Ukraine crisis. News in Brief. Friday 06 November [Ukrainian sources]

FRIDAY

Please scroll down to view news items added during the course of the day

News -
Russian terrorists fired 13 times at Ukrainian people yesterday. No word yet on casualties.
Russian plane crash. Russia trying to hush it up. But photos - Telegraph - seem to show shrapnel marks from inside the plane!
Clearly Putin doesn't want people to know if it was a bomb. And Egypt doesn't either. Hurt tourism. Conspiracy of silence... they want to wait... and wait... until people forget.
Guardian - Russia has grounded all Boeing 737s. Yes. Boeing. Not Airbus! Anti American?

Weather -
Change. From days of sun to days of cloud and rain. Forecast is for cloud and rain for the next week.
I had a friend land at Zhuliani yesterday. He said it was very foggy. Instrument landing.

Footie -
Dnepr lost 3-0 in France. St Etienne. Now into 3rd place in group G. Still chances, but not so good now.

http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-baltic-leaders-blast-russian-german-pipeline-plan/27348397.html
The project would cost Ukraine $2 billion a year (1.8 billion euros) in lost revenues as it takes away business from the land-based pipeline that transits Ukraine and Poland, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said at a press conference with Baltic leaders in Riga November 5.
Poland and Slovakia would also lose $300 million and $800 million, respectively, in annual pipeline revenues,
====
Russian - German project.

8:28
http://glavcom.ua/news/338302.html
Bills necessary for visa liberalization with the EU, would be taken in a timely manner, if the government not to delay the introduction of the Verkhovna Rada. This was in the air "on Channel 5," said the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, MP from the "Fatherland" Gregory Nemyria.
"The adoption of the law - is not only a vote, the process of preparation of the law. These laws had to prepare the Cabinet.
====
Tymoshenko blaming the Cabinet. But likely others blocked the passage of the legislation.
Bill failed to get through the Rada yesterday. Made the tv news.

The Moscow Times was one of the last intellectually inspired, critical, open and educational newspapers left in Russia. It also commented heavily on the situation in Ukraine.

Now - the new cover - a photo, and an article about a girls' football team in Moscow, and an article entitled "new ways to get drunk in Moscow".
The end. From intelligent commentary to pure garbage in a week.
Sad - but such are the times under Dictator Putin, and his manic control of the press, tv, and soon, I am sure, internet in Russia.
I'll try and get a photo of the cover.

Nelson wrote:The Moscow Times was one of the last intellectually inspired, critical, open and educational newspapers left in Russia. It also commented heavily on the situation in Ukraine.

Now - the new cover - a photo, and an article about a girls' football team in Moscow, and an article entitled "new ways to get drunk in Moscow".
The end. From intelligent commentary to pure garbage in a week.
Sad - but such are the times under Dictator Putin, and his manic control of the press, tv, and soon, I am sure, internet in Russia.
I'll try and get a photo of the cover.

I believe you're jumping the gun. MT's reporting continues to be top class as far as I can see.

Moscow Times - Front Page

Statements such as

The plane had been bound for Sharm el-Sheikh, the pro-Kremlin Lifenews tabloid reported.

prove the point.

Further, publishing comments such as this by the respected Mark Galeotti adds to that proof.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong in Russia's Syrian Gambit?

Of course, as ever, time will tell

Now for an update on the new Russian built Lada and the brainless moron looking to check the trunk and have a test drive!

Nelson wrote:

I'll try and get a photo of the cover.

No need :  MT's Front Covers

I believe you're jumping the gun. MT's reporting continues to be top class as far as I can see. - Odessite

Maybe you are right. I hope so. But to judge by the cover, they are beginning to change... We'll see in a month or two.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-wont-halt-egypt-bound-flights-calls-british-response-political/541927.html
====
mmm.. Who is being political? You would think that protecting your citizens would come first, but - not in Russia.

Nelson wrote:I believe you're jumping the gun. MT's reporting continues to be top class as far as I can see. - Odessite

Maybe you are right. I hope so. But to judge by the cover, they are beginning to change... We'll see in a month or two.

Yes, let us wait and see. Meanwhile, back at MT, they continue to allow posts and opinions by, in the quoted case, Americans.

No Way Back for Russian Women

by Natalia Antonova, who, incidentally, writes in your favourite media organ, The Guardian, no less!

Here's her internet.site:

Natialia Antanova

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/russian-aviation-committee-suspends-boeing-737-certificates/542681.html
citing safety concerns
===
Apparently nothing to do with safety.
More to do with a possible take over of Transaero - and this move more or less puts that airline into mega-financial trouble.... money...

http://nnr.su/68754
"the highest level of cooperation on all key issues with Russian presidential aide Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov."
====
The statement is complete bullsh@t. We know exactly how much the people of Donbass are appreciating all the "help" from Russia...
Note - this is a Russian - su - i.e. Soviet Union - source!

