Civil war in Ukraine: News & discussion

[Hindustani78]

May. 18, 2015
Veteran Chechen fighters locked in fierce battle with Russian-backed militants in east Ukraine - watch on - uatoday.tv

Chechen fighters and Ukrainian troops join forces

Almost nineteen years after the war in Chechnya, reports of hundreds of veteran Chechen fighters have emerged who are now battling on both sides of the conflict in east Ukraine.

These men are part of a Ukrainian volunteer battalion defending the front line near the village of Shyrokyne, about 10 kilometers east of the Ukrainian-held port city of Mariupol.

The men form a Chechen battalion named after Shah Mansur, a ruler of ancient Iran. They don't wear any bullet proof gear. The fighters say that according to Muslim beliefs every man's fate is already written in the heavens.

Muslim, Unit commander: "Here is the answer to the body armor question, when your time comes, you can't run away from it."

Ukrainian volunteer battalion fighters and Russian-backed insurgents have been locked in fierce battle over an area near a school in Shyrokyne. Our correspondent Andriy Tsaplienko embedded with the Chechen fighters said: "Everything that they own and what they drive was purchased with their own money. Their weapons were given to them by their countrymen. They crossed many different borders to get there. The most difficult border to cross was into Ukraine. But they've been breaking stereotypes as well as borders to fight for Ukraine, because they see our war as a continuation of theirs."

Chechen rebels fought and lost two wars for independence against Russia. As a result, some Chechen fighters switched sides and joined the ranks of pro-Kremlin president of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov. The 37-year-old strongman has been credited by Russian President Vladimir Putin for bringing stability to the volatile region but critics say he has accomplished this through massive human rights violations.

Now some of the remaining veteran Chechen fighters who still believe in their nations's independence and don't agree with Kadyrov's policies say they're continuing their struggle alongside Ukrainians against a common foe.

Muslim, Unit commander: "We need to break their necks here and not anywhere else, not in Belarus or Kazakhstan or Georgia. And that is why we are here."

They are driven by a strong belief that if Russian fighters are defeated in Ukraine, Chechnya will escape from the Kremlin's sphere of influence as well.

Muslim, Unit commander: "If we beat them here, Chechnya becomes independent, and not only Chechnya, but also the entire Caucasus region. This is why we are here."

Some of the other fighters are young men who say they haven't seen much of the world except war.

Mansur, Chechen fighter: "Our people have known over the centuries what the term ‘Russian occupier' really is. So for us it's easier to understand these things."

Ukrainian volunteer battalions have been locked in fierce fighting against Russian-backed insurgents near Mariupol for weeks, but it seems that ammunition and arms are hard to come by. Most of the men are now using World War Two-era weapons.

Hmuruy, Ukrainian volunteer battalion fighter: "This is a SVT-40, a Tokareva sniper rifle made in 1941." This is why the Chechen fighters are teaching Ukrainian fighters how to make weapons.

The Chechen fighters' commander also says that many more fighters from the Caucuses region want to come to Ukraine to fight for what they say is their 'common freedom'. He says Moscow is using the same methods in Ukraine as it did more than a decade ago in Chechnya.

Muslim, Unit commander: "Soldiers are like slaves, they cry and they are hungry but they outnumbered us. And behind them are their security services, and step by step they went into our country. They're doing the same thing here."

It's still unclear how many of Chechens loyal to pro-Kremlin leader Karydorv are fighting alongside the Russian-backed insurgents and how many are fighting against them. But it seems that for both sides backing down is not an option.

Kadyrov once rejected reports that Chechens back down saying that ‘if a Chechen takes up arms he doesn't surrender'.

 

[vostok]

Google translate.
Ukraine is sinking: The fall in industrial production in April accelerated to 21.7%
05/18/2015 20:49
Ukraine is sinking: The fall in industrial production in April accelerated to 21.7%
Kiev, May 18.
In April 2015 compared to the same period of 2014 the fall in industrial production in Ukraine accelerated to 21.7%.
This was reported today by the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine.
The State Statistics Committee noted that in comparison with the previous month decline in industrial production accelerated to 2%, and up to the period from January to April 2015, industrial output fell by 21.5%.
"In the mining and quarrying, compared with January-April 2014 decline in industrial production amounted to 26.7%, processing - 20.4%, supply and distribution of electricity, gas and conditioned air - 15.4%," - said in a message.
It is worth noting that the data published by the State Statistics Committee, are given without the LC, the DNI and the Crimea.
Earlier, former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov said that, once in the infamous list of the magazine Economist, which put Ukraine in the last place among the countries of the world in terms of economy, Kiev politicians and government officials did not respond to the publication.
Украина идет ко дну: Падение промпроизводства в апреле ускорилось до 2

