Internal Security News

• (Interfax Ukraine) One of the Luhansk warehouses of Ukrainian confectionary corporation Roshen, which belongs to president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, was seized by militants and stopped working after being occupied on June 16.
   
• Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists were locked in fierce fighting in the east Ukrainian town of Krasny Lyman after rebels rejected a call to lay down their arms in line with a peace plan proposed by President Petro Poroshenko.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic announced plans to establish diplomatic ties with Georgia’s former region of South Ossetia.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The bodies of paratroopers and aircrew in the downed Il-76 military transport plane of the Ukraine's Air Forces in Luhansk on June 14 were delivered to Dnipropetrovsk.
   
• (RIA Novosti) A total of five media workers had been killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the year, according to the head of the Reporters Without Borders Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was set to meet with representatives of local authorities, political circles and businesses from Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Kyiv.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian media reported that Ukrainian troops opened fire on a church in Sloviansk, killing one individual.
   

Diplomacy News

• NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that at least a few thousand more Russian troops were now at Ukraine's eastern border, a build-up he called a regrettable step backwards.
   
• The government of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic intended to open an office in Russia.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Foreign Affairs Minister of the Czech Republic said that the Czech Republic is ready to accept for treatment Ukrainian military men and civilians who have been injured during the counter-terror operation on the east of Ukraine.
   
• (RIA Novosti) A Russian Foreign Minsitry spokesman said that the West is hindering the UN Security Council’s work on a draft resolution on Ukraine and Russia has called on the Council to show its commitment to the peaceful resolution of the country’s crisis.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The EU’s foreign ministers were expected to discuss a possibility of sending a mission to Ukraine at their upcoming meeting in Luxembourg on June 24.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Hostilities in eastern Ukraine are a “civil war steadfastly heading toward genocide,” said Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and US Vice President Joe Biden discussed on the phone the implementation of a peace plan. "Biden strongly supported the persistent efforts of the head of the Ukrainian state in restoring peace and calm in eastern Ukraine.”
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Andriy Parubiy met with EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule and Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Jan Tombinski.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said that Kyiv’s unilateral demarcation of the Russian-Ukrainian border can never be legally binding.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Australian government imposed sanctions on 50 Russian and Ukrainian individuals and 11 entities due to the crisis in Ukraine.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Russian Foreign Ministry’s commissioner for human rights said that Australia’s decision to introduce sanctions against a range of Russian individuals and companies amid the Ukraine crisis is counterproductive, and warned that Moscow would retaliate.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia simplified its citizenship granting procedures for Ukrainian refugees.
   
• The chief of the Russian presidential administration stated that there are no humanitarian corridors for people who want to leave the war zone in Ukraine and people are just being forced to leave for Russia.
   
• German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that he does not expect Ukraine to become part of a 'western alliance' any time soon.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian FM Lavrov expressed concern over Kyiv’s apparent intent to replace dialogue with brute force in Ukraine’s east.
   
• (RIA Novosti) A spokesman for Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said that currently almost 19,000 refugees from Ukraine are living in Russia.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russia’s Energy Minster stated that Russia may continue talks with Ukraine only after Kyiv pays off its gas debt.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that establishing an operator for Ukraine's gas transport system and underground gas storage facilities involving companies from European Union countries and the United States will help both upgrade this system, boost its capitalization and respond to projects to build gas pipelines bypassing Ukraine.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Ukrainian parliament unveiled on its website a list of Russian media that may soon be stripped of their credentials.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he plans to sign the economic part of the EU association agreement on June 27, during the Ukraine-EU summit in Brussels.
   

International Observation Missions

• (Interfax Ukraine) The OSCE re-established contact with two groups of monitors who went missing in eastern Ukraine at the end of May, but neither group had been freed.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman stated that Russia is ready to contribute to releasing OSCE observers in Ukraine but added that it is impossible to guarantee safety for the OSCE observers under the conditions of Kyiv's “punitive operation."
   

Governance

• (ITAR-TASS) Irina Gerashchenko, the Ukrainian president’s envoy for peace settlement in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, said that early parliamentary elections in Ukraine should take place in the autumn.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) President Poroshenko stated that Ukraine will present the president's peace plan for resolving the situation in the east of the country at the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg on June 23.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Ukraine’s parliament upheld the president’s proposal to relieve outspoken Ukrainian Acting Foreign Minister Andrii Deshchytsia of his duties.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Verkhovna Rada appointed Pavlo Klimkin as Ukraine's foreign minister.
   
• The Verkhovna Rada confirmed candidates appointed on June 18 by President Petro Poroshenko. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The Ukrainian government allocated almost 200 million hryvnias ($16.8 million) to the Interior Ministry to purchase military equipment and personal armor for the ministry’s personnel and the National Guard.

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