De-escalation measures have begun in eastern Ukraine as the sides start to withdraw light weaponry from the frontlines – a move expected to be accompanied by political steps in accordance with the Minsk peace agreements signed in February. But are the parties to the conflict ready for this? (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexey Timofeychev, RBTH – October […]
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The governments of the self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine have agreed to postpose their local elections, thus fulfilling the wishes expressed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France Normandy at talks in Paris on Oct. 2. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexey Timofeychev, RBTH – October 8, 2015) The unrecognized Donetsk and Lugansk “people’s republics” (DNR […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 8, 2015) Nearly a third of Ukraine’s military losses over the past two years were non-battle casualties, according to the country’s Defense Ministry figures cited by news reports. In total, 2,027 servicemen deaths have been recorded in 2014-2015 so far, according to the Defense Ministry report released Wednesday. Among them, 597 were non-battle casualties, […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 8 (Interfax) – Russia’s foreign ministry hopes that the move to postpone the elections in the self-proclaimed republics in Donbas will create favorable conditions for further discussions on the matter of political settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. “The crucial point was the statement of Donetsk and Luhansk on the shifting of the dates of the local […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 6 (Interfax) – The militia of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic will begin the pullback of artillery systems immediately after the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) confirms the end of the pullback of tanks by the Ukrainian military, the LPR people’s militsiya headquarters told Interfax on Tuesday. “It is needed to wait until the Ukrainian […]
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(Interfax – October 5, 2015) The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM) reports the process of pulling back weapons from the dividing line in Donbass in compliance with the Minsk agreements. In the districts controlled by the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) the monitors have noticed the withdrawal of 30 main combat tanks (T-64 […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – October 5, 2015) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has long had trouble understanding that the Western support of his government is conditional. Now the leaders of France and Germany have told him that in no uncertain terms: The ceasefire agreement for eastern Ukraine has just been recast to put the onus on Poroshenko, rather […]
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Russian observers are voicing cautious optimism after another round of talks between the leaders of Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine aimed at resolving the Ukrainian conflict. The issue of local elections in the Donbass remain the main stumbling block on the path to finding a political solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Kyiv – October 2, 2015) Hopes for an end to 18 months of fighting in eastern Ukraine hinged on a meeting of the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia in Paris on October 2, with breakthrough prospects enhanced by a recent ceasefire and withdrawal of tanks and other weapons from […]
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The Washington Post features an interview of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko conducted by Lally Weymouth, prior to Poroshenko’s recent address before the United Nations. [Poroshenko:] ‘… we have a very dangerous conflict in the center of Europe with the participation of thousands of Russian troops. We are doing our best to block Putin with political and financial support. We have […]
» Read more[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#188 Friday – 25 September 2515 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL […]
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MOSCOW. Sept 24 (Interfax) – Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS) expects the arrival of up to 150,000 ethnic Russians from Ukraine in 2015, and 2.6 billion rubles has been allocated from the federal budget for these purposes, FMS director Konstantin Romodanovsky has said. “Since September 2014, regional programs have been confirmed in the Rostov region and the Stavropol territory as […]
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(Interfax – September 23, 2015) The implementation of the Minsk agreements with regard to local elections in Donbass, among other things, should be discussed via a direct dialogue between Kiev, Donetsk and Luhansk, presidential spokesman Dmitriy Peskov has said as reported by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax on 23 September. This is how Peskov answered a question about whether Moscow […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org) On September 17, staff members of IMR’s The Interpreter project led an impassioned discussion about Western policy toward Russia and Ukraine at the presentation of their new report, “An Invasion by Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine,” in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. [Report here http://www.imrussia.org/en/news/2414-imr-releases-the-interpreter-report-an-invasion-by-any-other-name-the-kremlins-dirty-war-in-ukraine] The Interpreter editor-in-chief Michael Weiss and […]
