(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – November 21, 2014) Russian national Igor Strelkov, a former commander of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine, has claimed “personal responsibility” for unleashing the conflict across the border, in which 4,300 people have been killed since April. “I was the one who pulled the firing trigger of this war,” Strelkov said in an […]
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DONETSK. Nov 21 (Interfax) – Six residential buildings were damaged as a result of artillery strikes carried out by the Ukrainian army against the city on November 20, a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) told Interfax on Friday. “Five houses in the Kuibyshevsky district and one in the Kyivsky district were damaged […]
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(RFE/RL News Analysis – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – November 11, 2014) Fighting in eastern Ukraine — and particularly around the city of Donetsk — has flared up again, more intensely than at any point since the shaky cease-fire was agreed in Minsk on September 5. Journalists and other observers on November 7 reported seeing dozens of military vehicles, including […]
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MOSCOW, November 7 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s official stance on the recent elections in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics (DRP, LPR) in eastern Ukraine expressed by the country’s Foreign Ministry as “respecting” them does not mean Moscow “recognizes” them, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said Friday. “Russia’s official position on the results of the elections is expressed compactly, […]
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(Interfax – October 29, 2014) Work on agreeing a new dividing line between militia forces and the Ukrainian army has been suspended on Kiev’s initiative, and now “we are preparing for war”, Oleksandr (Aleksandr) Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk people’s republic (DPR) has said, as reported by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax on 29 October. “Ukraine has announced […]
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DONETSK, October 29 (RIA Novosti) – Kiev has withdrawn from the delineation agreement it signed with Donetsk authorities without any explanation, the deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said Wednesday. “A delineation was agreed between the opposing forces, but Kiev recalled the signature of its representative, Gen. Dumanskiy, from the document without giving any reason,” Andrei […]
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KYIV. Oct 21 (Interfax) – The fighting subsided in Donetsk overnight but heavy gunfire was again reported from the Kirovsky and Kyivsky districts on Tuesday morning, says a report posted on the City Council website. The Kyivsky district was shelled from 5 p.m. through 10:30 p.m. local time on Monday. A residential building was damaged and a fire started in […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 17 (Interfax) – The administration of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic is calm about the statement made by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who said the elections in the DPR are to be conducted in accordance with Ukrainian legislation. “Our position remains unchanged. We will not allow any Ukrainian elections on our territory. As for Barroso, we […]
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MOSCOW, October 14 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchynov has inked a law on special status of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and sent it to President Petro Poroshenko for signing, the Verkhovna Rada said on its website on Tuesday. The parliament approved the law introducing self-administration in parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 10 (Interfax) – The administration of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said the accusations made against the DPR by Ukraine, which is accusing the DPR of ceasefire violations, are ungrounded. “These accusations are ungrounded. In the course of all these days since the Minsk memorandum was signed, the Ukrainian military opened fire on the city’s residential quarters from […]
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MOSCOW, October 10 (RIA Novosti) – Self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine has signed an agreement with Kiev authorities on the establishment of a ‘buffer zone’ separating the sides of the conflict, DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko said Friday. “We have signed an agreement on a buffer zone. The document stipulates that Kiev-led forces will pull out from several […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Concorde Capital – October 8, 2014) More than 49% of the residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (collectively known as Donbas) want to remain in the Ukrainian state, compared to 42% who are opposed, according to a poll released on Oct. 7 that was conducted by the Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Fund and the […]
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GENEVA, October 8 (RIA Novosti) – UN observers need access to mass graves discovered near the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, a senior official with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said Wednesday. Gianni Magazzeni, chief of the OHCHR Americas Europe and Central Asia Branch, told reporters that any reported violation of human rights needs […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 7 (Interfax) – Prisoner exchanges between the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Kyiv authorities have been suspended for now, DPR POW Committee Chairperson Darya Morozova has told Interfax. “The exchanges have been suspended until the Ukrainian side draws up and presents identification documents of the persons pending exchange in Kharkiv. We reject the practice in which people […]
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DONETSK. Oct 7 (Interfax) – Nineteen civilians have been killed in shelling attacks in Donetsk over the past 24 hours, an Interior Ministry spokesman of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic told Interfax. “According to our sources, 19 civilians have been killed,” he said. He said shells hit the city’s Kuibyshevsky, Kirovsky and Kiyevsky districts. “Regarding the Kuibyshevsky and Kiyevsky districts, […]
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MOSCOW, October 7 (RIA Novosti) – Graham Phillips, a freelance journalist, spoke with Radio VR live from Donetsk, where the second battle for Donetsk Airport has been taking place over the last 10 days, saying that the city and the airport have turned into a massive battlefield despite the truce concluded earlier in September, with the full-scale war bringing enormous […]
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DONETSK. Oct 3 (Interfax) – There has been a series of explosions in the Donetsk center, an Interfax correspondent said on Thursday. Presumably, it was shells fired by Ukrainian servicemen that exploded. In turn, representatives of Second Republican Channel of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic told Interfax about the Ukrainian army’s bombardment of the channel’s head office. “Several shells have […]
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KYIV. Sept 28 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said progress has been made in talks with the militia on ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. A joint group, comprised of representatives of the Ukrainian military, the militia and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, are assessing the situation and holding talks to create conditions for implementing the […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 11, Issue 167 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Vladimir Socor – September 23, 2014) Utter confusion surrounds Ukraine’s just-adopted law on the “special procedure of local self-administration in individual districts in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.” Pursuant to the September 5 ceasefire protocol, President Petro Poroshenko initiated this law, his administration drafted it, and the parliament adopted it on […]
