Ukraine crisis. News in Brief. Wednesday 26 August [Ukrainian sources]

WEDNESDAY

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

News -
92 times - Putin attacked Ukraine with weapons yesterday.
Sadly - reading 2 more soldiers died yesterday, and 11 injured in the war against Russia.
The madness of Putin and his Russian show-trials has made the international news - Sentsov being sentenced to 20 years hard labor.
The word "Stalinist" used by many journalists.

Weather -
Mid-20s today, but back to 30C - 80s - by the weekend. Strangely warm for late August.

Footie -
I watched the first half of the Shakhtar game against Vienna last night. 2-2 after 30 minutes. Crazy open game.
That's how the game finished, so Shakhtar go through 3-2 on aggregate. Two Ukrainian teams in the group stages of the Champions League. That does not happen very often. Good. Maybe I'll watch Chelsea here for 5 dollars in a month or two? (Photo I took on Saturday, having walked down through Marinski Park)

http://www.radiosvoboda.org/content/news/27209236.html
===
Article talks about seeding for the draw tomorrow. Depends on Lazio, if Shaktar get into the 2nd group.
But  - frankly - at the moment - Dynamo look stronger to me, although younger. And far fewer overseas players - Brazilians.

When was the last time Ukraine had 2 teams in the Champions League group stages - perhaps 4 or 5 years' ago. And it hasn't happened very often at all.

The entrance to the old Dynamo stadium has been completely restored, following the battles during Maidan - the Yanukovich oppression. I took this photo at the weekend.

http://www.ukrinform.ua/ukr/news/stali_vidomi_prichini_pogegi_v_buchi_pid_kie_vom_2087829
===
Moving chemicals around - filling things up. This is interesting, re air pollution ....
residents were advised to tightly close the windows, to wet cleaning in the apartments, drink milk and eat marmalade" - the newspaper notes.
Eat marmalade?!

At the next meeting of the UN General Assembly to be held in September, may be limited by the veto. This was reported by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin, the TV channel "Inter".

It is expected that during the next session of the UN General Assembly the right to veto the Russian side will be limited.

"Firstly, the discussion goes, we are very supportive of the idea regarding the restriction of the right of veto. There is an initiative to which have joined more than 40 countries. I've always been an ardent admirer of restrictions on the right of veto, because we can not stay in the 40s or 50s. We live in a different, globalized world. And when the Security Council come cases, such as at the end of July, when Russia blocked the establishment of a tribunal for the Malaysian Boeing, it is the only mechanism possible to investigate how it happened, and the main thing - to bring the perpetrators to justice, "- Klimkin said.

The minister believes that gradually would still be able to deprive Russia of the right of veto.

glavcom.ua In Russian

7:30
http://newsoboz.org/ekonomika/v-lnr-priznali-chto-zavyshayut-tseny-na-myaso-26082015073000
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Of course it does, like everything else in the Donbass.
That is why those controlling the border are making millions.
I reported a few days ago about Volnovakha, where Border Guards were returning from the "tour of duty" with a million hryvnia, and going out and buying new cars, gold jewellry for babushka, and so on. 60,000 hryvnia a day. Not bad. Let a few trucks of meat or beer through, and somebody is making big big bucks.

7:16
http://obozrevatel.com/blogs/81024-putin-smertnik--kamikadze.htm
===
What I've been saying for some time.
Putin is completely destroying Russia. Single-handedly.
But this lady puts it all more poetically.

http://censor.net.ua/news/349102/v_techenie_minuvshih_sutok_terroristy_sovershili_92_obstrela_vozle_novotroitskogo_byl_boyi_presstsentr
[last part of article]
"Unrest at the end of the day was in the area of ​​Mariupol. About 19 hours by our three strong points in Starognatovke beaten enemy mortars. And at 19:50, sabotage and reconnaissance groups of the enemy was trying to circumvent the Ukrainian position near Novotroitsk. As a result of the fighting and combat bandits retreated" - reported in the headquarters.
In Luhansk, in the evening, confrontation at Stanitsa Lugansk: "As the forces of ATO in this village several times mercenaries fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and heavy machine guns."
"In general, during yesterday's day - August 25 Russian-terrorist forces 92 times violated the ceasefire. 9 times mercenaries employed artillery, 37 - mortars, 19 grenade launchers," - added in the press center.
====
Figures getting higher again. Was in the 70s for a couple of days.. Putin upping the war after his visit to the occupied Crimea.

www.bloomberg.com/energy/
1 minute ago
Crude Oil & Natural Gas
INDEX UNITS PRICE CHANGE %CHANGE CONTRACT TIME ET 2 DAY
WTI Crude Oil (Nymex)
USD/bbl. 39.67 +0.36 +0.92% OCT 15 00:28:33
Brent Crude (ICE)
USD/bbl. 43.50 +0.29 +0.67% OCT 15 00:27:13
===
But still way down on figures from a couple of weeks' ago. 40 / 43 dollars a barrel.  
Brent and WTI now fairly close in price.

