Ukraine crisis. News in brief. Friday 08 April [Ukrainian sources]

FRIDAY

Please scroll down to view news items added during the day

News -
Russians launch 70 attacks on the Ukrainian people yesterday.


Weather -
A little rain again overnight. Good for the crops. +12 now. High expected around 24C. Super.

Footie -
Excellent win for Shakhtar in Portugal last night. 1-2. Two away goals for the Ukrainian team.
That means that Braga have to score at least twice in Lviv.

http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2016/04/8/7104801/
ATO: Adventure ACS used in Mariupol direction
Friday, April 8, 2016, 6:40
During the last day of the aggressor country supported the illegal armed groups opened fire 70 times on the ATO forces with various weapons, including mortars and self-propelled artillery.
The press center ATO headquarters.
In Donetsk direction violation of silence was held at Avdeevki, Lugansk, Pisky, Opitnoe, Nevel, Verhnotoretskoho, Artemov, .. Svetlodarsk and Boguslavsky.
As before, the enemy is using mortars caliber 120 mm and 82 mm in combination with grenade launchers, machine guns and small arms.
Breaking the Minsk agreement on the direction Mariupol banned except mortars near the Defense Pavlopolya militants fired with mobile artillery units towards Novotroitsk....

====
АТО: бойовики застосували САУ на Маріупольському напрямку is actual heading.
САУ = Самоходная артиллерийская установка = self-propelled artillery.

http://www.unian.info/society/1313140-osce-disgrace-monitors-spotted-at-russian-backed-separatist-wedding.html
...."It would be a regular separatist wedding with a limousine snatched away from somebody, restaurant, thugs in military uniform and toothless drunks, but there's one detail – OSCE representatives at the party," Spirin writes on his social media page, adding he feels indignant, that employees of a supposedly independent mission are hugging local bandits and cheering about their lavish wedding, Ukraine Today reports.....
====
Clearly the OSCE are on Putin's payroll. Scum.

http://www.unian.info/economics/1313290-nbu-strengthens-official-exchange-rate-to-uah-2580-to-dollar.html
===
I noticed 25.4 / 25.8 at the exchange bureau yesterday. The best rate for some time.
Strange - the political situation is very insecure. The war continues. Netherlands vote against the AA. And the currency strengthens.
Some intervention? And if so why? Buying gas from abroad? (My thought)

http://www.unian.info/economics/1312956-putin-briefed-on-collapse-of-production-in-crimea-following-annexation.html
.[Putin] ...."Agriculture has found itself not in the best position, firstly [it’s due to] restricted power supply...
====
What has this got to do with a Milk plant closing? Where did the milk come from?
Responses of Putin show that a) he couldn't care less, and/ or b) he doesn't know what he is talking about - at all!

Losses terrorist battalion "East" in the hostilities in the period from March 7 to April 7 totaled 30 killed and 90 wounded. This was announced by the founder and commander of the "East" Alexander Khodakovsky on his page as "Learn".

"The main harvest shot Industrial Area between Yasinovataya and Avdeevka, which, by definition, the fighters themselves, become" second airport, "- he wrote.

He could not provide data on the losses of other units involved in the battle. "But I guess, that it goes", - wrote the thriller. "We somehow imperceptibly developed a tradition to hide the true casualty figures," - he states, reports "The Island" .

Khodakovsky Alexander - a former employee of the SBU, the first days of the Russian hybrid war against Ukraine changed the oath and became one of the leaders of Donbass terrorists. He created and led the "Vostok" battalion. In the struggle for power and control over cash flows is in confrontation with the so-called "head of DNR" Alexander Zakharchenko. Donbass is the ideology of accession to Russia, but its approach to this matter not find understanding in the Russian Federation.

glavcom.ua In Russian/русский

Chairman of the European Parliament Martin Schulz expressed his regret at the outcome of the last referendum in the Netherlands on ratification of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine. According eslo said, should now start fighting for "civilizational project of Europe."

He noted that in the past the Dutch referendum opponents Ukraine's association with the EU has been a lot of arguments to vote "against", they concerned many different aspects, "but not the substance of the matter - namely the EU's association agreement with Ukraine."

Schulz stressed that this agreement - an important element in the restoration of peace in the region, severely affected by the aggression and war. "The fact that now the outcome of this referendum are happy ones who had a hand in the crisis in Ukraine - it's cynicism," - said Martin Schulz in an interview with the publishing house Funke Mediengruppe, referring to the positive reaction of the Russian authorities on the outcome of voting in the Netherlands, It transmits the DW .

As previously reported, according to preliminary results of the referendum in the Netherlands, on 6 April, more than 60% came to the polls voted against the approval of the EU agreement on association with Ukraine, 38% were in favor. Turnout was about 30%.

glavcom.ua In Russian/русский

http://www.rferl.org/content/panama-papers-putin-comments-destabilize-russia/27660820.html
Russian President Vladimir Putin mocked the massive leak of financial and legal documents known as the Panama Papers that reportedly implicate several people close to him, saying the project was part of a Western government campaign to destabilize Russia. ...
Among the names reportedly appearing in the documents is that of cellist Sergei Roldugin, an old friend of Putin's and reportedly a godfather to one of his daughters. Media reports on the Panama Papers have said Roldugin holds hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore assets.
Putin said he was "proud" of Roldugin.
"[Roldugin] has spent nearly all the money he has earned on buying musical instruments abroad and he brought them to Russia," he said.....
====
2 billion dollars on musical instruments? A Steinway piano in every Russian house )) All the Stradiveri instruments in the world must be in Russia now )) LOL...
Putin is on drugs, but the Russian press will churn out this rubbish, and the old Babushkas and many others will believe it all. Otherwise Putin wouldn't come out with this utter garbage..
====
Observation - I just tried to do a calculation on how many violins, cellos or pianos you could buy with a couple of billion...
but my basic calculator couldn't cope with 2 billion. But you can get an ok piano or violin now for 500 dollars or less.
So - 40 million pianos?! Is my maths right? !! Have 40 million new violins, or pianos suddenly appeared in Russia?

