Tuesday, March 31, 2015
7:16 AM PDT
Poroshenko ready to
put to referendum issue of federalization of Ukraine
(UNIAN) --- The Ukrainian government is
ready to submit to a referendum the question of a second state language and the
federalization of the country, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on
Tuesday during a meeting with students of Chernihiv’s Shevchenko National
Pedagogical University
"I'm ready to
put to a referendum the question of a second state language and the issue of
federalization, and I am sure that the Ukrainian people will say a resounding
‘No!’" Poroshenko said.
"Russia 's plans against Ukraine and its dreams that Ukraine is a
conflicted nation that will destroy itself have failed," he said.
Poroshenko also
said that 62% of those who fought in the Donbas
were Russian-speaking citizens.
"But their
Russian language does not prevent them to love Ukraine , as I love it in
Ukrainian," he said.
As UNIAN reported
earlier, on Tuesday Poroshenko was on a working visit to Chernihiv region,
during which he presented to staff the new chairman of the Regional State
Administration, Valeriy Kulich.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
7:04 AM PDT
US general says new
Russian offensive in Donbas ‘possible after
Easter’
(UNIAN) --- A fresh offensive by Russian
forces in eastern Ukraine is
possible after Easter and before May 9, U.S. General Wesley Clark, Former NATO
Supreme Allied Commander in Europe , has said
in a speech at the Atlantic Council, Ukrainian newspaper Yevropeiska Pravda has
reported.
"It seems that
the resumption of a wider conflict is inevitable, but I hope that the United States will take all necessary measures
to prevent this," Clark said in his
speech on Monday.
When he visited Ukraine , Clark
said, “Minsk II was roughly in place. Some artillery had been pulled back by
the separatists, but some, according to sources, had been concealed in
forward positions.”
“What is happening
now is preparations for a renewed offensive from the east,” and this could take
place following Orthodox Easter, on April 12, and most probably before VE Day
on May 8," Clark said, citing multiple local sources he spoke with on a
recent fact-finding mission to Ukraine .
"Maybe if the
Allies decide to boycott the celebrations, which are of great significance for
[Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, he would wait," said Clark .
Clark said it was
necessary now to send weapons to Ukraine to get it prepared by the
time of the next Russian-backed militant offensive.
"It [sending
weapons] would not be a provocation, but would have a stabilizing effect, and
we must do it now," Clark said.
However, he warned
that “[Putin’s] objectives could be much broader than Ukraine ,” and said there was the possibility of
a Russian attack on the Baltic countries and Poland .
The United States and the European Union imposed
economic sanctions against Russian officials and companies after Moscow ’s annexation of Crimea and its aggression against
eastern Ukraine , but Clark said “there are limitations to what we should
expect of sanctions.”
“You need the
sanctions, you need the ability of the Ukrainians to resist, to strengthen
their ability to resist, to drive this back into the diplomatic channel and to
keep it there” Clark said.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
6:21 AM PDT
No one killed, one
soldier wounded on Monday - NSDC
(Censor.NET) --- One Ukrainian soldier
was injured in the course of ATO on March 30.
This was announced
by Colonel Andrii Lysenko, the representative of the Anti-terrorist operation
headquarters, at the traditional daily briefing, Censor.NET reports.
"Over the past day, no Ukrainian soldiers were killed, one was wounded," Lysenko said.
"Over the past day, no Ukrainian soldiers were killed, one was wounded," Lysenko said.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
6:19 AM PDT
New batch of US armoured Humvees arrived in Ukraine .
(Censor.NET) --- On
March 30, 2015 the new load of armoured Humvees (HMMVWs) for Ukraine arrived from the United States .
Censor.NET reports
citing statement of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine on Facebook.
"U.S.
Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt thanked Dover
aircrew delivering new armoured HMMVWs," the statement reads.
It is also noted
that the United States has committed more than $120 million in security
assistance for Ukraine to date, and has additionally promised 230 Humvees in
total, as well as $75 million worth of equipment including UAVs, counter-mortar
radars, night vision devices, and medical supplies.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
5:25 AM PDT
Crimean Tatar TV
Channel Faces Closure
Lenur Islyamov, the
owner of the ATR channel, told reporters in Simferopol on March 31 that Russian media
regulator Roskomnadzor has rejected several attempts by ATR to register under
Russian law, citing various technicalities.
Islyamov said the
deadline for registering his channel, which still holds a Ukrainian license to
broadcast, is March 31.
Islyamov said his
station has no plans to move from Crimea to another location in Ukraine in
order to continue broadcasting.
Some 100 Crimean
Tatars came to ATR's headquarters on March 31 to support it.
Activists,
community leaders, and rights groups say Crimean Tatars have faced discrimination,
pressure, and abuse for their opposition to Russia 's
illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014.
Crimean Tatars make
up some 10 percent of the population of Crimea .
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
4:24 AM PDT
"Our tanks do
not shoot, but they warm up and drive so that terrorists know we are
ready" - Ukrainian tankmen.
