official Igor Guskov told Ukrainian television on Friday that at least seven Serbian mercenaries were fighting in eastern Ukraine as part of a private Russian military unit, called Wagner, one of whom was now dead.

Germany is worried about the situation in Iran escalating, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Wednesday, cited by Reuters.

Speaking to reporters on a visit to Ukraine, Gabriel also said he was skeptical that a decision by the United States to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine would help lead to a resolution of the Donbass conflict. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin says "the Minsk format" for settling the Ukraine crisis is ineffective.

The reason, according to Putin, is that the authorities in Kiev "have no desire to implement the Minsk agreements."

At one point he compared the region of Donbass with Srebrenica.

A truck hit a car from the NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg motorcade, who is on an official visit to Poland. Four people were injured, two of them are policemen.

Stoltenberg's car has remained unharmed, but the two vehicles involved in the collision have serious material damage, bTV reported.

Authorities are clear that this is a road accident.

Russia took its first steps on Friday to retaliate against proposed American sanctions for Moscow’s suspected meddling in the 2016 election, seizing two American diplomatic properties and ordering the United States Embassy to reduce staff by September.