Moscow sees Kiev’s decision to ban Russian TV channels from broadcasting in Ukraine as an openly political step, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday.
“Unfortunately, I have to say that the Ukrainian leadership keeps ignoring appeals by different international organisations and journalists’ unions, and augments efforts to maintain tough administrative control over media, openly preventing an objective coverage of events in the country,” the diplomat said.
“We see this as being at variance with rules of international law and as an openly political decision,” Lukashevich added.
“This testifies to the fact that Ukraine’s security agencies consistently deprive the population of an opportunity to get an alternative point of view on developments in the country,” he said.
No real international investigation of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine has been conducted, Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, said, adding that there are too many blank spots in the newly released Dutch report on the tragedy.
The document, released by the Dutch Safety Board’s Tjibbe Joustra (DSB) on Tuesday, said that the Malaysian Boeing-777 crash was the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that struck it from the outside.
“It is very hard to call this investigation a truly international one. Many questions have been left unanswered. There are too many omissions,” Churkin said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 channel.
The Dutch report “did little to advance our understanding of what happened,” only confirming what was already known before, he stressed.
It says that the Malaysian plane “didn’t fall by itself, but was shot down. However no further thoughts in this regard are being presented,” the envoy said.
According to Churkin, Dutch investigators have also completely ignored the issue of at least one Ukrainian warplane that reportedly was in midair near the Malaysian plane when the disaster occurred on July 17.
“The report says another three commercial airliners were cruising in the vicinity at the moment of tragedy, but it does not say anything if Ukrainian warplanes were there, too. Our Defense Ministry said at least one military jet might have been there and eyewitnesses also say they saw one or two jets in the sky,” Churkin stressed.
“For some reason however the problem is bypassed,” he added.
It also looks “very strange” that the text of the DSB report doesn’t say a word about the UN Security Council’s resolution on MH17, the envoy said.
The Russian envoy also wanted to know the reasons for the 40-day delay in delivering the recordings of the conversation between air traffic controllers and the jet from the Ukrainian side to the investigators.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Grigory Karasin, repeated the call for more transparency in the MH17 crash investigation as he met with Malaysian defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, in Moscow on Tuesday.
During the meeting, it was “noted that the [Dutch] probe was incomplete,” the Russian Foreign ministry said in a statement.
Moscow believes that “very important expert examinations have actually not been conducted on the crash site. Without them, valid conclusions on the reasons of what happened are impossible.”
The ministry pointed out that some expert examinations are already impossible to carry out now due to protraction of investigation.
“Russia insists on maximally transparent work of the international commission, fulfilling all norms of ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and is ready to participate in it on a team basis,” the statement said.
All 298 people aboard the Malaysia Airlines jet died as it crashed in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on July 17. The majority of those on the plane – which was allegedly shot down – were citizens of the Netherlands.
The disaster has prompted NATO to become more deeply involved in the Ukraine conflict, blaming Russia despite a glaring lack of evidence.
It was initially alleged that the plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. However, claims were also made that the flight was shot down by a Ukrainian military jet which was in the area at the same time.
Kiev officials and representatives of the two self-proclaimed republics in southeastern Ukraine have agreed to a ceasefire, as the contact group met behind closed doors in Belarus.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has confirmed the ceasefire agreement on his Twitter account.
The truce agreement comes into force starting 6 pm local time (15:00 GMT).
The president has ordered to cease fire starting at the time stated in the protocol.
“I give the order to the chief of the General staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to cease fire, starting from 18.00 [local time] on September 5,” Poroshenko’s statement says.
Poroshenko then called on both the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the OSCE to provide international monitoring of compliance with the bilateral ceasefire.
“We must do everything possible and impossible to stop bloodshed and put an end to people’s suffering,” the president said in a statement posted on his official website.
Poroshenko expressed hope that both sides would comply with the ceasefire agreement.
The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic earlier confirmed the ceasefire agreement on its official Twitter account.
Both Donetsk and Lugansk have said they are ready to lay down arms starting from 15:00GMT.
