Separatistas Ucranianos amenazan con dividir a la ex república soviética en favor de Rusia

Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea anuncian sanciones al tiempo que piden paz y buscan diálogo, el presidente ruso Vladimir Putin llama a su homólogo ucraniano Viktor Yanukóvich desde el Kremlin mientras Rusia envía dinero y le abarata el gas que le vende. También lo llama el vicepresidente de EE.UU., Joe Biden, para que detenga la represión. ¿Qué tiene Ucrania para hacer que todos estos actores estén tan dispuestos a actuar?
Es para muchos el vértice donde se disputa una suerte de renovada Guerra Fría, en la propia geografía de Europa.
Esa tensión dejó al menos 21 manifestantes muertos el jueves, así como centenares de heridos en los últimos días. Los choques entre opositores y fuerzas de seguridad, especialmente en la capital, Kiev, se han vuelto constantes. Y un reciente intento de tregua fracasó.

Todo comenzó en noviembre, cuando Yanukóvich optó por rechazar un acuerdo para profundizar los lazos con la Unión Europea (UE), que habían estado negociando por tres años, a cambio de extender su acercamiento a Rusia.
¿O comenzó antes?
El cuello inmóvil
Durante casi todo el siglo XX Ucrania formó parte de la Unión Soviética, hasta su independencia en 1991.
Desde entonces, su mirada empezó a girar, desde Oriente hacia Occidente, desde Rusia hacia la Unión Europea; con el ejemplo de Polonia, Eslovaquia y Hungría -todos ellos ya miembros de la UE- en el horizonte.
Pero el cuello de Ucrania no termina de completar ese movimiento, porque dos fuerzas encontradas lo han dejado paralizado.
Por un lado, el impulso de acercarse hacia Europa, promovido fundamentalmente por las jóvenes generaciones que habitan en el oeste del país.
Por el otro, un oriente y sur más cercanos a Rusia -donde de hecho se habla ruso y no ucraniano- que añora los años de la integración Soviética.
Y de cada lado, los intereses y presiones de grandes potencias mundiales.
El gas

Ucrania depende de Rusia para el abastecimiento de gas y por su territorio pasan gasoductos que transportan gas ruso a la UE.
Muchos analistas creen que la crisis del gas entre 2006 y 2009 fue una consecuencia de las tensiones políticas que ya entonces había en Ucrania, entre acercarse más a Rusia o a la UE.
Esas tensiones estaban en el corazón de la Revolución Naranja de 2004, en la que el actual presidente, Viktor Yanukóvich perdió poder, al tiempo que ascendieron líderes más favorables a Occidente, como Viktor Yuschenko y Yulia Tymoshenko.
Pero esos políticos no lograron satisfacer las expectativas populares, lo que llevó a que Yanukóvich ganara las elecciones en 2010.
"Eran corruptos, incompetentes. Entonces la gente votó por Viktor Yanukóvich por la desesperanza ante el modo en que su país era manejado", le dijo al programa PM de Radio 4 de la BBC el editor internacional de la revista The Economist, Edward Lucas, también autor del libro "La nueva Guerra Fría: la Rusia de Putin y su amenaza a Occidente".
"Eso, desafortunadamente, abrió la puerta a Rusia, y Rusia forzó a Ucrania a decirle que no al acuerdo comercial con la Unión Europea, y arrastró a Ucrania hacia el lado de Rusia", agregó Lucas.
En una reunión el 17 de diciembre de 2013 entre Putin y Yanukovich, Rusia se comprometió a comprar US$15.000 millones en bonos del estado ucraniano y reducir el precio del gas que le vende al país.

Socios comerciales


Putin y Yanukóvich, reunidos en el Kremlin.
Rusia es además el principal socio comercial de Ucrania.
En 2012, según cifras del Servicio Estatal de Estadísticas de Ucrania, las exportaciones del país a Rusia fueron de US$68.800 millones, mientras importó por valor de US$84.700 millones de su vecino.
Entretanto, los intercambios con la UE representan un tercio del comercio exterior de Ucrania.
En 2012 el país exportó por US$20.000 millones al bloque, del que compró productos y servicios por US$32.600 millones (de acuerdo con cifras de la Comisión Europea).
En su mayoría las exportaciones de Ucrania a la UE están beneficiadas por un esquema de exenciones tarifarias.
Esferas de influencia
Pero para Mark Mardell, editor de la BBC para Norteamérica, el asunto va más allá del mero comercio exterior.
"La batalla por Ucrania es acerca de la influencia y alcance de Occidente en el mundo", dice.
"Desde la caída de la Unión Soviética, Rusia ha perdido catastróficamente frente a Occidente", agrega.
"No sólo exaliados como Polonia o República Checa son parte de la UE, sino que también se han sumado al bloque exmiembros de la URSS, como Lituania y Letonia. Y ahora el histórico aliado ruso, Serbia, también decidió sumarse".
Y Rusia no tiene intenciones de dar el brazo a torcer con Ucrania.
El canciller ruso Sergei Lavrov dijo en estos días: "Muchos países occidentales intentan de toda forma interferir, alientan a la oposición a actuar por fuera de la legalidad, hasta coquetean con los militantes, dan ultimátums, amenazan con sanciones".
Ya en 2010 Ucrania firmó con Rusia un acuerdo por el que le ofreció un descuento del 30% en el gas natural que le vende, a cambio de que Ucrania extendiera por 25 años el arriendo de la ciudad de Sebastopol, en el Mar Negro, donde Rusia tiene una importante base naval.
Los manifestantes contrarios a Yanukóvich creen además que el presidente está encaminándose hacia la inclusión de Ucrania en la Unión Euroasiática, una unión aduanera impulsada por Putin, de la que ya forman parte Bielorrusia y Kazajistán.
Tanto Putin como Yanukóvich rechazan esta acusación.
Debilidad occidental

Lucas, de The Economist, cree que Putin y su gente en el Kremlin, "nunca aceptaron los términos del acuerdo de 1991, luego del colapso de la Unión Soviética".
"Quieren recuperar una parte de Europa que ellos creen que les pertenece, que es parte de su esfera de influencia".
Para él, si eso sucediera, sería "aterrador".
"El occidente del país no va a aceptar el mandato de Moscú o de Kiev, si es en nombre de Moscú; pelearon una guerra de de guerrillas por diez años entre 1945 y 1955, que fue finalmente aplastada brutalmente por Stalin".
Si esto sucediera, dice Lucas, se "puede trastornar la provisión de gas y petróleo de Europa".
Y tanto él como Mardell, de la BBC, ven falta de firmeza en la UE y en EE.UU.
Para Mardell, "Europa se muestra débil" y "Barack Obama da la imagen de estar desinteresado en el extranjero".
Silencio
"El sonido más inquietante en las calles de Kiev no es el de las balas o el de las explosiones, es el sonido del silencio", se le escuchó decir el miércoles en la radio al enviado de la BBC a Ucrania, Steve Rosenberg.
En el centro de la ciudad no había coches, apenas gente caminando por las aceras.
Era como si las cosas se hubieran detenido, el aire contenido, esperando una definición.
¿Hacia dónde terminará girando el cuello de Ucrania? ¿Hacia el este o hacia el oeste?
Fechas clave
• 21 de noviembre de 2013: Ucrania suspende las preparaciones de un acuerdo comercial con la Unión Europea y se disparan las protestas.
• 30 de noviembre: Policía antidisturbio actúa contra los manifestantes, lesionando a decenas de personas y profundizando las tensiones.
• 17 de diciembre: Rusia acuerda comprar bonos del gobierno de Ucrania y bajar el precio del gas que le vende al país.
• 25 de diciembre: Nuevas protestas luego de que la periodista y activista contraria al gobierno Tetyana Chornovol es golpeada.
• 19 de enero de 2014: Las protestas se vuelven violentas cuando los manifestantes prenden fuego a autobuses de la policía y lanzan cócteles molotov; la policía con balas de goma, gas lacrimógeno y cañones de agua. Varios mueren en los días siguientes.
• 18 de febrero: El día más sangriento de las protestas, en que varios manifestantes y policías pierden la vida.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2014/02/140220_ucrania_analisis_por_que_importa_nc.shtml

Yalta: Cold War memories and Crimea


Origins of old Cold War found in Crimean resort, as Black Sea peninsula provides potential birthplace for new one.
modified: 17 Mar 2014 20:10



Yalta, like much of Crimea's Black Sea coast, has a sense of faded glory. It was a favourite resort for the aristocracy in the early years of the 20th century, and later, in Soviet times, a popular holiday destination for the masses.

These days, Russians and Ukrainians with money prefer to go further afield for sun and sand - to Turkey, Greece, Dubai or even Thailand.

But Yalta's name endures in our consciousness, because it was the site of a famous conference in February 1945, that brought together 'the Big Three' of the Allies during the Second World War: Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill. They met in the Tsar's old summer palace, Livadia, to agree on the final stages of victory against Hitler's Germany, and to draw Europe's borders in the new post-war era.

Now, of course, there is much talk of Eastern Europe's borders being redrawn once more. Crimea seems destined to return to Russian control. Perhaps eastern Ukraine will follow.

And much of the language of the Second World War is being invoked once more; Russians believe the new government in Kiev is led by 'fascists' and talk of how the heroic sacrifices of the 'Great Patriotic War' should not be in vain.

Western politicians, for their part, draw analogies between Hitler's seizure of the Sudetenland and Vladimir Putin's audacious advance into Crimea. From Kiev to New York, Putin is crudely characterised by protestors as a second Hitler.

So, it seemed strangely appropriate to visit the Livadia Palace this week, and see where the three leaders put pen to paper.

They managed to reach a clever compromise in 1945. The Russian language version of their agreement is signed by Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, in that order. The English language version is signed in the opposite order; by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. That way, it is said, everyone kept face.

Historians disagree on the significance of Yalta. Some maintain that Britain and the United States betrayed the peoples of Eastern Europe, allowing them to come under Soviet domination.

Others say that Roosevelt and Churchill did the best they could under the circumstances, and that it was Stalin who reneged on his promise to hold free elections in the various countries of Eastern Europe that he'd recaptured from the Nazis.

Either way, any discussion on the origins of the Cold War is bound to involve Yalta. It's a bleak thought, on an otherwise cheering spring day in the Livadia Palace. And, by a strange irony, if we are now watching the beginning of a new Cold War, I suspect historians will be writing about this month's events in Crimea for many decades to come.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/europe/yalta-cold-war-memories-and-crimea

Reclaiming Crimea: Is it legal?
President Vladimir Putin signs a treaty making the Ukrainian region part of the Russian Federation.
Inside Story Last updated: 18 Mar 2014 18:42


Russian President Vladimir Putin has defied the U.S., UK and Ukraine to embrace Crimea as part of Russia. Putin signed a bill to absorb the Black Sea peninsular into the Russian Federation, saying he had corrected a "historical injustice".

The Ukraine says it will never recognise Crimea's independence.

In a televised address to the nation, Putin said: "Our partners including the US prefer not to follow international law, but the law of the strongest. They think about their exceptionality. They think they can decide the fate of the world - only them. They act as they wish, here and there - they just use their force against sovereign states. They build their politics - who is not with us, is against us."

Putin has drawn comparisons with Kosovo, when the U.S. supported its secession from Serbia.

He said: "The U.S. says Kosovo is a unique case. But why is it so special? This is not just double standards. It is primitive and straightforward cynicism. You cannot change everything to suit your own interests."

It is a crisis pitting national interests against international law. But who is to decide on issues of sovereignty, secession and self-rule?

Tymoshenko confirma la autenticidad de la llamada filtrada, pero afirma que el comentario sobre limpieza etnica fué un montaje.


Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine's former prime minister, has denounced a tape broadcast by Russian state television where she is heard urging the "wiping out" of Russians and President Vladimir Putin, calling it a montage.

Tymoshenko, who was released from jail after the fall of President Viktor Yanukovich, confirmed the authenticity of the phone call on Tuesday, but said the passage about Ukraine's eight million ethnic Russians had been manipulated, the AFP news agency reported.
"One has to take up arms and go wipe out these damn 'katsaps' together with their leader," the female voice said in the leaked phone call posted on YouTube and broadcast extensively on Monday evenining on Russian television.

The word "katsap" is a derogatory Ukrainian term for Russians.

During the conversation, Tymoshenko is said to discuss Russia's seizing of Ukraine's Russian-speaking peninsula of Crimea with Ukrainian MP and former government official Nestor Shufrych.

"I am sorry that I am not able to be there and am not in charge of these processes, they wouldn't have had a f***ing chance of getting Crimea off me," she said in the leaked phone conversation.

"I would have found a way to finish off these b******s. I am hoping that I will use all my connections and will get the whole world to rise up so that not even scorched earth would be left of Russia," she added.

Tymoshenko did not deny talking about how she would handle the Crimea crisis and apologised for using foul language.

"In fact, I said: 'Russians in Ukraine are Ukrainians. Cheers to FSB," she said, referring to the Russian security service who she clearly believes were behind the bugging of the phone call.

Crimea crisis

Meanwhile, Ihor Tenyukh, Ukraine's acting defence minister, was dismissed on Tuesday over his handling of Russia's annexation of Crimea, after it emerged that less than a quarter of the soldiers on the peninsula planned to stay in the Ukrainian military.
Tenyukh, appointed a month ago under an interim government, offered his resignation in a speech to parliament following criticism of the way Ukraine pulled its military out of Crimea.

Politicians initially rejected the offer but after consultations between party faction leaders, parliament's speaker and acting Ukrainian President Oleksander Turchinov, the assembly voted to remove him.

Critics said Tenyukh should have been quicker to order the pullout from Crimea, which began on Monday, to better safeguard Ukrainian servicemen, many of whom were trapped in their bases surrounded by Russian soldiers and local militiamen.

Politicians elected Mykhailo Koval, head of the Ukrainian border guard, to replace Tenyukh.

Fearful of Russia's takeover, thousands of the troubled peninsula's residents flee for western Ukraine.
Last updated: 27 Mar 2014 02:06

As world leaders consider further sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea, some Crimean Tatars say they're so frightened by Russia's takeover, they're fleeing to Ukraine.

Authorities in the western city of Lviv say more than a thousand Tartars have arrived there.

Russian forces now control virtually all the Crimean peninsula's military installations, and regulate the borders.

Al Jazeera's Nick Spicer reports from Crimea.

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2014/03/crimea-muslim-tatars-flee-ukraine-201432712615446270.html

Timeline: Ukraine's political crisis


Kiev's Independence Square was the focal point of much of the initial violence [Reuters]

Key events in Ukrainian anti-government protests that have been followed by political upheaval and international crisis.
Last updated: 12 Apr 2014 11:23

Kiev's Independence Square was the focal point of much of the initial violence [Reuters]

Since the removal of President Viktor Yanukovich through deadly anti-government protests, Ukraine has called for fresh presidential elections on May 25.

The move was countered by the Crimea administration that voted overwhelmingly to join Russia in a referendum deemed illegitimate by the US and EU, but welcomed by Russia.

As the government in Kiev continues to emphasise the need for a united Ukraine, and world leaders strive to avoid military conflict, here is a timeline of some of the events that have led to the current situation.
NOVEMBER

Nov 21: Yanukovich announces abandonment of a trade agreement with the EU, seeking closer ties with Moscow.

