Internal Security News

• A spokesman for the military operation said that twenty-three members of the Ukrainian government forces had been killed and about 100 others wounded in the operation in southeastern Ukraine over 24 hours on July 10-11. Nineteen of those soldiers were killed in a rocket attack on a motorized brigade in Zelenopillya, Luhansk region, near the Russian border. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that Kyiv would "find and destroy" the separatists responsible for the attack, which involved a Russian-made Grad rocket launcher. Poroshenko held a meeting with military and law-enforcement officials to discuss the use of Russian-made Grad multiple rocket launchers by illegal armed units against Ukrainian servicemen.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, Valeriy Bolotov, said that the Luhansk militia will soon have its own ‘air force’, claiming to have captured an SU-25 plane and armored vehicles, including a T-62 tank, during an unspecified operation. According to Bolotov, the militia forces are currently repairing and modernizing the captured armor and aircraft.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk claimed to have shot down two Ukrainian air force planes in separate incidents on July 11, one near the town of Perevalsk in the Luhansk region and another reported later in the day over the town of Dzerzhinsk in the Donetsk region. Both incidents were announced by the respective press services of the Donetsk and Luhansk ‘People’s Republics’.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) A motorway bridge was blown up in Donetsk. The bridge connected two industrial centers — the towns of Dzerzhinsk and Horlivka. A Ukrainian air force plane was shot down between the two towns later in the day.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The Ukrainian army intensified artillery gun fire at different buildings in the Luhansk region.
   
• Seized documents from the recently liberated regional Security Service of Ukraine headquarters in Sloviansk showed that the SBU building, which was used as the command center for militants in the city, may also have served as the place for secret trials and the executions of at least three prisoners.
   
• Amnesty International alleged that belligerents in eastern Ukraine are resorting to abduction and torture to intimidate their political opponents. The rights group said pro-Russian rebels commit the bulk of the crimes.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) One civilian was killed and five people were wounded in Luhansk on July 10-11 .
   
• Rebels shelled Ukrainian troops at the Donetsk airport overnight on July 10.
   
• The head of the mobilization unit of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Pavlo Hubarev, said the ‘People’s Republic’ has no plans to conduct total mobilization.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The Gukovo border checkpoint in Russia was hit by another Ukrainian shell. No significant damage was reported.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukraine established a new charitable foundation dealing with strengthening of the Ukraine's national security. The foundation will accumulate the funds of either Ukrainian citizens and organizations, and foreign representatives to reinforce national security of Ukraine. It will be headed by journalist Yuriy Butusov.
   

Diplomacy News

• (ITAR-TASS) The Ukrainian army was reinforcing its positions on the Crimean section of the state border with Russia.
   
• The European Union announced that it would publish the names of 11 individuals subject to new sanctions on July 12 in the EU Official Journal. The sanctions will enter into force at the same time.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russia announced that it would not offer another draft resolution on Ukraine to the UN Security Council; rather, it will submit “key elements that we believe are necessary to include in the text of the resolution to be adopted by the UN Security Council.”
   
•  (Interfax Ukraine) A spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council information center said that evidence of Russia’s involvement in arms supplies to militants will be displayed in Kyiv on July 12 at the memorial complex of the National Museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII). Visitors will be able to see the documents, weapons, and military equipment that were transferred to militants from Russia and that were seized by the Ukrainian military.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Moscow police detained seven armed Ukrainians on July 10. Three guns seized from the detained Ukrainians were sent for examination to determine whether they were firearms or non-lethal weapons.
   
• (RIA Novosti) NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Russian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin were set to discuss the crisis in Ukraine at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.
   
• Russia urged the European Union to refrain from implementing a free-trade pact with Ukraine until Moscow's concerns over the agreement are addressed.
• (ITAR-TASS) An inter-parliamentary contact group for Ukraine will be formed shortly, the head of the Russian delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly said.
   
• Russian President Putin travelled to South America to visit Cuba, Argentina, and Brazil.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Before the departure for South America, Putin held a meeting with permanent Security Council members to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the growing number of refugees arriving from Ukraine in Russia.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Russian Investigative Committee identified new suspects in attacks on civilian targets and the killing of a Russian reporter in Ukraine.
   

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