Representatives of the rebel forces have said they will obey the ceasefire if Kiev follows suit.
“Most of the points of the protocol correspond with our demands,” Lugansk’s leader Igor Plotnitsky said.
“However, the ceasefire does not mean a shift from our course of breaking away from Ukraine. This is a compulsory measure,” he said.
The OSCE’s Heidi Tagliavini has welcomed the agreement saying “it is good news.”
She has revealed that the protocol consists of 12 points, and “the ceasefire is the chief one.”
The participants in the talks will prepare another document – a memorandum on settling the situation in Ukraine, a Donetsk representative said.
The two sides accompanied by representatives of Russia and the OSCE were meeting in the Belorussian capital, Minsk, in an attempt to end the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine.
In their recent phone call on September 3, the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko, showed a willingness to find an agreement to resolve the months-long conflict in the southeastern Ukraine.
Following the conversation with his counterpart, President Putin laid out a seven-point plan that could help find a solution.
Photojournalist Andrei Stenin, who went missing in eastern Ukraine in early August, died about a month ago when a car he was travelling in came under fire, Rossiya Segodnya Director General Dmitry Kiselev said Wednesday citing results of an examination by the Russian Investigative Committee (IC).
Russia’s IC has determined that the car had come under fire as a result of a Ukrainian attack. The unit that carried out the attack was also using a tank, according to the investigators.
More than 10 cars containing peaceful civilians had been shot up. The contents of the vehicles, including the civilians’ belongings, had come into Ukrainian posession.
Stenin, 33, a photojournalist contributing to several leading Russian and international news agencies including AP, Reuters, AFP, Rossiya Segodnya (RIA Novosti) and ITAR-TASS, had been covering the conflict in eastern Ukraine before all contact with him was lost on August 5.
He was an experienced war photographer. The work he did in Ukraine included pictures of Ukrainian troops captured by self-defense forces, the horrific results of Ukrainian artillery shelling of militia-held cities and the crash site of the MH17 plane that was downed over the Donetsk region in July.
Ukrainian mediators proposed Rossiya Segodnya to negotiate swapping missing photojournalist Andrei Stenin for someone else, implying that he was still alive, the international news agency’s Director General Dmitry Kiselev said Wednesday.
The Russian Investigative Committee confirmed Wednesday that Stenin died approximately a month ago, when the car he was travelling in came under fire and near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
“Mediators [representing] the Ukrainian side contacted our agency and suggested holding talks on swapping him, implying that Stenin is alive,” the Rossiya Segodnya director general said.
He said that Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, said shortly after Stenin’s disappearance, that the reporter was held by Ukrainian security services. He retracted the statement later, saying he was misunderstood.
Stenin went missing in eastern Ukraine on August 5. Sources said that the journalist was possibly held by the Ukrainian military, but Kiev has never officially confirmed the information.
On August 9, Rossiya Segodnya filed a request with the Ukrainian Interior Ministry to take action in order to locate Stenin, with the ministry undertaking the case on August 11.
On August 12, Herashchenko said in an interview with Baltkom radio that security forces had arrested Stenin on charges of assisting terrorists. However, later Herashchenko claimed he was misinterpreted.
All major international human rights watchdogs – Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Federation of Journalists – have called for an urgent investigation into Stenin’s disappearance.
There will be no military interference to Ukraine, and Russia is for peaceful settlement. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, has made this statement on Monday at an annual meeting with students and teachers of Moscow State University of Foreign Affairs.
“There will be no military interference. We are committed exclusively to the peaceful settlement of this deep crisis, this tragedy,” Lavrov stated.
He noted that the demand to the militia to lay down arms was unrealistic.
The minister said that Washington and Brussels should demand that Kiev quit using heavy weaponry against civilians.
“The most important is that Washington and Brussels demand from Kiev the same that they demand in all other conflicts: to stop using heavy weaponry and aviation against civil facilities and civilians,” the minister stressed.
