#2
Consortiumnews.com
November 10, 2015
How Ukraine's Finance Chief Got Rich
By Robert Parry
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

Exclusive: Ukraine's Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko collected at least $1.77 million in bonuses from a U.S.-taxpayer-funded investment project that she ran even as it was losing money, a sign that her image as a paragon of public-interest "reform" may not be all that it's cracked up to be, reports Robert Parry.

Before becoming Ukraine's Finance Minister last December, Natalie Jaresko collected $1.77 million in bonuses from a U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund where her annual compensation was supposed to be limited to $150,000, according to financial documents filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service this year.

The near 12-fold discrepancy between the compensation ceiling and Jaresko's bonuses, paid in 2013, was justified in the IRS filing from the Jaresko-led Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF) by drawing a distinction between getting paid directly from the $150 million U.S. government grant that created the fund and the money from the fund's "investment sales proceeds," which were treated as fair game for extracting bonuses far beyond the prescribed compensation level.

Using this supposed loophole, Jaresko and some of her associates enriched themselves by claiming money generated from U.S. taxpayers' dollars while avoiding any personal financial risks. She and other WNISEF officers collected the bonuses from what they deemed "profitable" exits from some investments even if the overall fund was losing money and shrinking, as it apparently was in recent years.

According to WNISEF's filing for the 2013 tax year, submitted to the IRS on Aug. 11, 2015, the value of the investment fund had shrunk from $150 million at its start to $93.9 million in the fund's 2012 tax year and to $89.8 million in the 2013 tax year. (WNISEF's tax years end on Sept. 30.)

So, Jaresko's arrangement was something like taking someone else's money to a roulette table, placing it on black, and claiming a share of the winnings if the ball stopped on black. However, if the ball landed on red, then the someone else absorbed the loss, except in this case the winners were Jaresko and her associates and the losers were the American taxpayers.

The purpose cited by the U.S. Congress in starting the non-profit WNISEF with $150 million in the 1990s was to help jumpstart an investment economy in Ukraine and Moldova for the benefit of the people of those countries. The project was administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which selected Jaresko, a former U.S. diplomat of Ukrainian heritage, to run the project.

Last December, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko named Jaresko Finance Minister after awarding her instant Ukrainian citizenship. At that point, she quit WNISEF and has since become the face of Ukrainian "reform," representing the U.S.-backed government at international banking events at Davos, Switzerland, and elsewhere while appealing for billions of dollars in Western financial aid which she oversees.

Thus, Jaresko's standards for handling public moneys are relevant to judging whether the new regime is just a reshuffling of who gets to plunder Ukraine or a serious effort at reform. The overthrow of the previous Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych was largely justified in February 2014 because of allegations about corruption. The new regime has presented itself as committed to reform, even though some outside observers contend that corruption is as bad or worse than under the old government.

Self-Interest v. Public Interest

There is also the question of whether Jaresko is more interested in getting rich than in serving the people of Ukraine. As WNISEF's chief executive officer, Jaresko seemed to grow dissatisfied with her $150,000 salary. For instance, in 2004, she earned more than double the prescribed amount, paid $383,259 along with $67,415 in expenses, according to WNISEF's IRS filing for that year.

According to audit documents that I obtained from USAID, an "Expense Analysis" for 2004 showed $1,282,782 being paid out as "Exit-based incentive expense-equity incentive plan" and another $478,195 being paid for "Exit-based incentive expense-financial participation rights." That suggested that Jaresko was already claiming bonuses from WNISEF's investments (bought with U.S. taxpayers' money) and sold during 2004.

In 2006, Jaresko's compensation for her work with WNISEF was removed from public disclosure altogether after she co-founded two related entities - Horizon Capital Associates (HCA) to manage WNISEF's investments (and collect around $1 million a year in fees) and Emerging Europe Growth Fund (EEGF), a private entity to collaborate with WNISEF on investment deals.

Jaresko formed HCA and EEGF with two other WNISEF officers, Mark Iwashko and Lenna Koszarny. They also started a third firm, Horizon Capital Advisors, which "serves as a sub-advisor to the Investment Manager, HCA," according to WNISEF's IRS filing for 2006.

