Ukraine slams Russia’s disrespect for law
Kyiv has urged an international arbitration panel in the Netherlands to hear its case about alleged Russian breaches of a United Nations maritime convention, accusing Moscow of “wholesale violations” of its rights in waters around Ukraine’s Crimea region. Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Olena Zerkal on June 11 told the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague that Russia’s objections to the panel’s jurisdiction were “without legal merit.” Alleged Russian violations in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait showed Russia’s “complete disrespect for the international law of the sea,” Ms. Zerkal said. Kyiv has filed a series of legal complaints against Moscow over its seizure of the Crimean peninsula in March 2014 and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed some 13,000 people. Ukraine filed the case at the PCA in September 2016, accusing Russia of violating the Convention on the Law of the Sea concerning its rights in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. The PCA began preliminary hearings into the case on June 10, with Russian representatives calling on the court to throw out Ukraine’s claim for lack of jurisdiction. They argued that the dispute is about sovereignty over Crimea and falls outside the terms of the Convention on the Law of the Sea. Ms. Zerkal disputed that, telling the PCA that it had jurisdiction to decide any disputes arising from the U.N. maritime convention, which covers issues such as mineral and fishing rights. The deputy foreign affairs minister reiterated Ukrainian and Western accusations that Russia is illegally restricting passage of Ukrainian ships through the Kerch Strait – the sole passage from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. “Russia built an illegal bridge across an international strait. It harasses ships of all countries as they navigate to and from Ukrainian ports,” Ms. Zerkal said. “It steals our energy resources within our maritime areas,” she continued. “It excludes our fishermen from the waters they have always fished.” Ms. Zerkal accused Russia of acting like an imperial power, adding, “Russia believes that it alone can make the rules, but it can’t.” It is not clear when the PCA, the world’s oldest institution for the arbitration and resolution of disputes involving states, will issue a decision on jurisdiction. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AP and AFP)
Zelenskyy vows ‘tough’ response to Moscow
Ukraine says fresh clashes with Russia-backed separatists in the country’s east have claimed the lives of two of its soldiers, raising to six the number of Ukrainian troops reported killed last week and prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to urge Moscow to “rein in” the separatists. The Defense Ministry said on June 7 that two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 10 were wounded after separatists opened fire with machine guns, anti-tank missiles, mortars, sniper rifles and grenade launchers, violating a ceasefire 23 times in a 24-hour period. In a statement, Mr. Zelenskyy said Russia had loosened its control over the separatists, whom he called “mercenaries.” He said: “The blatant violation of the Minsk [cease-fire] agreements – the use of artillery – demonstrates at least the partial loss of control over the mercenaries. We hope that the Russian side will regain control over these units.” He added, “Attacking Ukrainian armed forces is an obvious attempt to disrupt the ceasefire talks. No matter who gave the command [to attack], Ukrainian armed forces will respond in a tough manner to the situation.” He reiterated Ukraine’s position that there was a “need to preserve the ceasefire” and that its demands for the “release of the captured ones remain firm and unchangeable.” (RFE/RL)
EU envoys agree to extend sanctions
European Union ambassadors have agreed to extend the bloc’s investment ban on the Crimean peninsula by another year. Sources familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL on June 12 that the sanctions will officially be prolonged at ministerial level within the next two weeks. The EU sanctions were introduced in 2014 as a response to Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea region in March 2014. The measures include an EU-wide ban on imports from Crimea unless they have Ukrainian certificates, a ban on cruise ships flying the flag of an EU member state or controlled by a member state to call at ports in Crimea, and a prohibition of the purchase by EU companies of property and companies there. Under the ban, goods and technology for the transport, telecommunications and energy sectors also cannot be exported to Crimean companies or for use on the peninsula. Moscow is also supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed some 13,000 people since April 2014. EU leaders are expected to prolong the bloc’s economic sanctions against Russia, which mainly target the country’s energy and banking sectors, by six months when they meet in Brussels on June 20. (RFE/RL)
Crimean Tatars jailed for ‘extremism’
