Contents tagged with Donbas

  • Three Ukrainian border guards in the Donbas suffer retina burns after being shot with laser weapons

    Three Ukrainian border guards at the Marinka checkpoint have suffered retina burns of varying severity while conducting terrain surveillance using optical equipment. The Ukrainian State Border Service suspects that prohibited special purpose laser weapons were used against them.

    "The nature of the burns and preliminary medical diagnosis leads to the conclusion that it's possible that the enemy used high-power light emitters, which could be the so called ‘dazzling lasers,’" the State Border …

  • So-called Luhansk People's Republic to organize tours to the war zone

    Luhansk authorities plan to develop tourist routes in the hostile areas in the Donbas. This was said by the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic’s (LPR) Head of the Department of Tourism of the Ministry of Family, Youth, Sports and Tourism, Svetlana Didkovskaya.

    “We have students who write a large number of scientific papers every year. We want to develop and offer tours titled ‘'Places of military glory of LPR',” Didkovskaya said at a briefing.

    According to her, the development of the tours …

  • UN: Elections should be held in the Donbas only after the issue of human rights has been resolved

    The Donbas elections should be held when the human rights issues are resolved and not just when the technical and political aspects are organized, as stated by the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Ivan Šimonović, said during an interview with Novoye Vremya.

    “If you want to hold free and fair elections, you must ensure that there is freedom of expression and media, as well as freedom of assembly and association. This is not happening now,” Šimonović said.

    He also stressed the …

  • Russia's UN Ambassador: Ukraine is preparing an offensive in the Donbas

    In a letter to the President of the United Nations Security Council, Koro Bessho, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, addressed the UN, demanding that they “influence Kiev to prevent the disastrous development of events,” referring to the situation in Ukraine.

    Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN has traditionally accused Ukraine of violating the Minsk agreements and spoke about the alleged impending military operations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces …

  • Marchuk: Ukraine's losses in the Donbas have increased due to the use of drones by Russian-backed separatists

    The use of long-range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to correct artillery fire is one of the reasons why Ukrainian losses are increasing in the Donbas.

    The Ukrainian special representative in one of the subgroups of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, former Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council and former Defense Minister of Ukraine, Yevhen Marchuk, said this on channel 112, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

    “They have already begun to use long-range UAVs, which correct even …

  • So-called Donetsk People's Republic seizes plant owned by Russian company

    According to a statement on its website, the Russian mining and metals company Mechel has received an order from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) introducing temporary administrative control over the Donetsk Electrometallurgical Plant (DEMZ) property, located in the occupied territory.

    The order is dated June 25 and is signed by the DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko. It says that a new company, Yuzivka Metallurgical Plant, should be established on the premises of the …

  • So-called Donetsk People's Republic postpones elections

    The so-called Donetsk People's Republic will postpone elections until October 30th. They were initially scheduled for July 24th.

    "The elections will be postponed until the 30th of October, 2016 as a result of Kiev's failure to adhere to the Minsk agreements. The decree will be signed in the coming days. We hope that the Western partners of Kiev will force them to vote on the Electoral Act this year, which will be coordinated with us," the leader of the so-called DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko, …

  • Ukraine installs transmitters to resume broadcasting in the Donbas

    The Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Information Policy, Tetiana Popova, stated at a briefing on July 19th that 60 transmitters have been installed for the resumption of Ukrainian broadcasting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, RBC-Ukraine reported.

    “Currently, 60 transmitters that we installed in the east of the country are already functioning,” Popova stated. According to her, the majority of these transmitters were provided by the governments of other countries at a total cost of 60 million …

  • Ukrainian Intelligence: Russia is preparing the residents of the Donbas to resist peacekeepers

    The Russian Command of troops in the Donbas is preparing local citizens for organized resistance against the possible presence of an international peacekeeping mission.  This was reported by the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (HUR MOU) via Facebook.

    “Training for ‘unarmed resistance to the invasion of the foreign armed mission’ has been planned in Luhansk on the 19th of July.  According to the training schedule, a demonstration will be held on the …

  • Turchynov: The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine could consider implementing martial law

    The Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC), Oleksandr Turchynov, stated that NSDC can consider the implementation of martial law in Ukraine due to the situation in the Donbas. According to him, active aggressive actions by Russian troops have led to a systematic deterioration of the situation in the east of the country.

    “Continuous shelling with the use of powerful weapons by Russian aggressors, modern means of guidance and correction of fire, prohibited by …