Ukrainian military recruit radicals to kill civilians in South-East
The Ukrainian army tries to promptly replace professional military men with more radical members the Right Sector movement and Maidan activists, the commander of the People's Militia of Slavyansk, Igor Strelkov said.
Strelkov said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, that Ukrainian commanders were replacing the units of National Guard with Right Sector activists and former activists of Maidan riots. These consider all local people enemies."
According to him, the soldiers of the National Guard believe that law and order in the east of the country can be established only with the use of force. Strelkov also believes that Italian photographer Andrea Rokkelli and his translator Andrei Mironov were killed in mortar fire on Saturday through radicals' fault.
"They went to make a report to the town border, to the neutral territory in the village of Andreevka. They were noticed, because the Ukrainian military shoot at anything that moves in this area. They do not even try to distinguish, whether there are civilians or the press - they just shoot at anything that moves," Expert Magazine quoted Strelkov as saying.
Mass anti-government protests began in south-eastern regions of Ukraine at the end of February 2014 as a response of the local population to the violent change of power in the country and the subsequent attempt taken by the Verkhovna Rada to cancel the law about the regional status of the Russian language.
Source: http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspo...ne_radicals-0/
Ukraine pulling out from Commonwealth of Independent States
Ukraine is starting the process to pull out from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the secretary of the National Security Council and Defense, Andrei Paruby said.
According to him, the decision was made by the Council of the National Security and Defense of Ukraine. It was also decided to hold joint army exercises of the armies of Ukrainian and "allies, guarantors of Ukraine's security," notes Utro.ru.
On March 19, Ukraine decided to abandon the presidency in the CIS. Officials with the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that the CIS was not fulfilling its functions to resolve conflicts between member-countries. The CIS has become a "tool of realization of the interests of individual members, including the Russian Federation," Ukrainian officials claimed. In April, Belarus declared its readiness to take over the chairmanship in the CIS instead of Ukraine.
Source: http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspo...ukraine_cis-0/
Ukrainian troops kill up to 200 during punitive operation in Donetsk
Representatives of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk said that dozens of people had been killed since the beginning of the military operation in Donetsk. The figures vary from 40 to 200 people. The Ukrainian authorities are not going to withdraw their troops. Moreover, Kiev delivered an ultimatum to the militia: either they surrender or be destroyed from high-precision weapons. This was stated by spokesman of so-called anti-terrorist special operation, Vladislav Seleznev.
Combat aircraft of the Ukrainian army appeared this afternoon in the sky over Donetsk again. It was said that local residents were given three hours to leave. Meanwhile, representatives of the OSCE stated that they lost contact with their observers in Donetsk.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged the Kiev authorities to immediately stop the punitive operation in the south-east of Ukraine and establish a dialogue with representatives of the regions.
Source: http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspo...ion_ukraine-0/
Ukraine's President-elect invites Russia to regulate crisis
Ukraine's President-elect Petro Poroshenko announced his readiness to discuss the idea of decentralization of the country. He invited Russia to join the process to regulate the Ukrainian conflict. Russian presidential advisor Sergei Glazyev told Kommersant that Ukraine could follow the federalization model of Denmark and Greenland to become a single state with two different trade regimes. He acknowledged that such a structure "seems a bit artificial," but added that "in any case, it is better than war."
The winner of Sunday's presidential election in Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, promised to build an effective dialogue with residents of Donbass. "We have something to offer them: from guarantees of security, the protection of their personal rights, including the right to freely use the Russian language in the region, on an official level. We can also offer then a powerful system of decentralization of power," he said.
The politician invited Russia to take part in the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. "Stability in the east of Ukraine is impossible without Russia's participation, - stated Poroshenko. - I hope Russia will support my approaches to resolve the situation in the east."
True new leader of Ukraine did not explain exactly how guarantees of security could be associated with mass killings of civilians of the Donetsk People's Republic, ethnic cleansing in Odessa, the desire to "fight for the Crimea," and so on.
Source: http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspo..._poroshenko-0/
Punitive operation in Donetsk to continue until self-defense forces are destroyed
Representative of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Aleksei Dmitrashkovsky, said that the military operation in Donetsk would continue until all military units of the self- proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk are destroyed.
According to him, "the military operation in Donetsk will continue until the forces of the People's Republic of Donetsk are destroyed, or until they surrender."
Shortly before this, the official said that the Ukrainian troops had killed as many as 200 militiamen. According to Dmitrashkovsky, the total number of losses would be exposed later during the day.
The Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who was appointed for the position by the Verkhovna Rada, stated that the international airport of Donetsk was fully controlled by the Ukrainian security forces.
The Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Donetsk, in turn, stated that as many as one hundred militiamen and civilians were killed as a result of the fighting for Donetsk. The mayor of Donetsk confirmed the death of at least 40 people as a result of the military operation conducted by the Ukrainian troops.
Source: http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspo...k_operation-0/
'Slaughterhouse': Civilians die in Kiev's ruthless military attacks
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A doctor looks at documents as she examines the body of a woman killed as a result of fighting in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk on May 26, 2014
Bodies are piling up in Donetsk morgues after Kiev unleashed fighter jets and artillery on the country’s southeast just hours after the presidential election. New leader-elect Petro Poroshenko is pushing for the crackdown to become even “more effective.”
Ukraine’s southeast saw only a brief suspension of Kiev’s military operations on Sunday while the nation took to the polls. Just before the presidential election, Ukrainian MPs called for immediate troop withdrawal from the country’s southeast.
Following the vote, the leading candidate – billionaire chocolate tycoon Petro Poroshenko – said he sees no reason why the military should stop the operation.
“I support its continuation, but demand a change in its format – it must be shorter and it must be more effective, military units must be better equipped,” he said, despite earlier statements that he is ready for dialogue with the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
Soon after the last vote was cast, the Kiev military descended on the southeast with new energy, shelling Slavyansk and attacking the airport in Donetsk with mortars.
The number of victims is not yet known. According to the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Aleksandr Boroday, 100 self-defense forces and civilians died in Donetsk during the attack. Donetsk authorities reported that about 40 people died and 43 others were injured.
In Slavyansk, at least three civilians died, including one woman.
“We see what that means today – shelling against civilians, bombs that fall near occupied apartment blocks, fighter jets, and helicopter launches against an urban population,” analyst Daniel Patrick Welch told RT, adding that talks were never part of Poroshenko's plan.
http://youtu.be/LJwN8xTKrPY
“We came up to look at the man but he was already dead. A shell had fallen right next to a nine-story apartment block, all the glass was out. The man’s head was bleeding, his arms and legs were broken,” a Slavyansk resident told RT. Civilian quarters of the city – which is home to about 130,000 people –came under fire for the first time on Monday.
http://youtu.be/yWr1lxEeepw
“When we went further, we found a dead woman near a teachers college, a shell hit there too,” a local added, saying that a third man was found nearby.
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On Tuesday, reports appeared of a possible fourth victim among the civilians in Slavyansk. A woman was also killed near the Church of the Reigning Mother of God, according to a message on the website of the Gorlovsk and Slavyansk Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It added that the building of the church was damaged along with an apartment building and student dormitory nearby.
“A bomb fell just 10 meters from the church. Fortunately, there were no people in the church at that time," the message reads.
http://youtu.be/-QUZ5LeTODM
On Tuesday, Ukrainian fighter jets and helicopters were unleashed at armed self-defense forces occupying the airport in the city of Donetsk.
http://youtu.be/kGJ0NeUVGbI
“We’ve lost more than 50 self-defense fighters,” said the PM of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Aleksandr Boroday, as quoted by RIA Novosti.
“Many of the casualties are a result of two Kamaz trucks having been shelled by the Ukrainian army. The trucks were driving the wounded from the battlefield near the airport.”
http://youtu.be/ftsVO2cpmfw
The identification of bodies is underway the city’s morgue.
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Meanwhile, the city’s central railway station was also shelled on Tuesday. One civilian was killed and two others – including an eight-year-old boy – were injured, the region's administration told RIA Novosti.
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Government troops reportedly launched mortar fire on a private housing area in Donetsk on the same day.
http://youtu.be/XNr9c3Amv2U
Later in the day, the military stepped up the offensive, and fighting in Donetsk continued throughout the night around the airport, which was then taken under control by Ukrainian troops.
On Monday, Vice Premier Vitaly Yaryoma stressed that the operation will continue until not a single self-defense fighter “is left on the territory of Ukraine.”
“We saw the results yesterday,” Yaryoma added.
Kiev first launched a punitive military operation in the volatile southeastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk back in April. Following a coup in Kiev, the two proclaimed their independence from the new authorities, with the desire to break away seeing landslide support in May 11 referendums.
Source: http://rt.com/news/161772-eastern-uk...attack-deaths/
Shells hit school, kindergarten in Slavyansk amid Ukraine military op
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Children at School No. 13 in Slaviansk hide from artillery fire on May 28, 2014.
