Strategic Trust-Building

Internal Security News

• An advisor to the Ukrainian Interior Minister alleged that ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych and his circle finance the militants operating on the east of Ukraine.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Combat armored vehicles, including tanks, belonging to Ukrainian military forces were actively attacking and shelling the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) A special police unit officer was killed and another two were seriously injured in a mortar attack in Sloviansk.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Ukraine's government closed several checkpoints on the border with Russia in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, explaining the measure by public security considerations. The government instructed the Foreign Ministry to inform Russia about the decision.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian media reported that militants in the city of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine’s embattled Donetsk Region shot down a helicopter belonging to the Ukrainian Air Force.
   

Diplomacy News

• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk stated that Ukraine's course to integrate with the European Union is irreversible.
   
• Russian President Vladimir Putin met Ukrainian President-elect Petro Poroshenko for the first time since his election, at a D-Day event in France. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also present. 
   
• Putin also had an informal 10-15 minute conversation with US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the D-Day even in France. 
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Poroshenko and German Chancellor Merkel discussed prospects of signing the economic section of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement during a working dinner in Berlin.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolai Patrushev claimed that Russia and China have witnessed a consistent Western policy to weed out authorities they find disagreeable applied in Ukraine. Russia and China share the same view on all issues of the international agenda, Patrushev said.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) US President Obama stated that Russia should recognize Ukraine's president-elect Poroshenko and convince militants in Ukraine's southeast to lay down their weapons. If Russia's provocations continue, "the G7 nations are ready to impose additional costs on Russia," Obama said.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said that the European Council will assess the situation with de-escalation in Ukraine and will consider additional measures against Russia over Ukraine at the end of June. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Vice-premier of the Russian government Dmitry Rogozin met pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker Oleg Tsarev in Moscow to discuss problems connected with the implementation of the Russian Defense Ministry's contracts by the industrial enterprises of Ukraine.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian FM Lavrov stated that the Russian side hopes the United States will use its influence on Ukrainian president-elect Poroshenko to stop violence and Kyiv’s punitive operation in Ukraine’s Southeast.
   
• (RIA Novosti) A new round of trilateral gas talks including Russia, Ukraine and the European Union could be held June 11.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced his readiness to cooperate with the new Ukrainian leadership.
   

Constitutional Reform News 

• (ITAR-TASS) Russia's Permanent Ambassador to the OSCE Andrei Kelin said Kyiv is imitating the implementation of the constitutional reform.
   

International Observation Missions News

• Contact with two groups of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observers reportedly being held by militants in eastern Ukraine had not been re-established.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claimed to have evidence of the direct involvement of Russia in the kidnapping of members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission and in organizing and supporting terrorist activities in the eastern regions of Ukraine.
   

Governance News 

• (Interfax Ukraine) PM Yatsenyuk said it is necessary to establish a National Anti-Corruption Bureau in Ukraine to continue combating corruption.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) PM Yatsenyuk told the Verhovna Rada 422 million hryvnia ($35.88 million) were not transferred to the Ukrainian state budget from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in May. “The situation is extremely critical.”
   
• Prime Minister Yatsenyuk stated that the Ukrainian authorities have allocated an extra Hr 10.5 billion over the last three months to improve the combat capacity of the army.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) UDAR Party leader Vitali Klitschko took his oath of office as mayor of Kyiv. 

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More Stories 

Writing for New Europe, EWI's Professorial Fellow Greg Austin argues that the creation of the Eurasian Union—a union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan—will test relations with the EU. Read more 

There were clear warning signs to the Ukraine crisis, says Greg Austin. "If we want to get that future plan right, we do need to have some understanding of what went wrong." Read more 

EWI’s Danila Bochkarev busts some prevailing myths and explains why the Ukraine crisis is a political earthquake and not an energy quake. Read more 

Bochkarev says the recent China-Russia gas deal is more practical than political. Read more 

Firestein, a Perot fellow and vice president for the Strategic Trust-Building Initiative and Track 2 Diplomacy, spoke during Panel II on Cross-Strait Military and Security Issues. He noted that the current legal and policy architecture governing U.S. actions toward Taiwan “has created a context within which Taiwan itself, China-Taiwan relations, and U.S.-China relations have been able to develop and blossom despite profound differences between the sides over several major issues.”