According to the USAID's expense analyses for 2004-06, the taxpayer-financed WNISEF spent $1,049,987 to establish EEGF as a privately owned investment fund for Jaresko and her colleagues. USAID apparently found nothing suspicious about these tangled business relationships despite the potential conflicts of interest involving Jaresko, the other WNISEF officers and their affiliated companies.

For instance, WNISEF's 2012 annual report devoted two pages to "related party transactions," including the management fees to Jaresko's Horizon Capital ($1,037,603 in 2011 and $1,023,689 in 2012) and WNISEF's co-investments in projects with the EEGF. Though the IRS forms have a line for earnings from "related organizations," WNISEF listed nothing, apparently treating compensation from Horizon Capital and EEGF as "unrelated" for the purposes of reporting compensation for Jaresko and other officers.

So, the scale of how much Jaresko was making from her association with WNISEF was unclear until last week when the IRS released WNISEF's 2013 tax filing of Aug. 11, 2015, in response to a request from Consortiumnews.com. Though the filing still did not disclose all of Jaresko's WNISEF-related compensation, it did list her $1.77 million share of the $4.5 million in bonuses awarded to her and two other WNISEF officers, Iwashko and Koszarny.

WNISEF filings also said the bonuses were paid regardless of whether the overall fund was making money, noting that this "compensation was not contingent on revenues or net earnings, but rather on a profitable exit of a portfolio company that exceeds the baseline value set by the board of directors and approved by USAID" - with Jaresko also serving as a director on the board responsible for setting those baseline values.

Though compensation for Jaresko and other officers was shifted outside public view after 2006 - as their pay was moved to the affiliated entities - the 2006 IRS filing said: "It should be noted that as long as HCA earns a management fee from WNISEF, HCA and HCAD [the two Horizon Capital entities] must ensure that a salary cap of $150,000 is adhered to for the proportion of salary attributable to WNISEF funds managed relative to aggregate funds under management."

Audit Gaps

KPMG auditors, who reviewed WNISEF finances, also took a narrow view of how to define income for Jaresko and other officers, only confirming that no "salary" exceeded $150,000, apparently not looking at bonuses and other forms of compensation. Neither USAID officials nor Jaresko responded to specific questions about WNISEF's possible conflicts of interest, how much money Jaresko made from her involvement with WNISEF and its connected companies, and whether she had fully complied with IRS reporting requirements.

After Jaresko's appointment as Finance Minister - and her resignation from WNISEF - I reviewed WNISEF's available public records and detected a pattern of insider dealings and enrichment benefiting Jaresko and her colleagues. That prompted me in February to file a Freedom of Information Act request for USAID's audits of the investment fund.

Though the relevant records were identified by June, USAID dragged its feet on releasing the 34 pages to me until Aug. 28 when the agency claimed nothing was being withheld, saying "all 34 pages are releasable in their entirety." However, when I examined the documents, it became clear that a number of pages were missing from the financial records, including a total of three years of "expense analysis" - in three-, six- and nine-month gaps - since 2007.

Part of KPMG's "Independent Auditors' Report" for 2013 and 2014 was also missing. The report stated that "except as discussed in the third paragraph below, we conducted our audits in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America," accountant-speak that suggests that "the third paragraph below" would reveal some factor that did not comply with generally accepted accounting principles (or GAAP).

But three paragraphs below was only white space and there was no next page in what USAID released. After I pointed out the discrepancies to USAID on Aug. 31, I was told on Sept. 15 that "we are in the process of locating documents to address your concern. We expect a response from the bureau and/or mission by Monday, September 28, 2015."

After the Sept. 28 deadline passed, I contacted USAID again and was told on Oct. 2 that officials were "still working with the respective mission to obtain the missing documents." On Oct. 22, USAID sent me one additional page from KPMG's audit report stating that its review of WNISEF's books lacked "an external quality control review by an unaffiliated audit organization" - as required by the U.S. government's auditing standards - because no such program is offered in Ukraine. Other pages are still missing.

An earlier effort by Jaresko's ex-husband Ihor Figlus to blow the whistle on what he considered improper business practices related to WNISEF was met by disinterest inside USAID, according to Figlus, and then led to Jaresko suing him in a Delaware court in 2012, using a confidentiality clause to silence Figlus and getting a court order to redact references to the abuses he was trying to expose.

