Ukraine crisis. News in brief. Sunday 14 February [Ukrainian sources]

SUNDAY

Please scroll down to view news items added during the day

News -
Putin hits Ukraine 69 times yesterday. Update - 7 soldiers wounded.

Weather -
Rain and rain and rain - again! +1 now where I am.
Warmer tomorrow, but then back near zero. But still - above average temperatures for this time of year.
Update - started snowing. Quite a bit! But temperature +1. Very slushy outside at the moment.
Slowly everything is melting.

Observation -
I went to a birthday party yesterday. A couple of guys who were on Maidan.
The whole evening, not one mention of Putin, or the war, or politics. Just jokes, drinking, eating, general topics.
Almost as if people now see the war in the east as the norm. They are no longer bothered about it as they used to be.

3:04
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2016/02/14/7098894/
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Excellent. All driven by Putin and his mad policies.

Prerequisites for the lifting of sanctions the West imposed on Russia over the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the war in the east of Ukraine, yet.

This was stated by the President of Finland Sauli Niinistö on the air local television,

"In the EU, there was serious talk about the lifting of sanctions" - quoted him as saying Gazeta.Ru.

He noted that the lifting of sanctions against Russia is not expected, since the provisions of the Minsk Agreement has not yet been made by the Russian side.

glavcom.ua In Russian

8:24
http://ubr.ua/ukraine-and-world/society/segodnia-potepleet-do-13-380448
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Not where I am. Some snow at the moment. +1 or 0. Maybe warmer later in the Odessa area.

9:00
http://espreso.tv/news/2016/02/14/synoptyky_poperedzhayut_pro_skladni_pogodni_umovy
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What a contrast to the post above about +13!!
Near Kiev, wet snow, no fog. And it should slowly warm up during the day. Warmer on Monday and Tuesday, but then cooler again, near zero.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz assured that the European Parliament will make immediate vote on the abolition of visas for Ukrainian citizens.

He said this after a meeting with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, said Єvropeyska truth

"We are now waiting for the European Commission's legislative proposal for the abolition of visas for Ukrainian citizens, (who goes) when the Verkhovna Rada voted for the relevant laws", - he said, recalling that before Poroshenko gave BP the necessary bills.

"I can assure you that the European Parliament immediately put it to a vote. For non-visa regime - is an element of economic recovery in Ukraine. It's not just a question of free movement of people, "- said Martin Schulz.

Recall that in December 2015 President and Prime Minister jointly pledged to the EU to adjust the number of anti-corruption laws, which before had been distorted in BP. This has opened up the opportunity for a positive conclusion of the European Commission in the framework of the visa-free dialogue. At the same time, to start the final abolition of visas Rada should approve these bills.

glavcom.ua In Russian

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/activists-block-russian-trucks-in-ukraines-zakarpattia-region/559317.html
...The activists — including participants of the fighting in the Donbass — have created a checkpoint in the village of Nizhniye Vorota on the region's border to stop Russian trucks traveling in the direction of Slovakia and Hungary....
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I've seen a lot of Pravi Sector flags in other photos. Slava Ukraini! Send them back to Russia.

http://www.rferl.org/content/damn-lies-deep-crisis-russia-central-banker-economy/27550209.html
A former deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank has said Russia’s economic crisis is worse than Moscow admits and that the Kremlin’s optimism about future prospects "has not been based on reality."...
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I remember Merkel - a couple of years ago - being reported as saying to Obama that Putin had "lost his marbles"- or words to that effect. No sense of reality.
In my opinion, Putin is single handedly destroying Russia. Poverty is growing and growing there now. All of Putin's doing. He is one mega-nutcase.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, are skeptical about the meeting of Pope Francis with Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church (Gundyaeva).

This is stated in the comments the head of the UGCC regarding the final statement of the meeting on the site of the church.

"Undoubtedly, this text has caused deep disappointment among many of the faithful of our Church and simply indifferent citizens of Ukraine. Today a lot of people talking to me about this and said that the Vatican feels betrayed, disappointed half-heartedness of the truth in this document, and even indirect support of the Apostolic See of Russia's aggression against Ukraine ", - said the Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Sviatoslav Shevchuk.

"From our years of experience we can say when the Vatican and Moscow will organize a meeting or signed any joint texts, then we have nothing to expect from this something good," - he added.

According to him, those items in the joint statement of the two leaders of the church, which is mentioned on Ukraine, cause he has more questions than answers.

In particular, we are talking about the 26th point, which states that the two religious leaders are sick about the confrontation in Ukraine and urged parties to the conflict to prudence and social solidarity.

"Paragraph 26 of the Declaration is the most controversial. The impression is that the Moscow Patriarchate or persistently recognizes that a party to the conflict, that is, openly supports Russia's aggression against Ukraine ... or refers primarily to their own conscience, calls itself prudence, social solidarity and active creation of the world " - said the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics.

glavcom.ua In Russian

Moscow can block the exchange of prisoners, with the aim to use them for easing the sanctions imposed by the European Union. This opinion was expressed MP, representative of Ukraine in the Minsk Group, Irina Gerashchenko in the comments Deutsche Welle

"There is no desire to liberate anyone, there is a desire to blackmail Ukraine. I do not rule out that Russia plans to blackmail the world hostage to perhaps closer to the debate in the EU about the sanctions to free the hostages, and thus try to negotiate the lifting of sanctions ", - she said.