The demand to the militia to lay down arms is unrealistic, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
“Let’s sit for talks, but not threaten with sanctions against Russia and insist on quite unrealistic demands for the militia to lay down their arms and allow to kill them,” the minister said.
“Unfortunately, our western partners are blinded with the situation and give their support to any statements and actions of the current Ukrainian authorities,” Lavrov said adding that this position was biased and non-critical.
Moscow hopes that Contact Group at session in Minsk will discuss cessation of fire, Lavrov added.
“I expect that the talks started earlier in the day will be dedicated to a task of fixing, immediately and without preconditions, terms for a ceasefire,” the minister said.
The foreign minister noted that it was possible and necessary to return to pragmatic cooperation in relations of Russia with the United States and the EU.
“We believe that in relations with the European Union and the United States it is possible and necessary to return to pragmatic cooperation based on equality of rights and mutual respect. But for this, it is necessary to give up the absolutely hopeless policy of ultimatums, threats and sanctions,” the minister said.
I believe the Ukraine crisis should show everyone the absolute harmfulness of a stance, which puts particular countries, especially those close to us, like Ukraine, before a choice: ‘either you go to us or you go to Russia and then we’ll build new dividing lines and walls between us,” Lavrov said.
This choice of either with us or against us, which Brussels sometimes demands from Ukraine and other countries of the post-Soviet space, “is prevocational,” the Russian foreign minister said. “I would say this is worse than a crime, this is a big mistake,” Lavrov said.
The Russian foreign minister said that “you can’t make a stake on a military force, especially in the 21st century.” “I hope that we’ll move away from a dangerous line as far as the Ukraine crisis is concerned,” Lavrov said.
“As far as the WTO is concerned (namely, Russia’s withdrawal in reply to possible new sanctions), we shall not withdraw. On the contrary, we want more actively to master the WTO instruments, including those concerning trade disputes,” Lavrov said. “We have already used those instruments in order to overcome, what we believe, the EU’s discriminatory policy with regard to anti-dumping procedures”.
Investigators must also be returned to the Boeing crash site in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
“No facts are given to us. They persuade us to believe their words,” he said.
“The European Council wrote in a document that it demanded immediate access to the site of the Malaysian Boeing crash. Where have they been until now. There was no threat from the militia,” Lavrov said.
“There was a demand of the UN Security Council to ensure ceasefire in the area of the crash. But Kiev stated the same day that they would stop firing after taking control of the area,” the minister said.
Prospects for abrogation of visa formalities between Russia and the European Union countries are not very reassuring, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov stated.
“The prospects are not very reassuring, frankly speaking,” the Minister pointed out. “A not very numerous but pushy group formed in the European Union. That group came out against abrogating visas. They made no bones of speaking about that”.
Russia will not interfere in the choice of a model for state development by Ukraine, president Vladimir Putin said, adding that he could not understand why the authorities in Kiev were opposing federalization of their country. “For some unclear reason, our Ukrainian partners feel so apprehensive of a federation but it’s their choice anyway and we won’t meddle with it by any means,” Putin said at a youth forum in central Russia.
On the face of it, he said he was confident of the importance of consolidating federalism in Russia. “It’s a very important and meaningful element of our state system because it enables us to take a much better account of our citizens’ interests, as well as ethnic, historical, religious, and cultural specificity regardless of where they live,” Putin said.
There is a big enough number of countries that have a federated state structure – Russia, the US, Brazil, Germany, and some others, he indicated.
According to the president, it is necessary to discuss what kind of rights Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics will have and the south-east of the Ukraine on the whole and after that to register everything in the form of laws.
“This is not happening and it is important to realize it and to force the Ukrainian authorities to start thorough negotiations, not only on technical issues, which are certainly of extreme importance, but on substantive (issues) as well,” Putin said.
“This is what must be discussed,” Putin said. “It is important to agree on the essence, but they refuse to agree on the essence and this is the problem.”
The West needs to realize that the Ukrainian authorities are unable to establish order in their country and to force Kiev to start substantial negotiations with the embattled south-eastern regions, Putin said on Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on self-defence forces in Ukraine to open a “humanitarian corridor” to allow besieged Ukrainian troops to retreat.