The ruble has stabilized, and I would think as a result of some intervention.
www.xe.com
1 minute ago
Rubles to one dollar // one euro //  one pound
Inverse: 69.4025 79.7287 108.950
===
I plan to start a thread about money in Ukraine in a week or two on the "Money and Tourism" board on this forum

Hyvnia yesterday, at the Exchange Bureau, I saw 23.00 // 23.55 - slightly weaker again.
www.xe.com gives now
Inverse: 22.5993 25.9632 35.4805
for dollar / euro/ pound.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34055256
The programme's authors have set an ultimate goal of selling off the more than 2,000 businesses belonging to the government, leaving only 15-20 "strategic" enterprises, like railroads and major utilities.
===
Including 11 horse breeding farms. Now - these will be loved by the rich deputies - have your own horse farm - mega-status symbol in Ukraine.
The Rada Deputies are mad about horses - that I know for certain.
So - they're selling off one thing all Deputies want... the smell of something a little dodgy somewhere?!
Article is by American Stern - freelance. Rather naive, in my opinion. Don't think he knows much Russian or Ukrainian.

8:36
http://www.facenews.ua/news/2015/288923/
Most Ukrainians support the reform to the authorities, but not satisfied with the level of their implementation.
[Misleading headline, in my opinion... Yes, there is a war against Russia, but what can the authorities do about that? Not a lot. Putin is the aggressor. ]

http://www.iwm.at/read-listen-watch/transit-online/the-languages-of-ukraine/
===
Found this by chance.
Cannot find a date on this article. But not a bad read. By some prof in Vienna.

http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2015/08/26/7079052/
[5 enemy drone flights]

http://www.radiosvoboda.org/content/news/27209944.html
In Russia, opposition leader Ilya Yashin, who heads the party list elections in Parnassus Kostroma region, was detained during a meeting with voters in Kostroma. This politician had said on twitter.
According to him, the police detained accompanied by representatives of the FSB, he was taken to the police department.
According to the head Fund to Fight Corruption Roman Rubanov, Yashin suspected of resisting police. The maximum penalty for the offense - arrest for up to 15 days.
Elections to the Kostroma Regional Duma, which is running Yashin, held on 13 September.



[The Stalin purges. Part II.
Putin simply eliminating all opposition.]

Украинцы тепло относятся к Польше, и прохладно к РФ - опрос
Ukraine has warm feelings towards Poland, and cool towards the Russian Federation
http://news.liga.net/news/society/6509358-ukraintsy_teplo_otnosyatsya_k_polshe_i_prokhladno_k_rf_opros.htm



List on left - Poland, Belarus, Georgia, Eu, Lithuania, Canada, US, Germany, Moldova, and - at the bottom - Russia . No surprise there.
====
Большинство украинцев одобряют вступление в ЕС и НАТО - опрос
The majority of Ukrainians favour joining the EU and NATO
http://news.liga.net/news/politics/6509383-bolshinstvo_ukraintsev_odobryayut_vstuplenie_v_es_i_nato_opros.htm
Accession to the European Union and NATO support the majority of citizens of Ukraine - 55% and 41%. This is evidenced results of a study conducted by the sociological group Rating.



Month and year on the left. Dark blue = EU, Red = Russia. Trend is pretty clear. Unless you're a Moscow journalist.

And Nato - dark blue in favor, and red, against; middle - don't know, won't vote

16:15
http://fakty.ua/205007-v-pervuyu-noch-raboty-odesskie-patrulnye-policejskie-lovili-grabitelej-i-usmiryali-pyanogo-voditelya

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3211408/Ukraines-stockpiling-winter-gas-slower-year-PM.html
====
Frankly, this is good news, as the gas price is falling and falling - linked to oil, but with a lag of about 6 months... so I am told.
Article also says Poro is going to Brussels tomorrow. Talk with Juncker.
He is clocking up some air miles at the moment.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-number-of-russian-troops-killed-or-injured-fighting-in-ukraine-seems-to-have-been-accidentally-published-10472603.html

"as of 1 February 2015, monetary compensation had been paid to more than 2,000 families of fallen soldiers and to 3,200 military personnel suffering heavy wounds and recognized as invalids.”...
"There is no exit strategy for Putin, he’s in a war that he can’t afford to lose, but is incapable of being won; an impasse for Russia as the economy declines as does the popularity of the war.

