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Russia’s Lavrov says Syrian militants using ceasefires to regroup

“Regardless of how our partners will be working with their friends in Kiev, we are following the President’s orders to take extensive measures to eradicate any attempts to infiltrate our territory”, Lavrov said, commenting on the recently foiled sabotage plot in Crimea.

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Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoygu said on Monday that Moscow is cooperating with Washington to try work out a peace settlement to Syria and tackle the situation in the embattled northern city of Aleppo.

Russian Federation said Friday that the country would break diplomatic ties with Ukraine over what it says were recent attempts to sabotage infrastructure in Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russian Federation two year ago. “Weapons must go silent to make sure that the population is provided with everything necessary”, said Steinmeier.

June and July saw a sharp increase in fighting and casualties in eastern Ukraine, where Russian Federation continues to back separatist forces in a conflict that has killed 10,000 people and displaced some two million since spring 2014.

Moscow also said it has delivered its most advanced S-400 air defence system to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. Nonetheless, we know without Russian Federation we will not achieve progress in either Ukraine or Syria, ‘ Gabriel added.

This was denied by Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister. “The Russia-NATO Council [format] is frozen”.

A Syrian military official said the Syrian air force launched “precise airstrikes on groupings and movements of terrorist groups south and west of Aleppo” that resulted in the death of dozens of “terrorists”. “By the beginning of winter our Western colleagues admitted that it was a mistake, adopted solemn declarations saying that the NATO-Russia Council should work in any weather, especially in times of crisis”.

Russian-German relations have now hit their lowest levels since the German reunification of 1990, Lavrov said, adding that “NATO’s policy to move eastward at any cost deepens division lines in Europe”. “The fact that a couple of ambassadorial meetings were held does not change anything”.

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Lavrov went on to say that relations between Russian Federation and Germany are going through the most hard period since the unification of Germany. The European Union said there was no independent confirmation of the killings.

Rebel fighters fire towards positions of regime forces in Ramussa on the southwestern edges of Syria's northern city of Aleppo