“I call on the self-defence forces to open a humanitarian corridor for the Ukrainian troops who are surrounded, so as to avoid unnecessary casualties and to give them the opportunity to withdraw from the zone of operations,” Putin said in a statement issued after midnight Thursday.
Encircled Ukrainian fighters have been engaged in a desperate fight for survival in the town Ilovaysk for over a week as self-defence forces, which had been on the retreat, staged a swift counter-offensive.
Putin praised defenders of “Novorossiya”, or New Russia, for achieving considerable successes in cutting off Kiev’s military operation which posed a deadly threat to the population of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine where most of the fighting has occurred.
The defenders seized swathes of territory from Ukrainian government forces in a lightning counter-offensive, dramatically turning the tide in the four-month conflict.
Putin called on Kiev to “immediately halt military action, cease fire, sit down at the negotiating table and speak with representatives of the Donbass, and solve all of the problems which have built up exclusively by peaceful means”.
The Russian president called on the self-defence forces to provide wounded Ukrainian soldiers with medical help and said Russia is “ready and will provide humanitarian aid to the people of the Donbass who are suffering from this humanitarian catastrophe”.
Russia last week sent into eastern Ukraine a convoy of more than 200 lorries which it said was carrying over 1,800 tonnes of aid without the permission of Kiev and without Red Cross monitors.
In case Moscow proceeds with its plans to deliver humanitarian aid without the authorization from the authorities in Kiev further sanctions are likely to be imposed in regard to Russia.
Russia’s planned humanitarian aid for the embattled southeastern regions in Ukraine must is possible only with the consent from the authorities in Kiev, the White House said in a statement following President Barack Obama’s telephone talks with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Monday.
“The [US] President and [Italian] Prime Minister considered the developing situation and reiterated that any intervention under the guise of “humanitarian” assistance must be provided only with the formal, express consent and authorization of the Government of Ukraine,” the statement said.
In case Moscow proceeds with its plans to deliver humanitarian aid to the war-torn Ukraine without the authorization from the authorities in Kiev further sanctions are likely to be imposed in regard to Russia, according to the statement.
“They [Obama and Renzi] agreed that any Russian steps not in accordance with these requirements would be unacceptable, would violate international law, and would lead to additional sanctions,” the statement added.
In a telephone conversation with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Monday, President Vladimir Putin said Russia in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross would send a humanitarian convoy to Ukraine.
Meanwhile Moscow’s calls for the evacuation of children from eastern Ukraine are not being answered, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said. He stated that over 1,200 orphans have been abandoned in the region, which is under continuous shelling from Kiev troops.
Churkin spoke at the UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting in New York on Friday.
The UN diplomats assembled to discuss a UN report on human rights in Ukraine. He blasted the document while conveying that children have had to remain in Donetsk after Kiev’s forces intervened into the region. According to Moscow, there are 1,223 orphans in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
“It seems that UN philanthropists believe that children rather thrive under fire,” Churkin stated. A bus carrying a group of 16 orphans seeking shelter was stopped at a Russian checkpoint in June.
Due to the ongoing fighting in the region, they were transferred to a Donetsk refugee camp, where they spent the night and were sent back to Ukraine on Kiev’s request. According to local authorities, an act stating that both sides had no objections was signed at the time.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has also stated its readiness to support the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
Swiss President and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Didier Burkhalter welcomed the ICRC announcement that it would step up activities for the affected population in south-eastern Ukrainian regions and deploy additional teams there.
The situation in eastern Ukraine was described as a catastrophic, full-blown war by Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, during the latest UN Security Council meeting. Russia has also called for an international humanitarian mission to be launched.
Fighting between Kiev’s army and self-defense forces intensified on Tuesday, with the Ukrainian military using heavy weaponry around Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. According to witnesses, the Ukrainian army resorted to multiple rocket launchers, including Uragan launchers and cruise missiles, RIA Novosti reported citing local militia.
