Showing posts with label Russian Thugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russian Thugs. Show all posts
Wednesday, 20 August 2014
Ukraine makes it's mark in Putin's Moscow
So activists in Moscow have put the Ukrainian flag up on one of its tallest skyscrapers
NSDC: Operation to free Ilovaysk continues
Kyiv, August 20, 2014 – “Ukrainian Armed Forces troops continue the operation to establish control over the village of Blahodatne in Amvrosiyivka district and are carrying out operative missions in Yasynuvate and Zhdanivka. The operation to free Ilovaysk of Donetsk oblast from terrorists continues. Ukrainian troops have control over the entire city at the moment. Our troops fought off three terrorist counterattacks involving heavy machinery and artillery,” stated NSDC Information Center spokesman Colonel Andriy Lysenko during a press briefing at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center.
ATO forces continue advancing on the terrorists. Combat to free Donetsk, Luhansk, Ilovaysk, Krasniy Luch, Shakhtarsk, Torez, Snizhne, Zugres, Horlivka, Stanychno-Luhanskiy continues. “Ukrainian troops have taken up defense positions on Savur-Mohyla hill, Donetsk airport, and are also preventing invasions of illegal armed formations and sabotage-intelligence groups from Russian territory. The Russian side continues firing at Ukrainian territory. As such, yesterday night at 11:50, the Russians fired at Amvrosiyivka in Donetsk oblast from the Russian village of Selezniove in Rostov oblast,” added Lysenko.
The Russian side is doing active intelligence work on the Azov Sea coast. Yesterday the Ukrainian Coast Guard of the State Border Control Service documented a provocation on Russia’s part. “At 11:30 near the locality of Siedove, 3 Russian FSB Coast Guard “Mangust” speedboats were detected as they moved towards Mariupol. After a warning that fire would be opened, the speedboats returned to Russian territorial waters,” stated the NSDC spokesman.
Throughout the past 24 hours, the Border servicemen documented 2 Russian unmanned aircrafts in Donetsk oblast near the village of Siedove, and another one in Kherson oblast, which was flying towards Chaplinka from the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea.
Throughout August 19, the Ukrainian Border and Customs servicemen failed to begin clearance procedures for the Russian humanitarian cargo. The Ukrainian side has not received documentation regarding the contents of the cargo yet. “The Ukrainian Border Service Administration only received a list of delegates of the organization who would escort the humanitarian cargo through the Ukraine-Russia state border from the International Red Cross Committee Mission in Ukraine. The representatives of the International Red Cross Committee claim they still have not received security guarantees for the members of the leading mission group,” explained Colonel Lysenko.
US Department of State representative Mary Harf condemned the terrorists for destroying the column of refugees on August 18, who were trying to escape the combat zone in Luhansk oblast. She expressed her condolences to the families of the victims and called for all the sides to make an effort to prevent civilian casualties. Besides, Mary Harf applauded the plans to hold a multilateral meeting in Minsk involving the Presidents of Ukraine and Russia. At the same time she emphasized that Moscow should confirm its claims to the deescalation of the Ukrainian crisis with actions.
American Donbas Battalion member dies in fierce fighting near Donetsk
An American-Ukrainian known only as "Franko" died on Aug. 19 while fighting with the Donbas Battalion in an attempt to free the city of Ilovaisk in Donetsk Oblast from Russian mercenaries and Kremlin-backed guerrillas.
An American has reportedly become the first foreign casualty on the Ukrainian side of the military conflict against Russian mercenaries and Kremlin-backed forces in eastern Ukraine.
Identified only under his nom de guerre of "Franko", he reportedly died from heavy artillery fire while trying to free the town of Ilovaisk in Donetsk Oblast on Aug. 19 while serving in the volunteer Donbas Battalion, Liviy Bereg photographer Maks Levin stated on Facebook, citing another photographer, Maks Dondiuk, who has embedded himself in various Ukrainian service units.
According to the photographer, the Donbas Battalion, had come under heavy fire by various barrages of GRAD, Fagot and other types of artillery, in addition to tank and sniper fire.