Nov 30: Public support grows for pro-EU anti-government protesters as images of them bloodied by police crackdown spread online and in the media.
DECEMBER

Dec 1: About 300,000 people protest in Kiev's Independence Square. The City Hall is seized by activists.

Dec 17: Russian President Vladimir Putin announces plans to buy $15bn in Ukrainian government bonds and a cut in cost of Russia's natural gas for Ukraine.
JANUARY

Jan 16: Anti-protest laws are passed and quickly condemned as "draconian".

Jan 22: Two protesters die after being hit with live ammunition. A third dies following a fall during confrontation with police.

Jan 28: Mykola Azarov resigns as Ukraine's prime minister and the parliament repeals anti-protest laws that caused the demonstrations to escalate in the first place.

Jan 29: A bill is passed, promising amnesty for arrested protesters if seized government buildings are relinquished.

Jan 31: Opposition activist Dmytro Bulatov found outside Kiev after being imprisoned and tortured for eight days, apparently at the hands of a pro-Russian group.
FEBRUARY

Feb 16: Opposition activists end occupation of Kiev City Hall. In exchange 234 jailed protesters are released.

Feb 18: More street clashes leave at least 18 dead and around a hundred injured. Violence begins when protesters attack police lines after the parliament stalls in passing constitutional reform to limit presidential powers. Protesters take back government buildings.

Feb 20: Kiev sees its worst day of violence for almost 70 years. At least 88 people are killed in 48 hours.Footage shows government snipers shooting at protesters from rooftops.
Feb 21: Protest leaders, the political opposition and Yanukovich agree to form a new government and hold early elections. Yanukovich's powers are slashed. The parliament votes to free Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister, from prison. Yanukovich flees Kiev after protesters take control of the capital.

Feb 22: Ukraine politicians vote to remove Yanikovich. Tymoshenko is freed from prison and speaks to those gathered in Kiev. May 25 is set for fresh presidential elections.

Feb 23: Ukraine's parliament assigns presidential powers to its new speaker, Oleksandr Turchinov, an ally of Tymoshenko. Pro-Russian protesters rally in Crimea against the new Kiev administration.

Feb 24: Ukraine's interim government draws up a warrant for Yanukovich's arrest.

Feb 25: Pro-Russian Aleksey Chaly is appointed Sevastopol’s de facto mayor as rallies in Crimea continue.

Feb 26: Crimean Tartars supporting the new Kiev administration clash with pro-Russia protesters in the region.

Feb 27: Pro-Kremlin armed men seize government buildings in Crimea. Ukraine government vows to prevent a country break-up as Crimean parliament set May 25 as the date for referendum on region’s status. Yanukovich is granted refuge in Russia.

Feb 28: Armed men in unmarked combat fatigues seize Simferopol international airport and a military airfield in Sevestopol. UN Security Council holds an emergency closed-door session to discuss the situation in Crimea.

Moscow says military movements in Crimea are in line with previous agreements to protect its fleet position in the Black Sea. Yanukovich makes his first public appearance, in southern Russia.
MARCH

March 1: Russian upper house of the parliament approves a request by Putin to use military power in Ukraine.

March 2: A convoy of hundreds of Russian troops heads towards the regional capital of Crimea. Arseny Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's new prime minister, accuses Russia of declaring war on his country.

March 3: Russia's Black Sea Fleet tells Ukrainian navy in Sevastopol in Crimea to surrender or face a military assault.

March 4: In his first public reaction to the crisis in Ukraine, Putin says his country reserves the right to use all means to protect its citizens in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces fire warning shots on unarmed Ukrainian soldiers marching towards an airbase in Sevastopol.

March 6: Crimea's parliament votes unanimously in favour of joining Russia. Hours later, the city council of Sevastopol in Crimea announces joining Russia immediately.

March 11: The EU proposes a package of trade liberalisation measures to support Ukraine's economy. Crimean regional parliament adopts a "declaration of independence".

March 12: Obama meets with Yatsenyuk at the White House in a show of support for the new Ukrainian government and declares the US would "completely reject" the Crimea referendum.

March 13: Ukraine's parliament votes to create a 60,000-strong National Guard to defend the country.

March 15: UN Security Council members vote overwhelmingly in support of a draft resolution condemning an upcoming referendum on the future of Crimea as illegal. Russia vetoed the action and China abstained.

March 16: Crimea's referendum goes ahead, with official results stating that at least 95 percent of voters support union with Russia.

March 17: The US and Europe put asset freezes and visa bans on individuals involved in the Crimean breakaway.

March 18: Putin signs treaty absorbing Crimea into Russia, the first time the Kremlin expands the country's borders since World War II. Kiev says the conflict has reached a "military stage" after a Ukrainian soldier was shot and killed by gunmen who stormed a military base in Simferopol, the first such death in the region since pro-Russian forces took over in late February.

March 19: Pro-Russian activists, apparently Crimean self-defence forces, overtake Sevastopol base without using violence.

March 20: EU leaders condemn Russia's annexation of Crimea. EU and US extend the list of individuals targeted for sanctions.

March 21: Russia backs off from tit-for-tat sanctions after US targets Putin's inner circle and EU adds 12 names to sanctions list. Ukraine says it will never accept loss of Crimea while Moscow signs a bill to formally annex the peninsula.

March 22: Soldiers take control of Ukrainian air base in Belbek, as Novofedorovka naval base is seized by pro-Russian activists. Crimea celebrates joining Russia.

Para más información, checar el link abajo:
https://defensamexico.activoforo.com/t22821p40-crisis-en-crimea-entre-ucrania-y-rusia

Russian TV Propagandist Caught Playing Three Different Roles

JEREMY BENDER

APR. 14, 2014, 3:26 PM


As the Ukrainian crisis continues to unfold with mounting tensions in the east, Russia has apparently been amping up its propaganda.
Unfortunately for Russia, some of its attempts to sway the public are embarrassingly transparent, Paul Roderick Gregory writes for Forbes.

Three Russian TV channels have featured hospital-side interviews with a Russian man who had a bandaged nose and insisted he was attacked by extremists in the eastern Ukrainian city of Nikolayev. However, in each interview the man, calling himself Nikolai Petkov, said he had suffered different injuries and had a different background story.

In an interview on Rossia 1 national news, Petkov described himself as an ordinary citizen of Ukraine peacefully protesting against the new Ukrainian government when he was wounded by ultra-nationalists working in conjunction with Ukrainian police.

In an interview on NTV national news, Petkov claimed to be a German spy working with a team of European mercenaries against both civilian protestors in eastern Ukraine and neo-Nazis from Kiev. In this version, Petkov was shot in the leg and nose by Ukrainian extremists.

In a third interview with the National Independent News of Crimea, Petkov insisted he was a doctor taking part in the protests against the new Ukrainian government. Neo-Nazis supposedly fired on the protestors, and Petkov was hit in the leg and nose while trying to tend to the injured.

This is the latest example of Russian propaganda in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine. Last week, Russia's Foreign Ministry warned Russians against going abroad due to the risk that they might be snatched up by the American intelligence officers.

La agenda secreta de Catherine Ashton y Victoria Nuland

18. abril, 2014 Autor: Red Voltaire D, Línea Global, Semana Comenta

Ya se ha convertido en un ritual que siempre funciona. Cada vez que Washington quiere cambiar un régimen, aparecen misteriosos francotiradores que disparan a la vez contra fuerzas gubernamentales y contra manifestantes de la oposición. Y después desaparecen sin dejar rastro. Así sucedió en Siria, en Ucrania y en Venezuela. En Siria, el resultado de los acontecimientos de Deraa fue que una parte de la población pasó 1 año sublevada contra el gobierno. En Venezuela, los forenses demostraron que los asesinos abatieron personas de ambos bandos y las protestas han ido extinguiéndose. En Ucrania, las conversaciones telefónicas interceptadas y las reacciones que su publicación ha suscitado ya no dejan espacio para las dudas

Wayne Madsen/Red Voltaire


Washington, DC, Estados Unidos. A raíz de la revelación al gran público de las conversaciones telefónicas sobre Ucrania recientemente interceptadas, se ha levantado una esquina del velo sobre los designios secretos para Ucrania de dos de las figuras femeninas que hacen de mascarones de proa de la política exterior de Occidente: Victoria Nuland, secretaria de Estado estadunidense a cargo de asuntos europeos y euroasiáticos, y Catherine Ashton, representante oficial de la Unión Europea y en otros tiempos propagandista de primera línea de la campaña por el desarme nuclear impulsada por Gran Bretaña.

Catherine Ashton –cuya conversación telefónica con el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Estonia, Urmas Paet, fue la segunda que se divulgó desde el inicio del año– ostenta desde el 1 de diciembre de 2009 el rimbombante título de alta representante de la Unión Europea para Asuntos Exteriores y Política de Seguridad. Ya tenía desde 1999, año de su ascenso a la Cámara de los Lores, el risible y muy feudal título de baronesa Ashton de Upholland.

Los admiradores de Lady Ashton sobredimensionan sus méritos. Un video grabado en la sede la Unión Europea en Bruselas, Bélgica, la muestra, en el ejercicio de sus funciones de ministra de Relaciones Exteriores de la Unión Europea, completamente fuera de sí porque ni ella, ni Robert Cooper –su enviado británico en los Balcanes– tenían la menor idea de qué cara podía tener Tomislav Nikolic –el presidente de Serbia–, cuando sólo les faltaban unos pocos minutos para tener que recibirlo en la ceremonia de bienvenida organizada expresamente para él.

Catherine Ashton está casada con Peter Kellner, experiodista británico miembro de la dirección del instituto de sondeos YouGov. Esta empresa vive no sólo de la realización de sondeos políticos y electorales, sino que también alimenta el suspense en la prensa de la farándula con sondeos de opinión de pronósticos sobre quién será el nuevo ídolo en cada etapa de los concursos que proponen programas de televisión tan estúpidos como Pop Idol y X-Factor.

En su conversación del 26 de febrero con la baronesa Ashton, el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Estonia, Urmas Paet, le comunica que, según una fuente creíble, manifestantes y policías ucranianos fueron abatidos por los mismos francotiradores. Paet había estado en Kiev el 25 de febrero durante los violentos enfrentamientos entre manifestantes y policías en la plaza Maidan. Ahora resulta evidente que francotiradores y otros provocadores, incluyendo bandas neonazis y mercenarios extranjeros a las órdenes de la oposición política ucraniana, exacerbaron los hechos de violencia.

En la conversación grabada, Paet revela a Ashton que una médica ucraniana, la doctora Olga Bogomolets, importante figura de la sociedad civil, le hizo saber, durante su estancia en Kiev, que las balas que abatieron a manifestantes y policías provenían de las mismas armas y que la oposición estaba encubriendo a los asesinos. La doctora Bogomolets no es miembro de la corte de Víktor Yanukóvich, el presidente ahora en exilio, sino que fue médico personal de Viktor Yúschenko, el presidente instalado por la Revolución Naranja; fue subsidiada por Radio Liberty, financiada por George Soros y la Agencia Central de Inteligencia (CIA, por su sigla en inglés) estadunidense y llamó a sus estudiantes de medicina a participar en las manifestaciones de la plaza Maidan. Ésta es la doctora Bogomolets que le dijo a Paet que las balas que mataron indistintamente manifestantes y policías salieron de las mismas armas y que la mano de la oposición estaba detrás de los ataques. Es importante señalar también que la doctora Bogomolets rechazó la proposición –de la oposición– de participar en el nuevo gobierno como ministra delegada a cargo de asuntos humanitarios.

Según lo que puede oírse en la llamada telefónica interceptada –al parecer– por agentes de los servicios de seguridad ucranianos aún fieles a Yanukóvich, la señora Ashton dice haberse quedado atónita cuando Paet le anunciaba que todo parecía indicar que la oposición ucraniana orquestó la masacre de más de 70 de sus propios partidarios, cifra a la que habría que agregar los policías abatidos. La lluvia de balas desatada por los misteriosos francotiradores no es otra cosa que una operación false flag (bajo bandera falsa) montada por la oposición y por sus padrinos de Occidente para suscitar simpatía y respaldo de parte de la opinión pública.


Veamos el diálogo entre el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Estonia y la jefa de la diplomacia de la Unión Europea:

Paet: “Todas las pruebas muestran que las personas de ambos bandos abatidas por los francotiradores, los policías y la gente que estaba en la calle, eran los mismos francotiradores quienes los mataban, a los de ambos bandos… Ella [la doctora Bogomolets] me mostró también fotos. Me dijo que, como médico, ella podía decirme que era la misma firma, el mismo tipo de balas… Y es muy inquietante que ahora los de la nueva coalición no quieran investigar qué fue lo que pasó exactamente. Por lo tanto, en este momento, es cada vez más evidente para todo el mundo que no es Yanukóvich quien está detrás de los francotiradores apostados en los techos. Era alguien de la nueva coalición”.

Ashton: “Yo pienso que tenemos, efectivamente, que investigar. Quiero decir… No me habían hablado de esta historia. Es muy interesante… ¡Vaya…!”.

Paet: “Así que era muy preocupante ver todo eso circulando y cobrando importancia. Eso ya desacredita la nueva coalición.”

Al responder a Paet, Ashton se esfuerza seguidamente por levantar dudas sobre la información que han recogido la doctora Bogomolets y él mismo, información que muestra que la oposición estaba detrás de los disparos contra manifestantes y policías. Ashton defiende a los diputados de la oposición implicados en las protestas, se expresa contra los médicos y declara, refiriéndose a los dirigentes de las protestas:

Ashton: “Ellos tienen que ocuparse de eso también. Pero su tarea es exigir la aplicación de cambios profundos y hacer funcionar el parlamento [Rada]. Si no funciona el parlamento es el caos total lo que les espera. Así que podemos pensar que un manifestante, que un médico, es alguien que cuenta, que cuenta mucho. Pero no son responsables políticos. Y, de una u otra manera, esa gente va a tener que acostumbrarse a la situación en las próximas semanas.”

Fundamentalmente, lo que Ashton le dice a Paet es que, como militante y médico, la doctora Bogomolets no debe andar criticando las decisiones políticas maquiavélicas de la oposición parlamentaria ucraniana dirigida por el trío Klichko-Yatsenyuk-Tiagnibok (es decir el boxeador, el veterano del Banco Mundial y el jefe de los neonazis del partido Svoboda).

En otras palabras, la señora Ashton estima que un boxeador, un tecnócrata del Banco Mundial y un matón nazi están más calificados para decidir el destino de Ucrania que una mujer científica preocupada por aclarar el papel de la oposición en la masacre perpetrada contra los manifestantes de su propio bando, utilizados como carne de cañón, y el asesinato de los policías que trataban de restablecer el orden público.

En cuanto se reveló esta conversación entre la señora Ashton y el señor Paet, los grandes medios de prensa que controlan la información en Occidente pusieron en duda su autenticidad. Para ello recurrieron a todos sus sarcasmos y lemas anticonspiracionistas habituales.

Pero los servicios del ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Estonia confirmaron la autenticidad de la grabación en una nota de prensa que indica:

“La conversación entre el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores, Urmas Paet, y la responsable de Relaciones Exteriores de la Unión Europea, Catherine Ashton, divulgada hoy en internet, es auténtica.

“Se trata de un intercambio telefónico. Esas palabras fueron intercambiadas por Urmas Paet y Catherine Ashton el 26 de febrero, después de un viaje a Ucrania del ministro estoniano de Relaciones Exteriores, inmediatamente después de la interrupción de los hechos violentos.