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(Embassy of the United States Kyiv – September 12, 2015) Remarks by Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland at a Panel Discussion “Ukraine’s East and Crimea: Solving the Unsolvable” 12th Yalta European Strategy Annual Meeting Kyiv, Ukraine MODERATOR: Victoria Nuland, if I may just turn to you. Obviously, you work for the State Department. You […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Arkhipov, Stepan Kravchenko – September 17, 2015) Ukrainian separatist leaders say their hopes of full integration with Russia or greater independence are fading as the Kremlin tightens the reins on their rebellion. Russian President Vladimir Putin appears unwilling to risk broadening his conflict with the U.S. and European Union over Ukraine, senior separatist officials said […]
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(Interfax – September 18, 2015) At least 8,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the hostilities in eastern Ukraine, Christof Heyns, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution, has said. Eight thousand people have died, and according to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, most of them have been civilians. Artillery shelling incidents are observed on both sides, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 17, 2015) Russians are becoming less interested in what is happening in neighboring Ukraine amid reports of decreased military activity in the country, state-run pollster VTsIOM reported in a survey published Wednesday. According to the poll, 71 percent of Russians are currently following events in Ukraine, including 25 percent of respondents who say they […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Vitaly Dudin – September 16, 2015) Vitaly Dudin is a legal analyst at Ukraine’s Center for Social and Labor Research, which was created in 2013 as an independent not-for-profit institution dedicated to the analysis of socio-economic problems, collective protests, labour relations and conflicts. 265 votes ‘for’. Three people dead. This is how most of us will remember Ukraine’s […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Pete Baumgartner – PRAGUE, September 15, 2015) The U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) says there is a very important lesson for former Soviet republics to have learned from the devastating conflict in eastern Ukraine: Don’t be too reliant on Russia. “Having [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin as your only friend […]
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A different approach is needed, one that goes to the heart of the problem by creating a new security architecture for central Europe that all can accept.
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(opendemocracy.net – Marina Denysenko – September 11, 2015) Marina Denysenko is a journalist with experience reporting in Ukraine and the UK. In 2004, she reported Ukraine’s Orange Revolution for the BBC World Service. In 2014, she directed London’s Ukrainian Investment Summit, and is currently researching Ukraine’s institutional response to the challenges of the information war for the Legatum Institute. ‘The […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, September 14, 2015) The current lull in the fighting in the Donbas is “one of the tactical elements in the Kremlin’s efforts to get out of open confrontation with the West and offer the West a new deal – the idea of a global anti-terrorist coalition,” Liliya Shevtsova says; but it does […]
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KYIV. Sept 11 (Interfax) – The past 24 hours were the first day in the past 18 months that saw no casualties and heard no shooting in eastern Ukraine, the country’s President Petro Poroshenko said. “I want to say that today is the first day in the past 18 months on which there were no casualties and no shooting during […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Daryna Krasnolutska and Anton Doroshev – September 11, 2015) Russia said the deadline to implement a peace accord between Ukraine and the Kremlin-backed separatists it’s battling may be extended, as the conflict’s first day in 18 months without shelling raised hopes of progress. The suggestion contradicted the message from Ukrainian officials as President Petro Poroshenko and […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, September 9, 2015) Vladimir Putin not only doesn’t want to annex the Donbas but can’t do so, according to Yevgeny Ikhlov; and that means the region will become another edition of Transdniestria, creating ongoing problems for both Russian and Ukraine but opening the possibility Kyiv will be able to follow the Baltic […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – TROIKA REPORT: Sergey Strokan, Vladimir Mikheev – September 3, 2015) 1. Engaging the West Negotiations on Ukraine: a marriage of convenience amid new crisis A stormy session in Ukraine’s parliament this week while debating the proposed decentralization of governance in the eastern Donbass region, followed by a bloody riot in Kiev, signaled a […]
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(opendemocracy.net – By Oleg Kashin – September 1, 2015) The devastation of eastern Ukraine has woken Russians up to the reality of war for the first time since 1945. Sergei Loiko is an Russian-American journalist who has spent the last year covering the war in Ukraine. He’s also a friend, and has now written Airport, a novel about the battle […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, September 2, 2015) Many people, horrified by the actions of pro-Moscow forces in Crimea and the Donbas or unwilling to continue to resist Russian aggression, have concluded that the rest of Ukraine would be better off without those two regions and could move forward by sacrificing them to Vladimir Putin. “If only […]
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Ukraine’s parliament took a first step toward granting powers to rebel regions. But deadly clashes in the capital show the depth of resistance to such changes.