12:45
http://tyzhden.ua/News/150791
====
All the fighting is around Donetsk.

http://www.day.kiev.ua/uk/news/061115-u-zoni-ato-za-mynulu-dobu-zhoden-viyskovyy-ne-postrazhdav-ap
In the area of ​​ATU over the past day has not suffered any war - AP
November 6, 2015 - 12:57
In the area of ​​the antiterrorist operation in the Donbas over the past day, November 5, by fighting no killed or injured among Ukrainian troops there, said "UNN".
This was during the briefing said the representative of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine for ATO Colonel Andrey Lysenko.
"Although the information comes from the front, over the past day no Ukrainian soldier was injured or killed," - said Lysenko.
He confirmed the two wounded soldiers ATO at Zolotoe, Lugansk region.
According to Lysenko, the only area of ​​the zone ATO where was restless for the past day were western outskirts of Donetsk.
====
Don't quite get this.
Presume two injured soldiers was not as a result of "fighting".

Ukrainski Pravda simply says, no dead, no injured. From the same briefing by Lysenko.
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2015/11/6/7087766/
Reading elsewhere, two soldiers injured by mine at Zolotoe area. Not sure when this happened.

http://www.globalpost.com/article/6682294/2015/11/05/ukraine-snubs-free-travel-europe-over-anti-gay-law
Ukraine's parliament Thursday scuppered the ex-Soviet country's chances of visa-free travel to most EU nations by blocking legislation that would have banned discrimination against gays in the workplace....
Only 117 lawmakers in the 450-seat parliament supported the changes demanded by Brussels....
====
No comment.

http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/301909.html
...there had been a verbal brawl between Kuzhel and Teteruk when he was leaving the parliament speaker's office. "Oleksandra Kuzhel suddenly turned around and tried to hit him her bag. He was holding a half-liter bottle of water and tried to pour some water on Kuzhel to stop her. However, according to his words, he accidentally hit in Kuzhel's face with the bottle," Gerashchenko wrote.
====
One side of the story. Clearly no love lost now between Yatseniuk's party and that of Tymoshenko.
Putin must be laughing at it all. Coalition? What coalition...

The Ukrainian dissident protested against the colonial subjugation of Ukraine, policy of Russification, and Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia.

Vasyl Makukh, a member of the Ukrainian resistance movement in the USSR and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army member, has committed act of self-immolation in protest against the colonial subjugation of Ukraine, policy of Russification and Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia on Khreshchatyk Street in Kyiv Nov. 5, 1968, Censor.NET reports citing Hromadske Radіo.

Vasyl Makukh was born in the Lviv region when it was part of Poland. He was member of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. He was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor and served his term of imprisonment in the concentration camps of Siberia.



Nov.5, 1968, Kyiv residents were preparing for the biggest Bolshevist holiday - the anniversary of the October Revolution. Khreshchatyk was crowded with people.

Passers-by suddenly saw a man in flames, who ran out from the entrance of the house on 27 Khreshchatyk Street (near the Bessarabskyi Market). He was heard to shout: "Invaders out of Ukraine!", "Long live free Ukraine!"



[img]The burning man had attracted attention of all those who then turned out to be on Khreshchatyk. The police began to disperse the people in order to reduce the number of witnesses as much as possible. Finally, the man has fallen on the ground exhausted from the pain. Doctors at the hospital were ordered to save the man's life at any cost to find out whether he belonged to a nationalist organization. Vasyl Makukh died Nov. 6, 1968 without regaining consciousness.



Foreign radio stations all over the world reported Nov. 5 in the evening: "A citizen of Ukraine Vasyl Makukh, a member of the Ukrainian resistance movement in the USSR and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army member, has committed act of self-immolation in Kyiv, protesting against the colonial subjugation of Ukraine, policy of Russification, and Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia. The whole progressive world community bows its head to the courageous act of the Ukrainian patriot."

censor.net.ua In Russian

Vice President Joe Biden, in a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on November 5, said the United States was ready to help Ukraine, but Kyiv must first enact economic reforms

The U.S. financing and a $1.7 billion loan disbursement from the International Monetary Fund have been held up by squabbling between the Ukrainian parliament and Finance Ministry over proposed tax cuts.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk warned on November 4 that the near-deadlock over the level of planned tax cuts threatened to derail the government's 2016 budget and Western financing that is linked to it.

Lawmakers want steep cuts that the Finance Ministry says are not sustainable.