“El ministro de Relaciones Exteriores, Urmas Paet, informa sobre los comentarios que emitió en las reuniones del día anterior y expresa sus preocupaciones sobre la situación en desarrollo.

“El señor Paet ha señalado que le parece ‘totalmente deplorable que esta intercepción [de su entrevista telefónica] se haya producido’.”

Es evidente, desde el primer momento, que los hechos registrados en Ucrania fueron planificados por provocadores, agitadores, expertos en revoluciones de colores sacados de las gavetas del Departamento de Estado estadunidense, de la CIA, del MI6 británico y de la Unión Europea.

La hoja de ruta de Catherine Ashton viene a completar la de Victoria Nuland, también inoportunamente revelada por otra intercepción telefónica en enero de 2013. El intercambio telefónico entre Victoria Nuland y el embajador de Estados Unidos en Ucrania, Geoffrey Pyatt, descubrió que en la administración de Barack Obama ya se estaba decidiendo quiénes iban a recibir las carteras en el futuro gobierno ucraniano, mientras que la señora Catherine Ashton y Jeffrey Feltman, su doble ideológico y subsecretario general adjunto de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU), todavía aparentaban interesarse por la búsqueda de una solución negociada de la crisis con Yanukóvich, el presidente ucraniano electo democráticamente.

La señora Nuland, que en la conversación telefónica se expresaba a favor de poner a Yatsenyuk a la cabeza del futuro gobierno, manifestó la importancia que para ella tiene la cooperación con sus homólogos europeos con un sonoro “¡que le den por el culo a la Unión Europea!”.

Antes de esa frase, Nuland acababa de decirle a Pyatt que Estados Unidos alcanzaría sus objetivos con el respaldo previamente negociado y planificado de la delegación de la ONU. Feltman, quien dirigía esa delegación, arrastraba en su estela al secretario general de la ONU, Ban Ki-moon, a quien los periodistas de su país designan como la Inatrapable Anguila, sobrenombre que se ganó en su época de ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Corea del Sur, y al diplomático Robert Serry, enviado especial de la ONU en Ucrania.

Durante esa misma conversación interceptada, la señora Victoria Nuland expresaba, además, su gran confianza en Robert Serry, exembajador de Dinamarca en Ucrania, nacido en Calcuta y con un nombre más bien inhabitual para un danés. Cuando actuaba como coordinador especial de la ONU para el proceso de paz en el Oriente Medio, Robert Serry acostumbraba a deplorar lo que llamaba “actitudes parciales y discriminatorias” hacia Israel en el recinto de las Naciones Unidas. Por supuesto, ese lenguaje no podía dejar de atraerle los favores de Nuland y de Feltman, bien conocidos ambos por su doble adhesión a los intereses de Israel y de Estados Unidos.

Está claro que ni la conversación de Catherine Ashton ni la de Victoria Nuland debían haber llegado nunca a oídos de la opinión pública. Sin embargo, gracias a agentes leales y eficaces de los servicios de seguridad ucranianos, el mundo conoce ahora la perfidia de estas dos señoras que recorren alegremente un camino que puede acabar para Europa –e incluso para el mundo entero– en un espantoso incendio.

¿Hay mercenarios de Blackwater en Ucrania?

Publicado: 11 may 2014 | 11:42 GMT Última actualización: 11 may 2014 | 11:42 GMT

400 mercenarios estadounidenses de la empresa militar privada Academi, antes conocida como Blackwater, luchan contra los partidarios de federalización en el sureste de Ucrania, informa el diario alemán 'Bild am Sonntag'.

"Al lado del Ejército y de la policía ucraniana operan 400 combatientes de la empresa de seguridad privada de EE.UU. Academi", revela el diario, remitiéndose a información del Servicio de Inteligencia Federal (BND, por sus siglas en alemán). La empresa militar Academi es un ejército de mercenarios que se involucra en las operaciones militares de EE.UU. en el exterior.

El periódico sugiere que los combatientes de Academi podrían participar en la coordinación de las operaciones que el Ejército y la Guardia Nacional de Ucrania realizan contra los partidarios de la federación en el sureste del país, en particular, en la ciudad de Slaviansk.

De acuerdo con la publicación, el Gobierno federal alemán fue informado el 29 de abril sobre este hecho por el servicio de la inteligencia. Al mismo tiempo, el diario subraya que aún no está claro quién había contratado a los soldados estadounidenses.

Cabe señalar que el 17 de marzo Academi desmintió de plano en su sitio web que estuviera involucrado en el conflicto de Ucrania, acusando a los blogueros y periodistas de difundir "declaraciones infundadas en combinación con la falta de información objetiva" con el objetivo de "crear histeria".

La semana pasada el Ministerio de Defensa ruso informó que en la operación realizada por el Ejército ucraniano en la ciudad de Slaviansk se pudo oír a soldados hablando en inglés, lo que evidenciaría la participación de extranjeros en la misma.

Unconfirmed Destruction of Electronic System of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission: CyberBerkut

By The Voice of Russia
Global Research, May 23, 2014
Voice of Russia

Two days before the presidential election in Ukraine scheduled for May 25, the CyberBerkut hackers group, which has repeatedly posted on the Internet documents incriminating the new Kiev authorities, stated that they had destroyed the electronic system of the Ukraine’s Central Election Commission.

“We, CyberBerkut, in protest against legitimization of crimes of the Kiev junta, have completely destroyed the network and computer infrastructure of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine. Taking on full responsibility we declare that the united informational and analytical system “Vibory” created under the complete control of the United States has ceased to exist,” the website of the CyberBerkut activists says.

They also claim that the classified mail correspondence of members of the CEC of Ukraine and technical documentation of system administrators of the CEC and district election commissions is now at their disposal. CyberBerkut promises to publish a report about the software cracking later.

“Our special thanks for a fascinating quest to wonderful administrators who were storing data on access to the network in text files on their desktops,” the hackers noted.

Security fears mount over Ukraine vote
Electoral commission calls for more security, saying violence may stop two million people in the east from voting.
Last updated: 17 May 2014 21:32

The government in Kiev held talks to defuse the conflict, but without separatist representatives [EPA]

Ukraine's electoral body has voiced fears that it may be impossible to hold next weekend's presidential poll in the east, where a pro-Moscow insurgency is threatening to plunge the country into a civil war.

The Central Election Commission said on Saturday it could not prepare for the vote in the region because of threats and "illegal actions" by separatists who have overrun more than a dozen towns and cities since early April, the news agency AFP reported.

It called for the authorities in Kiev to take urgent action to ensure security, saying that violence could prevent almost two million people from voting on May 25, when about 36 million overall will be called to the polls.

The warning came as Ukraine's embattled government held a second round of "national unity" dialogue under a Western-backed plan to try to defuse the crisis, but failed to report any progress.

Russia said Kiev must first halt its month-long offensive against the rebels, questioning the legitimacy of an election held under "the thunder of guns".

Separatist leaders 'not invited'

While Saturday's talks in the eastern city of Kharkiv included a broad spectrum of Ukrainian politicians, including pro-Russians, no separatist leaders were invited.

"Round tables are beautiful things but they won't solve anything," said Aleksandr Borodai, "prime minister" of the rebels' self-declared People's Republic of Donetsk, one of the rebel-held areas in the east.

The West sees next Sunday's election as crucial to defusing the crisis and preventing the recession-hit country from disintegrating further after Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Despite a month-long offensive, the Ukrainian military has failed to wrest back control of the main industrial regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, where rebels have declared their own independent republics in defiance of Kiev and the West.

"Can elections held amid the thunder of guns really meet the democratic norms of the electoral process?" Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement, urging Kiev to immediately halt "punitive action against its own citizens".

Moscow said Kiev was using the unity talks "as a cover for aggressive action" and urged Western nations to tell Kiev to "launch real and not phony work towards national reconciliation".

West warnings

At Saturday's round-table, interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said the government was in favour of giving eastern Ukraine more financial autonomy but again ruled out the idea of federalism - a policy favoured by Russia.

"Ukrainians, please, use words not weapons," pleaded Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)-appointed mediator Wolfgang Ischinger.

The West has kept up the pressure on Moscow to allow the election to go ahead.

In a phone call on Friday, US President Barack Obama and French counterpart Francois Hollande "underscored that Russia will face significant additional costs if it continues its provocative and destabilising behaviour".

Obama has already drafted an executive order for sanctions across key sectors such as banking, energy, defence and mining, adding to punitive measures already imposed by Washington and Brussels.

The election is expected to deliver victory to billionaire chocolate baron Petro Poroshenko, who enjoys a huge lead over former prime minister Yulia Tymoschenko.

Donetsk voters uneasy over Ukraine election
Separatists in country's eastern region vow to disrupt presidential poll, forcefully closing down electoral buildings.
Last updated: 18 May 2014 17:18

Ukrainians are preparing to vote in next week's presidental election.

Separatists in the east of the country, however, are trying to disrupt the poll and are forcefully closing down local electoral buildings.

In the city of Donetsk, some people say they are too scared to go to the polling stations.

Al Jazeera's Kim Vinnell reports from Donetsk.

Ukraine's far-right: Popular or propaganda?
Despite successful public relations campaigns, archconservative groups do not fare well in political polls.
Katherine Jacobsen Last updated: 20 May 2014 14:16

Right Sector and Svboda, two right-wing organisations, have gathered support in western Ukraine [Getty]

Kiev, Ukraine - The area around Kiev's Maidan Square feels like a movie set that was never really cleaned up.

A collection of burlap tents still dots the main square and the Trade Unions' building is a burnt-out remnant of its pre-Maidan days. Flowers left in honour of the dead, now in various stages of wilting, are neatly piled along mounds of tyres, wooden debris and stacks of bricks, which used to be part of the pavement.

Among the flags and banners that still decorate Kiev's main square are the controversial red and black of the recently formed Right Sector, graffiti from the Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self Defence and placards for the Patriots of Ukraine.

All are far-right nationalist organisations that moved into Kiev's Independence Square during the Ukrainian protests that brought down former President Viktor Yanukovich.

On Tuesday evening, Yury Vitaliavich, a member of the Right Sector who would only give his last name and patronymic, stood at an entry point to a building his group is occupying.

While the Right Sector's leader, Dmitry Yarosh, relocated the group's headquarters to Dnepropetrovsk at the end of April, members of the group are still camped out in several buildings on Khreshatik Street, which bisects Maidan Square.
Ukraine far-right deny part in deadly attack on pro-Russians

The camouflage-clad Vitaliavich said he joined Right Sector in December, when the organisation was founded as a conglomeration of Ukraine's ultra-nationalist fringe elements. These groups had relatively low visibility until the Maidan protests began in November.

The newly-formed Right Sector, along with the ultra-right wing party, Svoboda (Freedom), called early on for Yanukovich's removal from power. This rhetoric appealed to Vitaliavich, who said he was fed up with the old government. He hadn't dabbled much in politics before the protests erupted.

"I liked the idea of nationalism … the Right Sector was actually doing something to change the situation," the former schoolteacher told Al Jazeera. "For me, nationalism means doing something and giving back to a country that gave me an education, a job and a life."

Vitaliavich pulled out his mobile phone from underneath his camouflage flak jacket and opened text messages from his friends in eastern Ukraine, which has been wracked by violent protests in recent days, asking him and the Right Sector for help.

Many others in Ukraine's east refuse to associate with Right Sector, he acknowledged, but said the group's critics are paying too much attention to biased Russian media.

The Right Sector's website and social media pages feature pictures of heavily armed, masked men. Such images have provided the Russian media with fodder for newscasts about extremism in Ukraine. Furthermore, the new Ukrainian government's inability to successfully clear out ultra-right groups from the Maidan contributes to an overall impression that the new government is unable to control protesters who helped bring down the last government.

'Leading the revolution?'

When full-on fighting broke out between EuroMaidan protesters and the now-disbanded riot police squad, the Right Sector was often on the front lines fighting off the police with chains and Molotov cocktails.

The Right Sector was not the leading force of Maidan and was not the leading force of the revolution.

- Anton Shekhovtsov, University College of London

However, the Right Sector's role in the Maidan protests was vastly over-exaggerated, said Anton Shekhovtsov, an expert on far-right groups in Ukraine and a doctoral candidate at the University College of London.

"The Right Sector was not the leading force of Maidan and was not the leading force of the revolution," said Shekhovtsov. At their core, protests were not about nationalism, but fighting rampant corruption in Viktor Yanukovich's government. Any respect that the Right Sector earned on Maidan had nothing to do with their far-right political sentiments, he added.

Rather, this was in part thanks to a good public relations campaign and the group's call for removing Yanukovich from power.

However, the Right Sector's well-publicised presence on the Maidan along with the use of the Ukrainian nationalist images, such as photographs of Stepan Bandera, resurrected old questions about Ukraine's struggle for freedom and national identity.

The Right Sector acts as an umbrella organisation for several far-right parties: Stepan Bandera's Trident (Trizub), the Ukrainian National Assembly - Ukrainian National Self Defence (UNA-UNSO), the Patriots of Ukraine and the Social National Assembly.

While there are no official statistics on the number of people in Right Sector or other far-right organisations, Right Sector's Facebook group boasts about 450,000 people.

Before becoming the head of the Right Sector, Yarosh led Trident, a conservative paramilitary organisation that ran training camps in case the time came to defend Ukraine from invaders, according to Shekhovtsov. The Trident organisation was also known for attempting to topple monuments of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, though they experienced little success in their attempts, Shekhovtsov added.

Fascist links

The Right Sector's ideology, as well as that of the far-right political party Svoboda, is based on the ultranationalist values of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), a group founded during the interwar years in Western Ukraine.

Between 1939-1941, Nazi Germany directly supported the OUN, though after June 1941, the organisations' relationship became more complicated. As it became increasingly obvious that Germany was losing the war, groups within the Ukraine People's Army - UPA - attempted to collaborate with the Soviets.

During the Soviet era, the idea of Ukrainian national sovereignty was purposely joined to the ultra-nationalist movement led by the OUN and the UPA as a way to discredit the idea of an independent Ukrainian state.

Ultimately, many of OUN's members were either killed off , deported, or driven underground after Ukraine was brought back under the control of the Soviet Union.

"It's important to keep in mind that this was a small extremist party with an extremist agenda," Per Anders Rudling, an associate professor of history at Lund University, told Al Jazeera. At the peak of their activities, the UPA had 40,000 members. In comparison, there were about 5 million Ukrainians in the Soviet army.

The word "banderovetz", from the last name of one of the most prominent leaders of one of the wings of the insurgency movement, Bandera, was made into a synonym for traitor and Nazi sympathiser and came into usage around 1940.

But the focus on OUN and particularly on one of its more radical members, Bandera, was unfortunate, said Rudling. "Bandera is no more representative of Ukraine that Stalin was of Georgia," said Rudling.

Politics and public opinion

Today, 26 percent of those who live in Western Ukraine have a positive view of Bandera, whereas only 3 percent of people in the Donbas region had a positive view of the partisan leader, according to a survey conducted by the Rating Social Group in April 2014.
Anti-government protesters from far-right group Right Sector train in Kiev [Reuters]

During the EuroMaidan protests, symbols of the OUN were brought to protests. The Right Sector adopted the red-and-black flag of the UPA and Bandera's image hung on posters all around the square.

