Our comparative project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation examines post-Maidan attitudes in Ukraine, as well as in Crimea now annexed to Russia, and in the Russian-supported de facto states of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria. In December 2014, we organized simultaneous public opinion surveys in these regions and surveyed …
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Over a year after violent conflict began in East Ukraine, indications are emerging of its severe environmental impacts in the highly industrialised Donbas region, and the grave health risks to civilians that will endure long into the future. The area will need international assistance both to reduce the hazards, and to ‘green’ the region’s often polluting industries.
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From 400 to 700 Ukrainians captured in the Donbas conflict zone have been taken to Russia, and many sold into slavery in Chechnya, Ossetia and Adygea, according to an open letter of the relatives of prisoners to the Russian human rights defenders published on the Web site of Open Russia public organization on Wednesday, a Ukrainian news broadcaster has reported. […]
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Subject: New Reconsidering Russia Podcast: Yuri Zhukov on the Rebellion in Donbas Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 From: Pietro Shakarian My latest Reconsidering Russia podcast is now online. It is an interview with Dr. Yuri Zhukov of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor about the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas. The conversation includes information on coal miners, labor, rebels, etc. in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – May 19, 2015) Russia’s Defense Ministry has identified two fighters captured in Ukraine as former servicemen in the Russian military – a concession that echoes rights advocates’ claims that Moscow has been discharging its soldiers from the army before sending them to fight alongside separatists in the Donbass. The fighters, Alexander Alexandrov […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – May 19, 2015) For more than year, there’s been a war in eastern Ukraine that nobody called a war. And for the past three months, there’s been a cease-fire there that wasn’t a cease-fire. And now that the agreement reached in Minsk in February that was supposed to end hostilities in the Donbas […]
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(Interfax – May 18, 2015) The Russian Defence Ministry has rejected Ukrainian allegations that two men who were reportedly captured during fighting in eastern Ukraine are serving members of the Russian armed forces, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 18 May. Ministry spokesman Maj-Gen Igor Konashenkov admitted that the two men, who were detained by the Security Service of […]
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MOSCOW. May 19 (Interfax) – The leadership of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) views meetings of the Trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine as an instrument that may help launch direct dialogue between the self-proclaimed republics and Kyiv. “It will be good if this [direct] dialogue takes place. But at this point, we are speaking about our work within the […]
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MOSCOW. May 15 (Interfax) – Russia is ready for cooperation with Ukraine on the issue of humanitarian assistance supplies and is already taking steps in this direction, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “Moscow is ready for close constructive cooperation with the Ukrainian authorities on issues relating to the supply of humanitarian assistance to civilians who are suffering from the acute […]
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MOSCOW. May 17 (Interfax) – The leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic finds unacceptable the instructions given by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to Kyiv’s envoy to the subgroup for political issues Volodymyr Horbulin about the possibility of launching the dialogue on the modality of local elections in Donbas only after a complete ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy armaments […]
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IN THE final years of his life, Boris Nemtsov never gave up on politics in Russia, even when many others were discouraged or frightened away from standing up to President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Nemtsov, once in the front ranks of Russia’s post-Soviet reformers, in the last decade and a half became a persistent Putin critic. To some, he was a […]
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(US Department of State – Sochi, Russia – May 12, 2015) [Compare with Russian Foreign Ministry version: mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/1832A4FE6BF 5B7E643257E440029BBE5] MODERATOR: (In progress) (Via interpreter) ready to start the press conference. Heads of the foreign policy agencies of the U.S. and Russia. FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, thanks a lot for your patience and waiting till the end of […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, May 13, 2015) The warning given by US Secretary of State John Kerry to official Kiev not to try to capture Donetsk airport by force attests to the fact that Washington’s efforts for Ukrainian settlement are starting to have future, according to deputy director of the information and press department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mariya Zakharova. […]
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Avdiivka, a Ukrainian-controlled city on the war front just 10 miles north of Donetsk, is a bizarre buffer zone. “Neither Ukrainian nor (separatist) Donetsk People’s Republic laws work there,” Alexei, a taxi driver from the village of Ocheretine, northwest of Avdiivka, told the Kyiv Post. Locals say they don’t consider themselves part of either Ukraine or separatist-held areas and, consequently, […]
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MOSCOW. May 14 (Interfax) – Kyiv should grant special status to southeastern regions of Ukraine in order to preserve the country’s unity, says Konstantin Kosachyov, the head of the Russian Federation Council international affairs committee. “Only decentralization, reducing everyone to the same level would be not enough, and if Ukraine wants to preserve Donbas as its part, it should treat […]
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MOSCOW. May 14 (Interfax) – The Kremlin sees Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s statement on the presence of 11,000 Russian troops in Ukrainian territory as unfounded and not conducive to any positive developments. “I don’t see fit to repeat such unfounded accusations, without any concrete information and proof, which are not conducive to anything positive, to put it mildly,” Russian presidential […]
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(Interfax – May 11, 2015) The leadership of the [self-proclaimed] Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR] has admitted the possibility of assuming a broad autonomy status, but without any harm to the interests of the self-proclaimed republic. “We agree to the broadest autonomy without harm to our interests. If Kiev does not adhere to the Minsk agreements, the DPR will be forced […]
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Nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed in the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed separatists since fighting erupted in April last year, the nation’s president said Friday.