“There is no way for them to get out of Ilovask,” wrote Levin citing his colleague. He added that two other volunteer battalions, Azov and Dnipro, managed to leave the area earlier in the day.
Both photographers, Levin and Dondiuk, have been embedded with various Ukrainian units, including the Donbas Battalion.
The facebook page of Donbass Battalion stated that four of its members died in the fighting, while the number of wounded is still being clarified. Among the wounded was battalion leader Semyon Semenchenko. He underwent surgery in a Dnipropetrovsk hospital and is expected to recover in two to three weeks, the statement said.
In a Vice News report in which he featured prominently, Franko said he was a private in a six-man squad within the battalion, while claiming to have “professional military experience.” His code name apparently was inspired by the famed Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko. In the video, he speaks with what sounds like an east coast American accent and appears to be aged in his 60s. He emphasized in the interview that he had taken on Ukrainian citizenship before joining the fight in the east. According to photographer Levin, Franko owned property in Ukraine and may have lived in the country.
He was a “cheerful diaspora (member)…who beautifully cursed in Ukrainian,” remarked Levin. He added that Franko wished to “enter Donetsk (as a liberator) and to return to Kyiv, sell his apartment in Lviv and settle somewhere in the calm Carpathian Mountains.”
The Donbas Battalion was formed early in June. At least 80 percent of its members are from eastern Ukraine. According to the Interior Ministry to which the irregular volunteer battalions are subordinated, 25 battalions are currently engaged in the war zone in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.
Franko RIP - American Volunteer - He Died for Ukrainian Freedom
Submariners World is sad to report "Franko," the American fighting for #Ukraine, is confirmed dead. He spoke to VICE news 2 week's ago.
Tuesday, 19 August 2014
Ukraine says 17 bodies recovered from shelled refugee convoy
Seventeen bodies have so far been recovered from the wreckage of a Ukrainian refugee convoy which was hit by shelling on Monday, a military spokesman said on Tuesday.
Six others were being treated in hospital for injuries, of whom three were in a serious condition, the spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said.
Russia Has Already Invaded Ukraine: Strobe Talbott
WorldPost: How should the West respond if Putin actually invades Ukraine?
Strobe Talbott: They have already invaded Ukraine. I find it maddening and incomprehensible how governments and the media keep talking about the possibility, the danger, the threat of Russia invading.
Russia invaded Ukraine early in the spring. They started with the so-called "little green men" -- Russian soldiers without insignia on their green uniforms -- then proceeded with uniforms with epaulets and the annexation of Crimea. Russia has been the force behind, and on the ground, with the separatists in eastern Ukraine.
It is an invasion that is already well in place. It is detrimental to managing the situation to play along with the transparent falsehood that the Russians are putting out that they have not invaded Ukraine.
WorldPost: Now that the Europeans have imposed stiffer sanctions, is the response of the West sufficient?
Talbott: It is good enough. Obviously it could be tougher, but whether it can be tougher in a way that preserves the solidarity of the Atlantic Alliance and that doesn't blow back domestically in the United States where the public is weary of war, is a challenge.
The fact that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken the lead and been nearly in lockstep with President Obama is a big plus. The sanctions are having an effect in Russia. As of mid-August, the Russians don't seem to have made up their minds as to what their next move is. I would like to think that the reason they have not escalated further is because of the unpleasant surprise to them that the West has been quite effective in its unified response.
WorldPost: Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski has argued that NATO must go further and "bolster its eastern flank." Would that be more of a deterrent or a provocation to Russia?
Talbott: I'm not sure exactly what he means. But NATO has already been bolstered in several ways, including in Poland. Moreover, there is a deliberately visible effort to put forces from the "original members of NATO" -- those who were members before the end of the Cold War -- in the Baltic states, particularly Estonia. The British and the Germans are supplementing Americans with air support.
One essential requirement has been met: to persuade the Russians that any countries that are full members of NATO now are totally covered by Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which says each member must defend the others with boots on the ground in the event of a threat. That is a deterrent.
WorldPost: What is Putin ultimately after?