 

[Agni-5]

Ukraine Is Losing Its Economic War With Russia - Forbes

The New York Times published a sobering and largely downbeat assessment of Ukraine’s political and economic situation earlier today. The article strongly suggests that the earlier sense of optimism surrounding economic reform has, by this point, totally evaporated. Pretty much across the board, earlier expectations about the efficacy of liberalizing reforms are being rapidly adjusted downwards to account for an economic collapse that continues to gather momentum.

The blame for Ukraine’s accelerating economic implosion, of course, lies in large part on Moscow. The Russian government is actively and quite-openly trying to undermine Ukraine’s attempts to re-orient itself towards the West. It’s not exactly breaking news that the Russian government was opposed to the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych and has done everything in its still-considerable power to undermine Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk, and the rest of the post-Maidan government. Nothing that’s happening in Ukraine is happening in a vacuum, and Russian policy has been consciously focused on maximizing economic pain and dislocation.

The important question is not whether Russia is justified in its attempts to economically blackmail its neighbor (anyone with a functional moral compass recognizes that almost all Moscow’s recent actions in Ukraine are deplorable) but whether or not they will work. Essentially, the important debate about Ukraine’s economy is whether the impact of aggressive economic reform coupled with Western financial assistance would outweigh the impact of Russian tariffs, sanctions, and destabilization in Donetsk and Lugansk.

To date, the evidence unfortunately suggests that Russia’s effort to economically strangle Ukraine’s pro-Western government is having its intended impact. The economic damage that Russia has suffered (even in the face of reasonably robust set of Western sanctions) has been substantially outweighed by the damage it has inflicted on Ukraine.

None of this is written in stone. It is entirely possible that the West will finally provide Ukraine with the financial resources to put itself back on solid ground and to more effectively resist Moscow’s attempts to undermine its economy. A sufficiently large pile of cash would, at a stroke, make many of Ukraine’s seemingly intractable problems look a lot less daunting. The United States and its European allies clearly have the ability to do this, but they have so far lacked the will: even as Ukraine’s needs have ballooned over the past year, the amount of Western aid promised to Kiev has remained extremely stingy.

The sad truth is that absent some kind of major change in Western policy Russia seems as if it is likely to succeed in its goal of economically crippling its neighbor. So far Russia’s economy has been unexpectedly robust in the face of the challenges thrust in front of it while, at every turn, Ukraine’s has performed unexpectedly poorly. The lesson that the Kremlin has taken away from this experience is that if they just hold out a little while longer the antagonistic government in Kiev will simply collapse.

Unless something changes soon, Ukraine is heading straight for an economic and financial implosion. It’s unclear exactly what type of political impact that will have (pro-European attitudes might have become so popular that the next government will be of a broadly similar outlook) but the social and human costs will be enormous.

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In Ukraine, Corruption Concerns Linger a Year After a Revolution

KIEV, Ukraine — The country is on the cliff of bankruptcy. A spate of politically motivated killings and mysterious suicides of former government officials has sown fear in the capital. Infighting has begun to splinter the pro-European majority coalition in Parliament. And a constant threat of war lingers along the Russian border.

A year after the election of Petro O. Poroshenko as president to replace the ousted Viktor F. Yanukovych, and six months after the swearing in of a new legislature, Ukraine remains deeply mired in political and economic chaos.

“Poroshenko, whether you like him or not, he’s not delivering,” said Bruce P. Jackson, the president of the Project on Transitional Democracies, an American nonprofit group. “The Ukrainian government is so weak and fragile that it is too weak to do the necessary things to build a unified and independent state.”

Efforts to forge a political settlement between the government in Kiev and Russian-backed separatists who control much of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have hit a deadlock over procedural disputes, despite a cease-fire in February calling for decentralization of power and greater local autonomy as the linchpins of a long-term accord.

The shattered economy keeps sinking, with the G.D.P. plummeting 17.6 percent in the first quarter of 2015. Hoping to avoid default, senior officials have been in protracted negotiations with creditors, but they have failed so far to secure a deal. Officials also now fret openly that more than $40 billion pledged by the International Monetary Fund and allies, including the United States and the European Union, will not be enough to keep the country afloat.