A court in Russia-controlled Crimea has sent eight Crimean Tatars to pretrial detention for two months on extremism charges. A court in Crimea’s capital, Symferopol, ruled on June 11 that Lenur Khalilov and Eldar Kantemirov must be jailed until August 5. A day earlier, the court sent six other Crimean Tatar activists – Riza Omerov, his father Enver Omerov, Eskender Suleymanov, Ayder Dzhepparov, Ruslan Mesutov and Ruslan Nagayev – to pretrial detention for the same period. The eight men were detained on June 10 after Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers and police searched their homes in the districts of Alushta, Bilohirsk and Symferopol. The FSB said then that the eight Crimean Tatars were suspected of being members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group that is banned in Russia but not in Ukraine. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv condemned the arrests in its Twitter statement on June 11. “Eight more Crimean Tatars have been unlawfully detained this week. Russian authorities’ increasing persecution of Crimean Tatars is unacceptable and needs to stop,” the statement said. Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by the Russian-imposed authorities in Crimea who are targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula. In its annual report on religious freedom worldwide, released on April 29, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said that “[in] Russian-occupied Crimea, the Russian authorities continued to kidnap, torture, and imprison Crimean Tatar Muslims at will.” (Crimea Desk, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Protest against “capitulation and revanche”
Radio Svoboda reported on June 10 that a protest took place at the Presidential Administration. “Demonstrators voiced their opposition to ‘capitulation and the revanche of pro-Russian forces in Ukraine’ and burned a white flag. Demonstrators demanded the removal of Ukraine’s head representative at the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk Leonid Kuchma. …Similar protests took place in other cities of Ukraine.” Radio Svoboda also reported: “On June 5, for the first time in a month and a half, a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group took place. Leonid Kuchma made a proposal to revoke the economic blockade of the occupied parts of the Donbas. …On June 7, following shelling in the Donbas, the Presidential Administration reported that President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy spoke about ‘the loss of control over mercenaries by Russia.’ He stated his expectation that Russia will renew control over these units.” (Ukrainian Canadian Congress Daily Briefing)
Court sentences five in Handzyuk death
A court in Ukraine’s eastern Dnipropetrovsk region has sentenced five men to prison terms in the high-profile case surrounding the death of anti-corruption activist Kateryna Handzyuk. The 33-year-old civic activist and adviser to the mayor of the Black Sea port city of Kherson, died in November 2018 – three months after she was severely injured in an acid attack near her home in the southern city of Kherson. The Handzyuk killing outraged Ukraine, with activists accusing the authorities of failing to complete the investigation or identify the mastermind. All five defendants pleaded guilty and made deals with investigators. The Pokrovske District Court on June 6 sentenced Serhiy Torbin, the coordinator of the attack, to six and a half years in prison, while Mykyta Hrabchuk, who carried out the attack, received a six-year prison term. Volodymyr Vasyanovych and Vyacheslav Vyshnevsky were sentenced to four years in prison each, and Viktor Horbunov received a three-year prison term for their roles in the attack. The five men were initially charged with murder but that was eventually lessened to inflicting severe bodily harm. In February, the head of Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast Council, Vladyslav Manher, was arrested on suspicion of ordering the attack, an allegation he has denied. Mr. Manher was later released on bail as an investigation of the crime continues. Handzyuk suffered severe burns to nearly 40 percent of her body and lost sight in one of her eyes after the acid attack, according to doctors who treated her at a burn center in Kyiv. Doctors performed 11 surgical operations to try to save her life. From her hospital bed, Handzyuk was stinging in her criticism of police corruption, vowed to track down her attackers. Her death came amid a wave of attacks on Ukrainian civic activists. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Poroshenko to donate funds won from BBC
Ex-President Petro Poroshenko will donate the 1.75 million hrv (over $66,400 U.S.) that he won in a defamation case against the BBC to the NGO Come Back Alive and a volunteer organization from Lviv, the NGO Help the Front as reported by Ukrainian media at the end of May. In May 2018, some media outlets reported that Mr. Poroshenko allegedly paid $400,000 to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen to arrange for a meeting with President Trump. That allegation was reportedly based on the BBC’s journalistic investigation. Ukraine’s officials denied the allegations and sued the BBC for defamation. On March 28 of this year, the BBC apologized to Mr. Poroshenko for unsubstantiated allegations and announced it would pay him damages. (Ukrainian Canadian Congress Daily Briefing)
Lithuania recognizes Crimean Tatars’ genocide