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KYIV. Sept 8 (Interfax) – Donetsk Mayor Oleksandr Lukyanchenko says the military action has done “massive” damage to the city. “It’s in the billions [hryvni]. If we take the industrial sector, residential; buildings, social infrastructure, energy facilities, and railway, it will be a colossal amount of damage. It will take the city’s economy a lot of time to return to […]
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(RIA Novosti – September 5, 2014) Minsk, 5 September: In addition to the OSCE, the leaders of Ukraine and Russia, who initiated the peace process, are the guarantors of the Minsk accords, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Luhansk republic, Igor Plotnitskiy [Ihor Plotnytskyy], has said. As part of the Friday [5 September] meeting in Minsk of the trilateral contact […]
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(Interfax – Donetsk – August 24, 2015) The prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk people’s republic [DNR], Oleksandr Zakharchenko, rules out the possibility of Ukraine’s federalization and insists on DNR’s independence. “We want to live independently. Federalization (of Ukraine) doesn’t suit us,” he told journalists at a news conference in Donetsk. In Zakharchenko’s opinion, the self-proclaimed republic has sufficient economic […]
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DONETSK, August 18 (RIA Novosti) – TheDonetsk city council urged the residents of the besieged Ukrainian city in the east to store drinking water before the water supply would be cut off for an indefinite period as a result of the ongoing fighting, the council told RIA Novosti. “Urgent: all Donetsk residents must stock up on water before 9:00 p.m. […]
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MOSCOW, August 14 (RIA Novosti) – The defense minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Igor Strelkov, resigned from the post Thursday, the republic’s official website said in a statement. “At today’s session, the Cabinet of Ministers approved DPR Defense Minister Strelkov’s resignation due to his appointment to a new position,” the statement reads. Alexander Zakharchenko, who heads the […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.ru – Teneo Intelligence – August 7, 2014) Ukrainian forces have stepped up their campaign to retake the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk from separatists; Russia will likely respond with increased efforts to help the pro-Russian militias to stay in control. Yet, the new tactics will likely fall short of direct military invasion and instead take […]
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KYIV. Aug 6 (Interfax) – The situation in Donetsk remained tense at 1 p.m. local time (2 p.m. Moscow time) on Wednesday but no more shooting can be heard and critical public services are running as usual, the Donetsk city council said. Specialists from Donetskgorgaz are repairing gas pipelines “damaged as a result of artillery fire in the Petrovsky and […]
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(Moscow Times editorial – themoscowtimes.com – July 31, 2014) Russia may finally have a pretext for bailing out on Ukrainian separatists. But the pretext is not sanctions – it’s ethics. Still, the idea will be highly difficult for President Vladimir Putin to transmit, as there are few people who can take the moral high ground in the Russian establishment. Putin, […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 29, 2014) As the Ukrainian military closes in on Moscow-backed forces in southeastern Ukraine, Russian commentators are scrambling to explain why the Russian-speaking population in that region have not flocked to the banners of the secessionists in Donetsk and Luhansk. Not surprisingly, these commentators have not focused on the facts that […]
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MOSCOW. July 29 (Interfax) – Defense Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Igor Strelkov has banned to shoot at Ukrainian servicemen willing to surrender, the DPR official mission in Russia said. “Following ideas of humanity for the sake of ceasing bloodshed and saving lives of Ukrainian servicemen sent forcibly to the area of fratricidal slaughter, I order all […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Aliaksandr Kudrytski – July 22, 2014) The grass is being trimmed, the flowers tended and the potholes on roads filled. Jazz plays out from a cafe, and a few people are out enjoying the sunshine. Yet puncturing the scene of a European summer is the distant boom, boom, boom of artillery fire and emptiness. This is […]
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KYIV. July 21 (Interfax) – Donbas Water Company has stopped three pumping stations bringing water to the Seversky Donets – Donbas channel due to damage inflicted during battles, the press office of DTEK energy holding company of Ukrainian businessman Rinat Akhmetov said. “Due to the three pumping stations which have stopped pumping water to the Seversky Donets – Donbas channel, […]
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MOSCOW, July 18 (RIA Novosti) – The authorities from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine are discussing a ceasefire with Kiev in order to investigate the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane disaster, the republic’s prime minister told RIA Novosti by telephone Friday. DPR Prime Minister Alexander Borodai said that a meeting would be held Friday afternoon with the participation […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Concorde Capital – July 9, 2014) Terrorists with the Donetsk People’s Republic acknowledged that they received weapons and military hardware from Russia in a video released on the Internet on July 8 in which they discuss this support with Sergei Kurginian, a Kremlin propaganda chief, as identified by the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. The […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – KYIV June 17, 2014) Not long ago, Aleksandr Borodai was a little-known political consultant with nationalist leanings. Back in 1993, he was among those defending hard-liners barricaded inside the Russian White House in their showdown with President Boris Yeltsin. He wrote regularly for the ultranationalist newspaper “Zavtra” and in 2011 co-founded the “patriotic” online television channel Den-TV. […]
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(Voice of America – April 14, 2014) The escalating situation in Ukraine appears to be on the verge of armed conflict as Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov asked the United Nations Monday to send peacekeeping troops to the east of the country, where pro-Russia militias have seized government buildings and blocked major highways with impunity. Geoffrey Pyatt has served as United […]
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DONETSK. April 9 (Interfax) – The building of the Donetsk region’s administration, which was occupied by anti-Maidan protesters on April 6, stayed under their control in the morning of Wednesday. An Interfax correspondent has reported that there are three lines of barricades made of cement and sand are located in front of the building. The metal Mertsalov Palm Monument, a […]
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DONETSK, April 7 (RIA Novosti) – The situation in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Region requires individual examination and is not identical to the Crimean scenario, the deputy chairman of Russia’s upper house of parliament told RIA Novosti on Monday. “The situation [in Donetsk Region] requires separate consideration due to its historic and political background,” Federation Council member Ilyas Ukhmanov said in […]
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