Ukraine crisis. News in brief. Saturday 17 October [Ukrainian sources]

SATURDAY

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


NEWS:

No reports of casualties within the ATO and mostly calm in the conflict areas. OSCE reported that militants pulled back certain arms, but then at night pulled them back into the front. They also started the pullback three days later than agreed on. Nobody should expect them to follow what is agreed on, when there's ever meetings from both sides. Shows, either the militants don't give a damn or they don't care what the Kremlin requests from them. Or! It's a classic Kremlin example of their ongoing intimidation.

There have been reports that air surveillance has noticed Russian military buildup in the Crimea borders. IMO, it's all intimidation.

The US still offering monetary assistance for Ukraine and Germany's offering business investment, if they get a grip on corruption. The EBRD is also offering a $300 million loan to Ukraine.

Corruption's still a big issue throughout Ukraine. Saakashvili stated some that are partaking in elections are talking about how to split-up land areas.

As was mentioned yesterday, the Kremlin has spent around $377 billion on the conflict/war in eastern Ukraine. If he's invested that much, he's not going away anytime soon. He's got to get something out of it, or he'll have even more to answer for than what he's having to do currently. So far, Poroshenko has been denying his desires and demands. I hope the west (mainly the US) continues supporting it. Putin wants to destroy Ukraine to the point of giving up, but the economy's picking up some and experts have mentioned some areas are doing very well. Agriculture of course, one of their main exports is doing well and producing more than same time last year. Remember that Ukraine's now China's number 1 corn exporter. So things are getting better although slowly, but probably pissing off Putin, as this isn't what he wanted, from his very expensive investment.

WEATHER:

In Kyiv it's mostly sunny with a real feel temp. of +10c. I the south it's around +15c and sunny. Might be a little too cool for a time on Arcadia beach in Odessa but, Ukrainians would probably be use to that kind of temperature, before it gets much colder very soon.

The pro-Russian militants demonstratively withdraw equipment at the Volnovakha direction so that the OSCE SMM can record it while the majority of heavy equipment returns back to firing positions at night.

Censor.NET reports citing statement by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

"The Russian occupation troops observed the cease-fire over the past 24 hours. No attacks on the ATO forces have been recorded. At the same time, the enemy carries out provocative actions in certain areas. The deployment of the First Army Corps of the Russian Federation in battle order was recorded in the vicinity of Petrivske village (Starobeshiv district)," the agency noted.

"Demonstrating the implementation of the Minsk agreements in terms of heavy weapons withdrawal, the enemy conducts redeployment of military equipment from the line of contact at the Mariupol direction. However, the number of withdrawn hardware in certain directions is insignificant. In particular, the pro-Russian militants demonstratively withdraw equipment at the Volnovakha direction so that the OSCE SMM can record it while the majority of heavy equipment returns back to firing positions at night," the statement reads.

It is noted that Ukrainian detachments deployed near the line of contact were reinforced with anti-tank means due to the withdrawal of equipment by the Ukrainian side.

Besides, the enemy artillery with caliber exceeding 100-mm (SP guns) has been spotted by the reconnaissance means in the vicinity of Makiivka and Styla. The presence of mentioned hardware in these areas is violation of the Minsk agreements.

censor.net.ua In Russian

Former SBU Chairman Valentyn Nalyvaichenko denies claims by Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin that there is allegedly no evidence of the Russian security services involvement in execution of the Maidan activists in the case file.

Nalyvaichenko said at a press conference in Kyiv, Censor.NET reports citing UNIAN.

"These materials are on Bankova Street (Presidential Administration). I personally reported to the president. These files have officially been submitted to the Prosecutor General's Office with my signature, with the names and information concerning time and location where Surkov (Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation - Ed.) was ran those operations from. If this is not enough, if these addresses are not suffice, the third location is Dynamo stadium, where the Russian Vityaz (special operations force - Ed.) trained to kill Heavenly Hundred," Nalyvaichenko said.

At the same time the ex-head of the Security Service of Ukraine assured the public that he "would not allow hushing this case up".

As reported, Shokin declared that he had no information on Russia's involvement in the execution of Heavenly Hundred on the Maidan in Kyiv in February 2014.