In perhaps the greatest disappointment to the protesters who seized the center of Kiev last year, the new government led by Mr. Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk has so far failed to deliver on promises to root out endemic corruption. Instead, it has become ensnared in new allegations of misconduct and charges of political score-settling.

The Parliament, in which pro-European parties control a huge majority, voted last month to create a special committee to investigate accusations that Mr. Yatsenyuk, a suave English speaker admired in the West, and his cabinet have presided over the embezzlement of more than $325 million from the state.

The government and its supporters deny any wrongdoing and say it has gone further than any of its predecessors in trying to shake off Ukraine’s post-Soviet legacy of mismanagement and malfeasance. They point out that Parliament has adopted a slew of reform initiatives, notably an overhaul of the notoriously crooked natural gas industry and installing new leadership at the national bank.

The continuing disarray is becoming a source of friction between the Ukrainian government and its European allies, especially Germany and France, whose leaders helped broker the cease-fire and are increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of change.

“We don’t have simply Russian aggression against the victim Ukraine,” Mr. Jackson said. “We have a predictably aggressive Russia against an unpredictable and unreliable Ukraine. Ukraine is now seen as not to be trusted. What the E.U. is saying is: Where is the decentralization? Where is the commitment? Where are the reforms?”

Not surprisingly, public confidence in the government has slumped, as well.

Adding to the tumult, Mr. Poroshenko recently declared a crackdown on the country’s richest and most powerful businessmen, known as oligarchs, in a bid to curtail their influence and to win back popular support. Yet the assault risks making enemies of the country’s biggest employers, who until now have backed the government.

“When you don’t want to do anything and you don’t have anything to report on what you have already done, you need an enemy,” said Dmitry V. Firtash, a former patron of Mr. Yanukovych who is a major target in the so-called de-oligarchization campaign. “It’s very convenient to use rich people as scapegoats.”

For Kiev, there is no greater problem, and no greater test, than the as-yet futile fight against corruption. Even officials on the forefront of the effort say it has so far largely gone nowhere.

David Sakvarelidze, the deputy prosecutor general, who helped carry out sweeping changes to the judicial system in his native Georgia, has been given Ukrainian citizenship and a mandate to overhaul the prosecutor’s office.

“They are still corrupted, and no systemic changes have been made in law enforcement agencies and in courts,” Mr. Sakvarelidze said in an interview in his office in Kiev.

He described a criminal justice system that needs to be rebuilt nearly from scratch. For example, he said, there was no effective system of plea bargaining to allow prosecutors to resolve cases swiftly, and no clear goals that set national priorities in law enforcement.

“We do not have any criminal policy,” he said. “None of the prosecutors have clear guidelines.”

Instead of existing government agencies taking action, Mr. Sakvarelidze said, the Parliament has been overly focused on adopting legislation that creates even more bureaucracy.

One of the major promises to come out of the Maidan revolution was a new anticorruption bureau, which is expected to employ 700 enforcement officers. On April 16, after long delays, Mr. Poroshenko finally selected the bureau’s first director, Artem Sytnyk, a former Kiev city prosecutor.

Because of the delays, the government has been unable to deliver on pledges of swift restitution. Most notably, it has failed to recover any of the billions of dollars believed to have been stolen by the former president, Mr. Yanukovych, his family and closest associates.

Nor have Mr. Yanukovych or any of the senior officials who fled with him been arrested, with many now in Russia. Corruption investigations against other former officials and executives of state-owned companies have largely stalled.

Egor Sobolev, an organizer of last year’s protests who is now a member of Parliament and chairman of its Committee on Corruption Prevention and Counteraction, said his panel was flooded with complaints.

“The biggest problem in the country is we do not have a real system of justice, we do not have judges, most of them are people from Yanukovych’s time, very corrupted,” he said. “The same situation with prosecutors.”

“And another problem, a very big problem,” he added, was that “Mr. Poroshenko as the president is not ready to fire them.”

Mr. Sobolev is not alone in his lack of trust in the new government. Many of the Maidan demonstrators who are now in government posts say they are uncomfortable with Mr. Poroshenko and Mr. Yatsenyuk, who were opponents of Mr. Yanukovych but also longtime veterans of the Ukrainian political system that the demonstrators wanted to dismantle.

