Ukraine

Ukraine

7/16/14

KIEV (Reuters) - Fighting raged in Ukraine's east on Wednesday when separatists tried to break through the lines of government forces near the border with Russia and a tentative step towards agreeing conditions for a ceasefire failed.

Eleven more Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the space of 24 hours while hundreds of bodies of rebels were found in shallow graves in a former separatist stronghold, the army said.

Fighting has escalated sharply since Friday with the downing of a Ukrainian military transport plane and the deaths of civilians in air and artillery attacks on residential areas on both sides of the border, which Russia and Ukraine have blamed on each other.

Accusations of direct Russian involvement in the three and a half month conflict, in which hundreds have died, is being pushed hard by Ukraine to persuade the United States and its European allies to impose tougher sanctions on Russia.

In telephone conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, late on Tuesday, President Petro Poroshenko again set out evidence of fighters crossing into Ukraine from Russia with heavy military equipment, his website said.

Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk leveled harsh criticism at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Everything which is happening in Ukraine has been planned by Russia since 2004. Putin has a clear plan and that is to destroy Ukraine and establish his influence over post-Soviet space," he said in a public speech carried by his website.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's defense and security council, told journalists that separatists had kept up attacks overnight on government positions along the border.

Government troops had been ambushed by separatists at Izvarino on the border and there had been early morning clashes near the border settlement of Stepanivka when separatists tried to break out of encirclement by the army.

Lysenko said that in Slaviansk, a former rebel stronghold re-taken by government forces, "hundreds of bodies of...(rebel) fighters" had been found under a light covering of earth.

Eleven people were said by local health authorities to have been killed in an air strike at the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, 20 km (12 miles) from the border.

{whose airstrike?}

Since losing Slaviansk, rebels has been pushed back to the main industrial city of Donetsk though they also remain in control of the border town of Luhansk.

Donetsk, which had a pre-conflict population of about 900,000 people, has been steadily emptying as thousands, fearing a government offensive, have fled.

Lyudmila, 35, who was leaving Donetsk, said: "I have been forced to gather up my things and get away from this lawless, genocide, which is happening. I am simply saving my children. My husband is staying behind. I have left my home and my work. I am leaving to save my children."

People:

Ukraine

Ukraine President – Petro Poroshenko

Ukraine Prime Minister - Arseny Yatseniuk

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's defense and security council,

Ukraine Defense Minister Valery Heletey

Rebels

Aleksandr Borodai – Separatist Leader

Alexander Khodakovsky – rebel leader

Nikolay Kozitsyn – rebel leader

Sergei Kavtaradze, a spokesman for separatists in Donetsk

The insurgency's military leader, Igor Girkin

Swiss Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Didier Burkhalter

Towns –

Rebel control – Slaviansk (former) – hundreds of bodies found in shallow grave, Donetsk, Luhansk

Snizhne – 11 people dead in airstrike –

Rebel attacks in the towns of Izvarino and Luhansk

Zelenopillya,

Marinivka – rebel owned?

Places;

Luhansk airport

Organizations:

the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

Countries

Russia versus Ukraine

France + Russia

US + Ukraine

Others – Germany,

EU – is on Ukraine’s side – is this conflict about Ukraine joining the European Union?

07/14/14

President Petro Poroshenko held an emergency meeting of his security chiefs after a weekend of Ukrainian air strikes on rebel positions near the border with Russia

Diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis have so far made little progress. However, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said a "Contact Group" - which includes Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) - aimed to talk to the rebels by video link on Tuesday and meet them in person soon afterwards.

the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

(look this organization up ) – who are they? What do they do?

Lysenko added that three Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 12 more injured in the fighting in the past 24 hours.

The Ukrainian army said it had broken a rebel encirclement of Luhansk airport on Sunday night. A spokesman for the so-called Luhansk People's Republic said 30 volunteer fighters had been killed in Ukrainian fire on Oleksandrivka, a village to the east of the town, Russia's Interfax news agency said.

As military action continued on Monday near the rebel-controlled border town of Luhansk, Ukraine's defence minister said a Ukrainian AN-26 transport plane, taking part in the military campaign against the rebels, had been shot down by a rocket which was "probably" fired from Russian territory.

Lysenko said separatists, backed by what he described as Russian "mercenaries", had fired on Ukrainian border guards in an attempt to give cover as armored vehicles and equipment were being brought into the country.

Russia said it had invited monitors from the OSCE, a European security and rights body, to visit two of its border crossings with Ukraine as a sign of goodwill.

(Does Russia have an undue influence on this organization?)

A few hundred Ukrainians protested against France's sale of two Mistral helicopter carrier vessels to Russia outside a museum in Kiev on Monday where the French national day was being celebrated.

Russian seamen are training in France on the amphibious assault ships which will be delivered by the end of the year under a 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) deal signed in 2011.

(France sold Russia amphibious assault ships - $1.6 billion)

The EU - Ukraine's strategic partner with which it signed a landmark political and trade agreement last month - targeted a group of separatist leaders with travel bans and asset freezes on Saturday but avoided fresh sanctions on Russian business.

(who are these individuals?)

US Ambassador Anthony Gardner told Brussels journalists that his country had have maintained a high degree of collaboration with the EU.

July 12, 2014

The European Union targeted Ukrainian separatist leader Aleksandr Borodai and 10 other rebels with travel bans and asset freezes on Saturday, avoiding fresh sanctions on Russian business to avoid antagonizing its main energy supplier.

EU governments widened their blacklist

(there is a blacklist – who is on the blacklist?)

Borodai, a 41-year-old Russian citizen, told a news conference in May that he was a political advisor who helped Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula Crimea in March and then moved to eastern Ukraine to help separatists there.

He denies any links to Moscow.

Others on the EU list include Alexander Khodakovsky, a defector from the Ukrainian state security service who now commands rebels, and Nikolay Kozitsyn, identified by the EU as another rebel commander.

Poroshenko had pledged to "find and destroy" the pro-Russian rebels responsible for the missile attack at Zelenopillya, which also injured nearly 100.

OSCE

From their website

http://www.osce.org

The OSCE has a comprehensive approach to security that encompasses politico-military, economic and environmental, and human aspects. It therefore addresses a wide range of security-related concerns, including arms control, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, national minorities, democratization, policing strategies, counter-terrorism and economic and environmental activities. All 57 participating States enjoy equal status, and decisions are taken by consensus on a politically, but not legally binding basis.

Swiss Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Didier Burkhalter, at a press conference on the sidelines of the 2014 Annual Security Review Conference, Vienna, 24 June 2014. (OSCE/Isabella Zaratsyan)

2014 Annual Security Review Conference, Vienna, 24 June 2014

7/17/14

Sergei Kavtaradze, a spokesman for separatists in Donetsk, said one rebel militiaman was killed and 15 others injured in fighting in the village of Marinivka. The insurgency's military leader, Igor Girkin, told the Russian television station LifeNews that his men destroyed two Ukrainian armored vehicles and captured another.

In the rebel-held city of Donetsk, a stronghold for insurgent forces