The school building was hit by a mortar shell.
A school and a kindergarten have been shelled in Slavyansk as the city becomes increasingly unsafe in the intensified Kiev military campaign. At least 9 civilians were injured in Wednesday’s shelling incidents, including a child.
Ukrainian mortar shells have for weeks been raining down on the checkpoints and positions of the Slavyansk self-defense, but much of the shelling occurred outside the city. Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian interpreter, veteran human rights activist Andrey Mironov, were almost “torn to pieces” in one such shelling.
However, this week the battleground apparently moved right into civilian quarters of Slavyansk, as shells started hitting residential blocks and nearby buildings, killing three people on Monday
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Shelled school in Slavyansk, Eastern Ukraine
On Wednesday, there was a shocking reminder of how the situation might unfold if the likely president-elect Petro Poroshenko pushes on with the military operation in the region, as shells struck the city’s streets, yards, a school and a kindergarten.
RT talked to a male schoolteacher from Slavyansk school number 13, who asked not to be named.
“Around midday there was a loud explosion in the school, and I fell to the floor, taking cover,” the teacher told RT over the phone.
The man said that he rushed to the corridor to assemble all the teachers and children in the school and take them to a safe place. Clouds of dust were billowing on one side of the building.
According to the teacher, it turned out that the shell exploded right above the school hall, where children are usually gathered for festive events, and part of the roof “was simply blown away.”
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Andrey Krasnoschekov: These pictures I photographed in the auditorium of the school, which was shelled
Luckily, no children were in the hall at the time. All the pupils and teachers were quickly evacuated to the basement.
It was not immediately clear, if there were any casualties in the kindergarten or other places shelled in Slavyansk, but the Rossiya-24 channel reported that 9 people were injured in total, including a 4-year-old boy. The channel’s crew narrowly escaped a direct hit by a mortar shell, as it fell “literally next to our car.”
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A woman whose building's courtyard was hit by artillery fire, in Slaviansk on May 28, 2014
Photos of the sites of Wednesday’s mortar attacks emerged on social media, showing partially destroyed buildings, craters in the roads, and what appeared to be blood.
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The Kiev forces quickly laid the blame on self-defense units, which they refer to as “terrorists.”
“Currently, we are confirming the information on the terrorists’ shelling of the residential quarters and the territory of the school in Slavyansk,” the commander of Kiev’s military operation in southeastern Ukraine, Vladislav Seleznyov, wrote on his Facebook page.
Meanwhile, several funerals of those killed in Monday’s shelling were held in Slavyansk on Wednesday. According to the latest reports, four people have died from shrapnel wounds since then.
The shelling damaged a block of flats and a dormitory in the city’s teachers’ college, shattering glass in the windows of the college. Power lines and, reportedly, a city water pipeline were damaged and disrupted by the blasts.
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While the Kiev authorities keep asserting that the military action in the southeast is meant to protect the people against “terrorists,” many people on the ground in Slavyansk have a directly opposite opinion on the issue.
“We are simply horrified – you see? Horrified that our 'brave army,' which we pay taxes to maintain, is [doing] nothing else but destroying us. And our president, who must protect the civilian population – he is determined to exterminate us,” a woman working at the damaged school no. 13 told RT’s Ruptly news agency.
“For some reason, they think that we here in Slavyansk are all terrorists,” the woman said.
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Shop windows shattered by shelling in Slavyansk on May 28, 2014.
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A woman working at Slavyansk school no.13 shows shrapnel of the shell that hit the school's roof on May 28, 2014.
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A car destroyed in a mortar shell explosion in Slavyansk, May 28, 2014.
Source: http://rt.com/news/162008-ukraine-sh...vyansk-school/
Ukrainian miners protest against Kiev’s military op in ‘March of Peace’
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Coal miners hold a banner depicting a miner destroying a swastika with the colors of the Ukrainian flag and reading "Fascism will not pass" during a demonstration in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on May 28, 2014.
Around 3,000 Donbas miners – the driving force of the coal-rich region – marched through the streets of Donetsk on Wednesday, protesting against Kiev's ongoing military operation in eastern Ukraine.
The demonstrators, who then gathered at a central square for a rally, chanted “Fascism won’t pass!” and “Donbas will not forgive!”
While some of the miners interviewed by RIA Novosti support the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, others simply reject what they refer to as the “fascist” policies of Kiev authorities.