(Censor.NET) --- Ukrainian soldiers at
rear positions repair the tanks and make sure they are combat ready.
As reported by Censor.NET,
the military is sure that the tanks, despite being far from new, will work. The
armored vehicles receive both new lives and new names.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
2:50 AM PDT
ALMATY, Kazakhstan (RFE/RL)
--- A court in Kazakhstan
has convicted an ethnic Russian woman of inciting ethnic hatred over derogatory
references to Kazakhs and calls for the Central Asian country to become part of
Russia .
The March 31 ruling
ended a trial that threw a spotlight on concerns about Kazakhstan 's security following Russia 's interference in Ukraine , another neighbouring country at the
heart of the former Soviet Union .
After delivering
the guilty verdict, the court in Almaty handed Kazakh citizen Tatyana
Shevtsova-Valova a suspended four-year sentence, meaning she will not be jailed
unless she violates the terms of the sentence.
Investigators said
that in posts on social networks including Facebook, Shevtsova-Valova called
Kazakhs "churki" -- an offensive slur sometimes used by Russians to
describe non-Slavic peoples in Central Asia and the Caucasus -- and wrote that
Kazakhstan must become part of Russia, like Crimea.
Moscow's annexation
of Crimea and support for separatists fighting government forces in eastern
Ukraine have raised concerns among Russia's neighbors that it may have designs
on parts of their territory -- particularly those which, like Crimea, are home
to ethnic Russians.
But some 25 percent
of Kazakhstan 's 17 million
population are ethnic Russians, most of whom live in northern regions
neighboring Russia
-- an area where borders shifted repeatedly during the Tsarist and Soviet eras.
At almost 7,000
kilometers, the Kazakh-Russian border is the longest in Eurasia ,
and parts of it have not yet been officially delimited.
In the late 1980s
and early 1990s, as the Soviet Union crumbled and after it collapsed, Russian
nationalist groups in both Kazakhstan and Russia often called for referendums
on some Kazakh territories' joining the Russian Federation.
With the conflict
in Ukraine and Putin's
patriotic rhetoric stoking fears along the fringes of the former Russian
empire, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev has matched Putin's patriotic
Russian rhetoric with his own proud emphasis on Kazakhstan 's past and its identity
as a nation.
On December 15,
Nazarbaev congratulated the nation a day before Independence Day celebrations,
saying Kazakhstan 's
independence "is a result of our ancestors' efforts, their blood and
sweat, their call to every Kazakh to choose to defend Kazakhstan to
the last drop of blood."
Nazarbaev said that
in 2015, Kazakhstan
will celebrate the 550th anniversary of the Kazakh Khanate -- a grouping of
Mongol and Turkic tribes united by two khans seen as founders of the Kazakh
nation.
His words appeared
to be a direct answer to a statement by Putin, who publicly said in August that
Kazakhs had never had statehood.
Also on December
15, a court in the capital, Astana, sentenced a Kazakh citizen, Yevgeny
Vdovenko, to five years in prison for fighting alongside pro-Russian
separatists last year in eastern Ukraine , where more than 6,000
people have been killed since April.
The ruling came as
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was in town to participate in a meeting
of prime ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional
grouping dominated by Russia
and China .
Nazarbaev, in power
since he was named chief of the Communist Party in Soviet Kazakhstan in 1989,
announced this month that he will run in a presidential poll that had been
scheduled for 2016 but has been moved up to April 26 this year.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
2:11 AM PDT
Bomb derails 2 empty
train cars at Kharkiv station
(Zik) --- A mine exploded at 3:00 March
31 at the Osnova rail station, derailing two empty cars. There are no victims,
the police say.
According to the
police, it was a terrorist act.
March 30,
terrorists blew up a cistern at Osnova carrying fuel for the Ukrainian army.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
1:44 AM PDT
100,000-strong
Russian army ready to advance on Ukraine
(Zik) --- Speaking on ICTV March 30,
first deputy speaker Andrij Parubij said Russia
concentrated 55,000 troops at Ukraine ’s
eastern border and 40,000 troops in Donbas ,
RBK-Ukrayina reported.
“Russia has radically increased its military
presence near and inside Ukraine
in the past few months.
There are 55,000
Russian troops at the Ukrainian border and 40,000 in Donbas ,
he said.
There is a high
probability of a massive Russian offensive before May 9, the Victory Day in Russia , the
official stressed.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
12:40 AM PDT
WARSAW (Reuters) --- Poland will provide
training to around 50 Ukrainian army instructors this year, the Polish ministry
of defense said on Tuesday, a part of NATO's efforts to boost Ukraine's defense
capacity as it faces a pro-Russian rebellion in the east.
The Ukrainians will
be trained in Poland ,
the ministry said in a statement, with the courses scheduled to take place in
June, September and October this year. Other NATO countries will organize
similar courses, the ministry also said.
Earlier this year, Britain said it would send 75 military personnel
to Ukraine
to help train its army. [ID:nL5N0VY4QG
No comments:
Post a Comment