Cruise missiles were spotted flying over the city of Gorlovka on Tuesday, while Uragan launchers were seen near the town of Snezhniy, witnesses told the news agency. Explosions reportedly caused by airstrikes were also heard within the city of Donetsk.
Amid the increased violence, Russia called for an emergency UN Security Council session on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine on Tuesday.
Russia’s UN envoy proposed the deployment of an international humanitarian mission, along with Russian humanitarian aid under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
“We propose to send convoys of Russian humanitarian aid under the auspices of the ICRC, to Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as other towns in Ukraine, where internally displaced persons are concentrated in the eastern regions,” Churkin said.
He noted that eastern Ukrainians urgently require food, medicine, medical equipment, water purification systems, and electricity generators.
“By any human standards, the situation in the east, especially in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, is catastrophic,” Churkin said. “Today with certainty we can and should be talking about a real war – the International Committee of the Red Cross officially acknowledged the internal armed conflict in the east of Ukraine.”
“Artillery, tanks, as well as rockets are used. There is continuing information from locals about the use of phosphorus bombs and cluster bombs,” Churkin added. “There is indiscriminate shelling of housing blocks and critical civilian infrastructure. In many small towns about 80 percent of houses have been destroyed, according to most conservative estimates. More than 600 buildings have fallen.”
If the plane was taken down then it was done by a professional military force
A Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing-777 with over 290 people on board has crashed in Ukraine, close to the border with Russia. Both Kiev and the opposition deny involvement in the incident.
Reports in the Western media hurried to blame the self-defense forces of the People’s Republic of Donetsk for bringing the plane down.
The claims were denied by the representatives of the Donetsk People’s Republic, saying that it’s the Ukrainian military, which destroyed the aircraft.
“We simply don’t have such air defense systems. Our man-portable air defense systems have a firing range 3,000 – 4,000 meters. The Boeing was flying at a much higher altitude,” Sergey Kavtaradze, special representative for the prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, explained.
Kavtaradze also expressed condolences to the relatives of all of those who lost their lives in the tragedy.
IHS Jane’s Defense analyst, Nick de Larrinaga, also shared the belief that the self-defense forces lack the capability to bring the Malaysian plane down.
“At normal cruising altitude a civilian passenger aircraft would be out of the range of the sort of manned portable air (defense) systems that we have seen proliferate in rebel hands in east Ukraine,” he said in a statement.
But the aircraft would be within range of Buk or other medium-range surface-to-air missile systems, he stressed.
“Both Russia and Ukraine have such SAM systems in their inventories,” the expert added.
It seems unlikely that the self-defense forces could’ve used Buk surface-to-air missile systems to down the Malaysian plane, retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan, the director of the Defense and Intelligence Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said.
“It takes a lot of training and a lot of coordination to fire one of these and hit something,” he told CNN. “This is not the kind of weapon a couple of guys are going to pull out of a garage and fire.”
According to Ryan, if the plane was really taken down then it was done by a professional military force.
A Verkhovna Rada deputy who is also an ex-defense minister of Ukraine, said during a prime time talk-show that the country’s “patriots” would be justified “to kill” the very popular Russian President Vladimir Putin if he came to Kiev.
Anatoly Gritsenko made his shocking statement speaking on the popular national talk show ‘Shuster Live’.
“Putin won’t stop. He wants not only Ukraine, he wants the Baltic States and other countries,” claimed Gritsenko, who was a presidential candidate twice, in the 2010 and 2014 Ukrainian elections. Gritsenko did not elaborate on what had driven him to such a conclusion.
Calling the Russian president “a fascist,” Gritsenko went on to say that he cannot imagine Vladimir Putin coming to Ukraine to sign some kind of a deal.
“I believe there are patriots who would volunteer to kill him – and that would be the right thing to do,” Gritsenko remarked.
The humanitarian situation in Ukraine needs to be addressed immediately, without the usual “theoretical exercises” from the UN Security Council’s “usual suspects,” ambassador Vitaly Churkin said after a closed-door meeting on a Russian draft resolution.
