Four Ukrainian soldiers killed in east
Kyiv says four Ukrainian soldiers have lost their lives in the latest clashes with Russia-backed separatists in the country’s east. The Defense Ministry said in a statement that the pro-Russia militants opened fire at Ukrainian military positions in the Donetsk region on August 6, using grenade-launchers, machine guns and assault rifles. “We say with sadness that, as a result of the enemy’s attacks today, according to the information in our possession, four of our heroes sustained injuries, to which they succumbed,” the statement said. It was the highest daily casualty toll in the Ukrainian conflict since a truce was agreed nearly three weeks ago. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the incident an attempt to “undermine” Ukraine’s efforts toward peace, and called on France, Germany and Russia to “meet as quickly as possible to resume negotiations.” Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia are part of the so-called Normandy format for talks aimed at putting an end to fighting between Ukrainian forces and the separatists who control parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Mr. Zelenskyy wrote on his Facebook page that Kyiv “will not cease to work toward ending hostilities or leave any attack on our soldiers unanswered.” Since April 2014, more than 13,000 people have been killed in the conflict. A new ceasefire agreement was supposed to go into effect on July 22 in accordance with an agreement reached in Minsk on July 17 by Ukrainian and Russian envoys as well as members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. But the sides have been accusing each other of violating the agreement since then. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AP)
Zelenskyy urges Putin to resume peace talks
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has called his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to urge him to help halt fighting in eastern Ukraine, following the killing of four soldiers there. “I called him urgently. I told him that this brings us no closer to peace,” Mr. Zelenskyy said during a news briefing in Kyiv, adding that he had urged Mr. Putin to ask the Moscow-backed forces who are holding parts of eastern Ukraine to “stop killing our people.” He also said the Russian president had promised him something, details of which would be disclosed later. The Kremlin said the two presidents discussed the prospects of cooperation under the so-called Normandy format for negotiations aimed at putting an end to the conflict, and agreed to intensify their work on prisoner exchange. It was their second publicly announced phone call since Mr. Zelenskyy was elected president in April. Later in the day, the Ukrainian president said he had also spoken with French President Emmanuel Macron, and that his French counterpart had supported his call for a new round of talks within the Normandy format, which involves France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia. (RFE/RL, with reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP and Interfax)
Moscow Court to hear seamen’s appeals
The Moscow City Court will hear arguments on August 16 in the case of six of the 24 Ukrainian crewmen detained in Russia, the TASS news agency has reported. They, along with seven other sailors, have been ordered to stay in pretrial detention until October 24, while 11 others will be held until October 26. A lower court prolonged their detention on July 17 as they await trial on charges of “trespassing” in what Russia claims are its territorial waters. If found guilty, the sailors face up to six years in prison. Russia has held the Ukrainian sailors since its forces fired on, boarded, and seized their vessels near the Kerch Strait on November 25, 2018. Ukraine called the attack and capture of 24 crewmen a violation of international maritime law. Western leaders have demanded that Russia release the crew, and the incident has led to the imposition of additional sanctions on Russia. In May, the U.S. sanctioned six Russians, including at least two Federal Security Service officers and about a half-dozen defense firms, in coordination with the European Union and Canada. Ukraine the same month won a favorable ruling from the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which ordered Russia to release all 24 sailors and the three impounded vessels. In a resolution on July 18, the newly elected European Parliament called on Russia “to release without further delay and unconditionally all illegally and arbitrarily detained Ukrainian citizens both in Russia and in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.” The sailors were specifically mentioned in the nonbinding resolution. In a March 12 report, the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that Russia breached international humanitarian law and called the 24 captive Ukrainians “prisoners of war.” (RFE/RL, based on reporting by TASS and RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Ukrainian prisoner goes free in Crimea
A Ukrainian whom Kyiv considered a political prisoner was released early from incarceration in Russian-annexed Crimea on August 6, the office of the Ukrainian presidential mission in Crimea said. Oleksandr Steshenko is on his way to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, said Ihor Kotelyanets, head of the Relatives of Kremlin Political Prisoners Association. He was sentenced to two years in prison on August 22 on what Ukrainian human rights groups and officials said were trumped-up charges of “inciting ethnic tension” and being part of an “extremist group.” He was detained while crossing into Crimea on April 11, 2018. Ukrainian officials deemed Mr. Steshenko one of 64 political prisoners who are being held in Russia or annexed Crimea. Thirty-six are Crimean-Tatar and 54 of the prisoners were either arrested in Crimea, incarcerated on the peninsula, or taken from there. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Stoltenberg on annexation of Crimea
Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 was the result of increased “great power competition,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on August 5. Speaking at the Center for Strategic Studies at New Zealand’s Victoria University, Mr. Stoltenberg said that, along with competition between great powers, terrorism and cybersecurity are the other main challenges facing NATO. He specifically mentioned Russia and China as being “more assertive.” He observed that Moscow is significantly building up “military capabilities,” which is putting the “rules based order under pressure.” The latest example is the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on August 2. Mr. Stoltenberg blamed Russia for violating the 1987 treaty by deploying new missiles, an allegation that Moscow denies. Russia said the United States abandoned the pact so it can start a new arms race. The treaty banned the Soviet Union and United States from developing, producing, or deploying ground-launched cruise or ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Regarding Crimea, Mr. Stoltenberg said its “illegal annexation” was the “first time in Europe that one country has taken a part of another country since the end of the second world war.” He also said Moscow was “undermining the trust of democratic institutions in several NATO allied countries and also elsewhere.” Mr. Stoltenberg also said cyber-related issues are “now changing the nature of conflict as fundamentally as the Industrial Revolution changed the nature of conflict before the first world war.” Toward the end of his speech, he said we are now living in “a more unpredictable, uncertain world.” (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Zelenskyy congratulates U.K. prime minister
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has congratulated Boris Johnson on becoming the United Kingdom’s new prime minister in a phone conversation, which took place on August 5. In a statement on the presidential website, Mr. Zelenskyy said he had thanked the British government “for its continued support of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty” and for helping the country “implement reforms and strengthen its defense capabilities.” Britain follows EU-level sanctions policy on Russia relating to its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and other activity in the region. Britain also has a 2018-2019 technical assistance program in Ukraine worth 35.2 million pounds ($42.8 million U.S.) in areas of governance, anti-corruption, accountability, security, humanitarian aid, human rights and education. The U.K Defense Ministry’s Operational Orbital program has trained more than 10,000 Ukrainian servicemen, including marines and special forces. Training mostly takes place in the southern region of Mykolayiv. At any one time, about 120 British soldiers are in Ukraine. Trade turnover between the two countries is at around $2.5 billion, former British Ambassador to Ukraine Judith Gough said in April. Messrs. Johnson and Zelenskyy also discussed bilateral relations after the U.K. withdraws from the European Union and “stressed the need to intensify contacts at the highest level.” (RFE/RL, based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service)
New commander for Donbas conflict zone
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appointed Lt. Gen. Volodymyr Kravchenko to lead the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) in eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv has been fighting Moscow-backed separatists since 2014. Lt. Gen. Kravchenko previously was commander of the North operational and tactical group composed of six regions and the city of Kyiv. Issued on August 5, the presidential decree replaces Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, who was made commander of the army’s ground forces. Gen. Syrsky first headed Sector C when the armed conflict started in the easternmost regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in April 2014. Kyiv at first called the deployment an Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) and changed it to the JFO in the spring of 2018. He was one of the main commanders during the battle of Debaltseve in the winter of 2015 when Russia-backed separatists launched an offensive to take over the vital railroad hub city in the Donetsk region. Ex-President Petro Poroshenko appointed him as the head of the ATO in 2017 and as JFO commander in May. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Naftogaz seeks $5.2 B in damages
Naftogaz Group, Ukraine’s state-run oil and gas conglomerate, on July 31 filed a lawsuit for a $5.2 billion damage claim over assets that Russia seized during its annexation of Crimea in March 2014. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague will hear the case and Naftogaz said in a statement that it expects a ruling “no sooner than the end of 2020.” The lawsuit is based on a prior agreement between Ukraine and Russia to mutually protect each other’s investments. After Russia took over Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, the occupying authorities started nationalizing local industrial assets, including the property of Naftogaz and its subsidiaries. They included pipelines, offshore oil rigs and other assets. Oschadbank, Ukraine’s second-biggest state-owned bank by assets, has already been awarded $1.3 billion in lost Crimean assets by the Paris-based International Court of Arbitration. Moscow rejected the ruling. In March 2018, the Stockholm Arbitration Court ordered Russia’s state-run Gazprom to pay $2.5 billion to Naftogaz over a contractual dispute involving the supply and transit of gas. Gazprom appealed the ruling, whereas Naftogaz has sought to recover the money by freezing the Russian company’s foreign assets in Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Britain. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Activists protest unsolved Handzyuk killing