This is one reason there was strong support in Parliament to create a special committee to investigate allegations by Nikolai Gordienko, the former head of a state financial inspection agency, who accused Mr. Yatsenyuk’s government of benefiting from a major embezzlement scheme.

To a great extent, the frustrations are to be expected, analysts say. “A year out, everybody is always disappointed from any revolutionary upheaval, that’s a statement of social science law,” said Michael A. McFaul, a Stanford University professor and former American ambassador to Russia who is an expert on revolutions and visited Kiev last month.

“There’s never a case where people are saying, ‘Oh, things are going even better than I thought.’ It’s always, ‘The government is not doing enough.’ It’s always, ‘Reform is slow.’ ”

Mr. McFaul said that he had hope for Ukraine’s efforts. “I am impressed with the number of reforms that they have already passed. I think that is underappreciated in the West,” he said.

Still, he said, the task ahead is gargantuan, especially given the demands of Western benefactors. “They just don’t have the state in place to do the kind of things they are being asked to do right now,” Mr. McFaul said.

Boris Lozhkin, Mr. Poroshenko’s chief of staff, said the president had five priorities: “de-shadowing, de-monopolization, de-oligarchization, deregulation and decentralization,” with de-shadowing referring to bringing new transparency to the economy and the government.

“The oligarchy as a basis of the country’s political and economic life must cease,” Mr. Lozhkin said.

But the confrontation has only added to a sense of fear in Ukraine, particularly among business figures and officials who had ties to the Yanukovych government.

At least six such officials have died in apparent suicides this year, and a seventh, Oleg Kalashnikov, a former member of Parliament from Mr. Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, was shot dead outside his home in Kiev last month.

Prosecutors have opened investigations but say they do not believe the killings and suicides are connected.

While the government says it fears a renewed invasion by pro-Russian forces could come at any time, some analysts said there was little reason for renewing hostilities while the Ukrainian side was fighting with itself.

“Russia is just waiting for the internal problems of Ukraine to make it less attractive for the West,” said Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow Institute, a research group. “Putin’s hope is Russia doesn’t need to make Ukraine weak. Ukraine will be weak by itself, and he can just wait awhile and take advantage of its weakness sometime in the future.”

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excellent strategy by Mr. Putin, once the west gets fed up of Ukraine with all it's problems, Russia can re enter and fix things.

 

[Hindustani78]

EU military leaders make sure of presence of Russian troops in Ukraine| Ukrinform
KYIV, May 19 /Ukrinform/. Chiefs of General Staffs of the EU member-states make sure of the presence of the servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine.

Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Viktor Muzhenko has announced this at a meeting of the EU Military Committee in Brussels on Tuesday, an Ukrinform correspondent has reported.

"I raised this issue [on capture of two Russian servicemen, who were engaged in fighting in Ukraine]. However, the issue was not subject to discussion. It was perceived as the fact of presence of the Russian servicemen in the occupied territories in Ukraine," the Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.

He noted that the information, which had been made public yesterday in Kyiv, and today's comments within a speech at the meeting of the EU Military Committee was enough for European military leaders to make sure of the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine.

Among other issues, the Military Committee discussed the situation in Ukraine amidst the conduct of the antiterrorist operation.

ol

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Ten Ukrainian soldiers wounded in Donbas conflict zone in last day| Ukrinform
KYIV, May 19 /Ukrinform/. During the last day no casualties among Ukrainian servicemen have been reported, ten soldiers have been wounded in the area of the anti-terrorist operation in Donbas as a result of hostilities and military clashes.

Spokesman for the Presidential Administration on the anti-terrorist operation, Colonel Andriy Lysenko said this at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

"Over the past day, fortunately, no our soldiers were killed, another ten were injured, mostly as a result of military clash near the village of Troitske," he said.

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OSCE, Amnesty International reps visit two Russians detained in Donbas
19.05.2015
Representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and Amnesty International visited two Russian military detained near the town of Schastia in Luhansk region of Ukraine.

The visit to the Central Military Hospital in Kyiv had been agreed upon with the Ukrainian Security Service.

The visit lasted for about ten minutes, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported. But the visitors declined to provide commentaries, and the content of their conversation remains unknown, he said.

The detained Russian citizens - Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Aleksandrov - are held in tightly guarded separate wards.

Aleksandrov declined to comment when asked whether he was a Russian contract serviceman.

