Politics and Governance

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.
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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.

Internal Security News

• Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that state security forces recaptured and are in “full control” of the Donetsk airport following a lengthy operation that resulted in the death of an estimated 50 separatists. The losses of the National Guard amounted to up to five people throughout the entire forceful operation in southeastern Ukraine, the Interior Ministry said.
   
• The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office was investigating the attack carried out by unknown armed people at two posts in Donetsk region that killed three Ukrainian servicemen and injured nine.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin claimed that casualties from the operation in Donetsk may reach 100, including “20-50 civilians.”
   
• (RIA Novosti) Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaliy Yarema said that there was no need to declare a state of emergency in Eastern Ukraine where military operations are currently under way.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Yarema also stated that the counter-terror operation will be carried on the east of Ukraine until all illegal armed formations are destroyed.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) A center for training of the illegal armed formations, who prepared subversive operations in a number of Ukrainian regions, was destroyed in Luhansk region.
   

Diplomacy News

• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk declared that “bilateral negotiations [with Russia] are not considered possible without the presence of the U.S .and the European Union.”
   
• Russian President Vladimir Putin called for an immediate halt to Ukraine's military operation against pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian President-elect Petro Poroshenko and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had a telephone conversation to discuss the development of relations between the two countries and also cooperation between Ukraine and the EU.
   
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that if Ukrainian President-elect Poroshenko succeeds in establishing dialogue with citizens of Ukraine, including with residents of the southeastern regions, he will find a serious and reliable partner in Russia. 
   
• Lavrov stated that Russia is hoping that the death of Russian interpreter Andrei Mironov and Italian journalist Andrea Rochelli will be immediately investigated in Ukraine.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Lavrov also stated that a visit to Russia by Ukraine’s president-elect Petro Poroshenko has not yet been discussed.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree announcing that an election for members of Crimea’s and Sevastopol’s legislative assembly planned for next year will instead be held on September 14.
   
• The Ukrainian government accused Russia of sending "terrorists" across its border after border guards clashed with armed men in the east of the country overnight on May 26-27.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian FM Lavrov said Western countries are busy looking for excuses to continue their pressure on Russia, but these excuses are “laughable.”
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia's Ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov told a Moscow-Brussels video bridge that time and more effort will be needed to overcome the current crisis in relations between Russia and the European Union over developments in Ukraine.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Negotiations to date on holding a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels at the ambassador level have yielded no results so far, a source at the Russian Defense Ministry told ITAR-TASS.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Ukraine asked Russia to pay $1 billion for 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas stored at an underground facility belonging to Crimea's Black Sea oil and gas company Chernomorneftegaz.
   

International Observation Missions News

• The Estonian Foreign Ministry confirmed to the Interfax news agency that the OSCE team (including one Estonian) with which the organization has lost contact on May 27 was being held near Donetsk.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia’s ambassador to the OSCE confirmed that no Russians are among the OSCE observers who went missing while traveling from Luhansk to Donetsk on May 26. ““Observers should not be made hostages, they should be released,” he said.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The OSCE said it had lost contact with one of its monitoring teams in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on the evening of May 26.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian FM Lavrov stated that Ukraine’s parliament did not ratify a memorandum between Ukraine and the OSCE that ensures immunity of OSCE mission members. “Therefore, when OSCE mission employees get lost, there are no legal reasons to demand urgent measures to find them and ensure their security.”
   

Governance News 

• (ITAR-TASS) Petro Poroshenko remained the clear president-elect, holding nearly 55 percent of the 94 percent of votes counted.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The head of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission ruled out the possibility of the second round of presidential elections.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic began switching over to Russian laws.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) PM Yatsenyuk announced that a deputy minister in charge of European integration issues will be assigned to each minister in the Ukrainian government.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The CEO of Russia’s Gazprom announced that Russia is waiting for Ukraine to pay off $2 billion in gas debt by Friday.

Internal Security News

• (ITAR-TASS) Kyiv authorities admitted that it will be impossible to open part of polling stations in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on May 25.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Militant recruiting stations were opened up in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The death toll from the explosion near Volnovakha rose to 18  Ukrainian servicemen.
   
• 1 Ukrainian Donbas Volunteer Battalion member was killed and 20 were wounded in an ambush by 150-200 pro-Russian separatists in the village of Karlivka, 35 kilometers northwest of Donetsk.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Chief of the Ukrainian SBU stated that no military operations are scheduled for May 25, the day of the presidential election.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Chief of the Ukrainian SBU announced that five ‘sabotage groups’ had been neutralized on May 22-23.
   

Diplomacy News

• Russia will respect the choice of the Ukrainian people in a presidential election on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a crowd of top government officials and business executives at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Moscow will be prepared to work with the Ukrainian authorities to be formed after the presidential election, Putin said.
   
• Kyiv welcomes the statement of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the readiness to cooperate with new Ukrainian authorities following the presidential elections, acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deschytsia said.
   
• Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of a "dangerous civil war" in Ukraine as fresh violence erupted ahead of the presidential election. Putin, addressing an international economic forum in St. Petersburg, said the chaos was the result of a "state coup" in Ukraine "with support of the West, the United States." Former Soviet states must guard against wider destabilization, he said.
   
• The situation in Ukraine ahead of the May 25 presidential election was discussed at a meeting between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin and the U.S. Charge d'Affaires in Russia Sheila Gwaltney.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Foreign ministers of Estonia, Denmark and Norway travelled to Ukraine to meet with the leadership of the country.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Germany’s Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, warned against trying to hinder the approaching presidential election in Ukraine on May 25.
   
• (RIA Novosti) There is reason to believe that the results of Ukraine's upcoming presidential election will be “smoothed over,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that “color revolutions” cause obvious damage to international stability.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan agreed with Russia’s position on ‘color revolutions’ following a meeting with Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Dehghan stated that “The United States often pursues its interests in conducting ‘color revolutions’,” and “The US always comes against the countries that seek to pursue an independent policy.”
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The speaker of Russia’s State Duma lower house of parliament, Sergey Naryshkin, said that the legitimacy of the Ukrainian presidential election on May 25 was highly questionable.
   
•  (RIA Novosti) Ukraine “has practically slid into a civil war,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.
   
• Russia's top general Valery Gerasimov said that Moscow would retaliate against increased NATO activity near its border as tensions with the western alliance over Ukraine escalate.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Putin stated that problems linked to Ukraine and Crimea had been caused by lack of world trust, and alleged that without Russia’s intervention, Crimea would have seen a greater tragedy than the approximately 50 deaths in Odessa on May 2.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian FM Sergei Lavrov stated that the US sanctions against Russia can cause serious damage to relations between the two countries.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian President Putin stated that the European Union has so far announced nothing but slogans about consultations on Ukraine’s possible association with the EU. “So far there have been no consultations … besides slogans, there is nothing else.”
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Russian presidential chief-of-staff Sergei Ivanov said that Russia "will not send its observers to the presidential elections [in Ukraine]."
   
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was upbeat on the prospects for resolving the crisis in Ukraine and that doing so would help improve relations with the United States.
   

Governance News

•  (ITAR-TASS) Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko suggested that an all-Ukrainian referendum on the country’s accession to NATO be held to coincide with possible second round of presidential elections on June 15.