"If you remember, former SBU Chairman Valentyn Nalyvaichenko stated at the time that a Russian official was allegedly in Kyiv in winter of 2014 and was giving the orders to law enforcers to fire at the protesters. I asked Nalyvaichenko to submit at least some documents proving it. We still do not have them. Thus, I do not currently have information that there is Russian trace in the execution of Heavenly Hundred," the Prosecutor General said.

According to Shokin, it is impossible to make such a conclusion with due consideration of the available materials.

Earlier, President Petro Poroshenko stated in his speech on the anniversary of the massacre on the Maidan that the SBU had its Alpha special forces operatives' testimony that Putin's Advisor Vladislav Surkov was organizing foreign sniper groups on the Maidan.

Nalyvaichenko also said that Surkov lived in one of the SBU facilities together with former SBU Chairman Oleksandr Yakymenko during his visit to Ukraine. Surkov also visited the Presidential Administration then.

censor.net.ua In Russian

Dnepr-1 regiment aerial surveillance started to patrol the Crimean peninsula, occupied by the Russian Federation.
Censor.NET reports citing the press service of the regiment Facebook.

A system of trenches, mortar and shooting positions were spotted along the Syvash. There were 23 units of military equipment and three helipads registered at the Dzhankoi checkpoint. 38 pieces of military equipment were discovered in the town of Armiansk.



censor.net.u In Russian

A new poll released by International Republican Institute found high voter enthusiasm ahead of the upcoming Oct. 25 local elections, a continuing frustration over the pace of reforms and a troubling lack of understanding about the reforms being pursued. The poll also found increased public support for NATO membership.
Censor.NET reports citing Radio Svoboda.

IRI's poll saw the highest level of support for NATO membership in any survey the Institute has conducted. When asked whether they would vote for Ukraine to join NATO in a referendum, 48 percent of respondents said they would - a seven point increase since IRI's last survey - while only 28 percent said they would vote against this decision. In addition, a strong majority (57 percent) continue to support Ukraine's integration with the European Union.

The poll was conducted in all regions of Ukraine (with the exception of the Crimea and the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions) from Sep. 7-21, 2015, with an oversample in the Zakarpattia region (see poll presentation for methodology). The national survey had a randomly selected sample of 1,200 permanent residents of Ukraine aged 18 and older and eligible to vote. The margin of error does not exceed plus or minus 2.8 percent, and the response rate was 63.9 percent.

censor.net.ua In Russian

This week, Prosecutor's Office in the Odesa region opened a criminal case against several persons associated with Serhiy Kivalov on the fact of vote buying.

Head of the Odesa Regional State Administration Mikheil Saakashvili announced on Shuster LIVE TV show, Censor.NET reports.

Saakashvili reported about facts of bribing of Zatoka village inhabitants. During his speech Saakashvili also spoke about corruption schemes of land distribution in the Odesa region.

According to him, the candidates are striving for power in the Odesa region to appropriate land plots.
"We have to ask about the motivation of the people who are running in the local election. They are often linked to gang violence. Village councils and city councils distribute land. These people spend 10 to 20 thousand dollars, depending on how much land in a particular area costs, get elected and that's it. In the next four years they appropriate the remaining land. It is a standard technology. We are dealing with it," he said.

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censor.net.ua In Russian

The Odesa regional prosecutor's office will investigate into the distribution of land plots in Kryzhanivka as well as the actions of the village council.
As reported by Censor.NET, this was announced by Head of the Odesa Regional State Administration Mikheil Saakashvili on his Facebook page.

"Kryzhanivka village has one the most expensive land to be found on Ukraine's coast, which is distributed by the local village council. It costs a fortune to get a place there. It turned out that most of the land in the village was distributed among the relatives of council's administration. We decided to end this lawlessness. When I came there, I met people with placards, mostly those from the village council, who have appropriated this land!" Saakashvili noted.

censor.net.ua In Russian

To mark Belarus Free Theatre’s tenth anniversary, David Gilmour will feature in Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned at KOKO on Oct.18, sharing the stage with artists from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, all of whom have experienced persecution and intimidation for speaking out in defence of their political and religious freedoms.