At the end of March, Right Sector registered as a political party and the organisation's leader, Dmitry Yarosh, announced his intention to run in Ukraine's May 25 presidential election, according to Ukrainian media reports.

While registering as a political party will give Yarosh greater control over who can be a member of the Right Sector, there is little chance that the new party will have any success at the polls, said Yuriy Yakymenko, the Director of Political and Legal Programmes at Razumkov Centre, a Kiev-based, non-governmental think-tank.

In a presidential poll from the Kiev International Institute of Sociology taken from April 29 - May 11, Yarosh is coming in with less than one percent of support.

The ultra-nationalist party, Svoboda, hasn't experienced much of a boost in its popularity since the EuroMaidan protests ended either, though they did gain several positions in the new Kiev government.

One of two deputy prime ministers, Oleksandr Sych is a member of Svoboda as are the ecology, agricultural and education ministers.

The party's leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, who was one of the three leaders who appeared on the Maidan stage during the protests, is currently a member of parliament.

Tyahnybok's first tenure in the Rada ended in 2004 when he was kicked out for using anti-Jewish and anti-Russian slurs. But he was voted back into parliament in 2012 when Svoboda gained 38 of 450 seats, an exceptionally large number for an ultra-right-wing party.

Tyahnybok is currently a presidential candidate in the upcoming May 25 election and is polling at one percent, a three percent drop in his numbers from March.

The true marker of where Svoboda stands will come during the next parliamentary election, which is currently scheduled for 2017, though a snap election might occur after this weekend's presidential election.

But it is unlikely that Svoboda will ever regain the momentum it had in 2012, said Anatoliy Oktysiuk, a senior analyst for the International Center for Policy Studies and an expert on Ukrainian far-right movements.

The party's main appeal for Ukrainian voters in the past was that it was openly critical of Yanukovich. "Now that the old president is gone, Svoboda will either have to go mainstream, or risk fading away," said Oktysiuk.

As for ultra-nationalists like the Right Sector, they are likely to just disappear as a political group, said Shekhovtsov. "The Ukrainian people have no taste for political extremism."
Source:
Al Jazeera

Profile: Yulia Tymoshenko
Former prime minister, Ukraine's "Gas Princess" seeks presidential powers after three years of imprisonment.
Last updated: 23 May 2014 09:01

Three-year prison term has heightened Tymoshenko's "Joan of Arc" like status among her supporters [AP]

Yulia Tymoshenko, 53, one of Ukraine's top presidential candidates, has been the country's most influential woman for many years, enjoying great powers both in the government and the opposition at different times.

Once a natural-gas magnate, known as Ukraine's "Gas Princess", Tymoshenko became the country's prime minister following the 2004 Orange Revolution, an anti-government uprising that removed the post-Soviet establishment, as her impassioned speeches resonated with thousands of Ukrainian voters.

From 2010 up until her conviction of corrupt practices in October 2011, she was Ukraine's top opposition leader.

Tymoshenko lost national elections to President Viktor Yanukovich in 2010.

"I will continue my fight for Ukraine, for its European future," she said during a short break before the verdict issued on October 11, 2011.

"Nobody ... can humiliate my honest name. I have worked and will continue to work for Ukraine's sake."

Considered glamorous and feisty by her supporters, she spent three years in prison for "abusing" her power by signing a gas deal with Russia while she was the PM in 2009.

Her release was made possible by a vote in parliament that changed the criminal code after popular uprising toppled President Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014.

The prison time has heightened her "Joan of Arc" like status among her supporters, while detractors consider her corrupt and self-serving.

During her presidential election campaign, she focused on the patriotic sentiments of the Ukrainian public, promising to regain control over Crimea that was annexed by Russia in March 2014.

"The Kremlin today has declared war. Not on Crimea. Not on Ukraine. But on the whole world," Tymoshenko told Al Jazeera.

Early years

Born in 1960, in Russian-speaking Dnipropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine, Tymoshenko studied at the local university, married while still a teenage student and had a daughter in 1980.

Taking advantage of an entrepreneurial climate in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, Tymoshenko's first taste of self-made money came from a video rental store she set up in the 1980s with her husband.

In the 1990s, Tymoshenko became known as the "gas princess", when she headed Unified Energy Systems, a company that imported Russian gas into Ukraine.

Her career in the gas industry is believed to have amassed her a fortune.

She entered parliament in 1996 and was made a deputy prime minister in charge of the energy sector in 2000 by Viktor Yushchenko, the new premier.

But in 2001 she fell victim to political intrigues, spending several weeks in jail accused of forging customs documents and smuggling gas - charges of which she was subsequently cleared.

Orange Revolution

On leaving prison, she changed her image from brunette to blonde, wearing designer clothing and adopting her trademark peasant-style braid.

Her stylist later told media that the folksy look was designed to distance herself from an association with wealth and to emphasise a national Ukrainian identity.

Tymoshenko shot onto the world stage with her impassioned speeches in the 2004 mass protests against the sleaze of a post-Soviet establishment, in what became known as the Orange Revolution.

Viktor Yushchenko, who swept to power following the 2004 election, appointed her as his first prime minister in 2005, but their relations became quickly strained and she was dismissed eight months later.

Tymoshenko won her second term as prime minister in December 2007, after convincing Yushchenko to dissolve parliament after the Party of Regions and left-wing parties formed a coalition.

Her policies included compensation for depositors who lost Soviet-era savings, price controls on food and medicines to bring inflation down, calls for a review of murky privatisations and high social spending.

Europe
Ukraine's Chocolate King seeks presidency
Pro-Western billionaire with substantial political power says he can fix many of nation's problems.
Last updated: 23 May 2014 12:04


Ukraine's pre-election polls say Petro Poroshenko, a 48-year-old with a long political and business career, has the best chance of winning the first round of Sunday's presidential elections. But the former government minister faces a country in crisis.

Al Jazeera's Nick Spicer reports from Illichivsk in Ukraine's Odessa region.

Slow polling in Ukraine's rebel-held Donetsk
Threat by pro-Russian separatists discourages voters in rebel-held region from casting ballots in presidential polls.
John Wendle Last updated: 25 May 2014 11:45

Pro-Russian separatists have questioned the legality of Sunday's election [John Wendle/Al Jazeera]

Voter turnout for the presidential election in Ukraine's restive eastern province of Donetsk has been low, with people staying away fearing violence.

About 10 percent of voters in three villages in the Krasnoarmiisk region had come in by noon on Sunday.

"People would like to vote, but are scared and probably can't vote because they can't find a polling station," said a European election observer on condition of anonymity.

In the village of Novoaleksandrovka on the road to Krasnoarmiisk, about 15 to 20 people had voted by around 10:30am local time this morning.

"Usually 200-300 people would have voted by this time of day if this were an election during normal times," said an election worker.

Down a country road through bright yellow fields of blooming rapeseed in the village of Ulyanovka, 56 people had voted out of 498 voters.

"The people who are coming in here today are voting for the future," said Olga, the director of the school in which the vote was held.

"The people who are coming here to vote believe in a united and legal Ukraine," said Yevgenie, a 20-year-old miner and head of the election commission.

"Young people want a future and they know they can't get it through this people's republic. In fact, no one knows what will happen next."

"I'm not afraid to vote. Its our duty as citizens to vote in a legal elections," said Andrei Semenyuk, as he escorted his pregnant wife out of the polling station in Ulyanovsk, adding that he the instability in the towns around his village did not turn him away.

Further down the road in the village of Novoekonomicheskoye, three Ukrainian soldiers clad in field fatigues with shiny gold buckles on their belts, walked to a shop with rifles slung nonchalantly over their backs.

A polling station in the shadow of an old blue and gold Orthodox Christian church stood nearly empty at mid-day.

"Its very slow today," said an election worker, noting that of 1,548 voters, only 120 people had turned up. Outside an elderly man played the well-loved Katyusha, a famous song from World War II, on his accordion.

"I have played here at every election day from Soviet times to today," he said. "For me, election days are holidays."

In light of the current instability, few seem to see it that way on Sunday.

"This paints a pretty clear picture," said the observer.

As the day continued, it would be clear whether the separatists in this eastern border province of Ukraine had been successful in disrupting this election, thus helping to bring its legality into question.
Source:
Al Jazeera

Ukraine votes in presidential polls
Ukrainians vote in first-round of presidential election for candidates promising closer ties with the West.
Last updated: 25 May 2014 04:20

A large voter turnout is expected in the first round of voting [EPA]

Ukrainians are widely expected to give a resounding endorsement to the overthrow of their most recently elected leader by voting on Sunday for presidential candidates promising closer ties with the West.

But the absence of more than 15 percent of the electorate, in Russian-annexed Crimea and two eastern regions where fighting with pro-Moscow rebels continued on Saturday, may mar any result - and leave the Kremlin questioning the victor's legitimacy.

European election monitors largely pulled out of Donetsk region for their own safety, citing a campaign of "terror" by pro-Russian separatists against Ukrainian electoral officials.

Polls make a billionaire confectionery magnate known as the "chocolate king" an overwhelming favourite in a vote expected to show a high turnout.

For many the biggest question is whether Petro Poroshenko, who has been a minister in the past, can take more than 50 percent to win outright in round one.

Poroshenko, 48, was a strong backer of the protests against Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovich last winter and has sought a quick victory by warning that new unrest might prevent a second voting round.

His closest, if distant, rival is former prime minister and wealthy former businesswoman Yulia Tymoshenko.

Officials say many polling stations in Ukraine's Russian-speaking regions will not open for fear of attack and only early on Sunday will they try to distribute ballot papers to those areas where voting may be possible.

Mortars launched

Voting will start at 8am local time (0500 GMT) and end 12 hours later. Exit polls at 8pm (1700 GMT) will indicate the result and an official outcome is due before international monitors deliver their verdict on the process on Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile on Saturday, Ukrainian troops launched mortars at the village of Semyonovka, near the pro-Russian separatist stronghold of Slovyansk, on Saturday afternoon setting a barn on fire, according to residents.

There was no official confirmation of Kiev involvement.

Ukrainian police and military units are locked in an operation against pro-Russian gunmen to clear them out of eastern Ukraine, an area the separatists say should be part of Russia.

Ukraine elections: Luke Skywalker vs Princess Leia?
Ukraine's two leading presidential candidates are both pro-EU. So what sets them apart?
Last updated: 25 May 2014 06:17


Olesia Markovic is a Ukrainian journalist.

It will be Yulia Tymoshenko's third attempt at the presidential post in Ukraine [AP]

A beautician, a communist, an ultra-right activist, a former spy - this is just a small selection of the 23 candidates registered by the Central Election Commission for an early presidential election scheduled for May 25. Two of them withdrew during the campaign thus having reduced the list to 21. The most exotic aspiring candidate, Darth Vader, failed the application process and was not registered; he is expected to try his luck in Kiev's mayor race.

Nevertheless Ukraine is poised to witness a "star wars" election in which its two leading political stars Yulia Tymoshenko and Petro Poroshenko battle it out at the ballot.

For the first time in Ukrainian history, both top-runners are pro-EU, and there is no viable candidate to take the pro-Russian side. This election is crucial for Ukraine, as people expect to see a legitimately elected and internationally recognised president who will get Ukraine out of political and social turbulence.

Petro Poroshenko

As far back as a year ago nobody could seriously consider Poroshenko a strong candidate for the presidential race. The 48-year owner of chocolate manufacturer "Roshen" is one of the top richest Ukrainians according to domestic and international ratings. In 2014 Forbes estimated his fortune at $1.3bn, which brought him to the club of world billionaires. Yet his political achievements were relatively modest: He was repeatedly elected to the parliament, briefly served as foreign affairs minister and minister for economic development and trade and chaired the National Security and Defense Council.
Talk to Al Jazeera - Yulia Tymoshenko: 'Kremlin has declared war'

Poroshenko could have remained one of many oligarchs in power, if he hadn't gambled on revolutions and public protests. During the Orange Revolution of 2004, he was wearing an orange scarf and standing on the Maidan stage shoulder-to-shoulder with Vitkor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko.

After the "orange" protests paved the way for Yushchenko's presidency, Poroshenko expected to be appointed prime minister. But the newly elected president gave this portfolio to Poroshenko's main rival - Tymoshenko. That decision led to a lingering personal and political confrontation between the two.

The recent Euromaidan protests gave "the chocolate king" a second chance to demonstrate his leadership potential. Poroshenko didn't wait to see where it would all go. During the first big clashes between protesters and police, he was at the frontline. While the former opposition leaders were talking to the rally from the stage, Poroshenko was trying to stop both the radical groups and police from further violent attacks. After this, he was often seen on the Maidan stage. Unlike Vitaliy Klychko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Oleg Tyahnybok, he was not taking part in talks and shaking hands with former president Viktor Yanukovich and that played well with Maidan supporters.

His reasonable and non-radical position during Maidan protests generated high approval ratings. Two months before the expected vote, a group of Kiev-based think tanks announced the results of their opinion polls that clearly showed that almost 25 percent of respondents are ready to vote for Poroshenko, while his closest rival Tymoshenko had only eight percent. In May Poroshenko's approval rating grew up to 34 percent, while Tymoshenko's went down to 6.5 percent. Tymoshenko's sympathisers criticise these figures and expect them to change.

Poroshenko tried to secure his lead by making a deal with another popular candidate, heavy-weight boxer Vitaly Klychko, who downgraded his ambitions from presidential office to Kiev mayor's office and endorsed Poroshenko. The Poroshenko-Klychko tandem was positively perceived by voters, but also it was endorsed by odious Ukrainian oligarchs such as Yanukovych's former chief of staff Sergiy Liovochkin and notoriously known gas trader Dmytro Firtash, who got bailed out jail in Austria and awaits extradition to the USA to face trial for bribery and corruption. This "oligarch connection" can seriously undermine Poroshenko's position.

Yulia Tymoshenko

For the 53-year old former business woman and ex-PM, this election will be third attempt at the presidency. In 2004, she stepped down from the competition to give way to united opposition candidate Yushchenko, although her political ratings were sky high. In 2010, she tried her luck again, but lost by three percent to Viktor Yanukovich. Her political defeat made her vulnerable. Yanukovich did not find any better way to get rid of his political rival but to put her in jail on power abuse and embezzlement charges. Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in jail, but in fact spent slightly more than 2.5 years in a guarded cell in Kharkiv hospital where she was transferred for back problems.
Listening Post - The 'all-out propaganda war' in Ukraine

Numerous attempts of foreign lobbyists and Western leaders to talk Yanukovich into releasing Tymoshenko for medical treatment abroad failed. Yanukovich didn't want to risk her coming back on the political scene with a vengeance. Only after the mass protests ousted the president, Tymoshenko's supporters in the parliament voted on her release, rehabilitated her and restored her political rights, so she could run for office again.

Tymoshenko didn't waste time. After a short medical treatment for her back problems in Germany, she walked into the election campaign on high heels, supporting herself on a crutch and boasting about an anti-corruption action plan. Her rhetoric and promises remained the same.

Tymoshenko had two key tasks during the election campaign: to boost up her rating and to find a strong enemy she can fight with. The first task seems to have failed: 2.5 years behind bars did not help her popularity and her campaign was not even nearly as successful as those she conducted before.