However, he stressed the need for a new approach to implementing these policies in a manner that would keep pace with developments in the region and help ease cross-Strait military tensions. “As deeply rooted as it is, and given the trajectory generated by existing policies as currently implemented, this fundamental state of tension could well outlive most of us in this room,” he predicted. Firestein recommended incremental adjustments in U.S. annual arms deliveries to Taiwan—ideally at the same time that China withdraws a portion of its short-range ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan—and notifications to Congress of such arms sales on a regular, predictable and normalized schedule. He argued that these adjustments could be made while maintaining policies in place for U.S.-Taiwan relations, continuing the sale of defensive arms to Taiwan in the future and continuing to encourage and commit to promoting relations with Taiwan within the constraints of U.S.-China policy. He made it clear that there could be no progress without the participation of the U.S., China and Taiwan.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) was created by the U.S. Congress in October 2000. The Commission’s legislative mandate is to monitor, investigate and submit to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China. The Commission provides recommendations to Congress for legislative and administrative action. 

Click here for full text of testimony and video (Panel II begins at 2:11:48).

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Oral testimony transcript

Q & A transcript

Internal Security News

• The New York Times reported that Ukrainian border guards abandoned their posts in the face of attacks from pro-Russian separatists, leaving Ukraine’s borders with Russia undefended and fully open. The city of Luhansk, it alleged, is nearly totally under rebel control.  
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Ukrainian State Border Guard Service closed a number of checkpoints on its border with Russia in the Luhansk region.
   
• Separatist rebels took two Ukrainian military bases in the eastern region of Luhansk as fighting continues near the rebel-held town of Sloviansk.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic alleged that Ukraine’s President-elect Petro Poroshenko plans to “do the dirtiest work” in the eastern parts of the country before his inauguration.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The parliament of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic issued an appeal to compatriots abroad, in which it asks them to provide aid.
   

Diplomacy News

• The G7 leaders meeting in Brussels said they were fully behind Petro Poroshenko. The summit's EU hosts defended Ukraine's "constitutional right" to restore order in the east, and called on Russia to stop interfering in Ukraine and take steps to de-escalate the situation.
   
• President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy stated that Ukraine has every right to conduct a military operation in the south and east of the country.
   
• President Obama and allies said Russia has a chance to begin to resolve the Ukrainian crisis and rebuild trust with the West, but they warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country would face harsher sanctions if he fails to take steps to de-escalate the situation.
   
• (RIA Novosti) US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Ukrainian President-elect Petro Poroshenko to prove that Russia is involved in the independence movement in the eastern regions of Ukraine.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia’s president Putin met British Prime Minister David Cameron and French leader Francois Hollande on June 5, the Kremlin press service said. On Friday, June 6, Vladimir Putin will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Moscow raised the issue of Kyiv using heavy armaments in its special operations against independence supporters in eastern Ukraine at an OSCE session.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian ambassador to Kyiv Mikhail Zurabov was scheduled attend the inauguration of Petro Poroshenko as Ukrainian president on June 7, marking his return to duties in Kyiv. 
   
• US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the United States will strengthen its presence in the Black Sea region using part of a $1 billion fund promised to NATO allies on Russia's borders, and will continue to send warships to the area.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that the West seeks the settlement of the situation in Ukraine through talks with Russia and diplomatic contacts, not through threats.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia’s Border Guard Service said that all the checkpoints on Russia’s border with Ukraine in the southern Rostov Region are operating in a normal mode.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian PM Mednedev stated that Russia has already received around 4,000 Ukrainian refugees. “People are frightened, scared. At the same time, the Ukrainian government fails to notice a humanitarian problem, says there are no refugees. It’s lies and it’s sad to hear it.”
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich dismissed as “baseless” Kiev’s allegations of Russian arms supplies to independence supporters in eastern Ukraine.
   

International Observation Missions News

• (ITAR-TASS) The OSCE has ‘practically withdrawn ‘all its observers from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
   

Governance News 

• The Ukrainian Interior Ministry designated the 'people's governor' of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Pavlo Hubarev, and the 'prime minister' of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, Vasyl Nikitin as “wanted”. 