====
As somebody in the comments section points out - these numbers are only for those who have received compensation.
So - the real number of Russian dead is much higher.

Switzerland expects to adopt a new law by the end of the year that will speed restitution of illicit funds stashed in the Alpine country, where thousands of 'politically exposed persons' are believed to hold bank accounts.
This was announced by Valentin Zellweger, head of the Swiss Foreign Ministry's federal department of international law, Censor.NET reports citing Reuters.

Swiss authorities are cooperating with a number of countries, among them Haiti, Egypt, Tunisia and Ukraine, to return stolen assets that have been frozen following changes in power, Zellweger said.

Specifically, they are working to return $40 million to Tunisia, a "big slice" of the $60 million stashed during the era of former leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, he said.

But the killing of Egypt's general prosecutor has slowed cooperation with Cairo on returning funds linked to former President Hosni Mubarak, he said.

Read more: Switzerland complied with Ukraine's request on blocked funds of former president Yanukovych for the first time

The two houses of the Swiss parliament still need to reconcile their versions of the new draft law, including the issue of a statute of limitations, Zellweger said.

"I guess that we will only have the statute by the end of the year," he said. "It will be the most comprehensive act worldwide ... it is the right thing to do."

In the last 25 years, Switzerland has returned $1.8 billion in stolen or embezzled funds seized in accounts held by dictators ranging from the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos and Nigeria's Sani Abacha to Haiti's Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier and Sese Seko Mobuto of the former Zaire.

It was reported earlier that Switzerland complied with Ukraine's request to legally assist Ukraine regarding blocked funds of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

censor.net.ua In Russian

A LiveJournal blogger by the name of Otakvot has published evidence that he says demonstrates the locations of several "troll factories" throughout Russia: companies that pay people to blanket the blogosphere and news media with anti-Ukraine, anti-Western and pro-Kremlin comments, Russia's Meduza online resource reports.

Otakvot says he was able to locate these centers using the service Google Trends, which reveals how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages, Meduza reports.....................

To read further go to this link: uatoday.tv

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleksandr Turchynov has said that Russian troops have become more active in Donbas and are preparing routes to be used to attack Ukraine.

"In the east of Ukraine, the Russian army is being activated," the NSDC press service quoted Turchynov as saying on Tuesday.

According to the reports, Russia's engineering detachments have built five pontoon ferries over the Siversky Donets river on the Ukrainian-Russian border, as well as building access routes to the ferries.

"Thus, military infrastructure is being formed to ensure redeployment of additional detachments of Russian troops to the occupied territory of Ukraine to use them in battle," Turchynov said, adding that this is more evidence of the direct involvement of the Russian military in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

hst-ukraine.com

Russian president Vladimir Putin has decreed that all Russian casualties "in peacetime" be a state secret. In addition to criminal charges arising from divulging state secrets, families risk losing pensions and lump-sum payments if they reveal that their sons were killed in Ukraine.

Mothers of soldiers' associations have been branded "foreign agents" for collecting data on Russian casualties. Dissident Boris Nemtsov was murdered shortly before completing his study of Russian casualties in Ukraine. Russian civil rights organizations, working against the fog of official resistance, could confirm only several hundred battlefield deaths.

"Compensation of military personnel taking part in military actions in Ukraine in 2014-2015."..................



To read further go to this link: uatoday.tv

Cabinet of Ministers has approved signing of an agreement with the Polish government for a tied aid loan by Poland.

This is reported by Censor.NET citing government portal.

According to government decree No. 855-p of Aug. 19, 2015, the Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko is authorized to sign the agreement. "The agreement will allow attracting to the state budget of Ukraine a soft loan of 100 million euros intended for various investment projects inside the country. It also allows Ukrainian government to receive loans to fund cross-border road infrastructure projects and arrangement of border crossing points at the Ukrainian-Polish border, as well as other projects to be agreed upon by the parties and financed under separate contracts between Polish exporters and residents of Ukraine," the report reads.