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-wins-silent-victory-against-ukraine-with-dutch-no-vote/565001.html
....Although the referendum carries an advisory character, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said that the indisputable success of the “No” camp means the Netherlands will not automatically ratify the agreement, pending talks in Dutch Parliament and a possible renegotiation of the deal in Brussels — a lengthy process that could play into Russia's hands, analysts told The Moscow Times.....

.http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/russias-offshore-bandits-hypocrisy-laid-bare-by-panama-revelations/564937.html
....Then came the Sunday Times' revelation that Andrei Yakunin, son of anti-Western ideologue and former-Russian Railways head Vladimir, had another London mansion, far larger than the one we already knew about. While Vladimir Yakunin was parading the belt of the Virgin Mary around Russia, and instructing Russians to avoid contact with the West, his own son was quietly taking British citizenship and his grandson was attending an elite British private school.
Finally, of course came the Panama Papers, with their revelations about the corporate structures controlled by Dmitry Peskov's wife, Nikolai Patrushev's nephew and, of course, the godfather of Vladimir Putin's daughter. ...
It is of course not a secret that Kremlin insiders run Russia for their own enrichment, but this barrage of revelations provides extraordinary levels of detail, and lays bare the nature of how Russia is governed in ways we have not seen before....
===
Short article, but not bad at all. Talks about the massive inequality in Russia. Mega mega rich. And millions and millions living in poverty. And they still vote for Putin!
Author - freelance, British. mid-30s. Did some work for Reuters.

http://novosti.dn.ua/details/272592/



4 minute video.
And the Austrian President calls for "normal" relations with Russia?
But then for the Austrians their fellow Austrian Mr Adolf Hitler was "normal" also.
They should play this video to the Austrian parliament. And the Greek parliament. And to the Dutch people.

According to Ukraine army intelligence, the Russians set up a special morgue for their killed servicemen.

FSB held a meeting in Rostov recently attended by Donetsk mayor I. Martynov at which a decision was taken to set up a morgue for the Russians killed in the war in Donbas. The morgue will be a highly secure place to avoid any leaks of information about the number of Russian casualties, the intelligence report says.

Mayor Martynov will now be personally responsible for any information leaks.

A special laboratory for the identification of Russian servicemen has come to Donbas from Russia.

zik.ua

Main Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine continues gathering facts of Russian military participation in war crimes on temporarily occupied territories of the east of Ukraine for their further submission to the International Criminal Court, as well as for subsequent follow-up of their activities and redeployment upon return to Russia.

Information about Russian soldiers suspected of committing war crimes in Ukraine is regularly transferred by the Ukrainian side to EU and NATO member countries with the purpose of extending the so-called 'sanctions list', Censor.NET informs citing the MID of MoD press service.

In particular, current deployment locations and positions of career Russian generals who were direct commanders of the Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine in 2014-2015 as commanders of the 1st army corps (Donetsk, Ukraine) and the 12th Reserve Component Command (Central territorial troops, Novocherkassk, Russia) of the Southern Military District (Rostov-on-Don) of the Russian Armed Forces have been established:



Lieutenant General Gurulev Andrey Viktorovich, commander of the 12th Reserve Component Command (Central territorial troops, Novocherkassk, Russia) of the Southern Military District (Rostov-on-Don) of the Russian Armed Forces between fall 2014 and late spring 2015, returned to his post of the commander of the 58th Army (Vladikavkaz) of the Southern Military District (Rostov on Don) of the Russian Armed Forces. He was promoted to lieutenant general by President Putin's decree on Dec. 13, 2014 for fulfilling criminal orders of the military and political leadership of Russia on temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine's east, and awarded with an honor for valor in March 2016.



Major General Zusko Mikhail Stepanovich, commander of the 1st army corps (Donetsk, Ukraine) of the 12th Reserve Component Command (Central territorial troops, Novocherkassk, Russia) of the Southern Military District (Rostov-on-Don) of the Russian Armed Forces between summer and late fall 2014, returned to Russia in 2015 and was appointed deputy commander of the 49th Army (Stavropol) of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces.



Major General Solodchuk Valery Nikolaevich, commander of the 1st army corps (Donetsk, Ukraine) of the 12th Reserve Component Command (Central territorial troops, Novocherkassk, Russia) of the Southern Military District (Rostov-on-Don) of the Russian Armed Forces between fall 2014 and late spring 2015, returned to Russia in 2015 and was appointed deputy commander of the 5th Army (Ussuriysk) of the Eastern Military District (Khabarovsk) of the Russian Armed Forces.

censor.net.ua In Russian/русский

In Dnipropetrovsk region colonel of the National Guard was caught on a bribe to the military prosecutor. He tried to pay to the prosecutor a blind eye to the theft of funds allocated for the development of the National Guard under. It is reported by the Prosecutor General's press service.

According to preliminary information, the military prosecutor Colonel unveiled a scheme of theft of public funds. They also found that it comes to 2 million hryvnia.

The colonel offered 130 thousand hryvnia for the closure of the criminal case against him.

Such an attempt to solve the problem could cost the suspect from four to eight years later.

glavcom.ua In Russian/русский