Figlus's complaints related to what he saw as improper loans that Jaresko had taken from Horizon Capital Associates to buy and expand her stake in EEGF, the privately held follow-on fund to WNISEF. After Figlus discussed this issue with a Ukrainian journalist, Jaresko sent her lawyers to court to silence him and, according to his lawyer, bankrupt him.

The filings in Delaware's Chancery Court are remarkable not only because Jaresko succeeded in getting the Court to gag her ex-husband through enforcement of a non-disclosure agreement but the Court agreed to redact nearly all the business details, even the confidentiality language at the center of the case. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Ukraine's Finance Minister's 'American Values."]

Shared Values

Earlier this year, I sent detailed questions to USAID and to Jaresko via several of her associates. Those questions included how much of the $150 million in U.S. taxpayers' money remained in WNISEF, why Jaresko reported no compensation from "related organizations," whether she received bonus money, how much money she made in total from her association with WNISEF, what AID officials did in response to Figlus's whistle-blower complaint, and whether Jaresko's legal campaign to silence her ex-husband was appropriate given her current position and Ukraine's history of secretive financial dealings.

USAID press officer Annette Y. Aulton got back to me with a response that was unresponsive to my specific questions. Rather than answering about the performance of WNISEF and Jaresko's compensation, Aulton commented on the relative success of 10 "Enterprise Funds" that USAID has sponsored in Eastern Europe, adding:

"There is a twenty year history of oversight of WNISEF operations. Enterprise funds must undergo an annual independent financial audit, submit annual reports to USAID and the IRS, and USAID staff conduct field visits and semi-annual reviews. At the time Horizon Capital assumed management of WNISEF, USAID received disclosures from Natalie Jaresko regarding the change in management structure and at the time USAID found no impropriety during its review."

One Jaresko associate, Tanya Bega, Horizon Capital's investor relations manager, said she forwarded my questions to Jaresko, but Jaresko did not respond.

Despite concerns that Jaresko may have enriched herself at the expense of U.S. taxpayers and then used a Delaware court to prevent disclosure of possible abuses, Jaresko has been hailed by the U.S. mainstream media as a paragon of reform in the U.S.-backed Ukrainian regime.

Last January, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman cited Jaresko as an exemplar of the new Ukrainian leaders who "share our values" and deserve unqualified American support. Friedman uncritically quoted Jaresko's speech to international financial leaders at Davos, in which she castigated Russian President Vladimir Putin:

"Putin fears a Ukraine that demands to live and wants to live and insists on living on European values - with a robust civil society and freedom of speech and religion [and] with a system of values the Ukrainian people have chosen and laid down their lives for."

Exactly which Western "values" Jaresko actually shares remains unclear because of the fog surrounding her actions at WNISEF and her unwillingness to reveal how much she made from her association with a U.S.-taxpayer funded project. However, if those Western "values" include putting citizens' interests before self-interest and believing that transparency is critical for a democracy, Jaresko may need some remedial training.

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#3
www.opendemocracy.net
November 11, 2015
Winning the peace in Slovyansk
In eastern Ukraine, grievances are still strong following local elections. The city of Slovyansk, where the separatist campaign began last year, may not be lost, but it still hasn't quite been won.
By Dan Peleschuk
Dan Peleschuk is a journalist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He has previously reported from Moscow and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.

Among the many scandals that coloured Ukraine's nationwide local elections last month, one in particular stood out. In Slovyansk, where the pro-Russian insurgency first erupted in April 2014, the mayoral candidate from the controversial Opposition Bloc political party plastered the city with campaign posters promising to 'love Slovyansk like Nelya!'

The billboards sparked a frenzy in the Ukrainian media: 'Nelya' refers to Nelya Shtepa, Slovyansk's former mayor who is currently standing trial in Kharkiv for allegedly aiding and abetting the insurgents after they seized the city last year. This slogan thus drew fire from those who see Shtepa as a collaborator and Opposition Bloc, which is made up of former Yanukovych allies, as little more than a fifth column.

But what non-locals didn't realise, according to Vadim Lyakh, the man behind the campaign, was that Shtepa was genuinely well-liked in Slovyansk before the crisis. Shtepa's tenure was marked by significant public spending-thanks largely to cash from Kyiv meant to boost former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's son into parliament on a local ticket- and residents saw her as an effective manager.