Several dozen people on August 1 staged a protest outside the building of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kyiv over the lack of progress in the investigation into the death of a Ukrainian anti-corruption activist. Kateryna Handzyuk, a 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 on July 31. Activists lit flares and shouted “Who ordered the attack on Katya Handzyuk?” The protest came after a decision last month by Ukraine’s prosecutor-general to suspend an investigation into the role of a high-ranking regional official charged in the Handzyuk death. Prosecutors in February arrested Vladyslav Manher, head of the regional council in the southern region of Kherson, and charged him with ordering the Handzyuk attack. Mr. Manher was later released on bail. He has denied any involvement into the attack. In a July 25 statement, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced that the probe into Mr. Manher and a second suspect, Oleksiy Levin, had been suspended because Levin’s whereabouts remain unknown. The statement said Messrs. Manher and Levin’s involvement in the case is interconnected, and cited this as the basis for suspending the legal provisions of Ukraine’s Criminal Procedural Code. The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, a Ukrainian rights watchdog, has questioned the prosecutor general’s move, arguing that Mr. Manher’s whereabouts are known. In June, five men were sentenced to prison terms of between three and six and a half years for organizing and executing the attack after they pleaded guilty and made deals with investigators. Human rights activists have accused Ukrainian law enforcement agencies of failing to thoroughly investigate the growing number of attacks on activists, and even of collusion with the perpetrators in some cases. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Gordon, Ukrayinska Pravda and UNIAN)
Kolomoisky plans on being a ‘nuisance’
Ihor Kolomoisky, the Ukrainian billionaire with ties to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says he plans on being “a nuisance for many” in the country for at least the next five years. Mr. Kolomoisky, who faced investigations and government pressure in Ukraine during the presidency of Mr. Zelenskyy’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, has lived outside of Ukraine for almost two years, splitting his time between Israel and Switzerland. In a wide-ranging interview with the RBK media group, his first with a Russian media outlet in the last five years, Mr. Kolomoisky played down his relationship with Mr. Zelenskyy, who he said he had seen only once since the president’s inauguration. “Sometimes we correspond via WhatsApp, we joke, talk about nothing important. But we rarely speak now because he has so much to do,” said Mr. Kolomoisky, who returned to Ukraine four days before Mr. Zelenskyy’s inauguration. “I wouldn’t give him any advice until at least 100 days pass since the inauguration. Although, maybe, if I were to say something, it would be a wish, not exactly advice: When you choose your appointees, choose those you trust, and bring professionals in next to them,” he added. Questions about the extent of ties between the president and the billionaire who owns the TV station that has hosted Mr. Zelenskyy’s comedy programs and his hit sitcom “Servant of the People” have swirled since Mr. Zelenskyy swept to a landslide victory in an April presidential election. Mr. Kolomoisky said he had known Mr. Zelenskyy since 2008 and the two started talking about a possible run for the presidency in 2017. But he added that he did not give financial support to the Zelenskyy presidential campaign, though he acknowledged that the entertainer had a contract with the tycoon’s 1+1 television channel, which “was the only help.” He also confirmed that the president’s chief of staff, Andriy Bohdan, used to be one of his main lawyers in the last five years. The tycoon also said there were people in Ukraine and elsewhere who’d like to see him disappear from the scene, which he maintained isn’t going to happen. “There are many people who would like me to leave and go somewhere else, but they’ll have to wait. I’ll be a nuisance here for the next five years,” he said. Talking about his conflict with Petro Poroshenko, Mr. Kolomoisky still praised the former president, saying that he “saved the country from you [Russians]” after Moscow illegally annexed Crimea and fomented separatism in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in 2014. “[Poroshenko] stopped [Russia’s] aggression. I can criticize him in any way, but not in front of you. We will mend fences ourselves, without you,” Mr. Kolomoisky said, adding that he did not have any business in Russia and did not plan to have any “until Crimea is returned to Ukraine.” He noted: “[Russia] is a major sponsor and a source of this civil conflict. If Russia was not there and left the place alone, we would end the matter in a peaceful manner to satisfy all sides in two weeks, maximum.” (RFE/RL, with reporting by RBK)