Internal Security News

• (Interfax Ukraine) The active phase of the anti-terrorist operation near Sloviansk continued, with two Ukrainian servicemen reported killed and over 45 wounded from June 3-4. Separatists reportedly wielded artillery and automatic weapons, and Ukrainian media reported many residents fleeing the area. 
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Interim Ukrainian President Turchynov instructed National Security and Defense Council Secretary Andriy Parubiy, along with a number of agencies, to urgently consider whether it would be appropriate to impose martial law on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
   
• The Marynivka border checkpoint in Shakhtarsk district in Donetsk region was fired on by separatists in the early hours of June 4. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) A spokesman for the pro-Russian militia in Sloviansk said claimed the separatists had shot down two Ukrainian warplanes on June 3. 
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Ukrainian State Border Service redeployed the personnel of the Luhansk border guard detachment to another “safer” location after numerous assaults from “well-armed” separatist militants. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian media cited the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic as claiming that Ukrainian servicemen shot and killed more than 25 people in the hospital of Krasny Liman.
   
• An OSCE investigation into the explosion at the regional administration building in Luhansk on June 2, which separatists claimed was the result of an airstrike by Ukrainian forces while the commander of the Kyiv’s “anti-terrorist operation” claimed it originated within the building, determined that the explosion was the result of a strike from the air, stating that “these strikes were the result of non-guided rockets shot from an aircraft." An independent CNN investigation came to the same conclusion. 

Diplomacy News

• U.S. President Barack Obama voiced his support for Ukraine's newly elected President Poroshenko and called for the international community to "stand solidly behind" him, on a visit to Europe dominated by the crisis in Ukraine.
   
• Speaking from Poland, Obama also condemned Russia’s “dark tactics” and “aggression,”stating that the West “will not accept Russia's occupation of Crimea or its violations of Ukraine's sovereignty”, adding that "as we've been reminded by Russia's aggression in Ukraine, our free nations cannot be complacent in pursuit of the vision we share - a Europe that is whole and free and at peace." 
   
• (RIA Novosti) NATO is currently considering numerous assistance requests from Ukraine that include lethal aid, General Philip Breedlove, the alliance’s supreme commander in Europe, said.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow is not considering a return to the G8 format, but is open to cooperation and will continue to participate in G20 work. 
   
• (RIA Novosti) The second volume of the 'White Book', a Russian Foreign Ministry work on human rights violations in Ukraine, is scheduled to be released in June and will be available in a digital version. “"We hope not a single violation will be left unnoticed," said a Ministry spokesman. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia’s Foreign Ministry Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Supremacy of Law said that what has happened in Ukraine’s south-east cannot occur in Europe. “The events in Luhansk and Sloviansk surpass all sad records.”
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it was never Russia’s intention to destabilize the situation in Ukraine or send its troops to invade the country’s south and east. “There are neither military personnel nor Russian instructors in southeastern Ukraine,” Putin stressed. When asked whether Moscow ever planned to absorb Ukraine or push it to the brink of a crisis, Putin said, “No, we never did or will ever do anything like that.”
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister stated that Russia is not planning to submit to the United Nations Security Council an initiative on imposing a no-fly zone over the territory of Eastern Ukraine.
   
• The United States handed back its only Central Asian airbase to the government of Russia's close ally Kyrgyzstan.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that Russia’s actions threaten the stability and security of the entire Euro-Atlantic area.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia's Head of Presidential Administration, Sergei Ivanov, said that NATO advances toward the Russian border are more about “cheap politics” than military issues.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) An EU spokesman stated that Europe plans no short-term measures to block construction of the South Stream pipeline.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Cyprus’s economic ties with Russia, which include about US $100 billion in investments between the two countries, could be severed if the European Union applies a third round of sanctions over Russia’s role in the Ukrainian unrest.
   
• Ukrainian President-elect Poroshenko stated that Kyiv expects the world to support it in settling the Crimea problem, following a meeting in Warsaw with US President Obama. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian energy giant Gazprom delayed a deadline for Naftogaz Ukrainy’s transfer on advance payment from June 9 to 10 to accommodate a holiday in Ukraine on June 9. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a telegram to Petro Poroshenko congratulating him on being elected as the President of Ukraine.
   
