Ukraine-NATO military exercises
Ukraine has begun joint military exercises with 10 NATO countries in western Ukraine amid ongoing tensions with Russia over Moscow’s illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russia-backed separatists. The Rapid Trident 2018 drills officially opened on September 3 at the Hetman Petro Sahaidachnyi National Ground Forces Academy in the western region of Lviv. Taking part are about 2,200 troops from 14 countries, including the United States and nine other NATO member states. The maneuvers are scheduled to continue until September 15. For Ukrainian forces, the exercises will involve 350 units of military equipment. The Ukrainian Border Guard Service and Ukrainian National Guard troops will take part in the drills for the first time. The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, said at the opening ceremony that all countries participating in the maneuvers “stand in solidarity with Ukraine for Ukrainian security, Ukrainian sovereignty, and Ukrainian territorial integrity.” The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has described Rapid Trident maneuvers as “a culmination of multinational training exercises, conducted annually, that serves as the validation for Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense under the recommendations of allied and partner nations.” (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by UNIAN and AFP)
Prominent historian found dead
Prominent Ukrainian historian Mykola Shytyuk has been found dead in his home city of Mykolayiv, police said on September 2. Police said the historian’s body was found in an apartment on September 1 and bore signs of violence, including stab wounds. A murder investigation was launched, and very quickly thereafter a suspect was apprehended. The police directorate in the southeastern region of Mykolayiv said on September 2 that a 25-year-old man detained in the investigation confessed that he stabbed the historian over a personal argument. Mr. Shytyuk was known for his works on the Holodomor that killed millions in Ukraine in the early 1930s. Ukraine and about a dozen other countries have recognized the famine as an act of genocide by the Stalin regime against the Ukrainian people. Moscow has long denied any systematic effort to target Ukrainians, arguing that a poor harvest at the time wiped out many in other parts of the then-Soviet Union. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, TASS, and Novosti-n.org)
Zakharchenko killed in cafe blast
The leadership of the pro-Russia militants in eastern Ukraine has been thrown into disarray after the head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) was killed in an explosion at a cafe designed to honor the separatists. The death on August 31 of Aleksandr Zakharchenko at the Separ cafe – a separatist-themed establishment featuring camouflage netting hanging from its eaves – drove the separatist council into an emergency meeting and angered the separatists’ backers in Moscow. The TASS news agency reported that Mr. Zakharchenko’s bodyguard also died as a result of the blast, while a dozen others were injured. The Donetsk News Agency said in a statement on its website that another separatist figure, Aleksandr Timofeyev, was injured in the blast and was in serious condition. “According to verified data, the terror attack left two people dead. Those were head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Aleksandr Zakharchenko and his bodyguard. Twelve people sustained injuries of varying degrees of severity,” Aleksandr Oprishchenko, health minister of the DPR, was quoted as saying on September 1. TASS and Interfax reported late on August 31 that Mr. Timofeyev’s condition had stabilized and his life was no longer in danger. TASS reported that the Donetsk separatists’ ruling council had gone into an emergency meeting. Interfax and TASS reported afterwards that Dmitry Trapeznikov, the first deputy prime minister, had been named as acting leader. (RFE/RL, with reporting by Reuters, Interfax and TASS)
Thousands attend funeral for Zakharchenko
Tens of thousands of people gathered on September 2 in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine to mourn Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the head of the separatists who control the city of Donetsk, who was killed in an explosion at a cafe on August 31. The killing was the latest in a series of violent deaths of separatist officials and commanders in eastern Ukraine, where the Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since April 2014 in a war that has killed more than 10,300. Many of the assassinations have been blamed on fellow separatists. Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame for Zakharchenko’s death. On September 2, mourners formed a huge line to view the flag-draped casket of Mr. Zakharchenko, whose body was lying in state in the separatist-held city of Donetsk’s Opera and Ballet Theater. The self-proclaimed Donetsk authorities said at least 100,000 people attended, while the AFP news agency estimated that more than 30,000 turned up. There were some reports saying that people were bused to Donetsk and forced to attend the event. Mr. Zakharchenko was later buried in a ceremony at the Donetskoye More cemetery, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported. The leader of Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia, Anatoly Bibilov; Natalya Poklonskaya, a member of the Russian State Duma; and Sergei Aksyonov, the head of the Russian-imposed government in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed in March 2014, were among those who paid their respects to the late separatist leader. Aleksandr Zaldostanov, the leader of the Night Wolves, a Russian motorcycle club known for its allegiance to the Kremlin, and several other members of the club also turned out, according to AFP. During the ceremonies, the center of Donetsk was cordoned off by armed men in fatigues and public transport was temporarily suspended. Billboards erected in the streets showed pictures of Mr. Zakharchenko with slogans such as “All of us have one Motherland – Russia.” In a statement carried by the separatists’ official news agency, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adviser, Vladislav Surkov, called the separatist leader a “brother” and a “true hero.” Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that international talks over the conflict in eastern Ukraine could no longer be considered following Zakharchenko’s killing. Mr. Lavrov said the bombing was “Ukraine’s provocation… obviously aimed at derailing the implementation of the Minsk agreements,” referring to the September 2014 and February 2015 pacts aimed at putting an end to the fighting in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to TASS. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AFP and the BBC)
Tatar activists’ family members detained
A Ukrainian human rights groups says Russian-imposed authorities in Ukraine’s occupied Crimea region have detained family members of a Crimean Tatar activist. Crimean Solidarity, which has members in Crimea as well as Ukrainian government-controlled territory, says relatives of activist Zarema Kulametova were detained on September 4 when police searched the family’s home in the eastern town of Staryi Krym. Ms. Kulametova’s husband, Zekkiy, and their adult daughter Riana were taken away after they argued with police who were conducting the search, the rights group says. Riana Kulametova told RFE/RL earlier on September 4 that the authorities detained her activist mother in a local park while she was serving a community-work sentence she received in April on a charge of insulting a police officer. Masked men in military uniforms on September 4 also searched the home of another Crimean Tatar activist, Marlen Mustafayev. Mr. Mustafayev’s relatives say the searches started in his house in the village of Kamianka early in the morning. They say the authorities provided no explanation for why they were conducting the search. Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by the Russian-installed authorities who are targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow’s seizure and illegal annexation of the peninsula. (Crimean Desk, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Ukrainian activist flees Crimea
Olha Pavlenko, an activist from Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, has fled the Russian-occupied region after her home in Symferopol was searched by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and she was questioned by agents from Russia’s Investigative Committee. A Crimea-based correspondent from Ukraine’s Hromadske Radio, Mykhaylo Batrak, said on September 2 that he also fled the Russian-occupied region with Ms. Pavlenko after she was investigated over alleged ties with “a terrorist organization in Ukraine.” Mr. Batrak said on September 2 that he and Ms. Pavlenko initially went to the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, which is adjacent to the territory seized by Russian military forces and illegally annexed by the Kremlin in 2014. Ms. Pavlenko, an activist of the Ukrainian Culture Center in the Crimean capital of Symferopol, told RFE/RL that FSB agents searched her home on August 29 – confiscating her mobile phone, flash-memory cards, and notebooks containing poems and songs. She said FSB agents told her she was suspected of having ties to Ukraine’s nationalist Right Sector, a group that Russia has banned as a “terrorist” organization. Ms. Pavlenko said she was interrogated by the Investigative Committee shortly after her home was searched. The Ukrainian Culture Center in Crimea is a їgroup that promotes Ukrainian culture and language in the region. Its activists have been under pressure since Russian military forces seized the Ukrainian territory in 2014. One of the center’s leaders, Leonid Kuzmin, fled Crimea in 2017 after he received anonymous threats and was pressured by police. Russian-imposed authorities in Crimea have prosecuted and imprisoned several Ukrainians on what rights activists say are trumped-up, politically motivated charges. In March 2017, the European Parliament called on Russia to free more than 30 Ukrainian citizens imprisoned or detained in Russia, Crimea, and parts of eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Russia-backed separatists. (Crimean Desk, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Ukrayinska Pravda and Hromadske)