Yerofeyev thanked Ukrainian doctors for quality medical aid. "I'm okay - alive and well," he said.

 

[Agni-5]

 

[gomerker23]

kiev attack donestk
At least one civilian was killed in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk after an army shell hit an apartment building amid intense fire on rebel positions on Tuesday morning.

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[Hindustani78]

According to the press center of Staff ATO, observers Ukrainian party of the Joint Center for control and coordination of the ceasefire and stabilize the boundary sides (STSKK) continue to record the pro-Russian separatist shelling of populated areas and do everything necessary to stop them.So, on the night of 18 on May 19, 2015 regular shelling towns Sands managed to stop on the fifth attempt, about 1 o'clock. The village practically no locals. There are only the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Militants are on a "scorched earth" and this time applied to residential neighborhoods inflammatory (probably phosphorous) ammunition. In the photo recorded one-story house on the street Krasnoarmeyskaya fire which lasted for at least 12 hours.

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OSCE: more trucks from Belarus seen in militant-controlled Donbas : UNIAN news
20.05.2015

The OSCE observer mission based at the Russian checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk in Rostov Oblast says it continues seeing trucks transporting coal from Donbas to Russia and reports an increase in the number of trucks with Belarusian number plates in militant-controlled areas in eastern Ukraine.

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Ukrainian soldiers killed in militant ambush in Luhansk region - watch on - uatoday.tv
May. 20, 2015

Insurgent forces fire heavy weapons banned under the Minsk accords: army spokesman

No letup in fierce fighting in Ukraine's east. At least three Ukrainian soldiers were killed in one attack on Tuesday after insurgent forces ambushed their position in Luhansk region. That's according to an army spokesman. Several more were killed by a land mine as government troops attempted to rescue the wounded, reports news agency TSN. Battles continue in various locations along the demarcation line, as Ukrainian soldiers defend the country from further advances by militants backed by regular Russian troops.

Leonid Matyuhin, Ukrainian military spokesman: "Starting from 18:00 yesterday evening, the enemy continued to shell our positions and peaceful settlements using tanks, artillery, mortars, grenade launchers, heavy machine gun and other weapons"

Some of these weapons are prohibited to be used under the latest Minsk agreement, which came into force on February 12.

Some of the heaviest clashes were seen in Skyrokyne - a coastal village between Mariupol and the Russian border. The settlement is a key target for militant forces, in any attempts to create a land link between Russia and the occupied peninsula of Crimea.

 

[gomerker23]

kiev
collision at the site of construction of a shopping center

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[Solomon2]

Why Ukraine's Success Is Pivotal
Carl Gershman

At a conference in Kyiv last May of world-class intellectuals that was convened Timothy Snyder and Leon Wieseltier, the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, said that Ukraine was “the epicenter of the global struggle for democracy.” It still is.

The goal of that meeting was to rally Western political, economic, and military support for Ukraine’s fight to become a democratic European country. But here we are, almost a year later, and despite the readiness of the Ukrainian people to sacrifice and die for European and democratic values, economic assistance has been inadequate, military aid is minimal, sanctions have had less effect on the Russian economy than the drop in oil prices, and political support has been at best ambivalent. For all intents and purposes, Ukraine has been abandoned by a confused, fearful, and self-absorbed West.

We are all familiar with the various rationalizations that are used to justify this Western paralysis. Some say that Ukraine is part of Russia’s sphere of influence, even though that geopolitical idea is inconsistent with contemporary norms of international law and human rights. Some accept Vladimir Putin’s view that Russian actions in Ukraine are an understandable reaction to NATO enlargement and the alleged humiliation of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many say that there is no military solution to the conflict, but they never explain how a political solution is possible without a military balance.

Many oppose providing Ukraine with defensive military aid because they fear that Russia would just up the ante, and that the West would never be able to match Russian escalation. Such an attitude is an admission of weakness, and it also fails to appreciate the impact on the global order of perceived Western impotence in Ukraine.

And then there are people like the Czech President Milos Zeman who deny that Russia has invaded Ukraine at all, ignoring the overwhelming evidence that it has. NATO Supreme Commander Philip Breedlove has said that Russian “air defense, command and control, resupply equipment [are] coming across a completely porous border.” And former Supreme Commander Wesley Clark, warning of an imminent Russian offensive, said recently that Moscow has deployed 9,000 troops to bolster 30,000–35,000 local fighters in eastern Ukraine, and that it has armed the force with 400 tanks and 700 pieces of artillery.