During the Orange Revolution in 2004, her every appearance on a stage was making people scream "Yulia! Yulia!" and applaud to whatever she was saying. Now the situation is totally different: When Tymoshenko first appeared on the Maidan in 2014 after her release, people were still mourning the loss of more than 100 slain protesters and her speech didn't make any impression on the crowd. Of course, she tried to find new messages and started a charm offensive, but, unlike Poroshenko, she can't play the "Maidan revolution" card. Yet Tymoshenko is known for getting better results than those given by the polls.

Another challenge for Tymoshenko was to find a "dragon" to slay for her election fight. In 2004, she was fighting with the "universal evil" embodied by then president Leonid Kuchma; in 2010 her top nemesis was Viktor Yanukovich. Now when the niche is empty she can't demonstrate her fighting skills to the full extent. She is trying to make a "collective" enemy out of corrupt politicians, oligarchy and pro-Russian separatists who are tearing apart eastern regions of Ukraine, but voters perceive those as abstract notions.

Given the economic crisis, Russian invasion of Crimea, separatists' coup in Luhansk and Donetsk regions and dysfunctional police and regional authorities, people are likely to vote for a person with less talk and more feasible action plan for the stabilisation of Ukraine. At the moment, both Tymoshenko's and Poroshenko's agendas look very similar and have preserving of national unity as a top priority. No matter who wins the race, Ukraine will secure its European direction.

Europe
Ukrainians vote in crucial presidential poll
Elections seen as bid to stabilise nation after months of political chaos following overthrow of pro-Russian president.
Last updated: 25 May 2014 16:11
Listen to this page using ReadSpeaker
Email Article
Print Article
Share article
Send Feedback

Ukraine has started voting in a presidential election despite threats by separatists in the country's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk to disrupt what they call an illegitimate vote.

Sunday's polls opened at 0500 GMT, but more than two million eligible voters were not expected to be able to cast their ballots as almost half of the polling stations were blocked in the rebel-held regions.

Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid reported a low turnout at an open polling station in Krasnoarmiisk, a city in Donetsk, which she said was due to fear of attacks by separatists.

"There has been so much violence in the days leading up to this presidential elections that even those who wanted to cast their ballots probably got scared," she said.

"There have been threats, some of the election commissioners have been abducted, a lot of the ballot boxed have been destroyed, so people probably prefer to stay home.

However, there were queues of voters in the western regions of the country where election was conducted in calm atmosphere.

The vote is being seen as an attempt by Ukraine's rulers to stabilise the country following recent political upheavals including the overthrow of its Russia-backed president, which prompted Russia's annexation of Crimean peninsula and a pro-Russia uprising in the east.

Prime minister's plea

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's interim prime minister, has issued an appeal for the country's 36 million voters to turn out in force to "defend Ukraine" in the most important election since independence in 1991.

"This will be the expression of the will of Ukrainians from the west, east, north and south," he said on Saturday.

Pre-election polls suggested that Petro Poroshenko, an experienced politician and the country's seventh richest man, had a chance of winning the elections in the first round.

"As a former foreign minister and chairman of the central bank, Poroshenko appears to the West as a viable leader to help pull Ukraine out of its economic turmoil and negotiate with Russia, though his status as an oligarch makes him susceptible to accusations of corruption," Al Jazeera's John Wendle in Donetsk said.

In case of a second round, Poroshenko would have to face Yulia Tymoshenko, former prime minister and a long-time rival, who was released from prison in February, following the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovich.

Ukraine has mobilised more than 55,000 police and 20,000 volunteers to ensure security for the vote, being overseen by 1,200 international monitors.

The country fears a new wave of violence by pro-Russian separatists who started their uprising seven weeks ago and declared independence of Luhansk and Donetsk, prompting clashes with security services and demonstrators for united Ukraine.

At least 150 people died in the unrest.

The West regards the vote as a crucial step in preventing Ukraine from disintegrating further after Russia seized Crimea in March, and has warned Moscow of further sanctions if it disrupts polling.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin - still authorised by parliament to invade Ukraine if necessary to "protect" ethnic Russians - appeared to make a big concession on Friday by saying he was ready to work with the new government in Kiev, Ukraine's capital.

"We understand that the people of Ukraine want their country to emerge from this crisis. We will treat their choice with respect," Putin said.

Ukraine's new president will be faced with a challenge of finding a common ground with Russia, maintaining close ties with the West without antagonising Moscow, and saving the country's collapsing economy.

"Regardless of who wins, Russia's manoeuvring and outright support for the rebels over the past months has already helped it secure its goal of a destabilised Ukraine unable to join the EU or NATO anytime in the foreseeable future," Al Jazeera's Wendle said.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/05/ukrainians-vote-crucial-presidential-polls-201452543845239801.html

Poroshenko claims victory in Ukraine election
Billionaire has majority lead in exit poll, with former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko trailing second.
Last updated: 25 May 2014 21:50


Petro Poroshenko has declared himself winner in Ukraine's presidential election and vowed to end the conflict in his country, after an exit poll showed he had won an outright majority.

Poroshenko, appearing on television on Sunday shortly after the poll was published, hailed what he said was a record turnout in a Ukrainian election.

"The first steps that must be taken must focus on finishing the war, the chaos, and bring peace to a united Ukraine," said Poroshenko, a billionaire businessman who also has political experience.

"A united Ukraine is the basis of my presidential programme," he said. "The majority of voters supported a pro-European choice and this is extremely important."

He also said he would never recognise Russia's "occupation of Crimea".

The National Exit Poll 2014 showed Poroshenko had 55.9 percent of the vote, well ahead of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in second place with 12.9 percent. The poll had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

The official result will be released on Monday.

Tymoshenko stood on stage with Poroshenko as he claimed the election. She said: "I am confident that the incoming president has the opportunity, influence and power to stop the war immediately.

"Our team and me personally will do everything to help build a powerful, European Ukraine."

Voter turnout was high for the election, although voting was slower in the separatist strongholds in the east of the country, such as Donetsk.

Ukrainian political analyst Valentyna Romanova told Al Jazeera that while people to Ukraine's east "used to dislike people who won the presidency in Kiev before", Poroshenko believed he was capable of winning their support.

"Decentralisation reform can hopefully be a successful institutional mechanism to ensure the voice of the people of Donetsk can be heard," Romanova said.

Yesterday Was The Bloodiest Day Of The Ukraine Crisis For The Country's Military

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY
MAY 23, 2014, 10:44 AM



Candidates vying to become Ukraine's next president are due to hold their final campaign rallies on May 23, one day after the Ukrainian Army suffered heavy losses to pro-Russian separatists in the east.

The May 25 vote pits front-runner Petro Poroshenko, a 48-year-old confectionary magnate, against nearly 20 other challengers, including former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. A second round against Tymoshenko is expected June 15.

Poroshenko is pledging to resolve the unrest in the east within three months if elected, saying there is a "big risk of a Transdniester scenario" if that timetable is not met.

He has also promised a "powerful army," saying "there must be a legitimate leadership to stop the chaos and war."

In a brief nationally televised address on May 23, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov urged voters to come out and show their support for a free and democratic Ukraine.

"We will never again stand being denied freedom and independence or seeing our Ukraine being turned into a part of a post-Soviet empire," he said.

Turchynov's appeal came after the Health Ministry said 16 soldiers were killed in an ambush in the Donetsk town of Volnovakha on the morning of May 22, while the Defense Ministry said another soldier was killed near Rubizhne in Luhansk.

The French news agency AFP reports that at least five people were killed on May 23 in fighting near Donetsk.

An AFP photographer said he saw five bodies near the village of Karlivka, northwest of Donetsk. Four of the dead appeared to be rebels and one man seemed to have fought for the so-called Donbas volunteer battalion that has backed government troops.



Russian Troop Pullback

Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov said on May 23 that Moscow plans to pull back "100 percent" of its forces near its border with Ukraine "within a few days."

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on May 22 that limited Russian troop movements near the border with Ukraine "may suggest" preparations for a withdrawal.

In an interview on May 23 with Germany's "Saarbruecker Zeitung" newspaper, Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept the assessment of 1,000 election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

"I expect Russia to respect the doubtlessly objective assessment of the OSCE," she said. "After all, it is a member of the organisation."

Putin, speaking in St. Petersburg on May 23 at an economic forum, said he believes Ukraine is in a "full-scale civil war."

Voting will be challenging in the east, where the rebels have seized 18 of the 34 election commissions in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

Speaking at an international security conference in Moscow on May 23, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the West had sparked the current conflict in Ukraine by its "megalomania" and needed to learn the "right lesson" from the crisis.

Chechen Militants Are Now Spreading Chaos In Ukraine

JEREMY BENDER

MAY 28, 2014, 12:09 PM


Dozen of Chechens are now reportedly fighting alongside pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine in at attempt to cause further instability, Courtney Weaver of the Financial Times reports.
The Chechens, which Russian-backed Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov allegedly dispatched to Ukraine's restive east, are a new face of Russia's interference in the country. Since the militants are not formal Russian soldiers, Russia can continue to deny its links to separatists in Ukraine.

“If they are Chechens, they are citizens of the Russian Federation. We can’t control where our citizens go,” a Russian foreign ministry official told the Financial Times. “But I can assure you that we have not sent our forces there.”

Chechen fighters had reportedly taken part in the battle at the Donetsk airport, in which more than 50 pro-Russian separatists were killed during a heavy Ukrainian assault.

The presence of Chechens in Ukraine is worrying for a number of reasons. Chechen militants are known for being well-trained and formidable fighters. Chechnya was a war zone for most of the period between 1994 to 2009, and many Chechen militants received training from foreign jihadists who were assisting in the mostly-Muslim separatist movement's fight against Moscow.

Chechen fighters are also known for using incredibly brutal tactics. Terrorists from the region were responsible for a 2004 attack on a Russian school that left more than 300 dead.

The inclusion of Chechens also signals that the crisis in Ukraine could widen. Serbian ultra-nationalists already flocked to Crimea during the Russian invasion of the peninsula to help ensure order during the referendum that led to Russia's annexation of the region.

The Chechens, for their part, have sworn revenge against the Ukrainian government for the death of one of their militiamen in Donetsk.

“They’ve killed one of our guys and we will not forget this,” one Chechen fighter told the Financial Times. “We will take one hundred of their lives for the life our brother.”

Pro-Russian Rebel Factions Are Now Fighting Each Other In Donetsk

The Telegraph

ROLAND OLIPHANT, THE TELEGRAPH

MAY 29, 2014, 6:12 PM


Ukraine's rebel movement was plunged into crisis on Thursday, when pro-Russian fighters backed by armoured personnel carriers seized the movement's headquarters in Donetsk and destroyed the barricades protecting it.
The surprise move by a group called the Vostok Battalion, a heavily armed rebel unit that has been involved in fighting against the Ukrainian army, sparked speculation about an internal coup within the fractious rebel movement.

There was also speculation that the move could have been an attempt by the leadership to purge undesirable elements with the Donetsk Peoples' Republic.

Key rebel leaders, who were not in the building when the fighters arrived, insisted they were still in control and that they had even ordered the operation.

"This is a police action directed against looters," a rebel source close to Alexander Borodai, the prime minister of the self-declared republic, said on Thursday afternoon. "There is no coup. Everything is under control."

Gunmen from the battalion, which includes fighters from mainland Russia as well as Ukrainian-born volunteers, said they had acted out of disgust at the looting of a supermarket following the battle for Donetsk airport on Monday.

"We're on the same side, we're never going back to Ukraine. We're just against lawlessness and theft," said one fighter as he picked through the chaos left behind by the building's occupiers.

The 11-story regional administration building has been the headquarters of the Donetsk rebel movement since it was stormed and occupied by pro-Russian activists on April 6, sparking the uprising that led to the current conflict in the region.

Since then it has been used variously as the 'republic's' government headquarters, a parliament, a hospital, a command centre, and most notoriously as a prison.

Thursday's raid finally put an end to that occupation, with Vostok Battalion fighters evicting hundreds of pro-Russian activists from the building before bringing in bulldozers to destroy the barricades built to protect it against the police.

In one office on the sixth floor a fridge was stocked with huge cheeses and sausages bearing the logo of the Metro supermarket, a superstore close to the airport that was reportedly raided by well-organised looters after Monday's battle brought life in the district to a standstill.

In other offices, fighters found vast quantities of cigarettes, soft drinks, and shops own-brand socks and underwear stacked on desks and in wardrobes.

"We were starving on the battle field for two days," said a masked fighter, as he tested the ripeness of several mangos looted from the fruit and vegetable department that were scattered on a desk in a sixth floor office.

Access to the building had previously been tightly controlled, and the raid provided a rare opportunity to glimpse the chaotic mechanics of the pro-Russian counter revolution.

Offices were stacked with used ashtrays, discarded food and mattresses.

On the tenth floor several offices had been marked with the initials of the NKVD – Josef Stalin's feared secret police force, which the 'republic' appears to have attempted to revive.

The purge came as republican leaders dropped all pretence of Russian involvement in the uprising, with rebel leaders announcing the repatriation of dozens of bodies of Russian fighters killed in Monday's battle at the airport.

Lorries carrying the bodies of 33 Russian citizens, who were amongst dozens of rebels killed, left Donetsk for Russia on Thursday evening.

Casualties from Monday's fighting were so heavy that fighters had to take over a refrigeration facility at a local factory when the main city morgue overflowed.

The bodies of six fighters were laid in coffins waiting to be loaded on to the huge articulated refrigerator lorry that would carry them to the Russian border when The Daily Telegraph was granted access to the facility on Thursday.

Workers used painted a huge red cross and the number "200" – Soviet-era military code for dead bodies in transit – on the roof and sides of the lorry, in a bid to ward off attacks by Ukrainian aircraft.

The convoy, escorted by police, planned to carry the bodies to Rostov-on-Don, where they would be dispatched to families across Russia, rebel spokesmen organising the convoy said.

Rebel leaders say the Russian fighters were all volunteers, not members of the regular Russian armed forces. They reiterated the hope that President Vladimir Putin would finally send troops to assist them.

The open admission of the presence of foreign fighters marks a remarkable change of tune from the separatist leadership, which previously maintained that its forces were entirely made up of locals.

While Donetsk was relatively calm on Thursday, fighting continued around the rebel stronghold of Slavyansk.

In a serious loss for the Ukrainians, 14 servicemen including a general were killed when rebels downed a helicopter near the city.

Olexander Turchynov, Ukraine's acting president told parliament rebels used a portable air defence missile to bring the down the helicopter and said Gen Volodymyr Kulchitsky was among the dead.

A separatist spokesman had earlier told Russian news agencies that the militants had downed a Ukrainian army helicopter in a fierce battle on the southern outskirts of the rebel-controlled city.

The unnamed spokesman said that "as a result of active military activities, several houses belonging to civilians caught fire".

The death toll is one of the highest suffered by Ukrainian forces since the separatist insurgency first erupted in eastern Ukraine in early April.

How to Start a Civil War in Ukraine (and How to Avoid One)

Contrary to some interpretations of unfolding events, it isn’t possible for Ukraine to join the West while coexisting peacefully with Russia.
Robert W. Merry

May 30, 2014
Tweet

Buried near the bottom of the Wall Street Journal’s Tuesday editorial on the Ukrainian elections was this sentence: “Sunday’s vote showed that Ukrainians want to join the West while co-existing peacefully with Russia.” There are two problems with this. First, it is far from clear that this was the underlying civic sentiment expressed in the elections. Second, even if the Journal’s reading of the vote is correct, it isn’t remotely possible for Ukraine to join the West while coexisting peacefully with Russia.