"We now have many allies in the West and these allies will stand with us so long as we show political will, responsibility and the unchanging nature of our goals and values as we carry out reform," he said. "We must all speak in one language.".....

rferl.org

The illegal occupation force installed in Crimea by Russia began their efforts to destroy the Crimean Tatars by closing down the most influential news source for Tatars, ATR Television. Now ATR continues its efforts from Kyiv via online telecasting.

By Paul Goble* for “Windows on Eurasia”:

November 5 –Moscow regularly has used its illegal occupation of Crimea as a testing ground for policies Vladimir Putin wants to apply across the Russian Federation. And that in turn means that any new Russian notion surfacing in Crimea should be evaluated in terms of its threat not only to the residents of that Ukrainian peninsula but also more generally.

Earlier this week, Murat Yazydzhiyev, the secretary of the pro-Moscow Crimean Tatar Kyyrym organization, declared that Crimean Tatars should stop thinking about “national sovereignty” and accept “the simple idea” that “Crimean Tatars are Russians!” (belogorsknews.blogspot.com/2015/11/blog-post_2.html).

But as the Crimean Tatar QHA news agency pointed out in reporting Yazydzhiyev’s remarks, if one follows his logic and China replaces Russia as the occupier of Crimea then the Crimean Tatars could easily declare that ‘we are Chinese!’” (qha.com.ua/ru/politika/krimskim-tataram-predlojili-novuyu-ideologiyu/150550/).

The Kyyrym ideologist “apparently forgets,” QHA continued, “that is such an ideology there is no constituent element capable of identifying the Crimean Tatar people” and thus “such a slogan could be proclaimed for the representatives of dozens of peoples in the Russia Federation.”

Such an approach, QHA continued, “is the direct path to the elimination of national distinctions and the uniqueness of the people of Crimea and its rights to its native land,” as well as being a threat to the same qualities among the non-Russian nations currently living under Moscow’s rule.

(In another commentary on Yazydzhiyev’s statement, Andrey Zaremba suggested that this notion was the latest iteration of the efforts to destroy national identity that Chingiz Aitmatov described by referring to the mankurts whose memories were destroyed so that they would obey new rulers (ru.krymr.com/content/article/27344659.html).)

According to Yazydzhiyev, earlier Crimean Tatar aspirations to achieve autonomy within an independent Ukraine are no longer real. “The situation has changed in a cardinal way. Crimea has been united with Russia,” a country in which he says, “each of its numerous peoples has equal rights and where the Crimean Tatars have millions of fellow believers.”

“In these conditions,” he continued, “the idea of sovereign national statehood loses any meaning and a new idea becomes important, one capable of unifying around itself all Crimean Tatars living in Crimea. And this idea is simple: the Crimean Tatars are Russians!” They should construct “a new national ideology on this basis.”

And “only then will it be possible to consider the appearance of a Crimean Tatar national republic in the Russian Federation like those of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chechnya, Daghestan and so on.” That is because, Yazdzhiyev concludes with the words, “we are Russians; Russia is our native land.”.................

To read further go to this link: ukrainebusiness.com.ua

Ukrainian Minister of Economic Development and Trade Aivaras Abromavicius says that the most important achievement of the Ukrainian government over the past year is macroeconomic stabilization in the country, which is expected to translate into real GDP growth in the fourth quarter.

"Macroeconomic stabilization has been the government's greatest achievement in the past year," Abromavicius said at the CFA Society Ukraine Forum in Kyiv on Friday.

The minister also pointed to the increased balance in the accounts of the State Treasury, the stabilization of inflation and the forex rate, as well as the economic recovery in general.

"We expect [real] GDP growth in Ukraine in the fourth quarter this year," the minister added.

A forecast for next year's 2% GDP growth projected by international financial institutions is quite achievable, according to Abromavicius.

The minister noted the economic development in the country is based on three pillars – deregulation, privatization and the fight against corruption.

The minister reminded about the plans of the Ukrainian government to enter the top 50 of the Doing Business rating, for which Ukraine has already implemented half of the 212-point deregulation plan.

Regarding the privatization process, the minister assured that it would be open and transparent.

The fight against corruption cannot be achieved without getting rid of corrupt officials, the minister noted. According to Abromavicius, the ministry has already dismissed 35% of its staff and plans to fire 20% more by the end of the year..................

unian.info

The announcement that all Ukrainians living in Russia must regulate their legal status before the end of November coincided with the armed searches last week of the Ukrainian Literature Library in Moscow and the arrest of its Director Natalya Sharina.