Recall before Christmas ringleader "LC" Igor Carpenter promised release of the hostages Ukrainian military, but did not. In turn, such action Gerashchenko called terrorists torture hostages families.

glavcom.ua In Russian

13:24
http://ua.racurs.ua/news/66484-za-dobu-u-zoni-ato-poraneno-simoh-ukrayinskyh-viyskovyh-motuzyanyk

http://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/news_in_brief/2016/02/160214_vc_latvia_army_russia
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Putin is an out-of-control nutcase. What does he think he is doing? Presumably all for domestic consumption - for him and his cronies to stay in power for another 7 years.

http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2016/02/14/7098929/?attempt=1
..."We have these pictures have already seen in Ukraine. Russia continues to gain territory, uses the pretext of deliveries of humanitarian goods to penetrate into the territory and strengthen the fighting. This is what is called military aggression and it works because we allow it," - said McCain, writes Interfax-Ukraine....
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You can't disagree with what he says. But people in the west are still scared to face the truth. Putin is the new Hitler.

http://www.unian.info/society/1264497-rally-against-transit-of-russian-cargo-trucks-stretches-to-zhytomir-region-photos.html
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Blocking the border with Belarus. Good work.

Russia’s trade with the EU’s eastern states fell by almost a third in 2015, as sanctions over Crimea and the economic impact of plummeting commodity prices further unravel the fraying links between Moscow and its former Soviet bloc allies.

Exports to Russia from the six countries for which full data are available were worth €5.9bn less in 2015 than 2014. Sales of goods from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria declined an average of 30 per cent last year, with similar falls in the first 11 months of the year in Slovakia and Hungary...............

To read further go to this link:  ft.com

Groups of Russian mercenaries and volunteers are fleeing the breakaway Donbas republics, says Anton Rajevsky, a Russian nationalist who fought in Donbas on the rebels’ side in his interview with Ukrainian journalists Denis Kazansky, Fourth Power reports Feb. 14.

“The influx of Russian nationalists from Russia has dwindled. Milchakov has taken away his group, same as Barkashov. There are separate volunteers left, like myself,” Rajevsky said.

“Even the Donbas locals, despite despicable snafu and poverty, are reluctant to serve in the rebel army. If they can go to Ukraine or Russia to earn some money they prefer to flee Donbas,” Rajevsky said.

“Generally speaking, there are no reliable servicemen. The rebel army is made up of ex-convicts, outcasts, alcoholics and drug addicts – all with a small chance of getting a job,” the Russian said.

Without the regular Russian troops now in Donbas, it will take several hours for the Ukrainian army to rout the rebels, Rajevsky said.

zik.ua

Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's LetterOne investment vehicle said on Friday it had made a $200 million investment in U.S. ride-hailing service provider Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL].

It did not specify when it bought the shares or what stake it had acquired in the firm, which has previously raised more than $5 billion in several financing rounds.................

reuters.com

Russian curators delay or cease financing of theirs troops for participation in hostilities in the occupied Donbas.
The report of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry reads, Censor.NET informs.

In particular, the Russian military of the "3rd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (Horlivka) of the 1st Army Corps" started rebelling openly because they were not paid their salaries. o avoid a riot, the commandment gave each soldier two thousand Russian rubles.T

According to intelligence, poor monetary and material support leads to increase in the number of refusals to renew contracts and desertion. In particular, Russian soldier Kobelev (born 1992) fled the "9th Separate Motorized Rifle Regiment (Novoazovsk) of the 1st Army Corps" because he did not want to serve on the frontline.

"Given the financial difficulties, the commanders of the units of the '6th Separate Motorized Rifle Regiment (Stakhanov) of the 2nd Army Corps' organized a 'business'. They transfer the unit personnel, who do not want to pass the service on the frontline, to the rear for a bribe. This causes discontent among those soldiers who have to bear additional load on the frontline," the Defense Ministry stated.

censor.net.ua In Russian

I refuse to apologize for being a uniate, and I should like Pope Francis to likewise refuse any demands of Patriarch Kirill for such an apology, now or ever. Indeed, to return to Fr. Nichols, millions of Eastern Catholics should be thrilled to hear from Francis not an apology but instead as robust a defense as Nichols himself offered: “Rightly understood, it [‘uniate’] is a beautiful word” (p 19) because it is an answer to the prayer of the Byzantine great ektenia: “for the welfare of the holy Churches of God, and the union of them all.”

By Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille, from RISU of Feb 12, 2016

[Originally published in the 9 Feb 2016 edition of The Catholic World Report]

In 2010 Ignatius Press published the second (and much improved) edition of Fr. Aidan Nichols’ book Rome and the Eastern Churches. The book remains one of the most perceptive and sympathetic—but not uncritical—treatments of East-West relations by a major Roman Catholic theologian today, deserving a second look on the eve of the historic meeting in Cuba of Pope Francis of Rome and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.

The hopes for such a summit have been around for more than thirty years. Why did it take so long for it to happen? In explaining why no pope and patriarch have been able to meet in over thirty years, the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev claimed, in a lengthy passage worth quoting in full, the following:

All these years, the principal problem in the relations between the two Churches and the principal obstacle for holding a meeting between the two Primates has lied in [sic] Unia. The fact that the Uniates devastated three dioceses of the Moscow Patriarchate in western Ukraine in the 1980s and 1990s, that they moved the headquarters of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church from Lvov to Kiev, that the UGCC’ mission extended to the traditionally Orthodox lands in eastern and southern Ukraine, that they supported the schismatics – all these factors only aggravated the problem. The situation aggravated further as a result of the recent events in Ukraine, in which the UGCC representatives took a direct part, coming out with anti-Russian and russophobic slogans. So, regrettably, the problem of Unia is still there, with Unia, remaining a never-healing blooding [sic] wound that prevents the full normalization of relations between the two Churches....................

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