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(RFE/RL – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW – May 10, 2015) On the evening of February 25, the Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov came to his friend, Ilya Yashin, to ask for help with his latest investigation: a sensitive report on Russian soldiers secretly fighting in Ukraine. Two days later Nemtsov, a relentless critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was brazenly shot dead near […]
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DONETSK. May 11 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian military have shelled the Donbas territory nearly 40 times in the past 24 times, the defense ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Monday. “Over the past 24 hours we have registered 37 instances of ceasefire violation, including the use of artillery,” the ministry said in a statement, according to […]
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Concern is rising over the situation in eastern Ukraine, with reports of increased shelling across the line of contact and rising casualties, as well as of Russia arming and organizing separatist forces while assembling regular army units along the Ukraine-Russia border. Tension is up, but the most likely prospect is continuation of a no war/no peace situation … a frozen […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 7, 2015) Russia’s Ministry of Culture will pay theater, opera and ballet troupes from the separatist-controlled Lugansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine to tour Russia this summer and fall. The ministry will support tours by the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theater, the Luhansk Music and Drama Theater, the Youth Theater of Donetsk, the […]
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DONETSK. May 8 (Interfax) – The Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has registered 44 instances of shelling by Ukrainian government forces in the region in the past 24 hours, the Donetsk news agency reported. “Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian side has shelled the territory of the DPR 44 times. The adversary continues to use heavy […]
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(Interfax – Donetsk, Ukraine, May 6, 2015) The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR], Oleksandr [Aleksandr] Zakharchenko, expects that provocative actions against the DPR by the Ukrainian side may begin on 8 May. “According to intelligence reports, provocative actions on the part of Ukraine will begin on 8 May. We have received intelligence reports that for this purpose, […]
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KYIV. May 3 (Interfax) – Kyiv on Sunday denied allegations by Moscow that Ukrainian heavy artillery has been shelling Donetsk. “Any use of weapons by units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, if it takes place, is purely and simply a forced response to armed provocations from illegal armed units that are active in individual districts and is made in […]
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Russia’s military may be taking advantage of a recent lull in fighting in eastern Ukraine to lay the groundwork for a new military offensive, NATO’s top commander told the U.S. Congress on Thursday. U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, the NATO supreme allied commander, said Russian forces had been seeking to “reset and reposition” while protecting battlefield gains, despite a […]
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France and Russia said Thursday that working groups from opposing sides in the conflict in eastern Ukraine will meet within a week to discuss reconstruction, security and how to deal with refugees who have fled the fighting in recent months.
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – April 29, 2015) Russia’s toxicity for investors is suddenly so 2014. Western money is returning to Moscow’s equity and bond markets, and private Russian companies are again able to borrow, albeit at a premium to Western peers. The main cause for this reversal of fortunes is the cease-fire in Ukraine, even though it […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Sergei Kuznetsov in Kyiv – April 30, 2015) While Western nations refuse to provide Ukraine with arms, preferring instead to financially drip-feed the country and maintain pressure on Russia with sanctions, Kyiv is facing several new challenges – in particular keeping the ruling coalition together at the same time as managing the thorny process […]
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Despite decisive measures in 2014 to stabilize the economy and jumpstart growth, Ukraine’s economic woes worsened mainly due to the conflict in the east. In its new Ukraine Macroeconomic Update, the World Bank projects real GDP to fall by 7.5 percent in 2015, down from 6.8 percent in 2014. This lower forecast is mainly driven by the ongoing conflict that […]
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The United States now sees the Ukrainian rebels as a Russian force. American officials briefed on intelligence from the region say Russia has significantly deepened its command and control of the militants in eastern Ukraine in recent months, leading the U.S. to quietly introduce a new term: “combined Russian-separatist forces.” The State Department used the expression three times in a […]
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Minor clashes continue along the conflict line in Ukraine, but behind the front lines U.S. and Russian officials are waging a war of words. Russia and the United States have each accused the other of threatening to undo the ceasefire, while in reality both the Russian and Ukrainian sides are largely respecting the cease-fire terms of the Minsk agreement. Russian military movements […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 27, 2015) Yesterday, Yuri Lutsenko, the leader of the Poroshenko Bloc in the Verkhova Rada, said that the probability of the renewal of military actions in eastern Ukraine was “more than 80 percent,” a statement that underscores analyst Andrey Illarionov’s argument in Tallinn that “there is no non-military solution” for the […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Sergei Kuznetsov in Kyiv – April 22, 2015) While Ukraine’s steel, heavy engineering and power sectors have been crippled by the war in the east and the economic crisis, agriculture has become the country’s leading source of export revenue and the only sector putting in a positive performance. Even so, farmers are facing difficulties […]
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No one in Russian-speaking Kharkiv wants to follow rebels into open revolt. But locals say Kiev has no idea how badly it’s aggravating the region with its initiatives, including the ‘Great Wall of Ukraine.’