Talbott: It is only a slight oversimplification to say that what Putin is after is a rollback of the reforms that were instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev and then picked up and advanced by Boris Yeltsin.
In these back-to-back tenures of the last president of the Soviet Union and the first president of post-Soviet Russia, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, over a period of 20 years, put Russia on a new and promising track -- promising for Russia itself.
The basic components of those reforms were to open up Russian society, democratize and federalize the old Soviet Union so there was accountability and a sense among citizens that they had a say in the composition of the policies of their government. Their reforms aimed to get rid of the "big lie" -- hoodwinking the Russian people and masking what Russia was up to around the world. Substituting "glasnost" -- or transparency -- continued by the "open society" of Yeltsin.
In foreign policy, they abandoned as a losing cause the aggressively competitive zero-sum attitude toward the outside world and instead sought to follow a policy of partnership with the West and the international community.
All that is now in jeopardy and nullified by Putin. That is not just dangerous, as we are seeing in the Ukraine, but also bad for Russia in the long term.
One of the most important decisions that Yeltsin took as the most powerful of the post-Soviet leaders who managed the dissolution of the USSR was to guarantee that the inter-republic borders would become the international borders of the new independent states.
That alone made it possible for the dissolution of the Soviet Union to be, generally speaking, peaceful, non-violent and relatively orderly. It avoided the kind of bloody wars we saw with the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Putin has torn up that decision and is following the course of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader. In taking this course, Putin could very well be precipitating the violent dissolution of the Russian Federation.
WorldPost: Changing borders through the use of force -- and the response to it -- has broader implications for the global order as a whole. However justified the sanctions are against Russia, it is having the effect of pushing Russia together with the Chinese -- who see the American "pivot to Asia" as an effort to contain their rise -- into an anti-Western bloc.
Do you fear that?
Talbott: I see this as very much as a surface phenomenon without deep roots. The proclaimed intentions of Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping would seem to indicate this splitting into blocs. But I don't think that is sustainable over the long haul.
First of all, the Russians and the Chinese fixate on what they see as American "hegemonism" as the great danger. That is not the danger.
The danger for both Russia and China is a future in which they isolate themselves.
Russia and China are very different and equally complicated cases. China is deeply integrated into the global economy and is benefitting from that. It does not want to jeopardize those benefits. That is a brake on China.
Russia is not integrated into the global economy, largely because it is overwhelmingly dependent on extraction and export of petroleum products. It does not have a modern manufacturing or service economy.
So, Russia and China do not really fit together.
Secondly, there are conflicting geopolitical and ethnographic realities. Russia has the largest territorial state on the planet, sharing a long border with the most populous state on the planet, China. Russia has a lot of what China wants -- raw materials.
That is a formula for serious competition down the road, and even for conflict.
If you take the long view -- which is not the one Putin is taking -- he ought to be much more concerned about the viability of Russian control over vast areas of eastern part of the country with lots of resources China wants and few people to defend them.
WorldPost: In other words, Putin is looking to the past, not the future.
Talbott: Worse, he is looking to the past for a model for the future. That is unwise in the extreme, for Russians -- and for the rest of us.
Monday, 18 August 2014
NSDC: Terrorists fired at a column of civilians from Luhansk
Terrorists opened fire using a “Grad” system at a transport column of Luhansk civilians. “The terrorists committed a bloody crime at 9:40 this morning. Near Luhansk, on the road between Khryashchuvate and Novosvitlivka, the mercenaries used “Grad” systems and mine-launchers imported from Russia to shoot at a column of civilians attempting to leave the combat zone. Many people died, including women and children. The number of casualties is currently being determined,” stated NSDC Information Center spokesman colonel Andriy Lysenko during a briefing at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center.
Active combat to free Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as battles near Zhdanivka, Makiyivka, Khartsyzsk, Debaltsevo, Starobesheve, continue. Ukrainian Armed Forces are working to neutralize the mercenaries in Yasynuvate. Horlivka, Mala Ivanivka, Andrianivka and Alchevsk are completely blocked. The Russian mercenaries are fleeing these cities. “ATO bases near Novokaterynivka were fired at tonight using 9P 140 “Uragan” setups. This is the first time weapons of such power were used,” added Andriy Lysenko.
