Russian court extends sailors’ detention
A Moscow court has prolonged the pretrial detention of 24 Ukrainian sailors detained by Russian forces who attacked three Ukrainian Navy vessels in the Black Sea in November. On January 16, the Lefortovo district court ruled that four of the sailors will remain in jail until April 24, pending further investigation and possible trial. The pretrial detention period can be extended again by court order. A day earlier, in a series of rulings, the court granted requests by the Russian Investigative Committee to keep commander Denys Hrytsenko, Security Service (SBU) officer Andriy Drach and 15 sailors in jail until April 24. The court ruled that three sailors will stay in pretrial custody until April 26. On January 15, as Russian security officers escorted some of the sailors from the courtroom during a break in the proceedings for lunch, some spectators chanted, “Glory to Ukraine!” All 24 servicemen say they consider themselves prisoners of war. Russia has held the Ukrainian sailors since its forces fired on, boarded and then seized their vessels near the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, on November 25, 2018. Moscow claims the Ukrainian vessels illegally entered Russian territorial waters near Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia occupied and took over in 2014. The sailors have been charged with illegal border crossing and face up to six years in prison if convicted. The court rulings came five days after the European Union reiterated its call to Moscow to release the sailors and all other Ukrainians who Brussels says have been “illegally detained” in Russia and Crimea. The United States and other Western countries have also called for their release. U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said in December 2018 that there will be no substantive meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin while Moscow still holds the Ukrainian ships and sailors. (Crimea Desk, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Canada seeks sailors’ immediate release
Canada has called on the Russian Federation to immediately release the Ukrainian crew captured near the Kerch Strait on November 25, 2018. “Canada is deeply concerned with Russia’s decision to extend the detention of Ukrainian crew captured during recent events near the Kerch Strait and calls for their immediate release. Canada continues to condemn unlawful Russian actions,” the Embassy of Canada in Ukraine wrote on Twitter on January 16. On the morning of November 25, 2018, Russia had blocked passage to the Kerch Strait for the Ukrainian tugboat Yany Kapu and two armored naval boats Berdyansk and Nikopol, which were on a scheduled re-deployment from the Black Sea port of Odesa to the Azov Sea port of Mariupol. The Ukraine Navy Command noted that the Russian side had been informed of the plans to re-deploy the vessels in advance in accordance with international standards to ensure the safety of navigation. The Russian coast guard ship Don rammed the Ukrainian tugboat, damaging the Ukrainian vessel. As the Ukrainian boats were heading back in the direction of Odesa after being rejected passage via the Kerch Strait, the Russian coast guard opened aimed fire. All 24 crew members on board were captured and later remanded in custody for two months, being charged with “illegal border crossing.” Three crewmen were wounded in the attack. Russian-controlled “courts” in occupied Crimea ruled that all 24 detainees should be remanded in custody, after which they were transferred to the Moscow-based Lefortovo and Matrosskaya Tishina detention centers. Moscow’s Lefortovo district court on January 15 decided to keep 20 Ukrainian sailors in remand until April 24. The next day the court extended the detention term for the other four Ukrainian sailors. (UNIAN)
Russia tries to impose secrecy on hearings
The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) wrote: “If Russia has nothing to hide in its ‘prosecution’ of 24 Ukrainian POWs, why is the FSB asking for their detention court hearings to be held behind closed doors? Even in Russia, court hearings are open unless state secrets or similar are involved.” The KHPG went on to note: “Russia does, however, have an interest in minimizing media and diplomatic attention to its holding of Ukrainian POWs, and this is clearly the reason for trying to block access to court hearings. This was probably also the motive for Russian Human Rights Ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova suddenly having to ‘make an urgent trip’ and cancelling a planned meeting with her Ukrainian counterpart, Lyudmila Denisova.” Nikolai Polozov, who is coordinator of the group of lawyers representing the 24 POWs, reported on January 14 that the FSB investigative department will be applying to the court for the hearings to be held behind closed doors. The position of the defense team, he stressed, is that there must be open and transparent court hearings, with the media and representatives of foreign diplomatic missions free to attend, as well, of course, as Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsperson and any of the men’s family. Mr. Polozov noted separately that “the Russian authorities are well aware of the illegal nature of their actions with respect to the Ukrainian POW seamen and also the ongoing violation of the Third Geneva Convention. The attempt at secrecy and Moskalkova’s sudden departure from Moscow are clearly aimed at trying to avoid further political fallout. …The political price of holding the POWs is already too high for Russia and will only increase.” All of the men have declared that they are prisoners of war. One of the first to do so was the Commander of the Berdyansk, Roman Mokyak, who demanded that the “investigators” treat him and his men as prisoners of war and refused to give any testimony to the Russian authorities until they released his men. As POWs, their treatment is regulated by the Geneva Convention on POWs and it is effectively a war crime to be treating them as though they are suspects of ordinary criminal prosecutions. (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group)
