EU prepared to prolong sanctions
BRUSSELS – European Union ambassadors appear set to prolong asset freezes and visa bans against 146 individuals and 37 entities that, according to the EU, are responsible for actions against Ukraine’s territorial integrity. RFE/RL reported on August 31 that EU sources said the decision to prolong the measures by six months will be taken ahead of a September 15 deadline without much discussion. The targets of the sanctions include companies in Crimea and various battalions formed by the Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, as well as Russian politicians like Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and Dmitry Kiselyov, a state media executive and presenter whom many regard as the Kremlin’s chief propagandist. The sanctions were first introduced in March 2014 after Russia’s seizure and illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. The EU’s economic sanctions that target Russia’s energy, military, and financial sectors are up for renewal on January 31. EU sources told RFE/RL that those sectoral sanctions will be discussed at a Brussels summit of EU leaders in October. (RFE/RL)
Ministers call for end to Ukraine conflict
WEIMAR, Germany – The foreign affairs ministers of Germany, France and Poland have agreed that there should be greater international efforts to reduce tensions in eastern Ukraine. Germany’s Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier made the announcement on August 28 after talks with his French and Polish counterparts in the German town of Weimar. More than 9,500 people have been killed in fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east since April 2014. Mr. Steinmeier said there had not been sufficient progress in implementing the February 2015 Minsk accords aimed at settling the conflict. “We have to work for a de-escalation of the situation,” the German minister said. Western officials were talking with Moscow and Kyiv to encourage them to implement measures already agreed in the Minsk process, including local elections in the separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine, Steinmeier also said. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Reuters and TASS)
OSCE calls for release of Umerov
COPENHAGEN – The forced commitment to a psychiatric clinic of Ilmi Umerov represents a worrying new low in Russia’s stigmatization of the Crimean Tatar community and should be immediately reversed, said the chair of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s human rights committee, Ignacio Sanchez Amor (a member of Parliament from Spain) on August 27. “Already facing charges for simply having the courage to speak his mind, Russian authorities are now using an old and particularly worrying tactic to try and silence Umerov,” said Mr. Sanchez Amor. “This ugly allegation of mental instability is a transparent attempt to punish Ilmi Umerov for speaking out in favor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. I call for the immediate reversal of this decision and the release of Mr. Umerov.” Mr. Umerov, deputy head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, which was banned in April, is facing prosecution for reportedly saying during an interview earlier this year that “Russia must be forced to leave Crimea and Donbas.” In mid-August a court ordered Mr. Umerov to undergo psychiatric testing and he was subsequently committed to Simferopol’s Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 for a 28-day period. In its Tbilisi declaration adopted last month, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called on the Russian Federation to reverse the illegal annexation of Crimea and expressed grave concern over the deterioration of the situation of human rights in the region. At the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s 2015 Winter Meeting, Mustafa Dzemiliev, a former chairman of the Mejlis and a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, reported that thousands of his people have fled to mainland Ukraine in response to attempts to restrict their political and linguistic autonomy by the de facto authorities since the Russian annexation in March 2014. He called for the OSCE and the broader international community to focus efforts on bringing the peninsula back under Ukrainian sovereignty. (OSCE)
OSCE wants inquiry into journalist’s death
VIENNA – The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s media freedom advocate called on Ukrainian authorities to carry out a thorough investigation into the death of journalist Aleksandr Shchetinin.
Mr.
Shchetinin, a founder of the Novy Region online news agency, was found dead in his apartment in Kyiv on August 28. “The circumstances of this tragedy must be swiftly and thoroughly investigated,” OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic said on August 29. “His death is a loss for the media community.”
Ms.