Colonel Andriy Lysenko showed a video with more proof of Russian aggression at the briefing. “This footage was taken near the town of Snizhne. It shows servicemen standing around armored equipment units. One of the machines is a modified Russian BTR 80A. The machine has a distinctive feature – the 2A72 canon produced in Tula, which only the Russian army has at its disposal. The terrorists keep repeating “this is war,” “Allah Akbar” and “Insh’Allah.” One of the videos also clearly shows a ZAZ Daewoo vehicle with a Luhansk license plate – BB 3624 CO,” noted colonel Andriy Lysenko.
Border servicemen have also documented airspace violations at the border. As such, at 10 p.m. yesterday, the Naval Security Service near Mariupol detected and shot down one Russian unmanned aircraft. Another battalion tactical group from Yekaterinburg arrived at the Ukrainian state border from Russia. Vehicles carrying a big number of containers for BUK missile-launch complexes have been seen at the border on the Russian side. Approximately 30 “Grad” systems were detected near the locality of Gukovo in Rostov oblast across from Sverdlovsk and Chervonopartyzansk in Luhansk oblast. “A Polish journalist managed to document the movement of Russian equipment towards the Ukrainian border,” added the NSDC spokesman.
As of 11 a.m., in light of the fact that the issue of security guarantees for the humanitarian cargo on part of the terrorists organizations for Red Cross representatives remains unsolved, the cargo did not undergo border documentation procedures. Detailed inspection of the contents of the Russian humanitarian convoy has not begun. OSCE experts plan to examine the cargo on August 18 or 19. “Yesterday the border servicemen prevented an attempt to import part of the cargo to Ukrainian territory. 16 white tent KAMAZ vehicles, 1 fuel vehicle and 1 bus from the so-called humanitarian convoy arrived at the “Donetsk” border checkpoint on Russian territory at 12:15. They were parked at the lot near the checkpoint. Russian border servicemen watched as a group of mercenaries on 8 cars and 3 buses approached the Ukrainian representatives from the Ukrainian side. The Ukrainian border servicemen took up defense positions. After talking with the Russian border workers, the terrorists retreated back inside Ukrainian territory,” explained colonel Lysenko.
OSCE representative Paul Picard stated that the organization may possibly inspect 30 vehicles from the Russian humanitarian convoy on August 18-19. After the inspection, the cargo will be handed over to be escorted by Red Cross representatives.
US Senators from both parties showed solidarity in their support for Kyiv in its fight against the terrorists. Senators John McCain and John Donnelly addressed US President Barack Obama with a petition to provide Ukraine with defense weaponry, in particular anti-tank weapons, and increase exchange of intelligence information.
ESCALATION! 16.06 CET 18.08.14
Russian volunteer fighters in Ukraine replaced by professional battle-hardened soldiers! Weapons supply increased dramatically!
Sunday, 17 August 2014
The Security Service of Ukraine Neutralized a Terrorist Group Managed by Russian Security Services 17.08.14
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) exposed and neutralized a terrorist group managed by security services of the Russian Federation. This was reported to President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko by the head of the Security Service Valentyn Nalyvaichenko.
The SBU detained six members of a terrorist group suspected of arranging the explosion on the night of August 3 in the territory of Kharkiv Tank Repair Plant. They were detained in the Dnipropetrovsk region during the attempt to destroy one of the administrative facilities at the recreation center where policemen were temporarily residing.
The SBU officers seized lots of weapons, including submachine guns, grenade launchers and explosives, as well as storage with videos files of the committed crimes which were used as reports to Russian security services.
In the course of the investigation it was established that the members of the groups who had connections with employees of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation developed plans of terrorist attacks upon strategically important objects of the Kharkiv region and recruited new members into their group.
The Security Services of Ukraine initiated pre-trial investigation.
