In the coming days, Slovakia will file a lawsuit against the European Union's decision to ban the import of Russian gas, adopted by a qualified majority, and will seek interim measures. Prime Minister Robert Fico announced this on Friday, Reuters reports . According to Fico, the lawsuit will be sent to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Prime Minister criticized the procedure for adopting the ban regulations.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was arrested just over 25 years ago, on April 1, 2001. Several months later, he was transferred to the international tribunal in The Hague. It was the first time a former head of state had been brought to trial before such a court.

Among the new “foreign agents” who were added to the register by the Ministry of Justice on April 17 was chemist Alexander Kabanov. He developed new ways to treat cancer and became one of the first participants in the “megagrants” program created to attract outstanding scientists to work in Russia. Now he works in the USA.

In today's summary: In the Kharkov direction, the Russian Ministry of Defense reports on progress southeast of Volchansk On the Seversky ledge, the Russian military is trying to penetrate the Rai-Alexandrovka line on the approaches to Slavyansk In the Pokrovsk direction, Russian troops established stable control over part of Rodinsky north of Pokrovsk In the southern Donetsk direction, the command of the Russian Armed Forces seeks to cover the Ukrainian group west of Gulyai-Polye In the Kherson

There is nothing new in Zakharova’s statements about a “cynical staging”; she only repeats fake accusations that were examined and refuted 4 years ago.

German carriers are calling on the government to take emergency measures before the peak summer season: use strategic reserves of aviation kerosene and open access to the NATO pipeline system for the largest hubs - Frankfurt and Munich. Bloomberg writes about this. Industry association BDL has also called for temporary reductions in carbon charges, easing of green fuel requirements and relaxation of passenger compensation.

The management of the stadium in the Polish city of Chorzow refused to hold a concert by rapper Kanye West, citing “formal legal” reasons. It was supposed to take place on June 19. Earlier, the country's Minister of Culture Marta Cenkowska called the concert “unacceptable”: “We are talking about an artist who publicly expressed anti-Semitic views, condoned crimes and made money by selling swastika T-shirts. These are not “contradictions”.

Domestic parrots don't just copy the sound of human names, but meaningfully use them to address specific people and animals, scientists from the University of Northern Colorado, the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences came to this conclusion. The results of the largest study of this kind were published in the journal PLOS One. Of the 884 parrots whose speech data were collected in detail, 413 used names—almost half.

More than a dozen states are ready to provide military resources for a multinational defense mission to restore navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced this on Friday, April 17, following a meeting in Paris, Reuters reports .

An account allegedly associated with the representative office of the Ministry of Labor of Tajikistan in Russia published a message about supposedly new rules for crossing the border. There, with reference to some confirmation from the FSB, it is said that Russian border guards have the right to check electronic devices - mobile phones, tablets and laptops.

The head of the urban settlement of Bodaibo, Alexei Botvin, was fined 10 thousand rubles for “failure to fulfill obligations to protect the population in an emergency.” Due to a utility failure, the village had no heating for almost a month this winter. “People of Baikal” reported this. The protocol, as the publication clarifies, was drawn up by the prosecutor's office.

Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Family Protection, Issues of Paternity, Maternity and Childhood Nina Ostanina said that she intends to address the issue of so-called solo motherhood and be critical of the practice of having children from donors. The reason was data on the growing popularity of artificial insemination.

The governor of the Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko, ordered the formation of mobile fire groups to protect factories and critical infrastructure from Ukrainian UAVs. The head of the region announced this in his Telegram channel. “As part of the decision, it was decided that all logistics, including the purchase of cars, necessary equipment, inventory, will be taken over by the government of the Leningrad region and enterprises of critical infrastructure facilities,” the statement says.

The Zaporozhye nuclear power plant on the evening of April 16 temporarily completely lost external power supply. This is the second such incident in less than a week - and the fourteenth since the beginning of the conflict, said IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi. Power was restored approximately 40 minutes later. The reason for the shutdown has not yet been determined. An IAEA team at the plant is investigating and continuing to monitor the situation.

The reserves of the Russian economy have been largely spent, and the situation at the macro level looks more difficult than in previous years. Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov announced this at the All-Russian forum “My Business” in Vsevolozhsk, Vedomosti writes . According to Reshetnikov, new taxes create an additional burden, which entrepreneurs have to adapt to. The minister sees the main task as helping businesses get through this period.