U.S. reacts to MH17 report
WASHINGTON – The United States on October 13 noted the “milestone” of the report by Dutch investigators on last year’s downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The following statement by National Security Council Spokesperson Ned Price was released by the White House, Office of the Press Secretary: “The release today by the Dutch Safety Board of its investigatory report on the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, is an important milestone in the effort to hold accountable those responsible for the shoot-down of the aircraft and the killing of those aboard. This independent investigation has been conducted in accordance with international standards and recommended practices in a professional manner by the Dutch Safety Board authorities, and serves as a basis for further investigations to identify those responsible for the deaths of 298 innocent men, women and children. The report also serves to remind us of this terrible tragedy and the impact it continues to have on those left behind. We maintain our support for the work being conducted by the countries of the Joint Investigation Team, and reiterate that the United States will fully support all efforts to bring to justice those responsible. Our assessment is unchanged – MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine. The victims and their loved ones remain in our thoughts and prayers.” (White House)
Kyiv on decision not to close airspace
KYIV – Ukraine defended its decision not to close airspace in the east of the country where a Malaysian airliner was shot down last year, saying it was unaware that anti-aircraft weapons were being used in the area. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a Russian-made Buk missile, the Dutch Safety Board concluded in a report released on October 13 on the July 2014 disaster that killed all 298 people on board. The Dutch report did not lay blame for the air disaster, but said Ukraine should have closed the airspace over the conflict zone, and that the 61 airlines that had continued flying there should have recognized the potential danger. “No one at this time…was even aware” of the possibility that Russian-backed rebels had obtained highly sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles, Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Pavlo Klimkin said, adding that Ukraine’s authorities assumed the rebels were using “purely conventional weapons.” Hennadiy Zubko, head of Ukraine’s MH17 investigation, said Ukraine followed established procedures. “All the recommendations from the [International Civil Aviation Organization] were carried out… Ukraine closed its airspace below 9,750 meters,” he said. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by the Associated Press and Reuters)
Russia wants new MH17 probe
MOSCOW – Russia has appealed to the International Civil Aviation Organization to open a new probe into last year’s downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. Oleg Storchevoi, deputy chief of the Russian Aviation Agency, made the comment during a press conference in Moscow on October 14. The Dutch Safety Board said in its final report released on October 13 that the jet was destroyed by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile. Two-thirds of the victims in the crash were Dutch. The probe did not say who had fired the missile, but it identified an area of 320 square kilometers from where it said the launch must have taken place. At the time of the attack, that land was mostly under the control of the pro-Russia rebels. Mr. Storchevoi hinted that Russia believes that some of the evidence has been faked. Meanwhile, speaking in Donetsk, rebel leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko denied any involvement in the crash. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by TASS, Interfax and the Associated Press)
Savchenko’s sister barred from testifying
KYIV – Russian authorities on October 13 prevented the sister of Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko from testifying in her defense in her controversial murder trial. Ms. Savchenko’s sister Vira was meant to appear this week as the main witness for the defense against charges of murdering two Russian reporters, which could bring a 20-year jail term for the Ukrainian servicewoman. The case has been condemned as a miscarriage of justice by human rights groups. Vira Savchenko wrote on Facebook that Russian authorities told her at the border that she had been banned from entering the country until 2020, by orders of the Russian Federal Security Service. A spokesman for the FSB in Moscow refused to comment. The 34-year-old helicopter pilot has denied accusations that she helped direct an artillery strike that killed two Russian state television reporters in eastern Ukraine in June 2014. Her lawyer Mark Feigin tweeted that “Nadiya Savchenko has now been deprived of her right to a defense.” He vowed to appeal the FSB decision. (RFE/R, based on reporting by Agence France-Presse, TASS and Interfax)
Prisoner disappears in Russian custody