“The draft is not politicized and is of a purely humanitarian nature,” Churkin told reporters in New York, stressing that the document is aimed at “alleviating human suffering.”
“Every day civilians get killed, among them women and children,” Churkin said. “Ukrainian military and paramilitary forces impede the peaceful population, leaving besieged cities or sending their children to safe places. Buses of children are turned back.”
A swift reaction is absolutely necessary, Churkin said, as Kiev continues its full scale military operation in southeastern Ukraine with “heavy and indiscriminate shelling of residential areas” using both artillery and aviation.
Just on Tuesday alone, at least eight civilians were killed in a Ukrainian air raid on a local administrative building in Lugansk, the aftermath of which was shown in numerous horrific videos posted online.
Yet authorities and pro-Kiev media deny the incident, even claiming that self-defense forces were behind the attack on their own headquarters.
Churkin said the new draft demands “an immediate cessation of hostilities, urges parties to commit themselves to sustainable ceasefire, and calls for the establishment by the parties of humanitarian corridors in order to allow the civilian population to leave safely and to ensure humanitarian assistance.”
British Ambassador to the UN Mark Lyall Grant and his French counterpart, Gerard Araud, dismissed the call.
“We must be clear that the crisis in Ukraine is a political security crisis. It’s not a humanitarian crisis,” Lyall Grant told reporters.
At least 31 anti-government activists have died in a fire at Odessa’s Trade Unions House. Some burned to death, while others suffocated or jumped out of windows, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry reported. The building was set ablaze by pro-Kiev radicals.
Some 40 people were also injured in the fire, the official statement said.
A total of 37 people have died in Odessa violence on Friday and almost 200 others have sustained injuries, including 22 police officers, Interior Ministry reported. Twenty-five people remain in critical condition, according to Odessa City Council.
Police detained over 130 people following Friday’s bloody clashes and opened up 10 criminal investigations with charges including premeditated murder and violence against law enforcement officers.
According to the ministry, the Friday standoff on Odessa included “anti-Maidan” activists on one side and “football fans” from Odessa and Kharkov, as well as “euro-Maidan” activists, on the other. A criminal case on the charges of mass unrest has been opened.
The Trade Unions House was set on fire by pro-Kiev radicals after they surrounded and destroyed the tent camp of anti-government activists that stood in front of the building on Odessa’s Kulikovo Field Square. It was torched in a storming attempt after some of the anti-Maidan activists rallying in the square barricaded themselves inside the building.
The majority of the victims were found on the floors of the Trade Unions House having apparently burned to death or suffocated from smoke. Others jumped out of the building’s windows, according to police.
Earlier reports of the clashes in Odessa said that both sides used Molotov cocktails and, allegedly, gunfire. Part of the pro-Maidan activists reportedly bore insignia of the radical Right Sector group.
A live video stream from inside the building showed disturbing scenes of supposedly dead bodies lying around the rooms with thick smoke in the air and blood stains on the floor.
Most of the bodies filmed had St. George ribbons attached to their clothes, distinguishing the victims as pro-Russian or anti-Kiev activists.
The person filming said he counted up to 25 dead bodies on the upper floors alone.
As the house was engulfed in flames, photos posted on Twitter showed people hanging out of windows and sitting on windowsills of several floors, possibly preparing to jump. Reports claimed that those who jumped and survived were surrounded and beaten by football ultras and the Right Sector.
The riot police lines standing beside the building were apparently doing nothing to prevent the violence, the photos showed. Police officers reportedly said they could not do anything because they were “unarmed.”
Activists trapped on the roof of the besieged Trade Unions House building have been rescued and taken to a police station, the self-proclaimed head of the Republic of Odessa told Rossiya 24.
One of the activist trapped there told RT by phone earlier that up 50 people were there with him, including women.
As people were dying in the burning building, some of the pro-Kiev activists jeered on Twitter that “Colorado beetles are being roasted up in Odessa,” using a derogatory term for pro-Russian activists wearing St. George’s ribbons. Few media outlets followed the developing situation, with thousands of people taking to live streams to see the events unfolding.