Mijatovic repeated her call for authorities to improve the fragile situation regarding the safety of journalists and fully and effectively address the “issue of impunity.” Mr. Shchetinin, originally from the Russian Federation, worked as a journalist in Ukraine for several years. Ukrainian police said they suspect Mr. Shchetinin’s death was a suicide. (OSCE)
Suicide suspected in journalist’s death
KYIV – Reports from Ukraine say Aleksandr Shchetinin, a Kyiv-based Russian journalist who founded the Novy Region news agency, has been found dead at his apartment. Ukrainian police said they suspect Mr. Shchetinin’s death was a suicide. Authorities said friends who visited Mr. Shchetinin’s apartment on Kostyatynivska Street in Kyiv early on August 28 in order to congratulate him on his birthday found him seated in a chair on his balcony with a gunshot wound to the head and a gun on the ground beside him. Police said Mr. Shchetinin also had written an e-mail to a journalist colleague in which he declared his intention to kill himself. (RFE.RL, based on reporting by TASS, Interfax, UNIAN and 112 Ukraine)
Relatives of MH17 victims seek data
PRAGUE – Frustrated relatives of people killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine have appealed to the European Union’s top diplomat to put pressure on Russia, Ukraine and the United States to provide investigators with intelligence and radar data about the tragedy. An international investigation is collecting evidence for criminal charges against those responsible for the July 17, 2014, tragedy that killed all 298 passengers and crew members aboard. Russia and Ukraine blame each other for downing the Boeing 777. A 15-month investigation concluded in 2015 by Dutch authorities said a Buk missile shot down the plane, but did not explicitly say who fired the missile. However, it identified a 320-square-kilometer area where it said the launch must have taken place. All of that territory was controlled by Russia-backed separatists at the time. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on August 31 that Moscow has given all the intelligence and data it has to the international investigators. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by AP and Reuters)
Launch of e-declaration system
KYIV – President Petro Poroshenko informed that the official launch of the e-declaration system must take place on August 31 at 23:59. “Yesterday, the head of the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine informed that the certificate is ready. Today, it must be transferred to the representatives of the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption. The program has been drastically altered,” Mr. Poroshenko informed journalists in the course of a working trip to Mariupol. He said the program will be launched starting on September 1. Mr. Poroshenko emphasized that it would mean the fulfillment of all conditions of cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and provision of the visa-free regime for Ukraine by the European Union. He noted that a committee of the European Parliament would start considering the visa-free regime issue on September 5. (Official website of the President of Ukraine)
Russian jailed for joining Ukrainian forces
MOSCOW – A court in Russia has jailed a Russian man for fighting against Kremlin-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk. The Russian Investigative Committee said on August 30 that a court in the Kirov region found a 24-year-old local resident guilty of fighting as a mercenary for a foreign country and sentenced him to two and a half years in jail. The man, whose identity was not disclosed, was detained after returning to Russia’s Kirov region in September 2015. He had been fighting alongside Ukrainian armed forces against pro-Russian separatists for more than six months. There have been numerous reports that many volunteers and mercenaries from former Soviet republics are fighting on both sides of the conflict. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Interfax and RIA)
Man suspected of fighting with separatists
ALMATY – A court in Kazakhstan’s northwestern city of Aqtobe has added to the country’s wanted list a local resident suspected of fighting alongside Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The court issued its ruling on August 30 after the suspect, Maksim Yermolov, failed to appear in court for a second time in the case. Mr. Yermolov was detained in February 2015 after returning to Kazakhstan from eastern Ukraine, where he allegedly fought alongside pro-Russia separatists who are battling Ukrainian government forces. He was charged with “taking part in military conflicts abroad” and ordered not to leave the city of Aqtobe. His current whereabouts are unknown. From 2014 to 2015, Kazakhstan jailed at least two Kazakh citizens for fighting against Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine. Four Kazakh citizens also were convicted during that period on charges of inciting separatism and ethnic hatred on the Internet in connection with the war in Ukraine. (RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service)
Ministry cuts ties with photographer