OTTAWA – The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) reported that Gennady Afanasyev, who retracted his testimony against Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, has gone missing in Russian custody. KHPG reported: “It is five weeks since Crimean political prisoner Gennady Afanasyev was moved from Rostov, apparently to a prison colony, and all efforts by his mother to find out his whereabouts have been unsuccessful. There are very serious grounds for concern, noted immediately after Afanasyev appeared at the trial of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko and not only refused to testify, but retracted all previous testimony stating that it had been tortured out of him. He then gave a detailed account of the torture he had been subjected to, the pressure immediately before and after his appearance in court on July 31. Olha Afanasyeva last heard from her son over a month ago. He was in the Republic of Komi, and was awaiting a further move. Since then there has been no contact at all.” (Ukrainian Canadian Congress)
Ukraine in report on religious freedom
WASHINGTON – The U.S. State Department says in its annual International Religious Freedom Report for 2014 that such non-state groups imperiled religious liberties not only in the Middle East, Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, but also in areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists. “The heart of this report is that countries benefit when their citizens fully enjoy the rights to which they are entitled,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told an October 14 briefing timed with the release of the report. “This is not a hopeful theory. This is a proven reality,” he said. “No nation can fulfill its potential if its people are denied the right to practice, to hold, to modify, to openly profess their innermost beliefs.” In eastern Ukraine, Russian-backed rebels that control parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions “have kidnapped, beaten and threatened Protestants, Catholics and members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, as well as participated in anti-Semitic acts,” the report says. The report also says religious minorities in Crimea “have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, detentions and beatings” since Russia’s 2014 forcible annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula, which was condemned by more than 100 countries in a vote at the U.N. General Assembly. Members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church and Muslim Tatars have been the primary targets of these abuses in Crimea since the Russian takeover, the report says. The International Religious Freedom Report is released annually by the State Department in an effort to attract global attention to the problem of repression of religious freedom. (RFE/RL)
Kyiv bans all Russian airlines
KYIV – Ukraine’s government says it is banning all Russian airlines from flying into Ukraine from October 25 in response to Moscow’s decision in September to impose a similar ban on Ukrainian airlines. The punitive measure announced on October 12 concerns only two carriers – Siberia’s UTair and the tiny Saratov Airlines – because Kyiv had earlier barred bigger Russian firms in reprisal for Moscow’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on September 16 blacklisted Russia’s flag carrier Aeroflot and three other state-held companies that offered regular flights to Ukraine. The State Air Service in Kyiv said the Russian carriers are not allowed to land in Ukraine but would still be permitted to cross its airspace to other destination points. The only remaining options for air travel between Russia and Ukraine are by flying via the Baltic states or some other country with relatively convenient access to Russia. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Agence France-Presse, TASS and Interfax)
Gazprom resumes gas supplies to Ukraine
MOSCOW – Russian natural gas is again flowing to Ukraine. Gazprom said gas shipments had restarted early on October 12 after the Russian gas giant received $234 million in prepayments from Kyiv. Gazprom had halted gas supplies to Ukraine earlier in the year after a breakdown on pricing talks. A deal, however, was reached last month with the help of the European Union, ensuring Ukraine will receive Russian gas for six months through March 2016. On October 9, Gazprom said that Ukraine had requested 2 billion cubic meters of gas for October. Past gas disputes between Russia and Ukraine have led to cutoffs of supply. One standoff in 2009 caused serious disruptions in shipments to EU countries in the dead of winter. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press and Interfax)
Russia not compromising on debt
MOSCOW – Moscow will not compromise on Ukraine’s debt, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said October 9 before meeting with Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko. Mr. Siluanov said Russia will insist on full repayment in December of a $3 billion Eurobond that Kyiv sold Moscow in late 2013 when former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was still in power. “We have a firm position, no compromises. One needs to meet, of course, talk, that is always correct and beneficial,” Mr. Siluanov told reporters on the sidelines of an International Monetary Fund meeting in Lima, Peru. After the meeting, which was brokered by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, Ms. Jaresko said she asked Russia to participate in Ukraine’s debt restructuring with private creditors and said Russia can join any time until October 29. But Mr. Siluanov pointed out that the debt Kyiv owes Moscow is sovereign debt and must be treated differently than the commercial debts Ukraine is restructuring. He said Russia would take Ukraine to court if it defaults on the sovereign debt. Mr. Siluanov said Ukraine’s repayment funds are already penciled in for use by one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds next year on infrastructure projects. Russia needs the money, he said, “especially in current conditions when the access of Russian companies to international financial markets has been limited.” (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Reuters and TASS)