If Ukraine’s electoral winner, Petro Poroshenko, is going to succeed, he must correctly dissect the vote, and the stakes posed by this challenge are immense. As the Journal notes, the “chance for civil war is real,” and avoidance of such bloodshed will require a delicate balancing act and an uncommon deftness in knitting disparate political sentiments, passions and interests into a governing coalition. If he takes the Journal’s position—that the election settled with finality the question of Ukraine’s tragic dual identity—he almost inevitably will unleash that civil war.

As I have emphasized in these spaces over the past several months, Ukraine is what the late Samuel Huntington called a “cleft country”, split between a European-oriented, nationalist region in the west and a Russian-oriented, largely Orthodox-influenced region in the east. Since Ukraine’s independence at the end of the Cold War, no Ukrainian politician has been able to bridge the gap between these two regions and these two cultural sensibilities. Electoral results over the years have reflected this dual identity—and also reflected the consequent inability of any population segment to impose, through politics, its cultural identity upon the nation as a whole.

It isn’t clear, based on the information now readily at hand, just what the vote totals demonstrate as to what the nation is looking for in its national leadership. Certainly, though, it would seem unrealistic to assume that one election suddenly erased the political sentiment of Ukraine’s eastern regions, which has been amply demonstrated in numerous previous elections and abundant opinion polling. Surveys in eastern Ukraine indicated that, while the majority there didn’t wish to be pulled into the Russian Federation, as Crimea was, it did wish to maintain its cultural and economic ties with Russia and had no desire to antagonize the big neighbor to the east.

Thus, Sunday’s vote totals more likely reflected a political fear, in both regions, that a disruptive civil war was too close for comfort and that Poroshenko was viewed as the country’s last best hope for a conciliatory solution.

A billionaire candy magnate with an extensive political background and talent for political ambiguity, Poroshenko now faces the challenge of bridging the regional gap, and he appears to be as well equipped as anybody to pull it off. But he won’t succeed if he takes his cues from Western governmental bureaucrats and commentators who see the Ukrainian drama as a stark morality play in which the good guys are the nationalists of the west and the bad guys are the Russian-speaking and Russian-oriented people of the east.

He will do well to steer clear of such thinking and concentrate on the key challenges and problems of his country—fixing Ukraine’s devastated economy through whatever alliances can best further that aim; combating the civic corruption that has plagued the country for years, irrespective of which side captured the presidency; establishing governmental legitimacy in the wake of a street coup that upended a duly elected government; and—most important—crafting a governing model to somehow accommodate the passions of both west and east. The latter likely will require some concept of autonomy that protects eastern peoples from cultural hegemony from the west while also protecting the west from undue Russian interference.

All of this will have to be pursued with an understanding that no Ukrainian leader will be able to wrest Ukraine from Russia’s strategic sphere of influence, where the country has resided for the past 350 years. That’s because no Russian leader will allow any such turn of events to unfold. Major regional powers don’t accept severe blows to their strategic positions in their own neighborhoods without employing all means necessary to prevent them. Russia is no exception.

The United States is no exception, either, as attested by its audacious resolve, from the Monroe Doctrine onward, to exercise complete control over its own broad geopolitical environment. It went to war to cement its annexation of Texas and wrest from Mexico vast territories seen as crucial to its strategic position on the North American continent. It contemplated a war with France to remove a Mexican “emperor” installed by the French during the Civil War. It entered a war with Spain in 1898 to kick that waning empire out of the Caribbean and thus, gain strategic dominance over that body of nearby water—and also the northern entrance of the coming Panama Canal. It engaged in all kinds of questionable Cold War behavior—including assassination missions—born of its irritation that a communist-aligned leader should hold sway in nearby Cuba. It braved prospects of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union in order to remove nuclear missiles from that contested island. It pushed its weight around throughout its hemisphere for decades to protect its perceived strategic and economic interests.

Many of these activities have been criticized and even vilified by people both inside and outside the United States over the decades, but in fact, they are the natural actions of a nation bent on protecting its security in its near abroad. All nations do this to the extent of their capability.

The question faced by America and the West is whether Russia’s resolve to do this in next-door Ukraine represents any kind of intrinsic threat to American or Western interests. The answer is no. Ukraine has served as a useful buffer territory between these two civilizational entities for centuries, with Russian influence generally holding sway, and there is no reason why the West should seek to upend this natural state of things. In fact, efforts to do so represent a level of aggressiveness that no Russian leader will tolerate.

That is the fundamental reality of the situation, and irrespective of whether America and Europe come to accept it, Poroshenko can’t ignore it without putting his leadership and his country at risk. If he seeks to yank Ukraine away from the Russian sphere of influence and place the entirety of the country under the Western sphere, particularly if that enhances prospects for NATO membership, he will drive a wedge through his country and probably bring Russian intervention. That’s why, contrary to the Journal’s interpretation of unfolding events, it isn’t possible for Ukraine to join the West while coexisting peacefully with Russia.

Even if Poroshenko understands and accepts this reality, his tenure will be fraught with danger and will require extremely creative and adroit leadership. If he doesn’t, the tragedy of Ukraine will become all the more ominous.

Robert W. Merry is the political editor of The National Interest and the author of books on American history and foreign policy. His most recent book is Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians.

Prorrusos derriban avión en Ucrania; mueren 49 soldados

AP Junio 14, 2014 11:55 am

La aeronave transportaba equipos y alimentos, así como personal, dijo el Ministerio de Defensa


KIEV. Separatistas prorrusos derribaron la madrugada de este sábado un avión militar de transporte y mataron a los 49 efectivos a bordo, informó la Fiscalía General de Ucrania.

Fue un duro revés para los ucranianos en su lucha contra la insurgencia montada por los adversarios del nuevo gobierno.

Nueve tripulantes y 40 soldados estaban a bordo del avión Il-76 cuando se desplomó mientras se aproximaba al aeropuerto de la ciudad de Lugansk, de acuerdo con un comunicado de la fiscalía.

La sección de la cola y otros escombros humeantes estaban desparramados en un campo cerca de la aldea de Novohannivka, unos 20 kilómetros al sur de Lugansk. Un periodista de la AP vio a una decena de separatistas armados inspeccionando el lugar.

El incidente suscita interrogantes sobre el acceso de los rebeldes a pertrechos militares. Ucrania ha acusado a Rusia de permitir que tres tanques crucen la frontera para ser usados por los rebeldes. El Kremlin niega que esté abasteciendo a los separatistas.

La OTAN difundió imágenes este sábado que, dijo, muestran movimientos de tanques rusos cerca de la frontera los cuales “suscitan interrogantes significativos” sobre el papel de Moscú.

Los tanques vistos en Ucrania, según la OTAN, “no llevan marcas ni pintura de camuflaje como los que usan las fuerzas armadas ucranianas. En realidad, no llevan marcas, lo cual recuerda las tácticas empleadas por elementos rusos que participaron en la desestabilización de Crimea”.

Denis Pushilin, líder de la autoproclamada República Popular de Donetsk, dijo a la televisión estatal rusa el viernes que los rebeldes tenían tanques, pero que “no corresponde preguntar” dónde los obtuvieron.

Otro funcionario, el portavoz de la lucha contra el terrorismo Vladislav Seleznyov, citado por la agencia de noticias Interfax, dijo que la cifra era preliminar.

La fiscalía dijo que se abrió una investigación penal, de acuerdo con las leyes antiterroristas.

El avión transportaba equipos y alimentos, así como personal, dijo el Ministerio de Defensa de Ucrania.

La declaración del ministerio dijo que los rebeldes, “con cinismo y traición”, derribaron el avión utilizando cañones antiaéreos y ametralladoras de calibre grueso. Expresó su solidaridad con las familias de los muertos “por su pérdida trágica e irreparable”.

El avión de fabricación rusa II-76 es una nave espaciosa de cuatro motores, diseñada para transportar gente y carga pesada.

Lugansk se encuentra en el este de Ucrania, muy cerca de la frontera con Rusia, una zona en la que los rebeldes prorrusos han tomado edificios gubernamentales y han declarado la independencia después de varios referéndums.

El Ministerio de Sanidad de Ucrania informó que al menos 270 personas han muerto como consecuencia de los enfrentamientos entre las fuerzas del gobierno ucraniano y los separatistas armados, que según Kiev reciben el apoyo de Rusia. Moscú ha negado eso categóricamente.

Las hostilidades entre Rusia y Ucrania se intensificaron en febrero, tras la salida forzada del presidente prorruso Viktor Yanukóvich a causa de una revuelta popular que pedía un mayor acercamiento con la Unión Europea.

Separatist rebels 'defy Ukraine cease-fire'
Pro-Russian rebels attack military posts in Ukraine's east after Kiev declares unilateral truce, defence ministry says.
Last updated: 21 Jun 2014 16:17

Poroshenko announced the cease-fire on Friday, but warned that the army would hit back if attacked [Reuters]

Pro-Russian separatists have attacked several Ukrainian army posts on the border with Russia, government forces said, putting a Ukrainian unilateral cease-fire under pressure.

The action came just hours after the start of a temporary cease-fire, which was declared by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at 10pm on Friday as part of his plan to end the rebellion in the east of the country.

A government forces spokesman said the separatists used mortars and sniper fire to attack army posts at Izvareno and Uspenka on the border, wounding nine Ukrainian officers.

Rebels with big calibre machine guns and grenade-launchers also attacked a Ukrainian position at Avdiyivka, near the main regional town of Donetsk, and a Ukrainian post at Kreminna, the army said.

Separatists controlling Slaviansk also attacked Ukrainian forces on Karachun hill overlooking the town with mortars and grenade-launchers, the spokesman, Vladyslav Seleznyov, said.


"In all these episodes, the attacks of the (rebel) fighters were deflected" without loss, Seleznyov said.

Poroshenko announced the week-long cease-fire on Friday night, urging the rebels to lay down their arms and warning that Ukrainian forces would hit back if attacked.

Ukrainian forces also repelled two attacks by around 50 heavily-armed fighters in the early morning on an air defence base at Avdiyivka, which houses surface-to-air missiles, the defence ministry said.

No Ukrainian personnel were hurt.

The rebels, who have seized strategic points in major towns including Donetsk and set up "people's republics", saying they want to join Russia, said Ukraine has broken its own ceasefire.

'Cease-fire not working'

Alexander Borodai, prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, told a news conference the cease-fire was not working and appealed to Russia to send in peacekeeping forces.

The continuing concentration of Russian armed forces and their heightened activity near the border with Ukraine causes special concern against a background of numerous facts that confirm weapons and military equipment are being supplied to the terrorists

Ukrainian foreign ministry

"Since last evening, combat activities are continuing. Poroshenko's artillery is bombing Slaviansk and the air force has made several raids. Words about a cease-fire as always were just that - words," Borodai said.

"The anti-terrorist operation against the people of the Donbass is in full swing," he said.

Pavel Gubarev, a prominent rebel leader, told Rossiya-24 TV channel that either Ukrainian troops were not obeying orders or Poroshenko "is lying", adding: "There is no ceasefire at all."

Poroshenko, installed on June 7 as president after seven months of turmoil in the ex-Soviet republic, ordered government forces to cease firing to allow his 15-point peace plan to take root.

The separatist movement in the Russian-speaking east erupted in April after street protests in the capital Kiev toppled the Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich. Russia subsequently annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

Poroshenko has offered an amnesty to separatists who disarm voluntarily as well as corridors to allow fighters from Russia or pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists to leave safely for Russia.a diplomatic push to sell his plan but his biggest challenge will be to win over Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Relations with Moscow are at rock bottom and Kiev accuses Moscow of fomenting the unrest.

The Kremlin on Friday denounced the cease-fire as an ultimatum rather than a peace offering and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed concern about Ukrainian military action.

"It is disturbing and raises concerns that, simultaneously with this (cease-fire) announcement...the so-called anti-terrorist operation is increasing," Interfax quoted him as saying during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

Ukraine, for its part, expressed concern on Saturday about an increase in Russian military movements near the border, saying Moscow could be supplying separatist fighters with weapons.

"The continuing concentration of Russian armed forces and their heightened activity near the border with Ukraine causes special concern against a background of numerous facts that confirm weapons and military equipment are being supplied to the terrorists," Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Source:
Agencies
Email Article

Four killed as Ukraine repels rebels in east
Overnight fighting violates ceasefire that had been extended by 72 hours after Ukraine signed trade deal with EU.
Last updated: 28 Jun 2014 10:25
Email Article
Print Article
Share article
Send Feedback

Four soldiers have been killed and five wounded after Ukraine's military regained control of a checkpoint in the eastern region that had been earlier taken over by separatists.

The fighting in Donetsk erupted overnight on Friday in violation of a ceasefire agreement between the government and pro-Russian rebels that was to last until Monday.

Earlier on Friday, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko decided to extend the ceasefire, on the same day that he signed a trade agreement with the European Union - the deal that sparked the political crisis last year.

The ceasefire extension had been undertaken, it said, in line with a deadline set by EU leaders for Ukrainian rebels to agree to ceasefire verification arrangements, return border checkpoints to Kiev authorities and free hostages including detained monitors of the OSCE rights and security watchdog.

At a separate meeting, Poroshenko and national security chiefs said that during the next 72 hours recruitment centres
for Russian fighters across the border in Russia should be closed.

The one-week truce had been due to expire on Friday at 19:00 GMT, and will now expire at 19:00 GMT on June 30, according to the presidential website.

Mass exodus

Some 110,000 people have fled to Russia from Ukraine while more than 54,000 have been displaced inside the conflict-torn country, the UN said on Friday.

"Since the start of 2014, 110,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Russia," Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the UN's refugee agency, told reporters.

She said that most had fled from the embattled eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, where Ukrainian forces are battling separatists, AFP news agency reported.

But she underlined that it was not possible to say whether most or all of those fleeing to neighbouring Russia were from Ukraine's Russian-speaking population.

Most people are seeking other forms of legal stay, often because they're concerned about complications involving seeking asylum or since there might be reprisals if they return to Ukraine

Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the UN's refugee agency

Claims that Russian-speakers in Ukraine are under threat have been cited regularly by the rebels and Moscow, though UN human rights probes have said there is little evidence for such fears.

"Only 9,500 have requested asylum. Most people are seeking other forms of legal stay, often because they're concerned about complications involving seeking asylum or since there might be reprisals if they return to Ukraine," Fleming said.

Most of the most recent arrivals are clustered in the western Russian cities of Rostov-on-Don and Bryansk, near the Ukrainian border, said Fleming.

Close to 13,000 people, including 5,000 children, are being accommodated mainly in public buildings and tented camps in Rostov-on-Don.

In Bryansk, where 6,500 arrived in recent days, the majority are staying with friends and relatives.

Within Ukraine itself, 16,400 people have fled their homes in the east in the past week alone, taking the total number of internally-displaced to 54,400.

"The rise in numbers of the past week coincides with a recent deterioration of the situation in eastern Ukraine. Displaced people cite worsening law and order, fear of abductions, human rights violations and the disruption of state services," Fleming said.
Source:
Agencies

EU leaders urge Ukraine to extend ceasefire
Leaders of France and Germany join presidents of Russia and Ukraine in telephonic talks aimed at ending violence.
Last updated: 29 Jun 2014 20:55
Email Article
Print Article
Share article
Send Feedback

The leaders of France and Germany have spoken for more than two hours by telephone with presidents of Russia and Ukraine, seeking progress before a fragile ceasefire between Kiev and pro-Kremlin separatists expires.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande joined Vladimir Putin on Sunday in asking Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko to extend the truce in country's troubled east for a longer period, the Kremlin said in a statement issued after a four-way teleconference.