'In reality,' said Lyakh of his provocative campaign slogans, 'people knew what we meant.'

Chaotic rule

A year and a half after Slovyansk (Slavyansk in Russian) was liberated from Moscow-backed rebels, the town hasn't escaped social and economic malaise. Separatist instincts are still prevalent among a minority, local observers say. But there are also few illusions about life under the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic: locals experienced their chaotic rule firsthand last year. Anyone who has relatives in rebel-held territory knows life there is grim, with essential goods either inaccessible or more expensive.

At the same time, critics say, the Ukrainian government hasn't yet proven itself to the population here, a fact that has kept local discontent simmering. In and around Slovyansk, homes destroyed by shelling more than 16 months ago have not been rebuilt. Predictably, Kyiv's campaign against communist symbols ('decommunisation') has rubbed many the wrong way.

Meanwhile, the economic outlook, traditionally people's first concern, is still far from rosy. 'Today,' says Leonid Vasilchuk, head of a local veterans' organisation, as he laments the decay of local industry, 'it's not completely clear what they have in store for our Donbas.' Such basic social and economic concerns have played into the hands of the oft-maligned Opposition Bloc, which promises peace in Donbas and economic stability over the more ideological issues upon which other Ukrainian political parties often seize.

In April 2014, the rebel Donbas People's Militia captured Slovyansk under the command of Igor Strelkov-Girkin. A repeat of those events seems all but impossible now. But while Slovyansk may not have been lost, it hasn't quite been won.

Hometown heroes

Voter turnout during local elections last month hovered around a dismal 28 per cent, indicating a fairly typical disinterest in the political process. Second, those who did come out-mostly the middle-aged and elderly-handed a significant victory to the Opposition Bloc. Many regard the party as the new but not-so-improved former ruling Party of Regions. Lyakh was elected mayor in the first round, and his party will control roughly half the city council.

The Opposition Bloc has faced significant criticism for its perceived status as a mere reincarnation of disgraced ex-President Viktor Yanukovych's party machine. In contrast to the upstart progressives at the Samopomich (Self Reliance) political party, for example, with its base in western Ukraine, experts say the Opposition Bloc consists largely of a network of local bosses with deep roots in the industrialised but economically depressed Donbas.

Given the nature of regional politics in Ukraine, it's still largely the local boys who attract support here, especially in the absence of a popular central government. A former city councilman, Lyakh says he is keenly aware of the issues that drive his constituents to the polls. He admits that a major motivating factor is local displeasure with the ruling coalition in Kyiv-that is, a protest vote. But effective city management is also important, such as improving the water supply system, or rebuilding homes damaged during the war.
 
The latter has been a significant bone of contention. According to Lyakh, around 120 private buildings in the city were totally destroyed, along with several hundred that have been at least partially damaged. He says Kyiv has largely failed to provide the money to tackle the problem, a fact which contributes to what he claims is a feeling among locals that they are being purposely neglected.

'We know that every year, when flooding strikes Transcarpathia [in western Ukraine], thousands of homes that were washed away qualify for a reconstruction program,' he tells me. 'My parents live in Transcarpathia, and I can see how the program works there, in a non-war zone, where there were never any problems with separatism.'

Dreams of decentralisation

As with many cash-strapped regions in Ukraine, there's no shortage of local complaints with the central government, many of which often focus on its perceived inaction or corruption.

This may be where Kyiv's current efforts at decentralisation, which is meant to devolve more power to towns, cities and regions, could come in. Ideally, the reform would potentially provide a sense of ownership to the local population over their own affairs. A greater degree of self-rule might prove especially valuable in eastern Ukraine, where local grievances during last year's uprising-certainly fueled by Russia's Kremlin-friendly media-were based on Kyiv's alleged ignorance toward the Russian-speaking population there.  
 
However, the primary vision for decentralisation in Ukraine is dependent on policymakers in Kyiv, and there are still plenty of questions as to how it will eventually be put into practice or financed.

In Slovyansk, local community leaders such as Vasilchuk, the veterans' group head and a supporter of Opposition Bloc, say they're not against the new reform, but that it hasn't been explained to them in earnest. 'When we talk about decentralisation, the vast majority of people can't imagine what exactly it is,' he comments. 'Moreover, since the country has no money at the moment, it's very unclear how they plan to distribute it and what it will be spent on.'