The original notification from Russia’s Federal Migration Service [FMS] was cryptic enough to warrant caution before drawing conclusions. More details are now available and they are worrying. In January 2014 Russia introduced a ‘90/180’ rule for countries whose nationals do not require visas to enter Russia. You can only stay for 90 days before leaving, and can only return 90 days later. This rule kept being deferred with respect to Ukraine, and the news that no waivers would be applied, except in the case of people fleeing from the military conflict in Donbas came as a surprise. Viktor Hirzhov, co-head of the organization Ukrainians of Moscow stressed in an interview to Radio Svoboda that kind motives for the earlier preferential treatment need not be suspected. On the contrary, the rule was waived as part of the deliberate attempts to undermine Ukraine’s mobilization in the face of Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine. In January 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin even stated that the time limit on being in Russia could be extended, especially for Ukrainians of mobilization age.

Hirzhov points out that the situation has now changed, with Russian focusing on Syria and relative quiet on the Donbas front. “Now there’s a new task – to destabilize the situation in Ukraine, create social and political tension through pushing out people able to work, primarily men.”

FMS figures suggest that there are 2.5 million Ukrainians in Russia, however many Ukrainians will be living in Russia without registering. The same is, of course, true of Russians living in Ukraine. FMS talks of 600 thousand work migrants who must now receive a work permit, temporary residence permit or marry. It is unclear how many will be unable to do so and will be forced to return to Ukraine without work, and quite likely without a place to live. That is the aim, Hirzhov is convinced, with the disgruntlement generated to be used by opposition political forces. He believes that the Russian authorities are also trying to crush the Ukrainian Diaspora in Russia. He himself was recently removed from a train returning to Russia and has been banned from the country for five years. The attack on the Ukrainian Library then followed, and now these measures against migrants..................

To read further go to this link: khpg.org

Skirmishes between Donetsk militants resulted in dozens of deaths, according to the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine's Defense Ministry.

"15 people died and about 20 have been wounded as a result of shootout in Donetsk between separatists' gangs," says the report.

So-called security forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic arrested more than 40 militants involved in the deadly melee..............

To read further go to this link: uatoday.tv

The "Normandy group" of foreign ministers have met to discuss the Russia-Ukraine conflict with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanding implementation of the Minsk agreements be extended into 2016.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who held talks with his counterparts from France, Russia and Ukraine, said "difficult tasks" lay ahead.

"We are behind in schedule and ahead of us are a few difficult tasks. The difficult tasks are especially those which affect the so called political process, meaning the preparation of elections in eastern Ukraine," Germany's top diplomat said.

Steinmeier said it was not good enough that the Russia-backed authorities in east Ukraine were depriving people living there of humanitarian assistance.

"We expressed our unhappiness that humanitarian organisations continue to have little access to eastern Ukraine and to the Donbass region, with the exception of a few, such as the International Red Cross which is admitted and can operate. Many other organisations so far are excluded."...................

To read further go to this link:  uatoday.tv

First in the firing line will be the judges of the Supreme Court, then supreme specialized courts, appellate courts and finally first instance judges, the president said addressing students of Kyiv Shevchenko national university, Radio Svoboda reports.

The screening of judges will entail the professional check and the screening of their and their families income declarations.

All legal sources of income will be also checked.

If a judge cannot explain the sources of his wealth, he is to be dismissed, the president said.

These proposals are to be included in the Constitution and adopted by lawmakers, Poroshenko said.

zik.ua

The new interim leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and the official parliamentary opposition Rona Ambrose has Ukrainian roots. According to "Ukrinform", her maiden name - Chapchuk.

Thus, it was the third Ukrainian, who took a high position in the Canadian government this week. Previously, federal ministers became Christ and Mary Ann Freeland Migaychuk.

"We congratulate Ms. Ambrose on her election as party members and look forward to cooperation. This week has demonstrated the talent and intelligence of Ukrainian Canadian women elected to parliament, inclusive opposition leader and two ministers ", - said President Ukrainian Canadian Congress Paul Grod.

Note that after the opening of the parliamentary session in December, the party will elect a leader again. In the previous government, Ron Ambrose was Minister of Health.

glavcom.ua In Russian

Division Russian mercenaries, created on the basis of private military companies being transferred to Syria by planes from the airport to the tent city of Mozdok in the region of Latakia, where they are separated from the Armed Forces units. This was reported on the website of the Main Intelligence Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

"As part of the species group Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Syria are units of mercenaries, created on the basis of private military companies (in the territory of the Russian Federation official status do not have). The transfer to Syria carried by air from an airfield in Mozdok (North Ossetia), the place of dislocation - tents in Latakia region (apart from the Russian armed forces units), "- said in a survey, quoted by" Ukrinform ".

glavcom.ua In Russian