Internal Security News

• Ukrainian army units which had been trapped by separatists on the border with Russia broke out of the blockade and rejoined government forces, but 15 soldiers and border guards were killed in the operation.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Luhansk was completely disconnected from power and had no water, landline, and cell service for the past six days.
   
•  (RIA Novosti) The activists still occupying Kyiv’s Independence Square are protesting the new Kyiv authorities and the government’s military operation in eastern Ukraine, a Euromaidan representative said.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) First Secretary of Ukrainian Communist Party Central Committee Pyotr Simonenko told reporters in Belarus that “Poroshenko gave orders to win at any cost before August 22 and to hold a parade in Kiev on August 24.” Ukraine’s Independence Day is celebrated on August 24.
   

Diplomacy News

• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said his government is introducing sanctions against 65 companies, mainly with Russian property and Russian residents, who support and finance terrorism and are directly involved in crimes committed on Ukrainian territory. Yatsenyuk also proposed imposing sanctions on 172 citizens of Russia and other countries.
   
• Investigators in Russia announced the arrest of five Ukrainian army officers for alleged war crimes as fighting rages in eastern Ukraine.The officers from Ukraine's 72nd Mechanised Brigade are apparently among hundreds of soldiers who crossed into Russia to flee from pro-Russian rebels.
   
• The United States warned Russia that any further intervention in Ukraine would be viewed as "an invasion of Ukraine."
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Russia considers Kyiv’s decision to suspend the ceasefire at the crash site of the Malaysian Boeing passenger plane in eastern Ukraine a violation of a UN Security Council resolution demanding the cessation of all combat action in the area.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia calls for an immediate stop to the fighting in Ukraine and for effective resolution of humanitarian problems, Russian Permanent Representative to the U.N. Vitaly Churkin said.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The International Red Cross backed the proposal of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to send relief aid to southeast Ukraine, Michelle Masson, the head of the ICRC delegation to Kiev, said.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media was checking reports that Rossiya Segodnya photographer Andrei Stenin went missing in Ukraine earlier in the week. Ukraine’s Security Service denied reports that it had detained Stenin.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Forty-eight of the 449 Ukrainian servicemen who crossed into Russia had already returned home from Russia, and another five remained on the Russian side of the border. Ukrainian Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko said that Ukraine may use legal mechanisms for ensuring the return of Ukrainian servicemen held in Russia if diplomatic methods do not work.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Australian authorities were considering introducing new restrictive measures against Russia if Moscow decides to bring a "peacekeeping" contingent to Ukraine.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russia is ready to mediate talks between the Kyiv government and southeastern Ukraine “independence supporters”, the secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev told RIA Novosti.
   
• No serious results are expected from the next round of trilateral consultations between Ukraine, the European Union and Russia regarding Kyiv signing the association and free trade zone agreement with the EU, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said at a briefing.
   
• Ukraine's security chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that Kremlin-backed separatists on July 17 intended to shoot down a Russian passenger plane to give Moscow a pretext for conventionally invading Ukraine.
   

--

More Stories 

Greg Austin interprets Putin’s latest speeches and sheds light on Russia’s point-of-view. Read more

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 

Greg Austin writes "The Luhansk Border: A New Crisis Point," for New Europe. 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