U.S. equipment arrives in Ukraine
KYIV – Twenty-four RQ-11B Raven Unmanned Aircraft Systems (comprising 72 aircraft and associated equipment) arrived at Boryspil International Airport on July 27. They were provided by the U.S. government. The Raven Unmanned Aircraft System is a hand-launched reconnaissance and surveillance tool. The system transmits live airborne video images and location information to a ground control station. This capability can provide day or night aerial intelligence and enables operators to navigate, recognize terrain and record information for analysis. The Raven system is part of the European Reassurance Initiative package and ongoing security assistance efforts in Ukraine. Several dozen Ukrainian soldiers already have completed training on Raven Unmanned Aircraft System in Huntsville, Ala. The United States has committed more than $600 million in training and equipment to help Ukraine better defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. (U.S. Embassy Kyiv)
Savchenko calls for reconciliation
KYIV – Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian military officer who became a national hero after spending nearly two years in a Russian prison, called for reconciliation to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, sparking outrage among some lawmakers. Ms. Savchenko, who was elected to the Verkhovna Rada while in prison, said in an interview broadcast July 21 on Ukraine’s Channel 5 that Ukrainians must “ask for forgiveness.” Otherwise, she said, the violence that has gripped the country’s Donbas region since April 2014 would continue. Her comments infuriated nationalist lawmakers and others, including Anton Herashchenko who also serves as an aide to the Internal Affairs Ministry. “You, Nadiya, are able to ask for forgiveness of… Russians who came to our lands to kill and rape, but we will never ask forgiveness of the occupiers and terrorists,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “We will, through clenched teeth, hold on and achieve the emancipation of our lands by any means!” Ms. Savchenko, a helicopter navigator, was captured in June 2014, and put on trial in Russia, charged with complicity in the killing of two Russian reporters covering the war. Freed in May as part of a prisoner swap, she returned to a hero’s welcome, and has spoken out regularly, calling for direct peace talks with Russia-backed separatists in the east. More than 9,400 people have been killed in the fighting, according to United Nations figures. (RFE/RL)
Vitvitsky to assist in reform of PGO
KYIV – A former federal prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney, Bohdan Vitvitsky, will assist in the reform of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) of Ukraine, according to the PGO’s media liaison office. “The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine and former U.S. Federal Prosecutor and Assistant Attorney Bohdan Vitvitsky have started work together,” the office said, adding that Dr. Vitvitsky and Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko met on July 21. During that meeting Mr. Lutsenko outlined priorities: organizing the work of the General Inspectorate; increasing efficiency of cooperation with other law enforcement bodies; utilizing best-practices in the fight against corruption among high-ranking officials and the recovery of stolen assets. Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine George P. Kent was also present at the meeting. Dr. Vitvitsky stated that he is “ready to utilize all my experience to facilitate positive changes in the agency. …The time of diplomatic courtesy is over, it is time for radical actions,” the PGO reported. It should be noted that Dr. Vitvitsky served as resident legal advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine in 2007-2009. (Ukrainian Canadian Congress, UNIAN)
Sea Breeze exercises begin
KYIV – The 15th annual Sea Breeze naval exercises are under way on the Black Sea. Co-hosted by the Ukrainian and U.S. navies, the drills include personnel from 13 countries including Britain, Turkey, Romania and Georgia. Participating forces are practicing amphibious landings, on-board firefighting, anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue, and other missions. Speaking at the exercises’ opening ceremony on July 25, U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said: “This is the first Sea Breeze in which we have been able to have two U.S. ships in port. We are also very glad to be able to participate this year in the land phase of Sea Breeze through an amphibious landing exercise that will involve more than 350 American personnel. All told, we will have more than 400 total sailors and marines involved in this exercise along with aircraft, helicopters and maritime patrol platforms.” The ambassador, who will soon leave his post to take up his new assignment in Greece, added: “I have been American ambassador to Ukraine during a period of extraordinary and unimaginable aggression against this country committed by Russia. The guiding principal of American policy throughout this period has been to stand with the people of Ukraine and to underline the importance of restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. …a key objective of our defense partnership is to raise the capacity of the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian armed forces to defend your own sovereign territory.” (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, U.S. Embassy Kyiv)
Soldiers killed in eastern Ukraine