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – August 31, 2015) A police officer was killed during a protest in Kiev on Monday. It was the first such fatality since Ukraine’s “Revolution of Dignity” last year. Radical nationalists, some with weapons, gathered to protest a constitutional amendment proposed by President Petro Poroshenko that would make it possible to reintegrate separatist areas […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – KYIV BLOG: Ben Aris in Moscow – August 31, 2015) A grenade thrown by nationalists at police outside Ukraine’s parliament may only be the beginning of troubles for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who is facing a stark choice between enraging violent nationalists or condemning his country to further military destabilisation by Russia. The grenade […]
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(RIA Novosti – Moscow, August 31, 2015) Denis Pushilin [Ukrainian: Denys Pushylin], plenipotentiary representative of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR/DNR], considers the first reading of draft constitutional amendments passed by the Supreme Council to be Ukraine’s internal affair which has little to do with the Minsk Agreement but which could be an interim step towards constitutional reform harmonized with […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, September 1, 2015) Having failed to find the number of backers for the Russian world in Ukraine it expected, Moscow in the opinion of many in Kyiv is seeking to use Ukrainian radicals in the pursuit of its goal of destabilizing Kyiv to the point that Ukraine will fall back into Russia’s […]
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Subject: ON TREATING UKRAINE LIKE GEORGIA – A REPLY TO PAUL SAUNDERS Date: Sun, 30 Aug 201 From: Kirk Bennett <kirkbennett7@yahoo.com> ON TREATING UKRAINE LIKE GEORGIA – A REPLY TO PAUL SAUNDERS By Kirk Bennett Kirk Bennett was the Senior Georgia Desk Officer at the State Department from 2007-09. Kudos to Paul Saunders for his spot-on exposition of U.S. policy […]
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(Interfax – August 29, 2015) Russian nationalist politician Eduard Limonov, leader of the banned National Bolshevik party (whose members make up most of the Other Russia party), says his members are continuing to fight with the separatist militias in southeast Ukraine, despite not being allowed to lead units or engage in political activity there, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 28, 2015) The Anschluss of Crimea and the murder of Boris Nemtsov were not continuations of the rules of the game that had existed before, with the first following the 2008 Russian actions in Georgia and the second that of murders like Galina Starovoitova and Anna Politkovskaya, Vitaly Portnikov says. Instead, […]
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DONETSK. Aug 27 (Interfax) – The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic allows for the possibility of carrying out a new prisoner swap with Ukraine next week. “According to the official data, 450-460 prisoners of war are being held by the other side in addition to civilians. These are those who have been reported,” Viktor Anosov, a representative of the DPR military […]
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A meeting of the Contact Group in Minsk with representatives from the Donetsk and Lugansk “people’s republics” has ended with the parties agreeing to a ceasefire effective from Sept. 1. However, experts are not convinced this a breakthrough on the path to peace. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Eekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH – August 27, 2015) The participants of […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Mike Eckel – August 26, 2015) A Russian-language website has caused a stir with a report asserting that more than 2,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Delovaya Zhizn, which translates as Business Life, published the information online in March, as part of a larger story of how the Russian federal […]
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[DJ: Nataliya Vasilyeva (AP Moscow correspondent) tweets: 2 day of Western officials retweeting a Forbes report quoting a Ukrainian web-site quoting a non-existent Russia news web-site re Ukraine. The main problem here is, of course, where was the Forbes online editor when the story was published, why nobody bothered to check sources? The ease of spreading rumors in the digital […]
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Recent talks between the Ukrainian, French and German leaders on the implementation of the Minsk peace agreements in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region saw Paris and Berlin express their continued support for Kiev, but Russian analysts say Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is under pressure to make compromises. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Gevorg Mirzayan, special to RBTH – August […]
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DONETSK. Aug 26 (Interfax) – The Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has observed 30 incidents of shelling from the Ukrainian side over the past day, a ministry representative said on Wednesday. “The Ukrainian army has committed 30 ceasefire violations over the past day. Some 113 82mm and 120mm mines, 85 152mm artillery shells and 15 tank […]
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