Suspect in Babchenko murder plot jailed
Ukraine says it has imprisoned the man it accused of being recruited by Russia’s secret services to organize a murder plot against self-exiled Russian reporter and Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko. Vasyl Hrytsak, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said on September 1 that Borys Herman had been sentenced to four and a half years in prison by a court in Kyiv on August 30. According to Mr. Hrytsak, Mr. Herman had pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with authorities. Mr. Hrytsak shocked reporters and the world when he announced on May 30 that Mr. Babchenko was still alive, a day after Ukrainian authorities reported he had been killed by a gunman outside his Kyiv apartment. The SBU said it thwarted the planned killing by working together with Mr. Babchenko to fake his death. Mr. Herman is alleged to have promised $40,000 to a would-be assassin for the killing of Mr. Babchenko. The alleged would-be killer, a former Ukrainian monk turned army veteran named Oleksiy Tsymbalyuk, said he went to the SBU after Mr. Herman approached him. Mr. Tsymbalyuk said he worked with the agency to foil the plot. Despite its apparent success, the SBU operation of faking Mr. Babchenko’s death received heavy criticism from media watchdogs, journalists and others who said it undermined the credibility of journalists and of Ukrainian officials. In Paris, Reporters Without Borders head Christophe Deloire said that staging Babchenko’s death “would not help the cause of press freedom.” (RFE/RL, with reporting by AFP)
Crewmembers killed in helicopter crash
A helicopter owned by a Moldovan company has crashed in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 12 people, including two Ukrainian crew members and 10 Afghan soldiers, officials say. The Mi-8 helicopter crashed on September 2 after takeoff from a military base near Mazar-e Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province, Moldova’s aviation authority said. A statement said that two people onboard survived – a Ukrainian member of the crew and an Afghan serviceman. It also said that the aircraft was operated by Moldova’s Valan International Cargo Charter Co. An Afghan security source was quoted as putting the death toll at 13, with only the Ukrainian surviving the crash. Nazer Khuda Pamiri, deputy commander of Afghan forces in northern Afghanistan, said the helicopter crashed in Dehdadi district due to “technical problems.” He said the aircraft was transporting Afghan security forces from a military base to the northwestern province of Faryab. Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish said the helicopter was hired by the ministry. The Western-backed government in Kabul has been struggling to fend off the Taliban and other militant groups since the withdrawal of most NATO combat troops in 2014. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by AFP, TASS and Interfax)
Industrial acid leak in northern Crimea
Russia-imposed officials in Ukraine’s occupied Crimea region say a leak from a chemical factory in the northern part of the peninsula is the cause of an oily film that has coated nearby villages and decimated crops in the area. Igor Mikhailichenko, the Russia-installed vice-premier of Crimea, said on August 30 that “prolonged” high temperatures and dry conditions have exacerbated the problem of leaking substances from an acid storage facility at the Crimea Titan plant, which produces titanium dioxide and other chemicals for use in paints and plastic goods. “According to preliminary research, the cause is the evaporation of the contents of the acid storage facility used by the [plant],” Mr. Mikhailichenko said. He added that the Russian authorities that control Crimea are looking into whether company management bears any responsibility due to “non-compliance with environmental requirements when handling industrial waste.” The permanent representative of the president of Ukraine in Crimea, Borys Babin, blamed the environmental problems on the illegal activities of enterprises in the northern part of the occupied peninsula. Mr. Babin said the situation in some villages was reaching a critical point. Residents in the villages of Perekop and Armiansk said they first noticed the oily film around August 24. Some people complained of irritated throats and eyes, while others watched foliage and crops die in a matter of days, sparking health fears as officials searched for the cause. Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-imposed head of Crimea, admitted on August 28 that the situation was “beyond the norm,” but said a preliminary investigation determined there was no threat to the health of residents. (Crimea Desk, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)