KYIV – Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense has cut ties with a photographer who served as a ministry adviser amid controversy over the authenticity of photographs purportedly showing combat scenes in eastern Ukraine. Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said on August 28 that he made the decision to release photographer Dmytro Muravsky from his position as a ministry advisor “due to the ongoing debates about photographs” taken by him. Mr. Poltorak said all of the photos in question had been taken by Mr. Muravsky before his appointment to the post. Mr. Poltorak said the ministry never used them or presented them to media as legitimate scenes of real military operations. Earlier in August, a group of Ukrainian photojournalists raised concerns about a photo by Mr. Muravsky, which depicted Ukrainian soldiers in the country’s east fighting against Russia-backed separatists. The photojournalists claimed the photo was staged and accused the Defense Ministry of using fake photos as part of an information campaign against the Kremlin. Mr. Muravsky insists that he has never staged any photos of combat in eastern Ukraine. (RFERL, based on reporting by UNIAN and Interfax)
Library director still under house arrest
MOSCOW – A court in Moscow has prolonged the house arrest of Natalya Sharina, the director of the Ukrainian Literature Library, who is facing charges of extremism and embezzlement. The court ruled on August 26 that Ms. Sharina’s house arrest would be prolonged until October 28. On August 15, the Moscow prosecutor’s office refused to indict Ms. Sharina and returned the case to investigators without giving any reasons. Ms. Sharina was detained last October and charged with inciting extremism and ethnic hatred because her library’s collection allegedly included books by Ukrainian ultranationalist and author Dmytro Korchynskyi, whose works are banned in Russia. She was placed under house arrest. In April, investigators charged Ms. Sharina with misallocating library funds, allegedly because she used library funds to pay for her legal defense in another extremism case against her that was dismissed in 2013. Her lawyer said the authorities had “trumped up” new charges after realizing their initial case against his client was too weak. Ms. Sharina has rejected all the allegations, saying they are politically motivated. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Interfax and TASS)
Dueling indictments in Russia, Ukraine
KYIV – Russia and Ukraine traded salvos this week with dueling criminal investigations against each other’s top military brass, a new front in the ongoing conflict between the two countries. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko launched the opening legal hand grenade on August 22, announcing a probe into Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and 19 other Russian military and civilian officials. Mr. Lutsenko said the officials are suspected of “committing especially serious crimes against the foundations of Ukraine’s national and civil security, peace, and international law and order,” adding that Kyiv plans to seek international warrants for their arrests. Not be outdone, Russia’s Investigative Committee returned fire on August 24, saying that a criminal investigation had been opened into Mr. Shoigu’s Ukrainian counterpart, Stepan Poltorak, and other military officials. They are accused of war crimes and violations of a 2015 ceasefire in the eastern Ukrainian region known as the Donbas, according to a statement from the agency, Russia’s top investigative body. Fighting in parts of the Donbas has surged in recent weeks, with Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists exchanging mortar, artillery and gunfire.
The likelihood of either country putting the accused top officials on trial is virtually nil, though both nations allow for trials in absentia. A lawmaker in Russia’s upper house of Parliament, meanwhile, suggested one way to further tweak Kyiv: by staging criminal proceedings against Ukrainian officials in areas of the Donbas controlled by separatist forces. (RFE/RL)
Russia holds snap military exercises
MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin announced large-scale snap military exercises on land and in the Black and Caspian seas, increasing worries in Ukraine and other Western neighbors about Moscow’s intentions. The exercises, which began early on August 25, put thousands of troops on combat alert and followed weeks of increasing tension along Ukraine’s eastern borders and in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. Large-scale movements of military weaponry and equipment have been reported in Crimea and border crossings into mainland Ukraine were blocked briefly earlier this month after Russia said two security personnel had been killed during an alleged incident with a group of Ukrainian saboteurs. Kyiv called the Russian claims preposterous. Russia is also scheduled to hold previously announced war games in southern regions called Kavkaz 2016, which will included thousands of personnel and hundreds of heavy weapons and other equipment. The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that troops have been put on combat alert as part of the drills, which were taking place in military districts that encompass Crimea and Russian regions bordering Ukraine and regions bordering the three Baltic nations, all of which are NATO members. The ministry said the drills will last until the end of August and involve a variety of units, from paratroopers to Northern Fleet naval ships. It also said foreign military attaches posted in Moscow had been notified of the exercises after they began. Like NATO and many countries, Russia regularly holds exercises to test its armed forces’ capabilities. But some analysts say Moscow is increasingly using unannounced drills as a means to threaten neighbors or to clandestinely position equipment or personnel for future operations. The drills that began on August 25 caused alarm in neighboring Poland, also a NATO member, where Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz called an urgent briefing of military intelligence and other units including Operational Command, which oversees Poland’s air defenses. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AP)