Zelenskyy visits troops on frontline
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked Ukraine’s Defenders Day holiday with a visit to troops deployed on the frontline in the eastern region of Donetsk, where Ukrainian armed forces have been fighting Russia-backed separatists for more than five years. Mr. Zelenskyy, who rose to the presidency earlier this year on promises to end the conflict, on October 14 thanked Ukrainian troops for their “bravery” in defending the country in a conflict that has killed more than 13,000 people since April 2014. The Ukrainian president also presented state awards to several Ukrainian soldiers and got acquainted with the situation along the line of contact, according to the presidential website. In Kyiv, tens of thousands of people demonstrated on Independence Square, chanting nationalist slogans and decrying as “capitulation” a peace plan for eastern Ukraine that would include a pullback of heavy weaponry. Mr. Zelenskyy’s embrace of the plan, known as the Steinmeier formula, has drawn opposition from right-wing groups, some veteran groups and activists in Ukraine. Since 2015, the October 14 anniversary of the creation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) has been marked as the Defenders Day public holiday. The UPA was founded in western Ukraine during the Nazi occupation and fought against both Soviet and Nazi forces during World War II. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AP)
Two Ukrainian soldiers killed in Donbas
Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and one wounded in eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian military announced on October 15 during its daily briefing. One of those killed was 36-year-old Yaroslava Nykonenko. She served in the elite security brigade of the military’s General Staff. Both soldiers were killed by sniper fire, the military said. Ms. Nykonenko’s father, Serhiy Nykonenko, also fought in the Donbas conflict and was killed by Grad missile fire on January 18, 2015. An Afghan war veteran, he died at age 52. At least seven military personnel have been killed this month in the war, which has raged since April 2014 when Russian-backed militants started taking over government buildings and law enforcement and security stations in the two easternmost regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. More than 90 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the year, according to a monthly count by local media outlet Censor.net. Among them were at least two other women. Sgt. Iryna Shevchenko, a Marine combat medic, died from her wounds on July 1 when an anti-tank guided missile struck the ambulance in which she was riding to evacuate a wounded soldier in the Donetsk region. The ambulance driver, Serhiy Mayboroda, was killed on the spot during the rocket attack. On April 2, machine-gunner Yana Chervona, 40, was killed while in a trench in the Luhansk region during a barrage of 82-millimeter and 120-millimeter mortar rockets. (RFE/RL, with reporting by Ukrayinska Pravda, Novynaria and Censor.net)
Putin questions Zelenskyy’s ‘political will’
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of lacking the “political will” to ensure a pullback of heavy weaponry in eastern Ukraine, in a swipe at the leadership in Kyiv amid recent signs of possible progress toward ending a five-year conflict between Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists. “We’ve agreed on the pullback of the forces, but the current president [of Ukraine] still can’t ensure the pullback,” Mr. Putin said at a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Turkmenistan on October 11. Mr. Putin’s remark came a week after Kyiv, along with Moscow and the militants in eastern Ukraine, signed an agreement on pulling back heavy weaponry as one of the steps toward achieving a peace settlement. Known as the Steinmeier formula, the plan lays the groundwork for reinvigorating the larger peace deals known loosely as the Minsk accords and the first major international summit on the Ukraine conflict in three years. Since the agreement, shelling from both sides has continued along the so-called line of contact. Russia maintains that the pullback needs to occur before a summit between Mr. Putin, Mr. Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “There won’t be any elections under the barrel of a gun,” Mr. Zelenskyy has said of implementing the formula, adding. “There won’t be any elections there if the troops are still there.” (RFE/RL, with reporting by AP, Reuters, Interfax and TASS)
Stoltenberg on support to Ukraine
Support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression is important to all NATO allies, because in this case it is not only about ensuring Ukraine’s security but also about preserving a rules-based order, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a plenary session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in London on October 14, while answering questions from members of the Ukrainian delegation invited to the event. “In a few weeks, the whole North Atlantic Council will go to Ukraine, visit Ukraine, and express our strong political support. And I urge also NATO allies to provide even more practical support to Ukraine. They need our support. This is about supporting Ukraine, but it is also about upholding and supporting a rules-based order, which is of great importance for all of us,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. He noted that NATO stands in strong solidarity with Ukraine and said “it’s absolutely not acceptable what Russia has done, illegally annexing, taking a part of another country, illegally annexing Crimea and continuing to destabilize eastern Ukraine.” The secretary general also pointed out: “We are supporting Ukraine’s ambitions for further Euro-Atlantic integration, including membership. We think that the focus should be on reforms, on how to modernize Ukraine. …To modernize their [Ukraine’s] defense and security institutions is the best way also to move towards membership.” (Ukrinform)
PrivatBank wins key battle in court
