Contents tagged with Donbas

  • Ukraine to establish government body to recover losses inflicted by Russia because of annexation of Crimea and war in Donbas

    Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced on his Facebook page that he initiated the creation of a new interdepartmental coordinating body to recover losses caused by Russian aggression in the Donbas. Poroshenko called on the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to take steps for the speedy creation of an interagency coordinating body based on the law of reintegration adopted by Kyiv in January.

    The President stressed that the creation of such a body is prescribed by the Law on the  …

  • Media: Hundreds of Russians found in DPR prisons

    In the prisons, penal colonies and pre-trial detention centers in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), there are hundreds of Russians who took part in the armed conflict in the Donbas on the militia’s side, according to an article in Novaya Gazeta.

    The news outlet cites various estimates of the number of Russian citizens being held in prisons. A DPR armed forces officer told Novaya that in four years, more than 480 Russians have been arrested. Some of them are even charged with …

  • Italian authorities expose organization recruiting mercenaries for Donbas

    As result of a special operation by Italian authorities, six people were arrested after an investigation revealed that they were recruiting mercenaries to participate in military operations in Donbas on the side of the pro-Russian militants. The Ukrainian embassy in Italy reported that among the arrested there are citizens of Moldova and Albania.

    “On the night of August 1st, Italian law enforcement authorities exposed an organized criminal group, which recruited and financed persons to …

  • Putin’s ‘Night wolves’ establish a military camp in Slovakia

    On the eve of the anniversary of the Warsaw Pact troops’ incursion into the territory of then Czechoslovakia, a group of the Kremlin’s propagandists from the biker club Night Wolves established a military camp near the capital of Slovakia, reported Radio Svoboda.

    Their camp is located sixty kilometers away from Bratislava in the Dolná Krupá village, not far from the border crossings of Slovakia, Austria and the Czech Republic. The camp is a big area enclosed with high fences with several …

  • Right Sector refuses to leave the war zone in the Donbas

    Right Sector, a far-right Ukrainian nationalist movement will not leave the anti-terrorist operation zone (ATO) despite the requirement of Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev, stated the Commander of the Right Sector Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, Andriy Stempytsky.

    “Volunteers will leave the ATO zone only when the territories annexed by the Russian Federation, including the Crimea, are regained,” he said. The squadron commander of the Right Sector Volunteer Corps, Dmytro Kotsyubaylo stated that …

  • Ukrainian journalist: Russia has insufficient resources for large-scale attack on Ukraine

    Russia does not set itself the task of occupying Ukraine or part of it without the guarantee that the political regime in Kyiv will be replaced by one loyal to the Kremlin. Furthermore, Russia has neither the strength nor the resources for a large-scale offensive. Such an opinion was expressed by journalist Yuriy Butusov in an article for Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly).

    “Today, holding the occupied territories, including the Donbas and Crimea, has become a huge burden on the Russian budget …

  • Media: more than 50 Moldovan mercenaries fighting in Donbas for LPR and the DPR

    More than 50 Moldovan mercenaries are fighting in the east of Ukraine for Russian for the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) and Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), reported the Moldovan publication Ziarul de Garda with a reference to data from the Security and Intelligence Service of Moldova (SIS). However, according to unofficial data, the number of Moldovan mercenaries in Donbass is close to 100 people.

    As journalists note, mercenary activity in Moldova has intensified with the …

  • US State Department affirms the referendum in Donbas ‘would have no legitimacy’

    U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert stated on Twitter that the results of a referendum offered by Putin in the Donbas would have no legitimacy. “A ‘referendum’ would have no legitimacy,” she wrote. “We continue to support Minsk agreements for solving the conflict in Donbas.”  The Bloomberg Agency reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to hold a referendum in the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk regions. According to the agency, this idea was …

  • Ukraine expresses concern over the OSCE data leak to Russia

    The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expressed its concern about the report of security threats against the members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine coming from the possible interference of Russian Federation intelligence services in their work, as stated in the commentary of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.

    "In this regard, the Foreign Ministry asked the OSCE SMM to share the measures to be taken to prevent such cases in the future. Ukraine condemns any actions …

  • Ukrainian Foreign MInister accuses all Russians in OSCE Special Monitoring Mission of espionage

    Ukraine believes that all Russian citizens in the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in the Donbas are Russian intelligence agents, stated Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, as reported by Radio Liberty.

    “When I tell European friends about the OSCE mission, they ask: why are the mission’s patrols sometimes detained? I say, let’s look at the statistics: our boys detain the patrols only if there are Russians there. Because they come, and within 15-20 minutes the firing begins. We are …