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – April 22, 2015) Moscow would welcome the involvement of any country that could pressure Kiev into observing a cease-fire with separatists, the Kremlin said, after the U.S. ambassador to Russia suggested President Barack Obama would readily participate in the Ukrainian peace talks if he were invited. Ambassador John Tefft said U.S. officials […]
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DONETSK. April 20 (Interfax) – Four people were killed in hostilities in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in the period of April 11-17, DPR Ombudsperson Darya Morozova said. She posted her weekly socioeconomic report for the DPR on her website on Monday. Morozova quoted official statistics from the DPR Health Ministry and forensic medicine authorities to say that the […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 12, Issue 69 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Roger McDermott – April 14, 2015) All parties to the Minsk Two agreement, which has resulted in a shaky ceasefire in southeastern Ukraine since February 12, express varying levels of concern about a possible full resumption of hostilities. On April 10, the pro-Russian Ukrainian rebel leader who heads the Donetsk […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Kyiv, Mari Bastashevski in Donetsk – April 15, 2015) The Russian ruble is gaining ground against the hryvnia across rebel-held parts of East Ukraine’s Donbas region, 19 years after Kyiv introduced the national currency to end the country’s membership of the ruble zone. As Eastern Ukraine heads towards becoming a frozen […]
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(Interfax – April 14, 2015) Foreign ministers from the Normandy Quartet countries have called on the trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine to agree a schedule for the withdrawal of weapons below a 100 mm caliber from the line of contact in Donbass, the chair of the Normandy format’s ministerial meeting in Berlin said in a statement. “We furthermore call for […]
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Warring parties in Ukraine should withdraw heavy weapons — including tanks, armored vehicles, mortars and artillery — in order to comply with the shaky cease-fire that has held in eastern Ukraine since late February, the German foreign minister said early Tuesday. The call from the minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, came after talks with his counterparts from France, Russia and Ukraine aimed […]
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Ukraine’s military accused pro-Russian rebels on Monday of using heavy weapons that were meant to have been withdrawn under a ceasefire deal, after one Ukrainian serviceman was killed and six wounded in rebel-held territories.
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MOSCOW. April 8 (Interfax) – The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) is ready to participate in the activity of joint working groups, which will address concrete areas of the peace process in southeastern Ukraine. “We have done more than enough to prepare operations of the joint working groups. We are fully prepared, for instance, we have legal teams studying nuances […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Anna Yalovkina – April 7, 2015) The closure of the border between Ukraine and the Donetsk People’s Republic has divided communities, leaving people short of food and medicines. In January, after spending months trying to secure Donetsk’s airport, the Ukrainian authorities closed off all roads into the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Now residents of the towns and […]
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(Interfax – April 6, 2015) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s statements on maintaining the unitary system of state governance and the Ukrainian language remaining the only state language in the country are unacceptable and contradict the Minsk Agreements, Andriy Purhin (Andrey Purgin), the speaker of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) people’s council, has said, as reported by privately-owned Russian news […]
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(RIA Novosti – April 6, 2015) Aleksandr Shokhin, the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE), has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s remarks during a meeting with the union’s administrative office have been distorted in an article by Forbes magazine, RIA Novosti (part of the state-owned International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya) reported on 6 April. According […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 7, 2015) President Vladimir Putin in February turned down an offer from his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko to “take the Donbass” – the area in the country’s east that is currently partly controlled by pro-Russian insurgents – and asked Poroshenko whether he was “out of his mind,” Forbes magazine reported Monday. […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Yulia Surkova – April 7, 2015) Deep behind rebel lines in eastern Ukraine, cash machines on garbage-covered streets have long run out of bills and residents are turning to fixers to survive. A pro-Russian insurgency that erupted a year ago has killed more than 6,000 people, with economic desperation permeating what was once Ukraine’s industrial heartland. Residents of […]
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday signaled a readiness to let Ukrainian voters decide whether to decentralize their government but denounced the demands of pro-Russian separatists for independence as an “infection” spread from Russia. Los Angeles Times: Ukrainian president says any vote on ceding power to rebels will fail.
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The Ukrainian authorities intend to spend about UAH 1 billion on the fortification work on the demarcation line in Donbas, deputy commander of the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) Colonel Valentyn Fedychev said on Wednesday, the press service of Donetsk Regional Military and Civil Administration reported. Interfax-Ukraine: Fortification work on demarcation line in Donbas to cost UAH 1 bln – ATO deputy […]
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