I talked to many Ukrainians while in Kyiv in late April, and what I found remarkable is that no one I met complained about being abandoned by the West. The closest that anyone came to a complaint about the lack of military aid was a comment by a journalist and former member of Parliament that since Ukraine had given up its weapons two decades ago in the Budapest agreement, it deserved to get some weapons back now. Everyone I met demonstrated an attitude of pride and self-reliance, a mood of sober determination, and a firm confidence that Ukraine will not fail to seize the historic opportunity it now has to break with the past and become a genuine democracy that is a part of Europe.

Of course, Ukraine has no choice since it is facing an existential challenge. This reminds me of something that was said in the aftermath of the Six-Day War by the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, who was born in Kyiv in 1898. Our secret weapon, she said, is that we have no alternative.

Ukraine also has no alternative, and it must fight not just on one but on two fronts. On the military front, it has resisted the aggression by the Russians and their separatist proxies and is fighting them to a standoff, despite the absence of any meaningful aid from the West.

Ukraine has also not buckled on the domestic front. It has begun the process of deep and comprehensive economic reform, even as the economy contracted last year by 6.8 percent, output plunged by 15 percent, inflation surged to 45 percent, and the gap between what donors have pledged and what Ukraine needs to support its recovery is more than $15 billion.

In the face of this crisis, Ukraine has held two successful democratic elections. Following the victory of the reform forces in the parliamentary elections last October, scores of Maidan activists entered the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) and are now hard at work implementing a new package of anticorruption legislation, a new law on procurement, and the reform of the energy sector, which has included the quadrupling of subsidized household gas prices, with offsetting compensation for the poor. Dependency on Russian gas, once 100 percent, is now down to 30 percent.

Ukraine is beginning to fulfill the promise of the Euromaidan, which was not just a political uprising but a revolution of dignity. As a result, it has become a nation composed of citizens who are ready to take responsibility for the well-being of the country. With the war in the east having produced more than 1.1 million internally displaced people, a spontaneous army of volunteers has come to their aid with food, clothing, and hygiene supplies. Volunteers are also fighting the Russian propaganda offensive with truth-telling media platforms like StopFake and Ukraine Under Attack. And young people from western Ukraine, through groups like The Freedom Home in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, have helped rebuild homes destroyed by the war, and have created a welcoming cultural community where young people who grew up in a closed post-Soviet space can network, exchange ideas, and learn.

Ukraine is pursuing democracy and a European path at a time when many people fear that democracy is in decline around the world. But it is not true that democracy is in decline. The first democratic beachhead in the Arab Middle East has now been established in Tunisia. Against all expectations, reform forces in Sri Lanka ousted an autocratic government in elections last January. And just a few weeks ago in Nigeria, Africa’s largest country, tens of thousands of citizen journalists, empowered by social media and networks of young people and NGOs, transformed what many feared would be a fraudulent election leading to civil war into a peaceful step forward for democracy.

The problem is not that democracy is in decline. The problem is that the democratic West is in crisis. It has lost the will to affirm and defend democratic values. It is my hope that a successful democratic struggle in Ukraine will help revive the democratic spirit in Europe and the United States. It can also profoundly influence the future of Russia.

If Ukraine succeeds, it will provide a model of democracy in a country neighboring Russia where millions of people speaking Russian enjoy freedom of expression. Such a model will inevitably strengthen those in Russia who look to Europe and want a society free of the corruption, hatred, and violence.

If Ukraine succeeds, it will also mean the defeat of Putin’s effort to restore the Russian Empire, which requires reversing a century history that saw the collapse of all other empires. If Putin’s revanchism fails, Russia will have the chance to become a normal country, at peace with its neighbors and devoted to the well-being of its citizens.

Not least, if Ukraine can prevail against Putin’s military aggression, it is likely to set in motion a process of democratic change in Russia. In the past, Russian military failure has been an impulse for democratic reform. Its defeat in the Crimean wars in the 1850s demonstrated the backwardness of Russia’s autocratic system and led to the abolition of serfdom and liberal reforms, including the establishment of local self-government and trial by jury. Its defeat decades later in the war against Japan led to the 1905 revolution, the first elected Parliament, and the reforms of Pyotr Stolypin. The setbacks in World War I led to the collapse of czarism and the 1917 revolution, which began as a democratic revolution before the Bolshevik coup later that year. And the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Putin wants Ukraine to fail. But he will fail if Ukraine succeeds.