Ukrainian Servicemen Caught GRU Employees Red-Handed
Last night in the area of Debaltseve Ukrainian servicemen captured three Russian professional soldiers, employees of the Main Intelligence Directorate (aka GRU) of the General Staff of the Russian Federation from St. Petersburg. It should be noted that this is by far not the first time when Russian professionals are caught red-handed.
Ukraine says its troops make breakthrough in rebel stronghold
Ukrainian forces have raised their national flag over a police station in the city of Luhansk which was for months under rebel control, Kiev said on Sunday, in what could be a breakthrough in Ukraine's efforts to crush pro-Moscow separatists.
Ukrainian officials allege though that the rebels are fighting a desperate rearguard action to hold on to Luhansk -- which is their supply route into neighboring Russia -- and say the flow of weapons and fighters from Russia has accelerated.
The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia were preparing to meet for talks on the conflict in Berlin on Sunday, though it seemed likely that the diplomacy could be overshadowed by fast-moving developments on the battlefield.
Russia denies helping the rebels and accuses Kiev, backed by the West, of triggering a humanitarian crisis through indiscriminate use of force against Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine who reject the Ukrainian government's rule.
Andriy Lysenko, a Ukrainian military spokesman, said government forces fought separatists in a neighborhood of Luhansk city on Saturday and took control of the Zhovtneviy neighborhood police station.
"They raised the state flag over it," Lysenko told a news briefing.
Separatist officials in Luhansk could not be reached by telephone, and a separatist spokeswoman in Donetsk, the other rebel strong-hold in eastern Ukraine, said she did not know what had happened in Luhansk.
If confirmed, the taking of the police station is significant because the city of Luhansk has for several months been a rebel redoubt where Kiev's writ has not run.
Ukrainian troops have been closing in on the city from the outskirts, but had not previously been able to get forces inside the city limits. The separatists still control sections of the border linking Luhansk region to Russia.
The four-month-old conflict in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east has reached a critical phase, with Kiev and Western governments watching nervously to see if Russia will intervene in support of the increasingly besieged rebels.
The rebels have responded to the reverses with defiant rhetoric, and the fighting continues.
Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday that the separatists shot down a Ukrainian warplane. The pilot ejected and was located and recovered after a search, a military spokesman, Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky, told Reuters.
On Saturday, Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said rebels were in the process of receiving some 150 armored vehicles, including 30 tanks, and 1,200 fighters trained in Russia. He said they planned to launch a major counter-offensive.
"They are joining at the most crucial moment," he said in a video recorded on Friday.
The assertion that the fighters were trained in Russia is awkward for Moscow, which has repeatedly denied allegations from Kiev and its Western allies that it is providing material support to separatist fighters.
CRITICAL PHASE
In a sign of concern at the latest rebel comments, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko agreed in a phone call on Saturday that deliveries of weapons to separatists in Ukraine must stop and a ceasefire must be achieved, a German government spokesman said.
The Ukraine crisis has dragged relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War and set off a round of trade restrictions that are hurting struggling economies in both Russia and Europe.
Adding to the tensions, Russia and Ukraine have been at loggerheads for days over a convoy of 280 Russian trucks carrying water, food and medicine.
It was despatched by Moscow bound for eastern Ukraine but has been parked up for several days in Russia near the border.
Kiev has said the convoy could be a Trojan Horse for Russia to get weapons to the rebels, a notion that Moscow has dismissed as absurd. It said the aid is desperately needed by civilians left without water and power and under constant bombardment from the Ukrainian advance.
After days of wrangling between Kiev and Moscow, there were signs of movement on Sunday.
Sixteen trucks separated from the main convoy and drove into a Russian bus depot near a border crossing into Ukraine, a Reuters cameraman said from the scene.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in Geneva that Russian and Ukrainian border guards and customs officials had agreed that the cargo could be inspected.
REBEL ROUT?
Ukrainian officials have painted a picture of a separatist force that is on the run and starting to panic - though rebel fighters Reuters reporters have spoken to in Donetsk say they are determined to stand firm.
The Ukrainian National Guard said its forces had seized a rebel field commander from Luhansk region as well as 13 others suspected of “terrorist activity”.