Nevertheless, a handful of local activists in the area are experimenting with other, non-political ways of fostering a sense of community. Youth-focused cultural centers such as Teplytsia in Slovyansk and Vilna Khata in neighboring Kramatorsk aim to expose the new post-Soviet generation to concepts such as self-organization and grassroots social activism. They sponsor everything from language lessons and master classes to Ukraine-wide exchange programs, with an overarching theme of self-development.
 
Both centres are still free-thinking islands in what some observers here say is a sea of old habits. Anna Avdiyants, a Teplytsia staff member, says the centre has attracted a steady stream of young and curious visitors. Avdiyants adds that most here still harbour a sense of passivity when it comes to seizing the initiative and changing something about their communities on their own-be it politically, or just cleaning up the local neighborhood.

'It seems to me that this is the mentality of our region,' says Avdiyants. 'Once every five years, we wait around for some guy to come and take care of everything for us.'

Long road ahead

That doesn't mean there isn't room for optimism. Politically, there is now more diversity in the city government after last month's local elections than ever before. Both President Petro Poroshenko's party (Petro Poroshenko Bloc) and Samopomich managed to break the five-per-cent electoral barrier, elbowing their way onto a city council dominated for years by the Party of Regions. Given the poor turnout, that Samopomich was able to secure around 10 per cent of the vote was particularly noteworthy.
 
What's more, some experts say the growing prominence of the Opposition Bloc is less of a concern than its fiercest critics perceive, at least for now. Political observer Oleksandr Kliuzhev, an analyst with Ukrainian election monitoring group Opora, believes the Opposition Bloc and Poroshenko's party-the single most dominant political force in Ukraine-are still capable of striking a bargain if it suits both their interests. 'To say that it [Opposition Bloc] is an anti-system force at the moment... would be a major exaggeration,' says Kliuzhev.

But still, Lyakh and others here often speak of a fundamental social misunderstanding between the Donbas-which is within close proximity to the war zone-and the rest of country.

During the months-long demonstrations on Kyiv's Maidan, there was resentment from the east that protesters in the capital were 'partying' while Donbas was at work, keeping the economy humming.

Today, there's a similar political talking point: Lyakh complains that the Opposition Bloc and its supporters are being demonised as alleged separatists for seeking peaceful dialogue over the conflict instead of outright victory. Kyiv, he says, lives in a different world that's never experienced artillery strikes. 'Here, like nowhere else, people want peace at any price,' said Lyakh.

He also points to the ongoing decommunisation campaign-Slovyansk is currently renaming its Soviet-era streets-as a further sign that the central government, under ostensible pressure from the more patriotic elements of society, is stubbornly stoking tensions instead of mitigating them. While decommunisation needs to be conducted eventually, he says, now is not the time.

'Instead of changing people's roofs and windows, we're changing street signs,' observes Lyakh. 'Is that moral or not?'

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 #4
East Ukraine militia report shelling of Donetsk airport area

MOSCOW, November 12. /TASS/. The Ukrainian army on Thursday morning resumed the shelling of the positions of the units of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) located on the territory of the Donetsk airport, a source in the DPR Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

"The Ukrainian military has been shelling the militia's positions at the airport since 09:00 hours. The enemy is using 82-mm and 120-mm mortars, automatic grenade launchers and small arms," the source said.

At the moment the shelling continues, he added.

Kiev accused of mortar strike against Donetsk republic

Donetsk, the administrative center of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), came under massive mortar fire from the Ukrainian military, head of a district administration Ivan Prikhodko has said.  The northern part of the city was left without power.

"The night shelling by Ukrainian nationalists has damaged the cable line in Severny inhabited locality in Kuibyshevsky district of Donetsk. A shell hit de-energized most of Oktyabrsky village, specifically, hospital No.21, and also part of Severny inhabited locality. The enemy used 82-mm mortars," Donetsk News Agency quotes him as saying.

On Wednesday evening, the Ukrainian military opened fire at Spartak village located near the Donetsk airport. The Ukrainian Armed Forces used mortars, automatic grenade launchers and small arms. According to the DPR Defense Ministry, in spite of the ceasefire, the inhabited localities adjacent to the northern part of Donetsk and the Donetsk airport area have been subjected to frequent shelling by the Ukrainian military over the past few days.