• A Russian fighter jet buzzed dangerously close to a U.S. military plane in April, a U.S. official said, describing the fly-by as "straight out of a movie." The Russian jet flew within 100 feet of the nose of a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane over the Sea of Okhotsk between Russia and Japan, a Defense Department official said.
   

International Observation Missions News

• (Interfax Ukraine) The OSCE stated that it still has had no contact with two missing teams of observers, believed to have been taken by separatists in eastern Ukraine on May 26 and 29 respectively. 
   
• (RIA Novosti) The authorities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic stated that they are unable to guarantee the safety of the OSCE observers working in the region of Donetsk.
   

Governance News 

• President-elect Poroshenko said he would announce a plan for the peaceful resolution of the conflict in the east of the country soon after his inauguration on June 7.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine)  Poroshenko stated that he intends to present a “peace plan” immediately after his inauguration.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The head of the Party of Regions registered a draft resolution suggesting to the Verkhovna Rada that the International Criminal Court be involved in an investigation into whether a June 2 explosion in Luhansk was the result of a Ukrainian airstrike. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The Verkhovna Rada turned down a proposal to hold a debate on the denunciation of an agreement on a visa-free regime with Russia.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Acting President Turchynov went to eastern Ukraine “due to the situation there.” He visited a command post near Sloviansk in Donetsk. 
   
• Poroshenko said that he favors dialogue with Ukraine's east after early elections to the Verkohvna Rada and to local councils.

Internal Security News

• (Interfax Ukraine) Two Ukrainian military were killed and 42 injured during an active phase of the anti-terrorist operation in Sloviansk. 
   
• Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the military actions at the edge of insurgent-held Sloviansk and in the nearby village of Semenivka are an “active offensive phase” of the government’s anti-terrorism operation.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Ukrainian State Border Guard Service stated that the headquarters of the Luhansk border guard unit remained besieged by armed groups, adding that the storming could resume any time.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) According to the Donetsk regional Administration, approximately 15,000 people have left Donetsk amid ongoing hostilities between Ukrainian government forces and the armed proponents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. In addition, about 40% of those inhabiting Sloviansk have left the city.
   
• Ukraine’s acting Prosecutor General Oleh Makhnitsky said that a total of 181 people, including 59 Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen, have died as a result of armed clashes in the eastern regions of Ukraine.
   
• (RIA Novosti) A spokesman for the self-proclaimed ‘People’s Republic of Luhansk’ called the airstrike on the city center, which killed eight, a war crime committed by the Kyiv authorities.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Royal Dutch Shell temporarily halted drilling for shale gas on the border of Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Donetsk regions to protect its personnel from clashes that intensified between anti-Kyiv activists in the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Ukrainian army.
   

Diplomacy News

• (RIA Novosti) Moscow officially informed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) about its decision to halt bilateral cooperation and skip the summer session.
   
• Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk stated that Ukraine has filed two lawsuits with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding Crimea's annexation and Russia's liability to Ukraine.
   
• NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the alliance still considered Crimea a territory of Ukraine and urged Russia to give the territory back.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Rasmussen reiterated that NATO does not see military action as a right way to solve the crisis in Ukraine and favors political and diplomatic settlement.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mikhail Koval Ukraine stated that Ukraine receives only non-lethal weapons from NATO countries.
   
• The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its regret over the politicized reaction of a number of members of the United Nations Security Council to the Russian draft resolution calling for humanitarian corridors to be open in southeast Ukraine, claiming that its motion was entirely humanitarian. 
   
• (RIA Novosti) A White House statement indicated that US President Barack Obama would request that Congress approve a $1 billion plan to boost US military presence in Eastern Europe.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukraine's Foreign Ministry reported that about 20 heads of state and government confirmed their participation in President-elect Poroshenko’s inauguration ceremony on June 7. Attendees will include Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, and OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Ukraine's Acting Prime Minister Yatsenyuk urged the European Union to block the planned Russian South Stream gas pipeline, currently under construction and expected to transfer Russian oil and gas to central and southern Europe via Black Sea bypassing Ukraine.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) President-elect Poroshenko was slated to meet with the Polish, French, and German presidents, along with US President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, during a trip to Poland and France from June 3-6. 
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the WWII D-Day ceremonies in Normandy, France, on June 6. A meeting between Putin and Obama was not planned. 
   
• French President Hollande will host two separate dinners hours apart to keep US President Obama and Russian President Putin apart during visits to Paris. 
   