“The terrorists are putting on ordinary clothes, taking only their passport with them and are trying to pass themselves off as ordinary peaceful citizens on public transport to try to get through the Ukrainian checkpoints,” the National Guard said.
In the past week, three senior rebel leaders have been removed from their posts, pointing to mounting disagreement over how to turn the tide of the fighting back in their favor.
The fighting has taken a heavy human toll.
The United Nations said this month that an estimated 2,086 people, including civilians and combatants, had been killed in the conflict. That figure nearly doubled since the end of July, when Ukrainian forces stepped up their offensive and fighting started in urban areas.
In Donetsk which like Luhansk is now ringed by Kiev's forces, artillery fire has struck apartment buildings, killing and wounding residents, according to Reuters reporters. Officials in Kiev deny they are firing heavy weapons at residential areas.
A Hurricane in the East: are rebels getting BM-27 ‘Uragan’ Rocket Systems?
US intelligence sources are claiming that Russia has actually stepped up its material support for the rebels in eastern Ukraine, including heavier rocket systems. I suspect these may the BM-27 Uragan (‘Hurricane’) systems, the very kind that Moscow has been criticising Kyiv for using in recent days. This is a truck-mounted multiple-tube rocket launcher system akin to the previously-used BM-21 Grad on steroids, able to ripple-fire its 16 220mm rockets in 20 seconds. As such, it represents a substantial upgrade to rebel firepower.
A few quick observations.
1. OK, so maybe Putin won’t be backing away from the rebels…but it may be the storm before the calm.
A willingness to supply heavy hardware, coupled with the uncompromising rhetoric from the Kremlin, does suggest that Putin has chosen not to back away from his adventure in eastern Ukraine. However, it’s not impossible that the hope is that allowing the rebels to give Kyiv’s forces a bloody nose will allow Moscow to negotiate some terms for a ‘peace with honour’ extrication from the mess on stronger terms, given that at present, between the seizure of Slovyansk and the moral charge provided by MH17, the Ukrainian government is in unyielding mood. This can be disastrous (witness Russia clinging on in WW1 in the hope that “next battle” would provide one such victory), but can work.
2. The government forces outnumber the rebels, but their key advantages are airpower and long-range artillery.
With systems such as the now-infamous Buk and the BM-27, Moscow is clearly trying to neutralise them (the BM-27 is a useful counterbattery weapon, able to silence Ukrainian guns). The idea is presumably to put Kyiv into the situation of facing a nasty–and higher-casualty–old-fashioned close-quarters battle in Donetsk if it wants to wipe out the rebels, hoping that Poroshenko won’t be willing to accept the costs. (Though I suspect he would, if need be.)
3. This would make the rebels more dependent on Moscow.
Larger, higher-tech kit like the BM-27 needs maintenance, spare parts, etc. They also need ample ammunition to be effective, and unlike assault rifle rounds, these aren’t widely available in looted stockpiles and the black market. This gives Moscow more potential authority over the rebels, and also embeds the Russians more deeply in the fight.
Ukraine Crisis - Latest Updates 14.45 CET Sunday 17.08.14
-- The International Committee for the Red Cross announced that it would "observe" after "border and custom officials from #Russia & #Ukraine agree to inspect 1st group of Russian convoy trucks shortly." A group of 16 trucks from the Russian convoy have split off and approached the checkpoint on the Russian side of the border.
-- Earlier, an ICRC representative in Moscow said its inspectors had arrived at the location where the Russian aid convoy was parked but that inspections to determine their contents were unlikely to begin today.
-- Kyiv has confirmed that a Ukrainian army MiG-29 fighter was shot down, presumably by separatists, over Luhansk today. Its pilot parachuted to safety and was retrieved by Ukrainian forces.
-- The foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany are expected to meet later today in Berlin to discuss the situation in Ukraine.
-- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that pro-government forces captured the town of Zhdanivka, some 40 kilometers northeast of the city of Donetsk. He wrote on his Twitter account: "The town of Zhdavinka in the Donetsk region has been heroically taken by the armed forces of Ukraine. Glory to Ukraine!"