Ukrainian lender PrivatBank has won an appeal in a London court against one of the nation’s most powerful tycoons as the Kyiv government seeks to break free from decades of oligarchic influence. The Court of Appeal in the British capital on October 15 said PrivatBank “has a good arguable case to recover the full $1.9 billion – $3 billion including interest – given in the particulars of claim,” the bank said in a statement on its website. PrivatBank CEO Petr Krumphanzl said, “we are very pleased with the Court of Appeal’s judgment, and are ready to move forward with the bank’s claims in England. This is an important step toward achieving justice for the bank and the people of Ukraine.” The bank, which was nationalized by Ukraine three years ago, has alleged that former owners Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov committed fraud that it says cost the financial institution billions of dollars. In a statement released after the court judgment, Mr. Kolomoisky denied there was any fraud or loss caused to the bank. The statement said Mr. Kolomoisky was “seeking permission from the U.K. Supreme Court to appeal these decisions. And if permission is granted, the question of whether the English court has jurisdiction together with the question as to whether the English proceeding should have been stayed in favor of proceedings in Ukraine will remain to be determined.” The case is part of a protracted legal battle between the Ukrainian government and the two former owners after PrivatBank was shuttered during the central bank’s drive in 2014 to clean up a banking system that many said was riddled with illegal practices. The bank, which has filed a similar case in the United States, has pursued the matter in foreign courts because many of the disputed transactions occurred with offshore entities. The London court refused to give the defendants permission to appeal, and required them to file their defense by the end of November, it said. PrivatBank said a worldwide asset freeze on the former owners’ assets will remain in place while the case is heard. (RFE/RL, with reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukraine Service, RFE/RL’s Todd Prince in Washington and Reuters)
Prosecutors probe Saakashvili’s expulsion
Ukrainian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s deportation from Ukraine in 2018. The Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office said on October 7 that the investigation was launched after Mr. Saakashvili filed a complaint over the “abduction and violent actions against” him and “his illegal” deportation to Poland last year. In May, Ukraine’s new President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reinstated Mr. Saakashvili’s Ukrainian citizenship almost two years after it was removed by Mr. Zelenskyy’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko. In February 2018, Mr. Saakashvili was detained in Kyiv, taken to the airport and flown to Poland. Days later, Ukraine’s border service banned him from entering Ukraine until February 13, 2021. Mr. Saakashvili was granted Ukrainian citizenship and appointed to the Odesa governor’s post by President Poroshenko in 2015. When relations between Messrs. Poroshenko and Saakashvili soured over reform efforts and the fight against corruption, the Ukrainian president sacked Mr. Saakashvili from the governor’s post in November 2016. In July 2017, after Mr. Saakashvili created the Movement of New Forces opposition party, Mr. Poroshenko issued a decree that stripped Mr. Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by 112.international and UNIAN)
Kremlin interested in prisoner exchange
The Kremlin has said it is interested in an “all for all” prisoner exchange with Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on October 4 that “certain work is being done in that direction,” adding, “Everything depends on readiness of the two sides.” Mr. Peskov’s statement came a day after Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Vadym Prystaiko said that “a wide-scale prisoner exchange” would be carried out next week. On September 7, Russia and Ukraine exchanged a total of 70 prisoners in a move praised by the West as an opportunity to improve tense relations between Kyiv and Moscow. The exchange was the first major prisoner swap between the two countries since 2017. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Interfax, UNIAN and TASS)
State Department OKs sale of Javelins
The U.S. State Department has approved $39.2 million worth of military equipment to Ukraine, including a second batch of the world’s deadliest anti-tank missiles to help Kyiv defend itself against Russia-backed separatists. The deal approved on October 3 includes 150 Javelin missiles and 10 launch units and adds to the 210 missiles and 37 launchers that Ukraine bought from the United States in April 2018. The Javelin missile systems are meant to be used in the event of a large-scale escalation in the war and not for offensive purposes, U.S. and Ukrainian officials have said. “The Javelin system will help Ukraine build its long-term defense capacity to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity in order to meet its national defense requirements,” the State Department said in a notice to Congress. The latest sale must still be approved by Congress, where support for Ukraine remains strong and where initial approval was earlier given for the sale. Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said the Javelin deal will not help Ukraine’s defense capabilities but will dent the country’s budget. “What Ukraine really needs today is a settlement of the internal Ukrainian conflict, an end to the crisis in many fields, a better situation in the economy and struggle against corruption, the harmonization of internal political processes and the search for identity,” spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on October 3. U.S. Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, the supreme allied commander, told reporters on October 3 that he supported sending additional Javelins to Ukraine beyond those already agreed upon. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AP, AFP and DPA)
Prystaiko: Russia to return seized ships
Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Vadym Prystaiko says he is in the “final stage” of negotiations to return three naval vessels that Russia impounded in November 2018 in the Black Sea after firing on them and taking 24 Ukrainian crewmen captive. In an interview with RFE/RL on October 10, he said there was “interaction” between Ukraine and Russia on the matter. The vessels “will be returned in the near future,” Mr. Prystaiko said, adding that the “technical aspects” of the talks are being held with Russia’s naval command. Mr. Prystaiko has already expressed Ukraine’s readiness to retrieve the boats; “just give us the exact coordinates where they will be anchored and the time when we can pick them up,” he said. Kyiv is keen to discover in what condition the boats are in, “especially marks from the shots that were fired at them” by the Russians, the foreign affairs minister said, “but something tells me they won’t be there when we pick them up.” Ukrainian naval commander Ihor Voronchenko has previously said that Russia doesn’t want to return the vessels because “this is direct evidence of Russian aggression.” The whereabouts of the vessels have been unknown after Kyiv noticed that they disappeared on June 25 from Kerch on the Crimean peninsula, a Ukrainian region that Russia took over in early 2014. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)