However, fighting flared on Sunday between Ukrainian forces and separatists around the eastern flashpoint city of Slaviansk despite the truce.

The phone talks came ahead of a Monday deadline that European Union leaders set for Russia and the separatists to take steps to ease the violence, warning that otherwise they were ready "at any time" to impose further punitive measures.

The European leaders encouraged the Ukrainian and Russian presidents to work on meeting the EU conditions, Hollande's office said in a statement.

The EU's demands included the return of three border checkpoints to Ukrainian control, verification of the ceasefire by monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, free hostages and talks to put Poroshenko's peace plan in place.

Tensions remain high

The call was the latest in a series of discussions the four leaders have held in recent weeks in an effort to stop the fighting that has killed more than 400 people since April. A ceasefire in place since June 20 has been shaky, with each side accusing the other of numerous violations.

A statement released by Poroshenko's office said he underlined Ukraine's willingness to maintain a ceasefire at least until Monday evening, but expressed concern about the situation.

The four agreed to speak again on Monday according to the new Ukrainian president's office.

In another indication that tensions remain high, several hundred Ukrainian soldiers and activists gathered outside the presidential administration in Kiev on Sunday to demand that Poroshenko lift the ceasefire and allow them
to resume their fight.

A presidential administration official, Henadiy Zubko, promised to pass on their demands to the president, but told them that the ceasefire order would remain in effect until 10pm Monday (1900GMT).

Another EU condition was fulfilled late on Saturday, when pro-Russia separatists released a second team of four OSCE observers who had been held captive in eastern Ukraine since the end of May. The first team of four was freed last week.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies

Ukraine ends ceasefire with rebels
President Poroshenko pledges military action against separatists after deciding against renewing ceasefire.
Last updated: 30 Jun 2014 23:02
Email Article
Print Article
Share article
Send Feedback
President Poroshenko accused the rebels of numerous violations of the ceasefire [AP]

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has vowed to renew operations against pro-Russian rebels, hours after a ceasefire with the separatists in the east of the country expired.

"We will attack and free our lands. The decision not to continue the ceasefire is our answer to terrorists, militants and marauders," he said on his website early on Tuesday.

The fragile ceasefire expired on Monday night. The idea was to give rebels a chance to disarm and to start a broader peace process including an amnesty and new elections.

Kiev had accused the rebels of numerous violations of the ceasefire, and a statement tweeted by the Foreign Ministry said 27 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed since the ceasefire began on June 20.

"The unique chance to put the peace plan into practice was not realised," Poroshenko said in a speech prepared for delivery to the nation, the Associated Press reported.

"This happened because of the criminal actions of the fighters."

The recently elected Poroshenko had already extended the ceasefire from seven days as part of a plan to end the fighting that has killed more than 400 people since April.

Four-way talks

Poroshenko's decision to end the ceasefire followed four-way talks in search of a solution with Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on Monday.

He issued a statement after the talks ended, saying the key conditions needed to continue the ceasefire had not been met.

Poroshenko said he made the decision after a meeting of the national security council.

"After discussion of the situation, I, as commander in chief, took the decision not to continue the unilateral ceasefire."

European leaders and the US have urged Russia to use its influence with the rebels to ease the bloodshed and have threatened to impose another round of economic sanctions against Moscow.

While Putin has expressed support for the ceasefire, the West has accused Russia of allowing weapons and fighters to flow across the border into Ukraine. Russia says any Russians there have gone as private citizens.

The end of the ceasefire raises the question of what action the Ukrainian military can take.

It has so far been unable to dislodge rebels occupying the city of Slovyansk or to retake control of three key border crossings with Russia.

At one point, the rebels shot down a government military transport, killing 49 service members.
Source:
Agencies

El Ejército ucranio lanza una ofensiva contra el feudo rebelde de Lugansk
Medio centenar de tanques participan en la acción, mientras sube la tensión con Moscú tras un bombardeo desde Ucrania
Rodrigo Fernández Moscú 13 JUL 2014 - 13:55 CEST

Lanzamisiles del Ejército ucranio en Siversk, en la región de Donetsk. / Evgeniy Maloletka (AP)
Recomendar en Facebook 0
Twittear 0
Enviar a LinkedIn 0
Enviar a Tuenti Enviar a Menéame Enviar a Eskup
Enviar Imprimir Guardar

El Ejército ucranio lanzó ayer una gran ofensiva contra la ciudad de Lugansk, en la que participan medio centenar de tanques, según anunciaron representantes de las fuerzas rebeldes prorrusas en esa provincia que se ha autoproclamado República Popular. También están atacando la vecina Donetsk, en un intento de bloquear los dos principales centros de los separatistas.

La ofensiva ucrania se intensificó después de que los rebeldes mataran a decenas de soldados ucranios en un ataque con misiles el viernes pasado. La situación en el frente motivó al presidente ucranio, Petro Poroshenko, a declinar la invitación que le había hecho Dilma Rousseff para que asistiera a la clausura del Mundial de fútbol, en Río de Janeiro, donde se esperaba que pudiera reunirse con el mandatario ruso, Vladímir Putin.

El objetivo de Kiev es sitiar a los bastiones separatistas y obligarlos a abandonar la lucha. Poroshenko ha dicho que estará dispuesto a negociar algunas concesiones a las provincias orientales, pobladas en gran parte por rusohablantes, una vez que depongan las armas.

Mientras tanto, la tensión con Moscú aumentó después de que un proyectil ucranio cayera en una vivienda de una localidad rusa cercana a la frontera con Ucrania, causando la muerte de un hombre e hiriendo a otras dos personas. El Kremlin —que antes había denunciado la caída de proyectiles en territorio ruso, pero sin que hasta hoy hubiera habido víctimas mortales— reaccionó con una enérgica protesta que fue transmitida al encargado de negocios ucranio en Moscú. Rusia advirtió que las consecuencias del incidente pueden ser “irreversibles” y responsabilizó del bombardeo al Ejército del vecino país.

El proyectil cayó en la localidad rusa de Donetsk —homónima de la capital de la región ucrania que también se ha autoproclamado independiente—, que queda en la provincia de Rostov, en la mañana de ayer, y tanto las fuerzas gubernamentales como los rebeldes negaron haber sido los autores del disparo. El ministerio ruso de Exteriores señala en su nota de protesta que “el incidente demuestra la peligrosísima escalada de tensión en la zona de la frontera ruso-ucrania” y exige la toma urgente “de medidas eficaces para eliminar provocaciones”.

En Ucrania, el portavoz del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional desmintió que los rebeldes hubieran derribado un helicóptero, como habían asegurado a la agencia rusa Ria Nóvosti. En declaraciones al mismo medio, Andréi Lysenko afirmó que “todos los aviones y helicópteros que participan en la operación” contra los separatistas están en “perfectas condiciones” y que “ninguno ha sido derribado en los últimos tres días”. El mismo Lysenko calificó de “tonterías” las acusaciones por parte de Moscú de haber disparado el proyectil que cayó en territorio ruso e insinuó que pudo haber sido obra de los “terroristas” (como Kiev llama a los rebeldes).

Ukraine: Air Force jet downed by Russian missile

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, right, talks to an officer during inspection of a Ukrainian Army position outside the eastern town of Slovyansk, Ukraine, July 16.
AP 2 days ago By PETER LEONARD of Associated Press



KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — An Air Force fighter jet has been shot down by an air-to-air missile fired from a Russian plane, a spokesman for Ukraine's Security Council said Thursday.

Andrei Lysenko also said Ukrainian troops had been fired upon by missiles from a village just inside Russia.

Officials in Kiev have recently accused Russia's armed forces of being directly implicated in attacks on Ukrainian troops battling an insurgency near the border.

Lysenko said in a televised briefing that the pilot of the Sukhoi-25 jet that was hit on Wednesday evening was forced to bail out after his jet was shot down. He provided no further details.

Pro-Russia rebels, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for strikes Wednesday on two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jets.

The Defense Ministry said the second jet was hit by a portable surface-to-air missile, but added the pilot was unscathed and managed to land his plane safely.

Moscow denies Western charges that is supporting the separatists in Ukraine or sowing unrest in its neighbor.

On Monday, Ukraine said one of its military transport planes carrying eight people was shot down by a missile fired from Russian territory. Security Service chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said he had "unconditional evidence" that Russia was involved in downing the craft.

Rebels claimed to have shot that plane down.

The U.S. slapped tougher sanctions against Russia on Wednesday for its actions in Ukraine, prompting a strong reaction Thursday from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said they will stalemate bilateral relations and hurt not only Russian but also American businesses.

Russia's benchmark MICEX was down 2.6 percent in early afternoon trading Thursday upon news of the sanctions while Russia's biggest oil company, Rosneft, was nearly 5 percent down.

The U.S. sanctions target two major Russian energy firms including Rosneft, a pair of powerful financial institutions, eight weapons firms and four individuals.

The U.S. penalties, however, stopped short of the most stringent actions the West has threatened, which would fully cut off key sectors of Russia's oil-dependent economy. But officials said those steps were still on the table if Russia fails to abide by the West's demands to stop its support for the pro-Russia insurgents.

Malaysian Airlines Plane Reportedly Shot Down By Surface-To-Air-Missile, Crashes In Ukraine
Published July 17, 2014
Fox News Latino



KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – A Ukrainian official said a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday over a town in the east of the country, and Malaysian Airlines tweeted that it lost contact with one of its flights over Ukrainian airspace.

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher. A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday. The Buk missile system can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet).

Malaysia Airlines said on its Twitter feed that it "has lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace. More details to follow."

The region has seen severe fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russia separatist rebels in recent days.

On Wednesday evening, a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday, adding to what Kiev says is mounting evidence that Moscow is directly supporting the separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine. Security Council spokesman Andrei Lysenko said the pilot of the Sukhoi-25 jet hit by the air-to-air missile was forced to bail after his jet was shot down.

Pro-Russia rebels, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for strikes Wednesday on two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jets. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said the second jet was hit by a portable surface-to-air missile, but added the pilot was unscathed and managed to land his plane safely

Moscow denies Western charges that is supporting the separatists or sowing unrest in its neighbor. The Russian Defense Ministry couldn't be reached for comment Thursday about the Ukrainian jet and Russia's foreign ministry didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.

Earlier this week, Ukraine said a military transport plane was shot down Monday by a missile fired from Russian territory.

The rebels are known to possess portable anti-aircraft rocket launchers, but Ukrainian officials say that kind of weapon would have been unable to reach Monday's plane at the altitude at which it was flying Monday. Aviation experts, however, have questioned whether the stricken transport plane was flying at the altitude Ukrainian officials had claimed.

Downing of plane in Ukraine scatters bodies and debris for miles

Ukraine plane crash:: ​People walk among the debris at the crash site of a passenger plane near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine, on Thursday, July 17. AP Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky

Reuters 1 day ago By Anton Zverev of Reuters



HRABOVE, Ukraine, July 17 (Reuters) - A lone fireman stood hosing down a smoldering pile of wreckage and mangled bodies on Thursday after a Malaysian passenger airliner was brought down in fields in eastern Ukraine.

To reach the wreckage, media crews, emergency vehicles, locals and rebels - fighting to unite the eastern territory with Russia - drove around body parts along a narrow pot-holed road beside the fields, where the dead were strewn over an area of several kilometers (miles).

The debris from the plane, which came down near the village of Hrabove about 40 km (25 miles) from the border with Russia, was scattered across such a large area that one piece of metal fell on the town of Snezhnye, some 20 km away, residents said.

What or who brought down the plane, killing all 295 passengers and crew aboard, was disputed but there was no doubt that those on board had no chance of survival.

"There was a loud bang. I got scared because it sounded so close. I looked up and there were black bits raining down in every direction," said a witness, who gave his name only as Vladimir and said he had been working nearby in his tractor.

"Then I saw the plane hit the ground and break in two. There was thick black smoke," he said.

A broken wing lay in one part of a wide field and the tail fin in another, the red and blue markings of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 clearly visible.

Twisted hunks of metal, parts of the broken fuselage, also lay by the side of the road, with the seats now empty. A large sheet of metal lined with oval holes, where the plane's windows once were, lay flattened on the scorched earth.

Shirtless local villagers carried bits of the fuselage out of their back yards, lined by weathered wood-picket fences.

SOME BODIES INTACT

Some of the victims lying on the ground were naked, their clothing apparently destroyed by the blazing plane and their limbs twisted at awkward angles.

A few bodies were bloodied but still largely intact, though others were in pieces.

Recovery workers left signs where the bodies were found and many were taken away. A travel guide for the island of Bali lay on the ground.

Just three fire trucks, one ambulance and one hearse were parked nearby as pro-Russian separatist fighters in combat fatigues sifted through the wreckage. They were from a local group of fighters known as the Vostok (East) battalion.

One man collected passports from the bodies strewn across the field and drew up a list of the victims' names.

"From my balcony I saw a plane begin to descend from a great height and then heard two explosions," said one separatist from nearby Krasnyi Luch who gave his name only as Sergei.

He denied the rebels had shot the plane down.

"This could happen only if it was a fighter jet or a surface-to-air missile (that shot it down)," he said, noting that the rebels did not have weapons capable of shooting down a plane at such a height.

Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, disputed that, blaming the incident on "terrorists" and Ukraine's state security chief accused two Russian military intelligence officers of involvement in the downing of the plane. (Writing by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Louise Ireland)

181 bodies found so far at Malaysia plane crash site in Ukraine

Loading Photo Gallery
Print
The Associated Press By The Associated Press
on July 18, 2014 at 7:23 AM, updated July 18, 2014 at 9:29 AM

Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners -- dressed in overalls and covered in soot -- spread out Friday across the sunflower fields and villages of eastern Ukraine, searching the wreckage of a jetliner shot down as it flew miles above the country's battlefield.

The attack Thursday afternoon killed 298 people from nearly a dozen nations -- including vacationers, students and a large contingent of scientists heading to an AIDS conference.

U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, but could not say who fired it. The Ukraine government in Kiev, the separatist pro-Russia rebels they are fighting in the east and the Russia government that Ukraine accuses of supporting the rebels all deny shooting the passenger plane down. Moscow also denies backing the rebels.

By midday, 181 bodies had been located, according to emergency workers at the sprawling crash site.

Ukraine has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and the Unites States has offered to help. But access to the site remained difficult and dangerous. The road from Donetsk, the largest city in the region, to the crash site was marked by five rebel checkpoints Friday, with document checks at each.

Separatist rebels who control the crash site issued conflicting reports Friday about whether they had recovered the plane's black boxes or not.

"No black boxes have been found ... we hope that experts will track them down and create a picture of what has happened," said Donetsk separatist leader Aleksandr Borodai.

Borodai said that 17 representatives from the Organization for Security and Cooperation and four Ukrainian experts had traveled into rebel-controlled areas to begin a plane investigation.

Earlier Friday, an aide to the military leader of Borodai's group said authorities had recovered eight out of 12 recording devices.

Since planes usually have two black boxes -- one for recording flight data and the other for recording cockpit voices -- it was not clear what the number 12 referred to.

An angry Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott demanded an independent inquiry into the downing.