However, just as the first official death toll emerged, some Western media and leaders rushed to seemingly downplay the role of pro-Kiev activists in the incident and to blame their rivals instead.
“More than 40 people were killed in Odessa on Friday, most caught in a building set on fire after pro-Russian activists and supporters of Ukrainian unity fought running battles across the southern port city,” Reuters wrote.
“Horrible with at least 38 dead in Odessa. Seems to have started with pro-Russian attempt to get control of buildings. Violence must stop!” Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote on Twitter. Earlier, Bildt blamed “pro-Russian thugs” for the street violence in Odessa.
Three weeks ago Mikael Skillt worked for a construction company in Stockholm, Sweden. Today, he is a volunteer in a nationalist organization in Kiev. In an interview with Fria Tider, Skillt tells the story of a Ukraine where the role of the police has been assumed by paramilitary Right-wing groups.
At the end of February, mere days after Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown, Mikael Skillt boarded a plane bound for Kiev. He left behind a relationship that had just ended, a terrace house in a Stockholm suburb and a well-paid job as a planner at a construction company.
The purpose of his trip was to volunteer for one of the nationalist organizations which, as a result of their central role in the Ukrainian revolution, have gone from being relatively marginal to controlling the streets of Kiev.
It was not an easy decision to make, Skillt said when Fria Tider spoke to him over Skype. His former employer, also a personal friend, was not happy when Skillt suddenly quit his job to go to Ukraine. Skillt said he went anyway because of a sense of solidarity with the Ukrainian nationalists. “Nationalists have died on the streets of Kiev,” he recounted. “And I was able to help them. That is more important than my personal well-being.”
Skillt is 37 years old and has been involved in various Swedish nationalist groups for more than a decade. Between 2002 and 2010 he was active in the National Socialist organization Svenska motståndsrörelsen (Swedish Resistance Movement). Today, he is a member of a small, nationalist political party, Svenskarnas parti (Party of the Swedes), but holds no official position within it. He says he is no longer a National Socialist and describes himself as an “ethnic nationalist.” “You are born Swedish,” he explained. “It’s not something you can become.”
After arriving in Ukraine, Skillt joined the organization C14, also known as Sich, which is closely affiliated with the nationalist party Svoboda. In an interview with the BBC, C14′s leader, Yevhen Karas, says that his organization has approximately 200 members and that its main objective is to sever all ties between Ukraine and Russia. Some have called him a Nazi, but he firmly denies that accusation. “I don’t think I’m a Nazi, I’m a Ukrainian nationalist,” Karas told the BBC. “The main confrontation is about that some ethnic groups have control of many business structures, some economical and political forces.”
When asked which ethnic groups he was referring to, Karas clarified, “Russians and Jews. Some non-Ukrainian groups control a huge percent of the economic and political power. And of course, in this situation you have some tension with the Ukrainian people.”
According to Skillt, C14 has been in existence for quite some time. Prior to the revolution, C14 often intervened to protect tenants threatened by illegal eviction. “Ukrainian landlords, similar to so-called ‘slum lords’ in America, have often evicted tenants illegally in order to tear down an existing building and put up something newer and more profitable in its place. They often do that by bribing corrupt politicians. In many cases, C14 has occupied such buildings and chased away the police when they arrive to evict the tenants.”
When the protests against Yanukovych’s government began last autumn, C14 was one of the groups that fought the riot police, Berkut, as they tried to drive the protesters off the Maidan Square. “Most of the members of C14 have been very active in the Maidan riots. If you sit down and talk to these guys, I can give you ten names right off the bat of people who have lost a friend in the fighting. So, they’ve been on the front lines,” Skillt said. “I have never heard anyone here call himself a National Socialist. They fight for a Ukraine based on ethnic unity.”