• (RIA Novosti) An Italian reconnaissance vessel, the Elettra, was expected to arrive in the Black Sea by June 15. It will replace a French frigate, leaving the number of NATO ships in the area at 3. 
   
• Russian President Vladimir Putin intended to issue instructions to his secretariat and the government on providing assistance to refugees from the southeastern regions of Ukraine and residents of Crimea experiencing difficulties with acquiring Russian citizenship due to problems with residency registration.
   

International Observation Missions News

• (ITAR-TASS) The OSCE announced that it was reducing the number of observers in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Eastern Ukraine for security reasons.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The OSCE stated that observers being held in east Ukraine were “safe.”
   

Governance News 

• (Interfax Ukraine) The Verkhovna Rada ruled that the newly elected president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, will be inaugurated at the Rada on Saturday, June 7.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) 20 members of the Verkhovna Rada left the Party of Regions faction. 

Internal Security News

• (Interfax Ukraine) About 500 representatives of the armed formations fighting against the Ukrainian army continued storming the control post of the Luhansk border squadron in a firefight that lasted throughout the day of June 2. Reports indicated that at least five separatists had been killed.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Ukraine’s ‘special operation’ against pro-Russian militants in the country’s southeast could last as long as one year, said Semen Semenchenko, commander of the Donbass battalion, a pro-Kyiv militia set up by the Right Sector nationalist movement.
   
• At least two persons were killed in an explosion at Luhansk Regional State Administration, director of the healthcare department of Luhansk Regional State Administration Pavlo Malysh said.
   
•  (ITAR-TASS) Militants claimed that one person was killed and ten wounded in an alleged bomb attack by the Ukrainian Air Force on the building of the regional administration in the east Ukrainian city of Luhansk.
   
• The spokesman of the Ukrainian ‘anti-terrorist’ operation stated that the explosion at Luhansk Regional State Administration building occurred inside the building, there was no bombing from the outside or from aircraft.
   
• One person was killed and another injured as a result of armed “Donetsk People’s Republic” militants storming the Shakhtar district police department in Donetsk.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The authorities of Ukraine’s Luhansk region urged all the fighting parties to put down the arms and come to the negotiation table, according to a statement published on Luhansk regional Council’s web portal.
   

Diplomacy News

• (Interfax Ukraine) A pre-trial inquiry into Russian citizens' alleged role in setting up criminal armed formations and training mercenaries to carry out terrorist operations in Ukraine was started by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia took over the U.N. Security Council chairmanship from South Korea on June 1 and will hand it over to Rwanda on July 1.
   
• Russian FM Lavrov announced Russia’s plans to plans to submit to the UN Security Council a draft resolution on the stabilization of the situation in Ukraine. The draft will propose the creation of humanitarian corridors in the east to ensure that civilians can freely leave the conflict zone in Ukraine and will call for the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid.
   
• Russia's permanent envoy to NATO on Monday slammed the North Atlantic alliance for "unprecedented" military activity near Russian borders and for boosting military budgets.
   
• UK Prime Minister David Cameron was scheduled to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin for face-to-face talks over the Ukraine crisis in Normandy on June 6.
   
• Russia granted Ukraine another week before it will start demanding prepayment for gas, without which it has threatened to cut off supplies.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Russian Energy Ministry confirmed it had received $786.4 million from Ukraine as payment for gas deliveries in February and March.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced his surprise at the Western media’s spin of the ongoing bloodshed in southeastern Ukraine and the fact that they either hushed up the real situation or showed “different pictures” instead.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The number of Russian citizens supporting the possible reunification with southeastern regions of Ukraine decreased, while the independence of the region from both Ukraine and Russia is supported by the majority of respondents, according to the survey published on the Levada-Center pollster website.
   
• Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov stated that he believes a no-fly zone should be imposed over the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
   
• The Greek government expressed its desire to revive plans to build the South Stream gas pipeline’s branch to Greece frozen by the Russian gas monopoly.
  ​

International Observation Missions News

• (Interfax Ukraine) The OSCE said it still has no concrete demands made of it for the release of two teams of monitors seized in Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, despite reports of their release.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) A spokesman for the OSCE said that the organization will continue working in east Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions despite incidents when their observers went missing there.
   