Censor.NET reports citing Ukrainski Novyny.

I'm with the Banned will unite artists who live in political freedom with banned bands from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, playing on the same bill for the first time. They will perform under a banner designed by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who continues to live under house arrest in Beijing. These artists have all endured extensive intimidation campaigns; they have been systematically persecuted for speaking out in defence of freedom. Now they take centre stage together.

Pink Floyd frontman David Gilmour will perform with banned Belarusian musicians. The British rock legend has written a song about Heavenly Hundred especially for the event. Russian punk activists Pussy Riot whose unapologetically provocative guerrilla performance in Moscow's main cathedral propelled these charismatic campaigners to the world's attention. Punk-rockers Brutto, formed by Sergey Mikhalok, the former frontman of a Belarusian rock band Lyapis Trubetskoj who were banned in Belarus after he signed an open letter of protest against the imprisonment of Lukashenko's opponents in 2010. Mikhalok now lives in political exile in Ukraine.

Also taking to the stage - Ukrainian supergroup Boombox, who fronted the Maidan demonstrations in Kyiv with Okean Elzy and Ruslana. They are now banned from performing in Russia because of their pro-freedom stance.

censor.net.ua In Russian

The ex-head of the Security Service of Ukraine, SBU, Valentyn Nalyvajchenko, says the evidence of Russia’s direct involvement in the murder of Maidan protesters in the winter of 2014 had been provided by his service to the presidential administration and prosecutor’s general office.

Nalyvajchenko was commenting on PGO head Viktor Shokin statement that his office does not have any documents confirming the Russian trail in the 2014 murders of a hundred of protesters.

“I can tell the general prosecutor and media where the documents are now. They are at the presidential administration – I personally handed the originals to President Poroshenko,” he said.

The documents are also at the PGO and they specify the dates, locations of Putin’s adviser Surkov who was secretly in Ukraine at the time of the revolution, Nalyvajchenko added.

He also disclosed the place (Dynamo stadium) where Russian special forces were training Ukrainian police to kill the protesters, Ukrayinska Pravda reported Oct. 16.

zik.ua

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development approved a decision on allocation to Ukraine a credit worth $300 million for the purchase of gas from European suppliers.

ukrinform.net

Ever since the West imposed economic sanctions on Russia in the aftermath of annexation of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin, and the large number of Kremlin friendly media outlets, have struck a bold and defiant tone, writes Mark Adomanis, the expert on the Russian economy, in his article published by Forbes.

According to the Kremlin's (obviously self-interested) interpretation, European and American sanctions would backfire. Instead of harming Russian business, they would actually enable domestic entrepreneurs to seize market share. Basically, Western sanctions, along with a healthy depreciation of the ruble, would be a good thing because they would spark domestic industry, according to the report.

How has that situation been working out so far?

As the ruble has collapsed, crippling the purchasing power of Russian households, imports really have declined. Data of Rosstat [the Federal State Statistics Service] show what has happened to inflation-adjusted imports over the past several years. From the second quarter of 2014 through the second quarter of 2015, the ruble value of Russia's imports decreased by almost 30% (the ruble value of exports, meanwhile, actually increased). When a currency depreciates as much as the ruble has over the past year you would expect imports to take a significant hit, the report notes.

But what has happened to domestic manufacturing? Official Rosstat data show that through the first half of 2015, Russian manufacturing actually shrunk by about 2.8%. The only sectors of the economy to show any growth were agriculture (up 2.4%), natural resource extraction (up 2.4%), and public administration (up 0.7%). The areas of the Russian economy where private business predominates, particularly consumer retail, have been absolutely walloped, with the overall retail sector shrinking by almost 9% over the past six months, as noted in the report..............

unian.net In Russian

Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Ukraine on Saturday to tackle corruption and roll back the influence of oligarchs, saying German businesses are ready to invest there if the right conditions are in place.

Merkel made her remarks ahead of a visit to Berlin by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk next Friday, when the two leaders are due to open a German-Ukrainian economic conference at which investment opportunities will be explored........

uatoday.tv

The Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry said the accident took place near the small town of Belgorod-Dnistrovky, about 40 kilometers southwest of Odesa, on October 17.