KYIV – The Ukrainian military said on July 25 that three soldiers were killed and three others wounded in fresh clashes between government forces and Russian-backed separatists in the country’s volatile east. Two servicemen were killed by mortar fire near Avdiyivka, an industrial hub some 10 kilometers north of the separatists’ de-facto capital Donetsk, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told journalists. Another soldier was killed near the village of Nevelske, 12 kilometers northwest of Donetsk, he said. Col. Lysenko accused the separatists of using weapons banned by truce agreements. De facto authorities in the Donetsk territory held by the separatists accused Ukrainian forces of shelling areas under separatist control and injuring two civilians. On July 24, Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, a military spokesman for President Petro Poroshenko, said six Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the previous 24 hours in fighting against Russia-backed separatists. He did not give details of the deaths, but the press center of the Ukrainian military’s Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) said on July 24 that Ukrainian forces were fired upon 77 times in the preceding 24 hours. That statement said the heaviest shelling came in the Mariupol area. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by AFP, Ukrayinska Pravda and TASS)
Funeral for Sheremet held in Minsk
MINSK – Hundreds of mourners in Belarus attended the funeral of prominent Belarusian-born journalist Pavel Sheremet, who was killed in a car bombing in Kyiv on July 20. The funeral was held on July 23 at the Church of All Saints in Mr. Sheremet’s hometown of Minsk. Mr. Sheremet, a journalist at news website Ukrayinska Pravda, was driving to a radio station to do a morning show when the bomb exploded in his car. His killing shook Ukraine’s media community and sent shock waves into Russia and Belarus. The 44-year-old had previously worked in Russia and his native Belarus, where he faced pressure from the authorities for his reporting. The Ukrainian Internal Affairs Ministry said the explosives were “skillfully” planted underneath the car and the blast may have been set off by a “remote-controlled or delayed-action” detonator. On July 22, thousands of mourners took part in a solemn procession through Kyiv’s Ukrainian House, including friends, colleagues, lawmakers and government officials – among them President Petro Poroshenko. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Belarus Service)
Founder of piracy site is charged
WASHINGTON – U.S. authorities have charged a Ukrainian who founded the world’s biggest online piracy site with distributing over $1 billion worth of illegally copied films, music and other content. The U.S. Justice Department’s criminal complaint on July 20 charged Artem Vaulin, 30, of Kharkiv, Ukraine, who was arrested in Poland earlier in the day, with copyright infringement, money laundering and other violations of U.S. law. Mr. Vaulin owned and founded Kickass Torrents, or KAT, which in recent years has become the world’s biggest source of pirated media. “Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. “In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits.” U.S. officials said they will seek to extradite Mr. Vaulin to face the charges filed in a Chicago federal court, which ordered the seizure of one bank account and seven domain names associated with the file-sharing website. KAT, which distributes films, video games, television programs, music and other electronic media, is the 69th most frequently visited website on the Internet. The criminal complaint said the website offers “a sophisticated and user-friendly environment in which its users are able to search for and locate content” that is protected by copyright. According to the complaint, KAT operates in 28 languages and has made available movies that were still in theaters along with other free content, earning revenue from advertising on its site. The website’s value is estimated at more than $54 million, with annual advertising revenue in the range of $12.5 million to $22.3 million, according to the complaint. KAT has moved its domains several times after being blocked in Britain, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Belgium and Malaysia, according to the complaint, and has relied on a network of computer servers located around the world, including in Chicago. Recently, the website allowed users to download illegal copies of recent hit movies such as “Captain America: Civil War” and “Finding Dory.” Mr. Vaulin, who used the screen name “tirm,” was involved in designing the original website and ran the site, which has been operating since 2008 through a Ukraine-based front company called Cryptoneat. According to the Justice Department, KAT’s website “purports to comply with the removal of copyrighted materials” but evidence showed it did not remove content requested by organizations such as the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, and Entertainment Software Association. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AFP and Reuters)
Hang glider smuggles cigarettes
BUCHAREST – Romanian border police say they have confiscated thousands of packs of cigarettes that apparently were dropped in a field from a powered hang glider near the border with Moldova. Romania’s Internal Affairs Ministry said on July 25 that police discovered 10 boxes containing 5,000 packets of Chinese-produced Ashima cigarettes. Police say they were patrolling the area with heat-detecting equipment when they spotted the glider flying into northeast Romania early on July 24 and returning to Moldova. Romanian and Moldovan authorities were both investigating the case on July 25. A marketing research company said earlier in July that more than half of all cigarettes in Romania’s poor northeast are contraband – mainly from Moldova, Ukraine and Serbia. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCPR) says gliders are a typical way that organized criminal groups from Ukraine smuggle billions of cheap, untaxed cigarettes into the European Union. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by AP and OCCRP)
Poroshenko appeals to ecumenical patriarch