Hierarchs receive Ukrainian state awards
On January 5, millions watched the ceremony taking place in the Patriarchal Church of St. George, in Constantinople, as Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew signed the Tomos granting autocephaly to the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Afterwards, dignitaries and guests gathered for a banquet to honor Patriarch Bartholomew and Metropolitan Epifaniy, the new Church’s primate, and to celebrate the historic event. The banquet was attended by numerous clergy and various dignitaries including the speaker of Ukraine’s Parliament, the ministers of foreign affairs, culture and defense, and the first vice prime minister of Ukraine. During the banquet, President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine honored four individuals who played pivotal roles in gaining for Ukraine its own canonical Church by presenting them the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise. The medal is awarded for distinguished services to the state and people of the Ukrainian nation. The award was given to four individuals who selflessly and tirelessly devoted their prayers and efforts towards the successful granting of the Tomos of autocephaly: Metropolitan Elpidophoros of Bursa, Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, Archbishop Daniel of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. and Bishop Ilarion of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada. (Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.)
Kyiv expects to get Canadian sniper rifles
Ukrinform reported on January 9 that Ukraine expects to receive the first batch of Canadian sniper rifles this year. “We have already received a permit from the Canadian government for the purchase of high-quality sniper rifles with the best range capability in the world. I expect that the first batch of these rifles will be delivered to Ukraine this year,” Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada Andriy Shevchenko said in an interview with Ukrinform. He underscored the need “to look for different forms of cooperation in the segment of arms with Canada.” Mr. Shevchenko added, “We view it as a joint investment in security and new technologies, which Canada is also interested in. The arms market likes silence, therefore I cannot say more, but it seems to me that we have every chance to see the first practical results of cooperation soon.” In 2017, Canada included Ukraine in the so-called Automatic Firearms Country Control List, thus lifting an arms embargo on Ukraine. (Ukrinform)
OSCE monitoring drone shot down
A surveillance drone operated by monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in eastern Ukraine has been shot down near the government-controlled village of Popasna in the Luhansk region. The incident occurred on January 10, according to a report by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine published the next day. The drone was being used to monitor a snow-removal operation when it came under small-arms fire from a position estimated at about 2 kilometers to the east. The drone crashed, and the monitors were unable to recover it. The SMM has lost several surveillance drones in recent months. In November 2018, a drone was shot down near Ukraine’s border with Russia, while on January 2, another drone was shot down in the Luhansk region. According to the United Nations, more than 10,300 people have been killed in the fighting in eastern Ukraine between the government and Russia-back separatist formations since April 2014. The International Criminal Court ruled in November 2016 that the fighting in Ukraine’s east was “an international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.” (RFE/RL)
Germany on sanctions against pipeline
U.S. sanctions against the Moscow-backed Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline project would be the wrong way to solve a dispute over energy supply, according to German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. “Questions of European energy policy must be decided in Europe, not in the U.S.,” Mr. Maas said in a speech in Berlin on January 10. The minister added that imposing unilateral sanctions against Nord Stream 2 was “certainly not the way to go.” The planned pipeline would run under the Baltic Sea, bringing Russian gas directly to Western Europe and bypassing the existing networks running through Ukraine. Washington has opposed the project, calling it a tool for Russia to consolidate sway over Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she secured a pledge from Russian President Vladimir Putin allowing gas shipments across Ukraine’s territory. Moscow says the $11 billion project is purely economic and not directed against other countries. Relations between Moscow and Kyiv dramatically deteriorated after Moscow seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in March 2014. Moscow is also backing separatists in a war against Ukrainian government forces that has killed more than 10,300 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Reuters)
