A gathering of local MPs from the Euro-skeptic east and south of Ukraine has gathered in the city of Kharkov to form a joint response to the developing collapse of the national government.
06 May 2014
The identities of 38 of the 46 people killed in the mass clashes in Odessa on May 2 have been established, a police spokesman told Interfaks-Ukraina.
Several missing-persons reports have also been filed. Two of the people on the list have since been declared dead.
09 April 2014
Another American military ship will soon arrive for deployment at the Black Sea as the Ukrainian crisis continue, Derek Chollet, the US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs told the House Armed Services Committee. Chollet also stated that USS Truxtun’s stay in the Black Sea will be extended, “to conduct exercises with Romanian and Bulgarian naval forces.”
Headlines in Bulgaria circulate reports emerging from the Bulgarian Defense ministry, that a missile cruiser USS Donald Cook is soon to arrive to the Black Sea to join the war games.
08 April 2014
The Ukrainian Parliament has allowed charitable contributions by individuals and entities to fund the army. The bill was approved by 231 MP votes out of 226 required.
Under the new law, the Cabinet of Ministers shall determine the manner of financing of the armed forces through charitable contributions, which will be used to provide combat and mobilization readiness. Currently, state budget is the only legal means to finance the Ukrainian armed forces.
07 April 2014
Unknown attackers have attempted to seize the building of Donetsk regional state radio and television company, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry press service reported, as cited by Interfax Ukraine. The group of people drove up to the building in a car, and shot into the air a few times. Interior Ministry workers who were on guard in the TV center’s grounds responded with shots, and the attackers left the scene.
The German government is "very worried" about events at the weekend in eastern Ukraine, which included the seizure of state buildings by pro-Russian protesters, a spokesman said on Monday.
"The latest developments in Donetsk and in Kharkov are something which we are all very worried about in the German government," said Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert. "We must urgently renew our appeal to all those in positions of responsibility to help stabilize the region and avoid such escalation." (Reuters)
Protesters in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk have seized the regional department building of Ukraine’s Security Service, local media reported, as cited by ITAR-TASS.
“The people’s militia seized Ukraine’s Security Service in 15 minutes, at 3:32 in the morning,” the activists told the website of the Ukrainian Vesti newspaper.
Currently, the perimeter of the building is being blocked to ensure protection from security forces.
06 April 2014
UDAR party leader Vitaly Klitschko wants the Ukrainian government to tackle the protests taking place in the eastern part of the country. The best police forces should be working in the region to avoid the breakup of the country and disturbances of the presidential elections, Klitschko said, as quoted by the party's press service.
The Lugansk prosecutor’s office has opened up a criminal investigation into the Sunday protests. Up to eight people were injured as demonstrators stormed the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) office, Ukraine’s Channel 5 reported.
Pro-Russian protests in Lugansk, Donetsk, and Kharkov are all attempts by foreigners to disrupt Ukraine’s presidential elections, presidential candidate Petro Poroshenko told a Ukrainian radio station.
19 March 2014
All that was left of the signage on the Crimean parliament in Simferopol on Tuesday was pile of white-golden metal letters after it was removed from the facade of the Supreme Council building, Ruptly news agency reports.
The parliament, or Supreme Council, of Crimea declared the Autonomous Republic an independent state and renamed itself into The State Council of the Republic of Crimea on Monday.
25 February 2014
Sevastopol city council gave the go-ahead for the creation of the executive committee, which will take over administrative functions. The unanimous vote of all 49 MPs present appointed Aleksey Chaly to become the chairman of the committee.
“There will be no revolution, I'm all for evolution,” Chaly said after being appointed as interim head of the city council. “We will restructure,” he added.
Amidst the chaos that has gripped Ukraine, over 20,000 people gathered in the streets of Sevastopol on Sunday calling on local authorities to protect the city from “revolutionaries.” Those at the gathering elected businessman Aleksey Chaly as their new mayor and refused to disperse until local MPs recognized their choice.
