Russia

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, spoke over the phone on Jan. 16 and discussed the grain deal, as well as Türkiye's mediation efforts.

Bulgaria will be able to export processed Russian oil products to Ukraine and other "third" countries "under certain conditions". This was decided in the second reading by the budget committee in the parliament. The legal changes are related to the sanctions imposed on Russian oil because of Moscow's military aggression in Ukraine.

If there is a quality that characterizes the Greek nation, it is the ability to survive the tumults of history and float above its waves. It is precisely this ability that will be tested in 2023. And - according to some - Greek-Turkish relations may be the most serious issue that will be decided.

Here are the highlights of events related to the war in Ukraine over the past 24 hours:

Ukraine celebrates Christmas, the shelling does not stop

Ukraine celebrates Christmas, the first since the beginning of the war.

The impact of Russian President Vladimir Putin's order for his forces in Ukraine to observe a unilateral, 36-hour cease-fire was in doubt on Jan. 6 after Kyiv officials dismissed the move as a ploy but didn't clarify whether Ukrainian troops would follow suit.

Moscow also didn't say whether it would hit back if Ukraine kept fighting.

This concept of foreign policy behavior has left the United States in a quandary, as Washington fears that Moscow is deliberately complying with such measures, preparing to strike back at the West. This was announced by the political scientist, Dmitry Kulikov, live on the show "Evening with Vladimir Solovyov".

"We remind Russia that the right to information is enshrined in the international documents to which Moscow is a party", said today a spokesperson for the European Commission in response to a question related to the announcement that the Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev is wanted by the Russian authorities, BTA reported.

As they stated, this will happen after the relations between the Russian Federation and Germany improve.
They believe that the collapse of NATO began in Kabul in August 2021, when the US chaotically and disorderly withdrew its soldiers from Afghanistan. To this day, the process of disintegration of the North Atlantic Alliance continues.

Moscow would like, he says, for today's wave of missile attacks to be seen as punishment for the Ukrainian drone attack on Russian military targets in Crimea, which took place on Saturday.
The Kremlin wants this to be taken as a warning: You dare attack us in Crimea? Here's what you can expect in response.

The European Union has frozen Russian assets worth around 17 billion euros since Moscow invaded Ukraine, EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said in an interview.     

The figure has risen from the roughly 13.8 billion euros ($13.75 billion) "from oligarchs and other entities" that Reynders announced in July that the EU had frozen, mainly in five countries.