Volodymyr Zhmak, deputy governor of the Odesa region, said the Ivolga passenger boat capsized as a result of stormy weather.

Zhmak said there was not a sufficient number of life jackets on the boat for all 36 passengers on board.

Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president who now heads of Odesa’s regional administration, issued a statement on his Facebook and Twitter accounts that confirmed "some casualties."

rferl.org

Dutch Safety Board's Chief Tjibbe Joustra has accused militants in eastern Ukraine of shooting down the Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 relying on the maps which were not published in the final report.

Official representative of the Dutch Safety Board, Sarah Fern, stated that, although the borders [in the conflict zone] were unstable, the Dutch Safety Board had seen other maps during the investigation, which showed that the area was controlled by the armed groups. Those maps were not published in the report and therefore could not be provided, said Sarah Fern, according to Russian information agency Rosbalt.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Dutch Safety Board published its final report on Tuesday, October 13, into what caused Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 to break up high over Eastern Ukraine last year, killing all 298 people on board. The report has found out that the plane was hit by a Russian-made Buk missile.

The missile was launched from a 320km sq area, Dutch Safety Board's chief said while presenting the results of the investigation to the public at an airbase in the Netherlands on Tuesday............

unian.ua In Ukrainian

"It would be great if not only Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, but also the entire Ukraine had English as the second working language," the president said at the festivities on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Kyiv Mohyla Academy

Also, due to Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine gained university traditions, which is one of the main features of the European civilization, Poroshenko said. Movement for a fair entry, academic honesty, anti-corruption, university autonomy has become a true symbol in the Ukrainian educational discourse, he added........

interfax.com.ua

Russian military command has finished forming up a powerful field unit within occupied territory which consists mainly of the two army corps trained to conduct active offensive. Command and service support of the 1st and 2nd Army corps are provided by purposely formed 12th reserve command of the RF Armed forces South military district (its headquarters is located in Novocherkask, Rostov region). Principal command and staff capacities are occupied by Russian regular officers. 40 per cent of the personnel of these corps are the locals of the occupied territory in the boundaries of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions as well as contractors and mercenaries from Russia who gained combat experience during the conflict in the east of Ukraine and in the other flash points in Russia. Manning space of the two corps makes up to 35 thousand people. In addition there are stand-by forces within the territory of Ukraine comprising 21 RF Armed forces task forces (15 battalion task groups and 6 company task groups) 9 thousand people strong. There are more 53 Russian Armed forces task groups concentrated on the eastern border of our country (39 battalion task groups and 14 company task groups) 50,5 thousand people strong.

Regarding the peculiarities of formation and operation manner of the 1st and 2nd Army corps it comes clear that the Russian military authorities has selected troops building model approved by the German military command during the WWII known as “Waffen SS”.

“Waffen SS” - are SS military units, involved in the battles at the front in the course of the WWII. On the ground of the limited manpower Germany military authorities decreed to engage the volunteers originating from the occupied territories. According to the official policy of the day only German citizens were authorized to serve in the national Armed forces (Wermacht). There were no similar restrictions for the SS therefore it comprised intentionally created waffen-divisions made of foreign volunteers and organized in compliance with ethnic and religious affiliations. German regular officers were in charge of those divisions meanwhile the volunteers were employed as a cannon fodder or assigned to the inferior posts....................

To read further go to this link: cnn.com

Some 100-200 activists gathered in Moscow on October 17

More protests in Moscow - in support of Ukraine and against Russian airstrikes in Syria. Estimates suggest some 100 to 200 activists attended the rally on Saturday. Participants held posters and waved flags - some banners featured anti-war slogans from murdered Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov. Another lady dressed in Ukraine's national blue and yellow held this banner: 'Bow low to the heroes of Ukraine'. Members of the anti-Putin 'Solidarity' opposition movement organised the demonstration. Those protesting are angry - after the deaths of Russian soldiers the Kremlin sent to Ukraine, they believe more soldiers could die supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar-al Assad.

uatoday.tv