As reported before, in January 2015, referring to the Prime Minister Arsenii Yatseniuk, Poland's government announced a loan program for Ukraine in the amount of 100 million euros for a 10-year period. In April, Yatseniuk informed that Ukraine and Poland had reached an agreement to spend half of the loan on construction of roads leading to checkpoints at the Ukrainian-Polish border.

censor.net.ua In Russian

Ukraine exported 2.74 million tonnes of grain to China in January-June 2015, which was 7.8 times up year-over-year, according to the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry's press service.

digitalnewsworld.com

The state prosecution will ask the court to pass down the maximum possible sentences under the Criminal Code of Ukraine against the officers of the Main Investigative Department of the General Command of the Russian Armed Forces, Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov, who will shortly go on trial.

"In regard to corpus delicti, a procedural prosecution, the official prosecution will ask for the maximum sentences under all articles which the officers are suspected [of committing crimes]. What decision will the Ukrainian court pass? I guess there even should be no doubt," chief military prosecutor of Ukraine Anatoliy Matios said at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.

Matios said that the two Russians were granted lawyers whose services are being paid for by the Ukrainian state.

He said that the prosecutor's office plans to send...................

ua.interfax.com.ua In Ukrainian

The improvement was led by sugar producer Astarta (AST PW), which rose 2.9%.

Ukrainian equities stabilized themselves on Tuesday, Aug. 25 amid the ongoing global selloff. The WIG Ukraine Index of Warsaw-traded stocks improved 0.6%, snapping a six-session loss streak during which it lost 13.6%. The improvement was led by sugar producer Astarta (AST PW), which rose 2.9%. Yet the index’s biggest component, grain trader and sunflower oil maker Kernel (KER PW), fell 1.5%, extending its cold streak to seven sessions at a 14.6% plunge. Outside the index, natural gas E&P Serinus Energy (SEN PW) slid 0.6%, extending its loss streak to four sessions at a 13.7% drop. In London, iron ore miner and pellet maker Ferrexpo (FXPO LN) decreased 1.3%, extending its cold streak to four sessions at an 18.9% plunge. Investors bottom-fished for egg producer Avangardco (AVGR LI), which improved 14.3% after plummeting 20.5% in the prior session, and real estate firm DUPD (DUPD LN), which advanced 6.9% after plunging 15.3% in the prior two sessions. The Ukrainian Exchange (UX) Index of Kyiv-traded stocks declined 1.5%, weighed down by Alchevsk Steel (ALMK UK -3.8%).

ukrainebusiness.com.ua

Head of the Interior Ministry Department in the Donetsk region Viacheslav Abroskin has come up with information about another batch of individuals, who built a career in the terrorist "DPR."
As reported by Censor.NET, he announced this on his Facebook page.

"More "Mordor" puppets have been unveiled. They will hit wanted list very soon. Here are the disguised criminals from among the "top "DPR" emergency ministry officials," Abroskin wrote.






censor.net.ua In Russian

This Ural truck named 'Malyuk,' or 'Little Guy', used to be located in Luhansk at the warehouse of the 17th Brigade. Now it's in Donetsk region with the 53rd Brigade.

The vehicle has been shot up a little bit. Behind it is this armoured personnel carrier, named 'Kurva,' or 'whure.'

The troops jokingly decided not to use the Russian word, 'Sterva,' because it is too rude.

Joining the military vehicles is KAMAZ truck outfitted with what looks like an anti-aircraft gun - two machine guns welded together.

But this equipment and fortifications will not protect these soldiers from rare bunker-busting shells which their enemy has started firing at them.

Ukrainian soldier: "This is where the shell entered, making a BRRRRR noise. No fortification or bunker would help. Just imagine the crater the shell made underground to turn up all this soil.

Ukrainian soldier: "The shell detonates several meters in the ground and then explodes. The shell impacted here ... but did not explode. I can measure how far it entered the ground .... it's about three metres deep.

The guys are joking. They are not afraid of these shells, because there are no trenches have been built for them to shelter in. These trenches are not covered, because Ukraine's Army hasn't gotten around to it yet.......................

To read further go to this link: uatoday.tv

Experts CMM OSCE noticed in the sky over Nizhneteplym that in the Luhansk region, four aircraft. This is stated in the report of the ad hoc monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE CMM) for August 25.

Near Nizhneteplogo that is under the control of Ukrainian troops, experts of the OSCE mission saw four aircraft. Three of them flew south, one - to the north.

According to the mission, the aircraft were 20 kilometers away from their positions, but the altitude at which they flew, the experts have not determined.

glavcom.ua In Russian