Governance News 

• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukraine's acting president Turchynov signed a law on amendments to several legislative acts of Ukraine on the state anti-corruption policy to implement the action plan to simplify visa regime with the EU.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The nationalist Svoboda party suggested the introduction of martial law in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, party leader Oleh Tyahnybok said. He also called for the closing of borders with Russia and stated that a bill proposing these measures has already been introduced to the Rada.

Internal Security News

• The whereabouts of over 200 children whom the self-proclaimed authorities of Sloviansk intended to take out of the city is currently unknown, spokesman for the anti-terrorism operation Vladyslav Selezniov said.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Militants shot down an Mi-8 helicopter of the National Guard of Ukraine near the town of Sloviansk, and as a result, 12 Ukrainian security officers were killed.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian forces are planning to continue special operations in the southeast part of the country until they reach complete stabilization in the region, Defense Minister Mykhailo Koval said.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Seven children were injured in Sloviansk when Ukrainian armed forces fired at residential districts of the city, Russian presidential commissioner for children's rights Pavel Astakhov wrote on Twitter.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Illegal armed formations were bombarding residential houses in the town of Sloviansk with a Nona artillery cannon, Official Representative of the Special Counter-Terror Operation in the East Vladyslav Selezniov said.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) A Ukrainian soldier, injured during the attack of National Guard's military unit in Luhansk, died inthe hospital.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Ukrainian forces denied media reports that they plan to complete the special operation against militants in the eastern regions of the country by June 14, news agency UNN reported. "As for the media reports on the timeframes of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, most likely it's total nonsense."
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The mayor of the town of Makiyivka in Donetsk submitted a letter of resignation.
   

Diplomacy News

• (RIA Novosti) The press service of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) stated that the party believes that Kyiv is "illegally occupying" eight regions of the Southeast of Ukraine, and prepared a draft law on the status of these territories.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The U.S. expressed concern that pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine were using advanced weapons "from the outside" after they shot down an army helicopter killing 12 soldiers.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) detained a group of Ukrainian radicals from the far-right Right Sector movement implicated in attempted terrorist attacks in Crimea’s Simferopol, Yalta and Sevastopol, according to the agency.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the decision by organizers to reject Moscow’s application to attend next month’s international conference on missile defense signals that the West is suspending talks with Russia on this issue.
   
• U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that Russia has withdrawn thousands of its troops massed on the border with Ukraine, even as violence escalated inside that country between government troops and pro-Russian separatists.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) An unmanned aerial vehicle shot down by the Ukrainian army on May 28, according to preliminary report, was a type of "Orlan-10" UAV produced by Russia, the Security Service of Ukraine's spokesman said.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Slovenian counterpart Karl Erjavec met in Moscow to discuss the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that he believes that the Ukrainian crisis has the same background as the events in Iraq and Libya in that it was “artificially created to change the  regimes.”
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Spokesmen for both the White House and the U.S. State Department said that a de-escalation of the crisis was imperative and called on Russia "to exert pressure on the separatists to get them to end the fighting and release a group of international monitors who have been detained in eastern Ukraine since earlier this week."
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Moscow urged Kyiv to discuss humanitarian-aid deliveries to Ukraine's eastern regions.
   

International Observation News

• (Interfax Ukraine) The Luhansk region's militants released four OSCE employees and pledged not to obstruct their work further, the leader of the "People's Front" of the Luhansk region said. 
   
• The OSCE said that another one of its election-monitoring teams is missing in eastern Ukraine.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that the UN human rights delegation on a monitoring mission in Ukraine would submit its report on the situation in mid-June. She added that the Ukrainian authorities must guarantee refraining from the use of excessive force or any discriminatory steps aimed at causing damage to peaceful citizens of the country.
   

Governance News 

• (Interfax Ukraine) The central Election Commission officially announced that Petro Poroshenko won the presidency with 54.7 percent of votes.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Ukraine’s newly-elected President Poroshenko may be sworn into office on June 2 or 3, MP Serhiy Kaplin told a Ukrainian TV channel.
   
• Valery Bolotov, the head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, said he had received a proposal from the Ukrainian Interior Ministry on holding negotiations.
   