KYIV – President Petro Poroshenko took part in prayer and festivities on the occasion of the Day of Christianization of Kyivan Rus’- Ukraine at St. Volodymyr’s Hill in Kyiv. He emphasized that, “being a wise and visionary statesman, Prince Volodymyr realized the powerful potential of Christianity and made a choice in favor of Christianization of Rus’ that laid a firm foundation for the Ukrainian state. And the first bishops and priests came to Rus’ from Constantinople. The Church of Constantinople has always been a Mother Church to which we, its offspring, have turned to seek help – including the issue of overcoming the division that is a great pain for Orthodox Ukrainians today.” The president said that he had met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and saw that he prays for Ukraine and thinks about how to help solve its problems. Mr. Poroshenko greeted the representative of Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop Job of Telmessos, asking him to tell the patriarch that “the Ukrainian Orthodox Church needs urgent attention from the Ecumenical Throne of Constantinople.” The president added, “He is the only one who is able to help Orthodox Ukrainians unite and resolve the issue of canonical status of the Ukrainian Church in the structure of the world Orthodoxy.” Mr. Poroshenko cited opinion polls that indicate a growing number of Orthodox citizens of Ukraine want to have a single national autocephalous church eucharistically and devotionally united, yet administratively independent from other church jurisdictions. Mr. Poroshenko noted that Ukraine could not be indifferent to the interference of a foreign state into its religious affairs. That is why the Ukrainian Parliament has appealed to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to provide autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In his turn, Archbishop Job conveyed greetings from Patriarch Bartholomew and noted that the Church of Constantinople will remain forever the Mother of Kyiv Church. “Like a mother who always takes care of her children, the Holy and Great Church of Christ, the Ecumenical Patriarchate takes care of the fate of Ukraine and its people, prays against war and violence, acts to restore peace, stands against division and schisms, does not stop working for the revival of unity of the ecclesial body,” he said. (Presidential Administration of Ukraine)
OSCE urges full respect for ceasefire
VIENNA – Urgent steps are needed by the sides in eastern Ukraine to ensure full respect for the ceasefire and reduce the impact of the violence on civilians, said the special representative of the OSCE chairperson-in-office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group, Martin Sajdik, and the chief monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), Ertugrul Apakan, in their addresses to the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Vienna on July 28. Mr. Sajdik expressed his concern about the constant rise of ceasefire violations and a possible steep increase in the number of victims in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine. In light of such dangerous tendencies Mr. Sajdik urged “all parties to the conflict to not revert to large-scale military operations again.” While stating that results in addressing the most urgent needs in the humanitarian and economic fields could be ensured, he deplored the fact that the destruction and misery of the population, caused by the conflict, remain widespread. Mr. Sajdik highlighted his support for a “package” approach that should include the issue of the resumption of Ukrainian government’s control along the whole the state border with Russia. Mr. Apakan said the sides’ failure to uphold the ceasefire was evidenced by the continued presence and use of proscribed large-caliber weapons in the proposed security zone. He said that the proportion of weapons that the SMM had been able to verify as withdrawn had decreased since mid-April – on both sides – to less than 13 percent of all weapons declared or subsequently identified. The SMM’s ability to monitor and verify, the chief monitor said, was compromised because of freedom-of-movement restrictions and other impediments to fulfillment of its mandate. More than two-thirds of the ceasefire violations, he said, were committed by armed individuals in areas outside government control. He also noted that these violations include interference with – and even the destruction of – the SMM’s unmanned aerial vehicles. Mr. Apakan stated that, in addition to fulfilling commitments made in Minsk, the sides needed to move on concrete disengagement proposals. “It is high time they moved from discussion to action,” he said. (OSCE)
Poroshenko with Azerbaijan’s Ukrainians
BAKU – President Petro Poroshenko met with the Ukrainian community of Azerbaijan during his visit to that country on July 13-14. He told fellow Ukrainians that he expects trade turnover between Ukraine and Azerbaijan to be greatly increased as a result of his meetings with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan. “We have agreed to triple our trade turnover. Over the first quarter of 2016, it has increased by 20 percent, but it is not enough,” Mr. Poroshenko said noting that due to cooperation in the field of aircraft construction trade turnover will be doubled. He also relayed information about agreements to intensify cooperation in various spheres, particularly energy, transport, mechanical engineering, as well as the cultural and military-technical sectors. “If we get Azerbaijani oil and gas, we will diversify our consumption, for this is an issue of our national security,” President Poroshenko emphasized. He also said he believes the Council of Presidents and several interstate commissions would bring Ukraine-Azerbaijan cooperation to a new level and make Azerbaijan an outpost of Ukraine in cooperation with other countries of that region. Mr. Poroshenko pointed to Baku’s hospitality and good attitude toward Ukrainians. In this context, the president promised to do everything for Ukrainian community in Azerbaijan to feel protected. On July 14, the Ukrainian president laid flowers at the monument to Taras Shevchenko in Baku. (Presidential Administration of Ukraine)