Contents tagged with Donbas

  • European Parliament Member Rebecca Harms calls for new personal sanctions on Russians for actions in Crimea

    During a joint program by Krym.Realii and the TV channel UA:Pershyi titled “Crimea: 5 years of opposing the Russian occupation”, European Parliament Member Rebecca Harms said that she believes new personal sanctions should be imposed on Russia for its aggression in annexed Crimea.

    “I think that we need the sanctions, and we must not lift them until we achieve a better situation in Crimea and in the Donbas. What we are currently seeing gives cause to think about new sanctions. I side with those …

  • Media: Former Berkut officer suspected of Euromaidan shootings may have died in Syria

    Ruslan Horbik, a former Berkut officer who is wanted for sniper killings during Euromaidan, may have been killed in Syria while working for the Private Military Company (PMC) Wagner. The Ukrainian authorities are currently investigating this possibility, Hromadske reports. 

    Horbik fled from Ukraine to Russia at the end of February 2014, and obtained Russian citizenship in 2015. His mother, Nadezhda, said that he first worked in Russia as a masseur, and later got a job in the police. In …

  • Media: Ukraine started purchasing Russian coal through Belarus

    Russian coal companies had to resort to indirect supplies of coal to Ukraine through Belarus because of trade restrictions imposed by Russia, RBC news agency reports, citing sources in the coal companies. 

    “We cannot supply them directly. Quotas prevent us from doing so,” one of the interlocutors stated. 

    According to one of RBC’s sources, Russian companies used to export coal to Ukraine under the guise of export to Europe. Raw materials were delivered to Ukrainian ports ostensibly for export, …

  • UN calls on Ukraine to pay pensions to all residents of Donbas

    Residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, who live on each side of the contact line, should receive Ukrainian pensions and social benefits , EU countries said in a statement at the meeting of the UN General Assembly.

    “It is necessary to ensure appropriate social benefits and pensions regardless of place of residence and according to the Ukrainian legislation and Constitution,” the statement reads.

    The Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland also urged equal …

  • Russian journalists in Central African Republic may have been killed by mercenaries from Donbas

    The people who killed the Russian documentary filmmakers Orkhan Dzhemal, Alexander Rastorguev and Kirill Radchenko in the Central African Republic (CAR) last year may have flown in especially to do this from the part of the Donbas not controlled by Ukraine, and returned there after committing the murder. This theory was proposed by Pyotr Verzilov, a member of the Russian activist band Pussy Riot, who is carrying out his own investigation into the filmmakers’ deaths. 

    “The people who carried …

  • Ukrainian President suggests sending UN evaluation group to the Donbas to prepare for deployment of peacekeepers

    Sending the UN evaluation group to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions can be an important step preceding the deployment of the international peacekeeping forces, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stated. He stressed that Ukraine is ready to discuss the mission's mandate.

    "A technical assessment mission that Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres could send to the Donbas for the development of the relevant scenarious would definitely contribute to this discussion,” Poroshenko …

  • Poroshenko: Russia preparing to attack Ukraine

    During debates in the UN General Assembly on “The situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and the environment in New York”, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that Russia is preparing for a military attack against Ukraine, and that future escalation to the level of full-scale war is no longer unrealistic, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

    “Military experts unambiguously find that the armed group on the Russian border with Ukraine is an offensive assault group. It has …

  • Kremlin: there are no prospects for normalizing relations with the US

    Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov stated that there are no prospects for normalizing the relationship with the US for now, reports Interfax-Ukraine. 

    “In my opinion, everything is already bad. Prospects are not being considered for now,” said Ushakov responding to a question if a new series of sanctions will worsen Russian-American relations, or things can’t get worse. 

    He added that Moscow’s reaction to the possibility of new American sanctions would follow after analysis. 

    “We will …

  • Volker: Russia does not want to discuss Donbas situation during Ukrainian elections

    US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker said that Moscow is not showing any interest in arranging a meeting between Russian Presidential Aide Vladislav Surkov and himself or in taking action to resolve the conflict in the Donbas during the presidential campaign in Ukraine.

    “We are always in favor of meeting and talking. Russia is not showing any interest or progress whatsoever in this regard. In fact, they said that they don’t want to do anything during the presidential elections,”  …

  • Former DPR head Borodai claims that more than 400 Donbas militants were saved from being deported from Russia to Ukraine

    The head of the Donbas Volunteers Union, former Prime Minister of the so-called Donetsk People’s Rebublic Alexander Borodai stated during the congress of the Council of Donbas Volunteer Commanders in Moscow that more than 400 members of pro-Russian armed groups that are fighting in the Donbas could have been deported from Russia at Ukraine’s request.

    He alleged that thanks to the activities of the Russian organization Donbas Volunteers Union (DVU), they avoided getting deported. Its members …