Lithuania’s Parliament has recognized the deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944 by the government of the Soviet Union as an act of genocide. A resolution on the issue, approved by Lithuanian lawmakers on June 6, calls the deportation “crimes committed by the Soviet Union against Crimean Tatars” and calls on the world community “to express solidarity with the Crimean Tatars and continue “the policy of nonrecognition of the illegal annexation of Crimea” by Russia in 2014. Seventy-seven lawmakers voted for the resolution, while one abstained. A similar resolution was adopted by Latvia last month. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine recognized the Crimean Tatars’ deportation as an act of genocide in November 2015. In May 1944, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered the mass deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar population from Crimea to Central Asia, collectively accusing the community of collaborating with Nazi Germany. Tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars died while being transported on cattle trains or during the first few months after they arrived in Central Asia. The mass deportations are a reason for the Tatars’ deep-seated mistrust of Russian authorities and many still associate Moscow’s rule with oppression, exile, and suffering. Survivors and offspring of the survivors began unauthorized returns to Crimea in the late 1980s. Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula was seized and illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Since then, the Crimean Tatar community has been subjected to repression by the Russia-installed authorities for voicing opposition to the annexation. (RFE/RL)
Bartholomew: Kyiv Patriarchate does not exist
The Patriarchate of Constantinople has reinstated the episcopal status of former head of the (non-canonical) Kyiv Patriarchate Filaret as former metropolitan of Kyiv, while the so-called Kyiv Patriarchate “does not exist and never existed,” Patriarch Bartholomew said in a statement. The dead of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Sergey Tomilenko, posted a scan of the official address to Ukrainian journalists from Patriarch Bartholomew, who met with him in Istanbul last week, on his Facebook account. In his address, Patriarch Bartholomew reiterated his support for Ukraine and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and insisted that granting it autocephaly “had nothing to do with politics or geopolitics,” as the Mother Church of Constantinople has seen that, “for decades, if not centuries, Ukraine was not able to enjoy complete freedom from external influences, especially from the Russian State.” He continued: “As for Filaret, he was restored to his episcopal dignity as former Metropolitan of Kyiv. The so-called ‘Patriarchate of Kyiv’ does not exist and never existed.” Patriarch Bartholomew added: “We also profess, now that autocephaly has been granted, that it is the responsibility of the primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, His Eminence Metropolitan Epifaniy, to lead this historic Church, strengthening the unity of the Ukrainian people, inspiring Christian values based on the Gospel, and making the gift of freedom a means to spread the good news of the New Testament.” (Interfax)
Six killed in Odesa psychiatric hospital Fire
Six people have died as fire swept through a psychiatric hospital in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa, authorities say. Five people were hospitalized with carbon-monoxide poisoning after the fire erupted late on June 10 in the one-story building, Ukraine’s Emergency Service said. The dead included a nurse and five patients, according to an RFE/RL journalist. The cause of the blaze was not immediately clear. Police opened a criminal investigation into possible fire-safety violations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he regretted the “terrible tragedy” and directed Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman to immediately set up a commission to investigate. Deadly fires are not uncommon in Ukraine due to outdated infrastructure and poor security measures. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by AFP)
Manitoba agreement with high school in Ukraine
The government of Manitoba said on June 3 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with a school in Ukraine. The agreement will allow students at Novopecherska School in Kyiv to study the Manitoba high school curriculum and earn a Manitoba high school diploma. “Manitoba is proud of its strong ties to Ukraine and excited for this new partnership that will allow students in Kyiv to study the Manitoba curriculum,” said the province’s Training Minister Kelvin Goertzen. “We hope international high school students who graduate with a Manitoba diploma will consider Canada as an option for their post-secondary studies. The province’s post-secondary education system is internationally recognized for its leading-edge facilities and first-rate educators, and is an excellent choice for international students.” The agreement authorizes Novopecherska to offer a Manitoba Blended Program for grades 9 to 12, and allows students who complete all credits and program requirements to graduate with a Manitoba high school diploma and a Ukrainian high school diploma. Students will be encouraged to use the Manitoba diploma to apply to Canadian post-secondary institutions. “We are currently developing global educational partnerships as a part of our strategic plan,” said Irena Korbabicz-Putko, principal, Novopecherska School. “Ukraine has a historical relationship with Manitoba via diaspora and we are looking to collaboratively develop educational opportunities for students and teachers.” The agreement between Manitoba and Novopecherska School is the first Canada-Ukraine bilateral agreement that supports a dual program of studies leading to a high school diploma. (Ukrainian Canadian Congress Daily Briefing)