Ukraine can succeed, and if it does, it will not just be a triumph for the Ukrainian people. It will also make possible a Europe that is whole and free. And if that happens, it becomes possible to think of a world that is whole and free, or at least a world much closer to that ideal than we are now. TheHeavenly Hundred and so many others who have made the ultimate sacrifice for Ukraine have not died in vain. They bring glory to Ukraine and challenge the democratic West to live up to its values.

Carl Gershman is the president of the National Endowment for Democracy. This article is based on remarks delivered in Kyiv on April 26, 2015, at the conference “Democracy at a Crossroads: New Politics and Civil Society in Ukraine.”

 

[Hindustani78]

A man takes two hostage in Odesa, then exchanges them for police deputy chief| Ukrinform
KYIV, May 20 /Ukrinform/. An armed man took two pharmacists hostage in Odesa.

"Today at 14:30 police received a report that an unidentified man has threatened to use handguns, and has taken two employees hostage at the pharmacy in Panteleymonovska Street. Police arrived at the scene, and convinced the man to release the hostages in exchange for one police officer,“ the press service of Odesa city police department reported.

According to the official police website, "at present moment, instead of the freed women deputy chief of police in Odesa region Colonel Dmytro Holovin remains with the hostage taker in the pharmacy. Negotiations continue, and reasons which prompted the man to commit the crime are being determined."

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Nearly a hundred Russian servicemen captured in Donbas - Poroshenko| Ukrinform
KYIV, May 20 /Ukrinform/. Several dozen Russian servicemen have been captured in Donbas within a few months.

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said this in an interview with BBC.

"Two Russian servicemen have been captured today. Twenty and sixty soldiers of Russia's special units were captured a few weeks and few months ago, respectively. This is another strong proof," Poroshenko said.

According to the President, the servicemen of Russian special forces, who were captured near town of Shchastia, are treated in accordance with all humanitarian norms.

"We allow access of all humanitarian organizations to these soldiers. The representatives of the OSCE and the Red Cross have already visited them. What more proofs do we have to present to the world? However, the world already trusts us. What evidence do we have to present to Russia on that there are their soldiers, their regular forces and their war and aggression?" Poroshenko added.

Two Ukrainian soldiers freed from militant captivity - read on - uatoday.tv
May. 20, 2015
Ukrainian activists from Dnipropetrovsk help release two National Guard servicemen from captivity

Mykola Valebny and Ihor Panchyshyn, two soldiers from the 8th National Guard, were released from militant captivity by Ukrainian Defense Fund activists on early May 20, the online group Information Resistance reports.

Earlier, Information Resistancereported that three Ukrainian soldiers were freed from captivity in east Ukraine.

About 180 Ukrainian soldiers are still being held captive by Russian-backed militants in the Donbas conflict zone, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said in an interview with Russian newspaper Kommersant on Sunday, May 17.

 

[vostok]

Abandoned: The Kiev Government's Isolation of Eastern Ukrainians
Growing up in Horlivka, Ukraine, I never took to public holidays. Celebrations of religious holidays seemed too pagan and pretentious, while others lacked a sense of purpose, besides offering an excuse to eat, drink and be merry. Regardless of what many of the holidays commemorated, they did create a sense of culture and social identity—essential to any society’s existence.

The only holiday that seemed to unite everyone was Victory Day on May 9. On this day, not only Ukrainians, but people across the post-Soviet space, commemorate victory in World War II and the “Great Patriotic War,” a term used to describe the war during June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945 along eastern fronts of World War II fought between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

With its teary-eyed veterans, colorful parades, flowers, balloons, patriotic songs and war movies Victory Day had always been a day like no other. This was perhaps one of the rare occasions when I would bring flowers to my grandparents and listen to my grandfather’s war stories for the umpteenth time—but they always sounded new and exciting. His typically stern and unreadable face would light up, and he would beam with excitement like a child getting to recite his favorite scene from an action movie...
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Abandoned: The Kiev Government's Isolation of Eastern Ukrainians | The National Interest

 

[Hindustani78]

Terrorists use heavy weapons | Міністерство оборони України

Thursday, May 21. DONBAS — The press centre of the ‘anti-terror’ operation (ATO) HQ reports, the illegal armed formations still destroy Donbas infrastructure and shell the Ukrainian army positions. Terrorists, primarily, use heavy weapons. Bandits shelled Avdiyvka, Opytne, Butovka mine, Krasnohorivka, Kamyanka, Starohnativka, Pisky, Vodyane, Mariynka. They attacked Hranitne with anti-tank missile complex.