Earlier reports said that the DPR militia command had notified the OSCE mission about the full withdrawal of mortars with caliber under 120 mm from the line of contact.

The DPR self-defense forces completed the withdrawal of mortars on November 5, thus completing the process of pulling back weapons envisaged by the Supplement to the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements coordinated by the Contact Group.

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 #5
New York Times
November 12, 2015
A Bleak Future in Eastern Ukraine's Frozen Zone
By ANDREW E. KRAME

DONETSK, Ukraine - The 28-year-old accountant with a bob of chestnut hair would dash from work to meet her wide circle of friends at bars, restaurants and dinner parties. "It's not how you spend your time, but who you spend it with," Irina Filatova, the accountant, said of her humming social life.

That now seems a long time ago, before Ms. Filatova and about three million other people in eastern Ukraine were plunged into the strange vortex of former Soviet politics known as a frozen zone.

Governed by Russian-backed separatists, the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk have no patron, neither the Western-leaning government in Kiev nor Moscow. Instead, they exist in a state of limbo that for Ms. Filatova, her friends and many others, has proved both spiritually and economically debilitating.

And as hard as life has become for Ms. Filatova, others are afflicted far more by Ukraine's civil war and its aftermath, the subject of a New York Times virtual reality film about children, resilience and survival. Many live in the charred ruins of houses hit by rockets and artillery. Others are homeless, with the sharp winter winds of the steppes beginning to bite.

Children and older people suffer disproportionately. There is little money for schools and to pay teachers' salaries. Many teachers have simply left. Food is also running short, and hunger is a daily fear for many youngsters.

Many older people have nowhere else to go, and their pensions have been cut off by a hostile government in Kiev. Russia, burdened by its annexation of Crimea and the collapse of oil prices, has no interest in filling the void.

But the experiences of Ms. Filatova and the few professionals like her who have remained reflect most clearly the sharp decline of living standards in eastern Ukraine, where a building sense of hopelessness pervades.

The changes came fast for Ms. Filatova. Startled by the rebels' takeover of the regional government, her flock of friends and fellow young professionals scattered like birds. Very few, if any, have returned. Some determined souls, like her, stayed.

Things went from bad to worse. The rebel zone rapidly sank into a chaotic and lawless state that had no place for the tax auditing company where she had worked.

When the firm folded, Ms. Filatova's once-respectable salary for Ukraine of about $750 a month turned to dust. She now earns a paltry $85 a month keeping the books for a public school.

But the new job came with a catch. Ms. Filatova was required to join a separatist youth group, the Young Republic, where she has been expected to volunteer her free time for Communist-themed activities, like marching with flags on holidays.

"It's all very morose," she said of her experiences over the past two years. "All the young people left. It's mostly older and middle-aged people. Life left this piece of land."

If history is any guide, this frozen state of affairs in eastern Ukraine could linger for a long time.

The war between the Russian-backed so-called People's Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk and the Ukrainian government broke out in April 2014 and quickly escalated in cruelty and intensity, killing nearly 8,000 people, according to the United Nations. About 1.3 million have been displaced.

The guns went quiet in eastern Ukraine in September, wrapping up with a cease-fire but with no final settlement. This is a common arc of post-Soviet conflict, visible in the Georgian enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan and in Transnistria, a strip of land on Moldova's border with Ukraine.

In each case, the Kremlin intervened or provided arms on the pretext of protecting ethnic Russians or local allies, then it installed pro-Russian governments that it has used to manipulate events in the host countries. The contested borders of frozen zones also effectively guard against any further expansion of NATO, since no country with an unresolved border conflict can join the alliance.

"It is an amazing injustice, to be honest," Ms. Filatova said of the Kremlin's policy of creating frozen zones.

"You sit here and think, 'Why me?' " she said. " 'Why my family? Why did my life at one moment turn out completely differently?' And it's not just me. Hundreds of thousands of people just fell through the looking glass."

Not just the people, perhaps, but the entire territory. In the frozen zone, they live in ruins, amid a ruined ideology, in the ruins of the old empire.

In government offices here, portraits of Stalin, looking avuncular and kind, gaze down at visitors. The secret police in Donetsk are called the M.G.B., separated by one letter from the K.G.B. The government in Kiev is depicted as neo-fascist in the local news media.