-- Slovakia started testing a reverse gas flow aimed at helping to supply neighboring Ukraine with badly needed natural gas. Slovak company Eustream confirmed that a compressor station near the town of Velke Kapushany started pumping gas into the Uzhgorod-Voyany pipeline.
-- The United States urged Russia to stop "extremely dangerous and provocative" attempts to destabilize Ukraine. The White House said there had been an "escalation" in Russian activity in recent weeks to destabilize the situation in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine Separatists In Seeming Disarray Amid Rumors Of Strelkov's Demise
Where is Igor Strelkov?
A few day after a separatist news agency reported the notorious rebel commander had been seriously wounded, the news trail has gone largely silent, leaving many to speculate about the true fate of Strelkov and Ukraine's increasingly fractious separatists.
Agentsvo Novorossia, an unofficial information site established by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR), announced Strelkov, the so-called defense minister of the DNR, had been injured and was in critical condition.
The account was quickly repeated by the DNR's former leader, Denis Pushilin, who stated via video that he was awaiting confirmation and further details. Pushilin added, however, that the fight for eastern Ukraine would continue, and that Strelkov had trained a significant number of commanders prepared to take his place.
Other members of the DNR, however, have since denied the reports. Strelkov's own deputy, Fyodor Berezin, said that "everything is fine with Igor Strelkov."
Sergei Kavtaradze, a member of the separatist republic's makeshift Security Council, said the rumors were "complete nonsense" aimed at demoralizing the rebels on the eve of "decisive battles."
Kavtaradze went on to accuse Agentsvo Novorossia of disinformation, adding, "Igor Strelkov is alive and well."
A fourth DNR official, Andrei Purgin, who serves as deputy prime minister, said he could neither confirm nor deny the information. He noted, however, that Strelkov had been located in areas of heavy fighting and that rumors of an injury were "likely" to be true.
Offering yet another perspective was Aleksandr Borodai, the former DNR prime minister, who told Submariners World on August 14 that Strelkov had not been injured but had resigned from his post. He said Strelkov had been replaced by a militia fighter with the nickname "the Tsar."
Scapegoat Or Conquering Hero?
Strelkov -- a 43-year-old Muscovite also known by his real name, Igor Girkin -- is one of the most infamous figures in the ongoing separatist war in eastern Ukraine.
An avowed Russian nationalist and suspected military intelligence officer, Strelkov is a veteran of several Kremlin military operations, including the 1992 war in Moldova's Transdniester region and the first and second Chechen campaigns.
In Ukraine, he is widely believed to be acting as an agent of Moscow, despite the Kremlin's insistence it is not involved in the separatist conflict. The Ukrainian government has accused Strelkov of masterminding brutal attacks on Ukrainian citizens and armed forces; internationally, he gained instant notoriety for appearing to claim separatist responsibility for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which he erroneously identified as a Ukrainian military transport plane. Two hundred and ninety-eight people were killed in the incident.
Some have interpreted Strelkov's rumored injury as a sign that Moscow, deeply compromised by the MH17 downing, may have recalled him as punishment for his costly blunder.
Slovakia Tests Reverse Gas Flow To Ukraine
Slovak company Eustream confirmed on August 16 that a compressor station near the town of Velke Kapushany started pumping gas into the Uzhgorod-Voyany pipeline earlier in the day.
Work recently finished on that pipeline so that it could carry gas eastward instead of westward.
Ihor Prokopiv of Ukraine's Ukrtransgaz said the test showed the pipeline could supply some 2 million cubic meters of gas daily.
Eustream said barring any unforeseen problems the pipeline could carry a maximum of some 10 billion cubic meters of gas annually to Ukraine.
The controversial reverse-gas-flow plan was put together by the European Union and Ukraine after it became apparent Russia would either seriously reduce or cut off entirely gas to Ukraine for domestic use.
Saturday, 16 August 2014
Unconfirmed Report from Ukraine at 2127 CET 16.08.14
Russia has 5 days to get out from Ukraine otherwise all information on Russian Nuclear Defense System will be given to NATO and United States.
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