They shelled Luhanske, Lozove, Kirovo, Leninske, Mayorsk with mortars, grenade launchers, machineguns and small arms.

Shyrokyne is still the flashpoint.

Ukrainian servicemen saw 16 flights of the enemy’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

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Attention: briefing “Russian presence” at 02:00 p.m. in Kramatorsk | Міністерство оборони України
Today, on May 21, at 02:00 p.m. the (Kramatorsk) will host a briefing Russian presence chaired by Col. Serhiy Halushko, Deputy Chief of ATO HQ.

The representatives of mass media will see new evidences of the presence of the Russian troops in Ukraine, new Russian weapons. Col. Serhiy will speak about the ongoing situation in the east of Ukraine;

Address: “Anti-crisis media centre”, Kramatorsk, 37 Palatsova St., 1st floor.

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16 enemy s drones observed in Donbas conflict zone overnight| Ukrinform
KYIV, May 21 /Ukrinform/. Ukrainian military have observed 16 enemy's UAVs in the area of the anti-terrorist operation in Donbas.

This is reported by the press center for the anti-terrorist operation.

"The enemy's UAVs were observed in the sky above our positions 16 times," the statement reads.
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The map reflecting the situation in Donbas as of 12.00 on May 21 has been released by the information and analytical center of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council.

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Militants fire artillery on towns and villages in Donetsk region : UNIAN news
Russian-backed militants have been firing weapons banned from the front under the Minsk peace agreements on a number of towns and villages in the direction of Donetsk since yesterday evening, the press center of the Anti-Terrorist Operation reported on Facebook page on Thursday.
According to the report, from 1800 last night the militants fired mortars and artillery every hour on the town of Avdiivka, the mine of Butivka, the villages of Opytne, Krasnohorivka, Kamianka, Starohnativka, Pisky, Vodiane, Marinka.

"The militants fired an anti-tank missile system on the village of Hranitne," the press center said.

The militants also fired mortars, grenade launchers, machine guns and small arms on the villages of Luhanske, Lozove, Kirove, Leninske, and the town of Maiorsk.

In the area of Mariupol, the militants fired artillery from the village of Sakhanka on the village of Shyrokyne.

"And in the direction of Luhansk, they fired on the villages of Shastya and Stanytsia Luhanska," the report says.

"During this period, the Ukrainian army recorded 16 reconnaissance overflights by enemy drones," the ATO headquarters said.

 

[Broccoli]

Russian manufactured Searcher drone shot down by Ukrainians.

Here same drone is Russian factory.

 

[Superboy]

Russia makes Searcher II under the designation Forpost. Does Searcher II have infrared? Is so it flies at night and would have been impossible to shoot down by small arms fire.

IAI Searcher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Hindustani78]

SMM OSCE says separatists have ground-to-air missiles
The Minsk agreements are not being observed as they should be, especially with regards to the withdrawal of the heavy weapons from the contact line in Donbas, deputy head of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) Alexander Hug has said.

He said the warring parties have only partially fulfilled the Minsk agreements and related promises to withdraw heavy weapons.

The mission's drones recently registered the presence of ground-to-air missile systems in territory under the control of the 'Donetsk People's Republic', 25-kilometers away from Mariupol, Hug said at a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.

During the briefing, he also elaborated on plans to increase the mission’s size by up to 756 observers from 42 states (including technical staff).

One Ukrainian serviceman has been killed and eight wounded in fresh separatist attacks, the military said in Kiev on Thursday, as the OSCE security watchdog warned of a "worrisome" spread of violence in eastern Ukraine.

Fighting has lessened significantly since a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels was declared in mid-February, but both sides accuse the other of violations and casualties are reported almost daily.

"Fighting has not died down along a broad stretch of the frontline from Krasnogorivka to Svitlodarsk," Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksander Motuzyanyk said, referring to government-controlled villages to the west and north-east of rebel-held Donetsk city.

"The enemy is actively using heavy weapons ... The area of fighting is expanding," he said.

The assessment was backed up by comments from Alexander Hug, deputy chief of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's monitoring mission in Ukraine.