Home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Sevastopol is the only city in the country that does not elect its mayor directly, and has not done so since 1992.
Former Mayor Vladimir Yatsuba resigned and left the Party of Regions on Sunday after meeting with Chaly and agreeing that the issue of power transfer would be decided at the city council session.
24 February 2014
The presidential election campaign in Ukraine will reportedly start on February 25, the country's Central Election Commission said.
“The campaign will start automatically, based on the parliament decree, which set the date for the election on May 25. This is why the commission will not announce the start of the campaign at its session on Monday,” the commission's press service told Interfax-Ukraine.
23 February 2014
Ukraine's new parliament speaker, Aleksandr Turchinov, has told the deputies to agree on the formation of a national unity government by Tuesday, Interfax reported.
"I instruct the heads of factions and groups to immediately begin consultations to form a new parliamentary majority and create a government of national trust," he said on Sunday.
Sixty-four protesters, detained during this week’s riots in downtown Kiev, have been released, Itar-Tass reported. Three more demonstrators will be freed on Monday, according to one of the leaders of opposition, the newly elected Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, from the oppositional Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party.
Nearly 3,000 people have gathered in Kharkov, a city in north-eastern Ukraine, to take part in a rally aiming to defend the local statue of Lenin. Participants of the event booed opposition television stations correspondents, asking them to leave the site immediately. Police officers are currently patrolling the area.
22 February 2014
Meanwhile in Kharkov, a few thousand opposition supporters – both locals and from other parts of the country – are trying to demolish Lenin’s statue, the head of the Russian parliamentary commission on foreign affairs, Aleksey Pushkov, wrote on Twitter.
Around 3,000 people are taking part in demonstrations in Kharkov, Ukraine, ITAR-TASS quoted the city’s director of communications and information, Yuri Sidorenko, as saying. “Currently there about 3,000 taking part in the protest. One of the city's main streets has been closed off and there is lots of traffic.”
“The decisions taken here are positive and concrete. What is important is that everything voiced here was implemented in the interests of the Ukrainian people and the entire Ukraine. What Ukraine needs now is common sense and a survival instinct,” said Evgeny Savchenko, Governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, commenting on the Kharkov gathering.
He added that the turmoil in Ukraine has already hurt residents of his region, who are reluctant to travel to its western neighbor and do business there.
The gathering in Kharkov was attended by about 3,000 representatives of local governments, according to the governor of the Kharkov region, Mikhail Dobkin, one of the key sponsors of the event.
Russia sent several officials in the capacity of observers to the gathering, including Aleksey Pushkov, the head of the Russian parliamentary commission on foreign affairs, Mikhail Markelov, Pushkov’s counterpart in the Council of Federation, the upper chamber of the parliament, and several governors from regions in western Russia.
“The territorial integrity of Ukraine is at risk,” the gathering stated in the resolution.
It added that instability in Ukraine is highly dangerous and may cause unpredictable consequences, considering that the country hosts five nuclear power plants with 15 reactors in total, which some extremists have threatened to attack.
The resent decisions of the national parliament were taken in conditions “of terror, threats of violence and death,” the resolution says. The gathering says the legislative acts may have been passed involuntarily and are neither legitimate nor lawful.
The opposition has broken the agreement with the government signed on Friday, the resolution says.
“Armed gangs have not given over their weapons, they continue taking over governmental buildings, killing citizens and officers of the law,” it says.
The Kharkov public gathering has announced a number of measures local authorities should take in response to the developments in Kiev. They should take full responsibility for all decision in respective regions, with no regard to authorities in Kiev until the constitutional order in Ukraine is restored, a resolution of the gathering says.
The military commanders should take measures to protect arms depots and prevent their take-over and looting by radical opposition activists.
Meanwhile citizens are encouraged to form local militias to protect public order. Local authorities are to fund and support those militias.