“What is now happening in Donetsk, all this shooting, this does worry our wives, our children. People want to leave peacefully, to work peacefully, in a peaceful and prosperous country,” a miner named Viktor said.
http://youtu.be/_F1j_iT8qFM
The rally marked the end of the Donbas miners’ “neutrality” – until this week, they chose to not participate in anti-government actions. Just one day earlier, on Tuesday, workers at several mines in Donetsk went on strike.
“The miners of Donbas announce an indefinite strike and demand an end to the military operation and the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territory of Donetsk region,” deputy head of the coal mining industry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Konstantin Kuzmin, said on Tuesday.
He added that miners from the Skochinskogo, Abakumova, Chelyuskintsev, and Trudovskaya mines joined the strike.
http://youtu.be/HS0g26HBh3I
Previously, the workers were reportedly warned against walking out in protest against the coup-imposed Kiev government.
But Monday saw Kiev’s brutal attack on the international airport in an attempt to win it back from self-defense forces. Fighter jets and battle helicopters were unleashed and fighting eventually relocated to downtown Donetsk. More than 50 civilians and as many self-defense troops have been killed in the subsequent clashes.
The south-eastern region of Donbas is the industrial center of the country. Coal in Ukraine is one of the nation's biggest industries, while the region has been a coal mining area since the late 19th century. The miners are a powerful driving force in the region.
The clashes in Donetsk began just a few hours after the early results of the presidential election were announced.
The president-elect, billionaire Petro Poroshenko, is in favor of continuing the military operation in the southeast of the country, despite earlier calls from the nation's parliament to withdraw troops.
“I don’t have the information, denoting that [the operation] must now be stopped,” Poroshenko said during a news conference on election night. "I support its continuation, but demand a change in its format – it must be shorter and it must be more effective, military units must be better equipped.”
http://youtu.be/RCDRnQGDjwY
Source: http://rt.com/news/162092-ukraine-miners-protest-peace/
In Lugansk, 100 soldiers surrendered to militias after the assault of a military unit
The operation resulted in the death of one representative of the self-defense and two more were wounded. Also, one Ukrainian soldier had suffered.
About 100 Ukrainian conscripts, blocked in the building, surrendered to militiamen after the assault of a military unit in Lugansk. Commander of the military unit continues to remain inside, representatives of self-defense are negotiating with him.
http://youtu.be/ru6s3kv3tAo
There are victims on both sides. One of Lugansk militiamen was killed, two others were wounded in the firefight during the assault of the building. Also, one soldier of the National Guard of Ukraine was wounded.
According to the LifeNews correspondent, who works on the spot, the militiamen came to the military unit territory to ask the conscripts to surrender their weapons and go to their families. The fact is that the period of military service of young guys has already ended, but the officers continued to hold them. Relatives of young people appealed for help to militiamen.
Representatives of self-defense weren't going to assault a military unit. But after brief negotiations, the Ukrainian servicemen required them to leave the location of the military unit and opened fire from the machine gun.
Militiamen blocked command of the military unit in one of the barracks. Conscript soldiers were in the same place.
Ukrainian armed forces attempted to capture town of Rubezhny in Lugansk region on the night of May 28. The National Guard has formed a military base there, amassed forces and tried to enter the town from the private residential sector. In an armed attack, military equipment was used, and the firing was conducted from mortars. According to preliminary data, the Ukrainian army was planning to move to the railway station and take the key intersections in the town but they have failed to implement their plan. People's militia forces fought back and did not allow military personnel to move on.
Source: http://lifenews.ru/news/134029
Arsen Avakov destroyed the training camp and the entire Lugansk Guard... in Facebook (video)
"Training camp of separatists in Yaseny of the Lugansk region was destroyed with the air strike," - the Minister of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov wrote on his Facebook page.
The presidential press service confirmed this information.
"This morning, in the north of the Lugansk region, a center for training separatists was completely destroyed, along with the militants, who were being prepared for carrying out the sabotage operations on the territory of the Donbass, and in other regions of Ukraine", - said in a statement.
Leader of the mentioned camp of Lugansk Guard, Alexey Mozgovoy disagreed with another Avakov's Facebook victory.
Airstrike took place on May 27, 2014 at 5:20 am. The plane made a targeted drop of cluster bombs, making two passes. The first explosion was heard around the camp of militiamen. During the second pass, one bomb got to the weapons room through the window of the building, broke through a wall and exploded outside. Another bomb got to the militia's headquarters building. One soldier was injured, there were no killed militiamen.
http://youtu.be/ixhg5J8ThFs
Source: http://rusvesna.su/news/1401313393