• President-elect Poroshenko said he wants to sign an economic deal with EU immediately after his inauguration.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada Chairman and Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov examined a request from Democratic Alliance leader Vasyl Hatsko and demanded that prosecutors, police and security authorities check the vote counting process in the elections to the Kyiv City Council.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Ousted former Ukrainian President Yanukovych stated that the Ukrainian presidential elections caused deaths, suffering, and “a bloodbath.” 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Ukraine will not buy Russian gas at its high price, said President-elect Poroshenko. He added that Kyiv hopes for reverse supplies from Europe and LNG supplies from the United States.

Internal Security News

• Donetsk remained insecure, with the airport closed and only the railway station open. There is no real indication as to who is in charge of the provincial capital in Ukraine's most populous oblast.
   
• Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president-elect, said the “anti-terrorist operation” against the rebels, whom he has likened to Somali pirates, “has finally really begun.” In an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper, Poroshenko said he was in close contact with the Ukrainian interim government in Kyiv.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Information Resistance group coordinator Dmitry Tymchuk stated that Ukranian security forces neutralized the number of activists of the “Donetsk People's Republic.” Ukrainian security officers identified one Caucasian among the arrested militants. “In addition to citizens of Ukraine, there have been Serbs, Russian citizens from Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan, and citizens of Abkhazia as well.”
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov denied Ukrainian media reports of participation of combat units from Chechnya in military actions in Donetsk.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) A gun battle started at 1:00 p.m. and lasted for 30 minutes near the Donetsk department of the Security Service of Ukraine, which was then occupied by pro-Russian militants. The mayor of Donetsk confirmed that gunfire was still occurring outside the building on the evening of May 28.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian media reported that at least ten “civilians” were wounded in an army attack on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Sloviansk.
   
• The intense fighting in Donetsk on May 27 resulted in at least 45 separatist fatalities.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Maidan activists said they would not leave Independence Square in central Kyiv until all their demands are met.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The State Aviation Administration of Ukraine indefinitely extended the restrictions imposed on flights to Sergey Prokofyev International Airport in Donetsk.
   

Diplomacy News

• (ITAR-TASS) The United States government is still considering possible broader sanctions against Russia over the situation in Ukraine, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki said.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian naval aviation was monitoring NATO ships in the Black Sea.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Petro Poroshenko must stop the punitive operation in the southeast of the country to “break the vicious circle of lawlessness,”  Russian Presidential Aide Sergei Glazyev told RIA Novosti.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The EU proposed that Ukraine repay half of its debt for gas supplies in April-May until Moscow and Kiev agree upon a new gas price.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday to study the possibilities of future energy cooperation with Ukraine if the country repays its gas debts.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Anti-Russian sanctions will not affect the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union, Timur Suleimenov, minister for Economic and Financial Policy of the Eurasian Economic Commission, told ITAR-TASS.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton phoned Petro Poroshenko to congratulate him on his presidential elections victory in Ukraine.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that President Vladimir Putin will decide on whether to congratulate Ukraine’s future president Petro Poroshenko only after the official results of the election are announced.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Ushakov stated that Russia has not received any official request from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic for Russian help.
   
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that the Ukrainian people were "in essence being pushed into the abyss of fratricidal war."
   
• (RIA Novosti) The French navy frigate Surcouf entered the Black Sea, becoming the third NATO ship in the area.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Moscow said it was “highly concerned” about the events in Abkhazia.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Russian Foreign Ministry was ready to dispatch humanitarian aid to Ukraine’s turbulent eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, adding it hoped Kyiv would take steps to guarantee its delivery.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk went to Germany to meet with German Chancellor Merkel and attend an energy summit. 
   

International Observation News

• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's information policy department director Yevhen Perebyinis stated that four OSCE monitors were being held by pro-Russian militants in Donetsk. “Yes, they are being detained by a pro-Russian group and work on their release is being continued now.”
   
• The administration of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic said it has no information on the location of the group of OSCE monitors who are missing in Donbas.
   
• The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has not received any information on the possibility that the OSCE mission may halt its work in Ukraine, the director of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's information department said.
   

Governance News 

• (ITAR-TASS) Kyiv resumed a call-up for compulsory military service, planning to draft 1,308 conscripts, the press service of the Kyiv administration said.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The Ukrainian government adopted a draft agreement on setting up a joint brigade with Poland and Lithuania.