Daily Ukraine Crisis Updates – May 28, 2014
News | May 28, 2014
EWI offers a daily situation report on Ukraine.
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.