Inflation in Ukraine slows to 9.8 %
The growth of consumer prices in Ukraine in 2018 slowed to 9.8 percent compared with 13.7 percent in 2017, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine has reported. The inflation growth rates in the previous years were as follows: 12.4 percent in 2016, 43.3 percent in 2015, and 24.9 percent in 2014. In December last year, inflation was 0.8 percent as compared with 1.4 percent in November, 1.7 percent in October and 1.9 percent in September. The State Statistics Service said that the average annual inflation in 2018 (January-December to January-December of the previous year) decreased to 10.9 percent from 14.4 percent a year earlier. According to the State Statistics Service, in December 2018, the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages increased 1.8 percent in the consumer market. The highest prices increase was for vegetables, which went up in price by 16.5 percent. The prices for milk and dairy products, pasta, butter, bread increased by between 1.6 and 3.2 percent. At the same time, rice, eggs, sugar, fruit, pork became cheaper by 0.5 to 1.4 percent. The rise in prices (tariffs) for housing, water, electricity, gas and other types of fuel rose by 0.7 percent, mainly due to the 3.2 percent increase in prices for liquefied gas. The decline in prices for transport by 1.6 percent is mainly due to the cheapening of fuel and lubricants by 6 percent. At the same time, the fare for road passenger transport went up by 2.5 percent. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) at the end of October 2017 worsened its inflation forecast for 2018 from 6 percent to 7.3 percent, in January 2018 – to 8.9 percent, in October 2018 – to 10.1 percent. The government previously raised its inflation forecast for 2018 from 7 percent to 9 percent. (Ukrinform)
German journalist implicated in firebombing
A Polish man accused of involvement in the firebombing of a Hungarian cultural center in western Ukraine last year says he received instructions on the attack from a German journalist who has worked as a consultant for a German parliament deputy with the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Michal Prokopowicz, 28, told a Krakow court on January 14 that German journalist Manuel Ochsenreiter provided instructions for the February 4, 2018, attack on the headquarters of the Hungarian Cultural Association in Uzhhorod, the capital of the Zakarpattia region in western Ukraine. A representative for Mr. Ochsenreiter called the claim “false.” No one was injured in the attack, but the incident – and another fire attack on the building weeks later – exacerbated already strained relations between Kyiv and Budapest over a Ukrainian education law that Hungary says restricts the right of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine to be educated in their native language. Mr. Prokopowicz is one of three Polish suspects with links to far-right movements who went on trial in Krakow on January 14 for the attack. Ukrainian authorities investigated the case and passed it along to their counterparts in Poland, where the three men were subsequently detained. Mr. Ochsenreiter, 42, has ties to Polish right-wing activists, including Mateusz Piskorski, founder of the pro-Russian Zmiana party who was arrested in 2016 on suspicion of spying for Russia and China. Reached by RFE/RL last week via the Russian social-networking site VKontakte, Mr. Ochsenreiter negated the suggestion by Anton Shekhovtsov, a researcher of European far-right movements, that he might be the German journalist in question. Mr. Ochsenreiter did not respond to follow-up questions and subsequently made his account private. Mr. Ochsenreiter, editor of the right-wing German magazine Zuerst! (First!), has been a frequent commentator in Russian state media over the past five years, voicing support for Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine and denouncing what he calls the Western media’s anti-Moscow bias. Ralf Hoecker, a German attorney who responded on Mr. Ochsenreiter’s behalf to RFE/RL’s inquiry sent prior to the start of the trial, said in a January 14 e-mail that his client was unaware of any allegations from Polish authorities. Asked to comment on Mr. Prokopowicz’s claim that Mr. Ochsenreiter had provided instructions for the attack, Mr. Hoecker replied: “We are unaware of such a statement. If it was made, it is false.” There was no immediate indication that Mr. Ochsenreiter had been charged with any crime by Polish authorities. Mr. Prokopowicz went on trial alongside two other suspects – 25-year-old Tomasz Szymkowiak and 22-year-old Adrian Marglewski. All three are charged with promoting fascism, as well as endangering lives or property with fire. Mr. Prokopowicz has also been charged with financing terrorism. Mr. Prokopowicz said in court that the goal was to frame Ukrainian ultranationalists for the February 4 attack by painting Nazi-related symbols on the façade of the Hungarian cultural center. He claimed he agreed to an offer by Ochsenreiter to carry out the attack because he disliked nationalistic sentiment in Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities say they identified the suspects after their images were captured on security cameras. On the same day as the attack, the two suspects returned to Poland via Slovakia, authorities say. Messrs. Szymkowiak and Marglewski are accused of directly carrying out the attack. (Sergii Stetsenko and Carl Schreck, RFE/RL)