Contents tagged with Donbas

  • President of Lithuania: Sanctions against Russia should be strengthened and expanded

    The West should expand sanctions against Russia, as the situation in eastern Ukraine does not improve, as stated by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite before the EU summit in Brussels, Delfi reports.

    "The situation in Ukraine thus far only continues to deteriorate… In eastern Ukraine, a direct, real, de-facto inclusion of that part of the country into the territory of Russia has begun," said Lithuanian President Grybauskaite.

    She also pointed out to the fact that Moscow, with separatist …

  • Turchynov proposed tightening checks on residents of the Crimea and the Donbas who are seeking Ukrainian biometric passports

    Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksandr Turchynov believes that it is necessary to conduct a thorough check of all applicants arriving from the territories that are not under Ukraine’s control who wish to obtain a biometric passport, as reported on the website of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC).

    According to Turchynov, after the start of Ukraine’s visa-free regime with the EU, the number of people from the Crimea and from the separatist-held …

  • Deputy Head of the Administration of the Ukrainian President: Trump and Poroshenko discussed the reintegration of the Donbas

    Some elements of the future bill on de-occupation and reintegration of the Donbas were discussed during the President Petro Poroshenko’s visit to Washington, as stated by the Deputy Head of Administration of the President of Ukraine, Kostiantyn Yeliseyev, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

    "The main issue was how to unite and coordinate efforts with the Americans in order to bring peace and stability to the Donbas. Some elements of this bill were the focus of the negotiation process with the US since …

  • State Department: US concerned about actions of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine

    State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said on Thursday that the US is deeply concerned about the alarming pattern of violence and brutality on the part of Russia-supported separatists in eastern Ukraine toward unarmed civilian employees of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission.

    Recently, she continued, in the east of Ukraine, a number of incidents have taken place in which the participants of the Monitoring Mission have been harassed, threatened, and subjected to shelling. This happened, …

  • Russia opposes Ukraine's bill on reintegration of the Donbas

    Boris Gryzlov, the permanent representative of Russia to the Trilateral Contact Group, which was formed to facilitate the settlement of the situation in eastern Ukraine, said that the bill on the reintegration of the Donbas is an attempt to destroy the Minsk agreements.

    “At today's meeting of the contact group, the participants could not ignore the bill of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to reintegrate Donbass. According to the available information, this bill being worked …

  • The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine unveils a draft law on de-occupation of Donbas

    Oleksandr Turchynov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) presented an idea for the law on the de-occupation of the Donbas which supposed to become an alternative to the anti-terrorist operation (ATO), Hromadske reported.

    The preamble notes that the legal regime of the ATO, introduced in April 2014, made it possible to stop the expansion of Russian aggression, and kept it localized in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. It also made it possible to hold …

  • Ukrainian Parliament proposes to call the military operation in the Donbas a ‘local war’ to further its integration back into Ukraine

    A draft bill on the reintegration of the Donbas proposes to introduce a concept of “local war” in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. This was stated by Verkhovna Rada Deputy from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc "Solidarity" Volodymyr Ariev, 112 Ukraine reports.

    According to Ariev, the antiterrorist operation (ATO) that is being carried out in the Donbas now uses an "outdated format.” He said that according to Ukrainian legislation, in case of seizure of territories, either an ATO should be conducted …

  • Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine: Witnesses report execution of 134 people by separatists and Russian military in Donbas

    In response to RBC-Ukraine’s inquiry, the Prosecutor’s General Office of Ukraine (GPU) confirmed that witnesses in the criminal case on the widespread and systematic violation of the laws and conventions of warfare by members of the DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) and LPR (Luhansk People’s Republic)   reported large-scale executions carried out by militants and Russian soldiers in the Donbas.

    The response specifies that in the pretrial investigations more than 900 people have been questioned …

  • National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to consider bill to reintegrate Donbas

    The National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) will soon consider a bill on the deoccupation and reintegration of the Donbas, First Deputy Chairperson of Parliament Iryna Herashchenko announced on Facebook.

    According to her, work on the bill “On the characteristics of state policy regarding the restoration of Ukraine’s state sovereignty over the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine” is virtually complete, and it will be introduced during the NSDC …

  • Ukraine initiates criminal investigation into export and sales of coal from the Donbas

    The Main Military Prosecutor's office of Ukraine opened a criminal case in connection with the export and sale abroad of coal mined in the separatist-held territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the press secretary of the Prosecutor General Office, Larisa Sargan wrote on her Facebook page on Saturday.

    "A number of websites posted materials from which it becomes clear that under the general guidance of [businessman Sergei] Kurchenko, in 2017, government officials and other employees of …