Today, C14 is a force to be reckoned with. Together with the so-called Right Sector, C14 patrols the streets of Kiev, fights crime and guards public buildings. Skillt and several other Swedish volunteers participate in the patrols. “The police force still exists, but isn’t seen much,” he said. “Most of the police officers you see on the streets are only traffic police. Maintaining order is primarily being done by C14 and the Right Sector.”
The reason why there is a power vacuum that is currently being filled by these groups is that the special police force, Berkut, was disbanded following the overthrow of Yanukovych, and many officers of the regular police force were also sacked. “Corruption among the police has been massive and many have been dismissed,” Skillt explained. “Some have fled for their lives because they were guilty of corruption, or otherwise behaved like bastards. The officers that remain are pro-Ukrainian and not corrupt. But because of their low-life former comrades, people don’t have much confidence in them either.”
“Berkut was really disgusting,” he continued. “I have met some people who were arrested by them. They were tortured, sometimes even maimed. People had toes and fingers cut off. Some were doused in gasoline, while police officers stood next to them, smoking. Others had water poured over them and were then thrown out into -10 degrees C temperatures.”
The nationalist groups, rather than the police, enjoy a great deal of confidence among the public, Skillt told us. “They have acted in an exemplary manner, as far as the people are concerned. They have stood up to armed police officers, in many cases while unarmed, and at great risk to their own lives. This won the confidence of the people.”
When the Ukrainian parliament convened on March 17 to discuss the situation in Crimea, C14 and the Right Sector provided security. Skillt was part of the group that C14 sent to guard the parliament. A photo showed him wearing a uniform, a bulletproof vest, a ski mask and sunglasses. He carried a gun case on his back, but he didn’t want to tell us what it contained. “A fishing pole,” he said.
Other photographs from the parliament, however, show uniformed, masked men openly carrying automatic rifles. Skillt confirms that both C14 and the Right Sector possess firearms, even though guns are not part of their standard equipment. The ability to handle guns safely varies widely from person to person. “Some of the guys in the Right Sector are like monkeys with guns,” he said. “You put your life at risk just by being near them, when they’re armed. It’s pure slapstick, they have guns but handle them carelessly, as if they were wooden sticks. In C14, safety routines are much better. It’s almost up to the standard of the Swedish military.”
Skillt described C14 as a more professional and disciplined unit than the Right Sector. Before Skillt was approved for service in C14 his physical fitness and marksmanship were tested. Candidates are expected to be able to run five kilometers in under 25 minutes while wearing a full uniform, a bulletproof vest and carrying other personal equipment. “It’s not as easy as it sounds,” Skillt said. “Part of the course is a steep uphill slope. I made it in 24 minutes and a few seconds.”
The Right Sector was formed last autumn, when the protests began. It first functioned as an umbrella organization for various nationalist groups that wanted to stop the police from driving the protesters from their encampments on the Maidan in central Kiev. Its members range from soldiers with combat experience from Afghanistan and Chechnya, to students and soccer hooligans.
According to Skillt, the different groups within the Right Sector have now coalesced into one organization with a common leadership. Its leader, Dmytro Yarosh, has announced his candidacy in the upcoming presidential election in May. He opposes integration with the European Union, which he described as a “monster” that imposes “anti-Christian and anti-national laws” upon its members. In a widely-distributed promotional video, the Right Sector has claimed to fight against “totalitarian liberalism” and for the “rebirth of Europe.”
One incident from last week illustrates the influence of these paramilitary, Right-wing groups in post-revolutionary Ukraine. Skillt told us that he was one of approximately 20 activists from C14 who went to the office of the Ukrainian prison authorities in Kiev. The purpose of the visit was to secure the release of one of the organization’s members, who had been jailed for participating in the street-fighting with the police while Yanukovych was still in power.
“There were four guards there,” Skillt said. “They locked themselves in a sentry booth as soon as we got there. We told the head of the prison authority that if he wouldn’t come outside and talk to us, we would come inside and talk to him. He actually did come outside and, after a brief discussion, promised the C14 activists that he would do what was necessary to have their comrade released.”
Source: friatider.se
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