"The initial response of the Russian ambassador was to blame Ukraine for this and I have to say that is deeply, deeply unsatisfactory," he said. "It's very important that we don't allow Russia to prevent an absolutely comprehensive investigation so that we can find out exactly what happened here."

"This is not an accident, it's a crime," he added.

For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed Kiev's accusations that Moscow could be behind the attack.

"Regarding those claims from Kiev that we allegedly did it ourselves: I have not heard a truthful statement from Kiev for months," he told the Rossiya 24 television channel.



Loading Photo Gallery
Print
The Associated Press By The Associated Press
on July 18, 2014 at 7:23 AM, updated July 18, 2014 at 9:29 AM

Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners -- dressed in overalls and covered in soot -- spread out Friday across the sunflower fields and villages of eastern Ukraine, searching the wreckage of a jetliner shot down as it flew miles above the country's battlefield.

The attack Thursday afternoon killed 298 people from nearly a dozen nations -- including vacationers, students and a large contingent of scientists heading to an AIDS conference.

U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, but could not say who fired it. The Ukraine government in Kiev, the separatist pro-Russia rebels they are fighting in the east and the Russia government that Ukraine accuses of supporting the rebels all deny shooting the passenger plane down. Moscow also denies backing the rebels.

By midday, 181 bodies had been located, according to emergency workers at the sprawling crash site.

Ukraine has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and the Unites States has offered to help. But access to the site remained difficult and dangerous. The road from Donetsk, the largest city in the region, to the crash site was marked by five rebel checkpoints Friday, with document checks at each.

Separatist rebels who control the crash site issued conflicting reports Friday about whether they had recovered the plane's black boxes or not.

"No black boxes have been found ... we hope that experts will track them down and create a picture of what has happened," said Donetsk separatist leader Aleksandr Borodai.

Borodai said that 17 representatives from the Organization for Security and Cooperation and four Ukrainian experts had traveled into rebel-controlled areas to begin a plane investigation.

Earlier Friday, an aide to the military leader of Borodai's group said authorities had recovered eight out of 12 recording devices.

Since planes usually have two black boxes -- one for recording flight data and the other for recording cockpit voices -- it was not clear what the number 12 referred to.

An angry Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott demanded an independent inquiry into the downing.

"The initial response of the Russian ambassador was to blame Ukraine for this and I have to say that is deeply, deeply unsatisfactory," he said. "It's very important that we don't allow Russia to prevent an absolutely comprehensive investigation so that we can find out exactly what happened here."

"This is not an accident, it's a crime," he added.

For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed Kiev's accusations that Moscow could be behind the attack.

"Regarding those claims from Kiev that we allegedly did it ourselves: I have not heard a truthful statement from Kiev for months," he told the Rossiya 24 television channel.

The crash site was spread out over fields between two villages in eastern Ukraine -- Rozsypne and Hrabove -- and fighting apparently still continued nearby. In the distance, the thud of Grad missile launchers being fired could be heard Friday morning.

In the sunflower fields around Rozsypne, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border, lines of men disappeared into the thick, tall growth that was over their heads. One fainted after finding a body. Another body was covered in a coat.

In Hrabove, several miles away, huge numbers of simple sticks, some made from tree branches, were affixed with red or white rags to mark spots where body parts were found.

Ukraine Foreign Ministry representative Andriy Sybiga said 181 bodies had been found, citing local emergency workers. He said the bodies will be taken to Kharkiv, a government-controlled city 270 kilometers (170 miles) to the north, for identification.

Among the debris were watches and smashed mobile phones, charred boarding passes and passports. An "I (heart) Amsterdam" T-shirt and a guidebook to Bali hinted at holiday plans.

Large chunks of the Boeing 777 that bore the airline's red, white and blue markings lay strewn over one field. The cockpit and one turbine lay a kilometer (a half-mile) apart, and residents said the tail landed another 10 kilometers (six miles) away.

One rebel militiaman in Rozsypne told The Associated Press that the plane's fuselage showed signs of being struck by a projectile.

The area has seen heavy fighting between government troops and pro-Russia separatists, and rebels had bragged about shooting down two Ukrainian military jets in the region just a day earlier.

Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for the downing, saying it was responsible for the unrest in its Russian-speaking eastern regions -- but did not accuse Ukraine of shooting the plane down and did not address the key question of whether Russia gave the rebels such a powerful missile.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk described the downing as an "international crime" whose perpetrators would have to be punished in an international tribunal.

"Yesterday's terrible tragedy will change our lives. The Russians have done it now," he was cited as saying by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, said the plane was flying at about 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile from a Buk launcher, which can fire up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet).

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lay repeatedly insisted that the airline's path was an internationally approved route and denied accusations that Malaysia Airlines was trying to save fuel and money by taking a more direct flight path across Ukraine.

"I want to stress that this route is an approved path that is used by many airlines including 15 Asia-Pacific airlines. We have not been informed that the path cannot be used," he said

Malaysia's prime minister said there was no distress call before the plane went down.

Aviation authorities in several countries, including the FAA in the United States, had issued previous warnings not to fly over parts of Ukraine after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March. Within hours of the crash Thursday, several airlines announced they were avoiding parts of Ukrainian airspace.

On Friday, Ukraine's state aviation service closed the airspace over two regions currently gripped by separatist fighting -- Donetsk and Luhansk -- and Russian aviation regulators said Russian airlines have suspended all flights over Ukraine.

At a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Airlines updated its nationality count of passengers, saying the plane carried 173 Dutch, 24 Malaysian, 27 Australian, 12 Indonesian, 9 British, 4 German, 4 Belgian, 3 Filipino and one person each from Canada and New Zealand.

Passengers on the plane included a large contingent of world-renowned AIDS researchers and activists headed to an international AIDS conference in Melbourne, Australia. News of their deaths sparked an outpouring of grief across the global scientific community.

In Kuala Lumpur, several relatives of victims were meeting with counselors at the international airport. A distraught Akmar Mohamad Noor, 67, said her older sister was coming to visit the family for the first time in five years.

"She called me just before she boarded the plane and said, 'See you soon,'" Akmar said.

In the Netherlands, flags were flying at half-staff across the country as residents mourned the victims.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/07/malaysia_plane_crash_in_ukrain.html

Derriban avión de Malaysia Airlines, las evidencias apuntan hacia separatistas pro-rusos
18 de julio del 2014

Zona del desastre del avión MH17. Foto: The GuardianUcrania, 18 de julio.- Las evidencias apuntan hacia un grupo de separatistas pro-rusos como los presuntos responsables del derribamiento del vuelo 017 de Malaysian Airlines. La aeronave volaba sobre la frontera entre Rusia y Ucrania, cerca de la ciudad de Donetsk, cuando al parecer fue alcanzado por un misil tierra-aire SA-11 ‘Gadfly’ de manufactura rusa.

Las fuentes de inteligencia de los Estados Unidos confirmaron a la cadena CNN que el avión comercial fue derribado por una batería tierra-aire, mientras que un especialista militar ucraniano aseguró que el misil podría provenir de una región al este de Ucrania, la cual está controlada por separatistas pro-rusos desde el pasado 29 de junio, cuando éstos se apoderaron de una base militar ucraniana.

Cabe señalar que los separatistas publicaron la “adquisición” de su nuevo arsenal e instalaciones en la red social rusa el mismo 29 de junio, pero borraron dichas publicaciones cuando se confirmó que la aeronave derribada era de corte civil.

Por otro lado, diversos analistas afirma que durante la mañana del siniestro, uno de los sistemas de lanzamiento tierra-aire, fue identificado en el pueblo de Snezhnoe, aproximadamente a 15 millas del lugar donde se estrelló el avión malayo y posteriormente, dicho sistema fue grabado siendo trasladado hacia otra posición rebelde, la cual se encuentra a 20 millas del lugar donde descansan los restos del vuelo MH17.

Especialistas de la OTAN tienen la teoría de que los rebeldes creían haber derribado un blanco militar parecido al Antonov An-26, el cual fue destruido a principios de esta semana. Esta teoría parece estar sustentada en unas conversaciones grabadas entre los separatistas e inteligencia militar rusa que opera en suelo ucraniano, en las cuales los separatistas reportan “malas noticias” desde la zona de choque, ya que el vehículo derribado no es militar sino civil. La respuesta del mando militar interlocutor es: “seguramente estaba transportando espías…no debería de estar volando sobre una zona de guerra”.

Otra evidencia contra los separatistas son las lecturas electrónicas del radar de la aeronave, las cuales cuales indicaron emisiones y huellas electromagnéticas propias de un misil.

Los mismos analistas de la OTAN creen que no tomará mucho tiempo en analizar las evidencias y en hacer una reconstrucción digital del incidente para poder aclarar el caso y no dejar nada a la interpretación.

Angel Silva Juárez

@Usul16

Estado Mayor

"Buscaban tirar avión de Putin"; matan a 298
Agencias| El Universal
Viernes 18 de julio de 2014
Tweet

Video. El Boeing-777 malasio que cubría la ruta de Amsterdam a Kuala Lumpur se estrelló en la región de Donetsk al este de Ucrania, escenario de combates entre las fuerzas gubernamentales de Ucrania y los rebeldes prorrusos


Conflicto en Ucrania provoca jueves negro 2014-07-18

Sitios Relacionados:

Video Avión con 298 pasajeros se estrella en Ucrania
Fotogalería Se estrella avión con 298 pasajeros en Ucrania
Mapa La ruta del avión malasio

Una aeronave de Malaysian Airlines con 283 pasajeros y 15 tripulantes fue blanco de un misil al volar sobre Ucrania. El gobierno de Kiev y separatistas prorrusos se culpan de la tragedia. Versiones señalaron que el objetivo del misil era el avión del presidente ruso, similar al derribado

GRABOVO, Ucrania.— Un avión de pasajeros de Malaysia Airlines con 298 personas a bordo fue derribado ayer sobre el este de Ucrania, aumentando la onda expansiva de un conflicto armado entre el gobierno de Kiev y separatistas prorrusos, que se culparon mutuamente de la tragedia. El accidente “no fue ni un accidente, ni una catástrofe”, aseguró el portavoz del presidente de Ucrania, Petro Poroshenko. Los servicios de inteligencia estadounidenses confirmaron que el avión fue derribado por un misil tierra-aire, reveló un funcionario del Pentágono a CNN. El vicepresidente estadounidense Joe Biden dijo que el avión “estalló en el cielo”. El presidente Barack Obama ofreció ayuda para “determinar qué pasó y por qué” y pidió una investigación internacional.

“Han muerto los 280 pasajeros (cifra que luego fue corregida 283) y 15 miembros de la tripulación”, informó Antón Gueráshenko, asesor del ministro del Interior ucraniano, en su página de Facebook. Añadió que el avión fue derribado por un misil antiaéreo Buk. El gobierno culpó a los rebeldes prorrusos, que aseguraron no contar con los equipos necesarios para alcanzar objetos a 10 mil metros de altura.

El Boeing 777 cubría la ruta Ámsterdam-Kuala Lumpur y perdió contacto con los controladores aéreos cuando se ubicaba a unos 50 kilómetros de la frontera con Rusia y a aproximadamente 10 mil 600 metros de altura. El aparato cayó cerca de la ciudad de Donetsk, un bastión de los rebeldes. Decenas de cadáveres quedaron esparcidos alrededor de los restos humeantes del avión.

Los medios especularon con la posibilidad de que el Boeing 777 haya sido derribado por un misil ucraniano que tenía por objetivo el avión del presidente ruso, Vladimir Putin, según una fuente de la Aviación de Rusia citada por Interfax. “Puedo decir que el avión presidencial y el Boeing de Malaysia Airlines se cruzaron en el mismo punto y en el mismo corredor. Esto sucedió cerca de Varsovia en el nivel de vuelo 330a a una altitud de 10 mil 100 metros. El avión presidencial estaba allí a las 16:21 hora local y el avión de Malaysia Airlines a las 15:44”, precisó la fuente. “El contorno de ambas aeronaves se parece, las dimensiones lineales también y en cuanto al color del avión, a una distancia lo suficientemente grande, también es casi idéntica”, agregó.

Putin, por lo pronto, dijo que la responsabilidad por lo ocurrido es de Ucrania. “Sin lugar a dudas, el Estado en cuyo territorio ocurrió esto es responsable de esta terrible tragedia”, dijo. “Esta tragedia no habría ocurrido si hubiera habido paz en esa tierra, o en todo caso si no se hubiesen renovado las operaciones militares en el sureste de Ucrania”, añadió.

Para añadir más elementos a la incertidumbre y a la guerra de propaganda que rodea este suceso, el Servicio de Seguridad de Ucrania (SBU, siglas en ucraniano) aseguró haber captado una conversación en la que los rebeldes reconocen el derribo del avión de pasajeros.

El SBU presentó dos llamadas telefónicas interceptadas. En la primera, los servicios de seguridad dijeron que el comandante rebelde Igor Bezler dice a un funcionario de inteligencia militar ruso que las fuerzas rebeldes derribaron un avión. En la segunda, dos combatientes rebeldes —uno de ellos en el lugar del siniestro— dicen que el ataque con un cohete fue efectuado por una unidad insurgente a unos 25 kilómetros al norte de donde cayó el avión. Las grabaciones no fueron verificadas de forma independiente.

No hubo llamadas de emergencia

El premier de Malasia, Najib Razak, dijo que no hubo llamadas de emergencia provenientes del avión antes de estrellarse. Malaysia Airlines afirmó que la Asociación Internacional de Transporte Aéreo (IATA) “había declarado que el espacio aéreo que la aeronave atravesaba no estaba sujeto a restricciones”, aunque aclaró que a partir de hoy, evitará la ruta habitual para todos sus vuelos europeos.

Rebeldes prorrusos dijeron tener en su poder la caja negra del avión. En el aparato viajaban 154 pasajeros holandeses, 27 australianos, 23 malasios, 11 indonesios, seis británicos, cuatro alemanes, cuatro belgas, tres filipinos y un canadiense. Las nacionalidades de los otros 50 pasajeros aún se desconocen. Muchos eran delegados que viajaban a una Conferencia sobre el Sida. Familiares de los pasajeros comenzaron hoy a llegar a Kuala Lumpur a pedir informes.

Tras el siniestro, la Organización Europea para la Seguridad de la Navegación Aérea (Eurocontrol) suspendió por tiempo indefinido las rutas aéreas que sobrevuelan el este de Ucrania. Las aerolíneas estadounidenses harán lo propio. Especialistas de la Organización para la Seguridad y Cooperación en Europa (OSCE) viajaron a la zona del siniestro y representantes de las principales potencias occidentales exigieron una investigación internacional. El Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas se reúne hoy de emergencia para abordar el tema.

Los rebeldes prorrusos pidieron se declare una tregua de tres días para permitir que se conduzca una investigación sobre lo ocurrido y se efectúen las labores de recuperación.

El avión es el mismo modelo y pertenece a la misma aerolínea que operaba el vuelo MH370, que desapareció en marzo en el Océano Índico en circunstancias que no han sido aclaradas. Dicho vuelo hacía la ruta Kuala Lumpur-Beijing con 239 pasajeros.

México, consternado

Los gobiernos de México y Alemania se manifestaron ayer “consternados” por el incidente del avión y pidieron una investigación independiente que esclarezca el hecho, según dijo el canciller mexicano, José Antonio Meade, junto al ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Alemania, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.