Putin on IMF and Ukraine’s debt
MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin called on the International Monetary Fund to lend an additional $3 billion to Ukraine so it can pay its debt to Russia. “It would seem simpler to proceed this way: provide Ukraine with these $3 billion so it can pay and that everyone is happy,” Mr. Putin said October 13. Russia has been blocking the IMF’s $17.5-billion rescue plan for Ukraine, restricting Kyiv’s ability to restructure billions of dollars in debt including the $3 billion owed to Moscow. Moscow remains adamant that Kyiv should repay the debt by a December deadline. Ukraine issued the debt under Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych before he was ousted in February 2014. Russia has said it will pursue court remedies and other measures if Ukraine defaults. The IMF rescue funds are needed to keep Ukraine’s pro-Western government afloat and cushion the economic blow from a pro-Russian separatist war in the east. Mr. Putin warned the IMF against bending the rules “for a country destroying the system” and noted that Moscow, as a member of the IMF, was contributing to the fund’s aid to Ukraine. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Agence France-Presse and Reuters)
Poroshenko, Nazarbayev discuss ties
ASTANA – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his Kazakh counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev, meeting on October 9 in Astana, discussed bilateral ties and the situation in Ukraine’s east, where the military conflict between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian armed forces has left more than 7,900 dead since April 2014. Mr. Poroshenko, who arrived in the Kazakh capital on October 8, said after the talks that the current ceasefire in Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions give reasons for “cautious optimism” for full implementation of the conflict-regulation agreement reached in Minsk in February. Mr. Nazarbayev said his country supports the Minsk process, stressing that “there is no alternative” to a peaceful resolution of the crisis. Mr. Nazarbayev added that Kazakhstan will continue sending food to Ukraine’s east and will financially support the regions hit by the conflict through the International Red Cross. (RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service)
Juncker on better relations with Russia
PASSAU, Germany – European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said Europe must improve its relationship with Russia. Speaking in the southern German town of Passau on October 8, Mr. Juncker said Russia should be treated “decently.” He added, “We must make efforts toward a practical relationship with Russia. It is not sexy but that must be the case. We can’t go on like this. We can’t let our relationship with Russia be dictated by Washington.” Mr. Juncker also said Russia must also “make huge advances,” adding that its role in Ukraine was unacceptable. The conflict in Ukraine has plunged Moscow’s ties with the West to lows unseen since the Cold War. Relations have taken a further turn for the worse after Russia launched a bombing campaign in Syria against opponents of President Bashar al-Assad. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Reuters and Agence France-Presse)
Russian sentenced for spying for Ukraine
MOSCOW – Russia has found another person guilty of espionage by providing confidential information to Ukrainian officials. A regional court in Russia’s western Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, said on October 8 that Viktor Shur was found guilty of spying for Ukraine and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Investigators said Mr. Shur had collected classified data related to Russia’s security and handed that information to Ukraine’s intelligence service. Mr. Shur, who was arrested in December upon returning from Ukraine, reportedly pleaded guilty. The trial was held behind closed doors. The case against Mr. Shur is the latest in a series of treason cases in Russia amid the ongoing crisis in Ukraine’s east. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by RIA Novosti, Interfax and Agence France-Presse)
Ukrainian soldier killed despite truce
KYIV – A Ukrainian soldier has been killed and two wounded in restive eastern regions despite a cease-fire deal with separatist rebels. The truce has been largely holding since the start of September, allowing the two sides to extend a pullback of weapons. Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said the attack took place on October 13 when separatists fired grenade launchers at Ukrainian forces near Avdiyivka, a government-controlled town just north of the rebel-controlled city of Donetsk. Mr. Poltorak said details were still sketchy and suggested a rogue group not controlled by rebel leaders could be behind the attack. The withdrawal of weapons from the front line was agreed on condition that both sides fully respect the ceasefire. Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and the separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions has killed more than 7,900 people since April 2014. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Agence France-Presse and Reuters)