"There is a lot of pompous celebration of the victory over fascism, a love for Soviet abbreviations, symbols and monuments," Vladimir Solovyov, a journalist with the Russian newspaper Kommersant who was raised in Transnistria and left when he was 16, said of life in the frozen conflict areas, noting that the same trends were emerging in Donetsk.

With the war frozen, the future of the young people left in these regions is also put on ice.

Vitaly V. Antyukov, 28, interviewed in a hospital over the summer, lost a foot to an artillery explosion. And now neither Ukraine nor Russia is willing to pay the $500 or so that he needs for a rudimentary prosthesis.

Oleg Teryokhin, an 11-year-old resident of the village of Nikishino, returned after fleeing with his family to find his village devastated.

To be sure, the cease-fire has greatly improved safety for the family, although mines and booby traps remain a risk.

But the political status of eastern Ukraine makes reconstruction a distant prospect and means that the way Oleg lives today may not change for years to come.

"The first time I saw it, I was in shock," Oleg said of seeing his destroyed village. "The second time I was still under an impression, but when I came back for the third time I was already used to it."

Aleksandr A. Prokhanov, the editor of Zavtra, a Russian nationalist newspaper, and a strong supporter of the breakaway republics, said "there is disappointment" in Donetsk, which separated from Ukraine, compared with the city of Dnipropetrovsk, which did not.

"In Donetsk, people live worse than in Dnipropetrovsk," he said. "But in Dnipropetrovsk, people live worse than in San Francisco. And in San Francisco, they live worse than in paradise. The level of life is not decisive."

Ms. Filatova scoffs at such rationalizations.

"Of course we live worse," she said, adding that the conflict caught her at a time when she had been stepping out on her own.

Her apartment, her first, was in a neighborhood that was pounded continually by artillery. She said she once lay in her empty bathtub, holding her head, while the windows shattered. She was forced to move back in with her parents. "It's now home, work, home, work and nothing else," she said.

"If you consider it is somebody's plan to freeze this war, the lives of ordinary people are not really valued," she said. "It's unlikely anybody is paying attention to us."

 #6
Kyiv Post
November 12, 2015
Right Sector chief Yarosh resigns, cedes leadership role of group
By Mark Rachkevych

Dmytro Yarosh has stepped down as leader of Right Sector, the nationalist group that started off defending protesters from police violence during the EuroMaidan Revolution and morphed into a political party and paramilitary group that does not answer to the nation's military.

Yarosh said on his Facebook page that during a Nov. 8 conference of the organization's leadership in Kyiv, "several participants gave themselves illegitimate functions: determining the area of strategic development for Right Sector and choosing one more leader, where I was given the role to supervise."

He said he had delegated certain management functions to "close followers" when he was wounded in battle in Russia's war against the Donbas and during long spells of recuperation, but that "my positions were not always the same as the aspirations of some of the leadership."

"As leader, I personally took responsibility for everything that transpired in the organization, and I don't plan on shifting it to others. That is why I cannot be a figurehead in Right Sector," the 44-year-old lawmaker said. "Thus, I'm forced to decline the offer to head the leadership that the conference had proposed and resign as the head of the national freedom movement of Right Sector, (while) remaining a nationalist, state builder and revolutionary."

The Kyiv Post couldn't reach Yarosh for comment, nor was the group's spokesman, Artyom Skoropadsky, available for comment.

The group gained prominence after police violently cleared Independence Square on Nov. 30, 2013, during the nascent stages of the EuroMaidan Revolution. Right Sector helped fortify a tent city in central Kyiv and provided security around its perimeter. They further gained visibility in clashes with police on Jan. 19 along Hrushevskoho Street, wearing balaclavas while hurling Molotov cocktails in protest over a set of draconian laws that parliament had passed three days earlier.

As Kremlin-controlled media demonized the group during its coverage of the popular uprising, Right Sector's profile rose. Days before vacating office as president, Viktor Yanukovych met with Yarosh in his office.

The nationalist leader described the meeting in an interview with Ukrainian Week magazine: "(The meeting) really took place. Members of the Security Services came out and suggested not only to me, but to our leadership and to my closest entourage, to meet to end the bloodshed. Accordingly, I went to the president's office. There the issue had to do with an agreement, the same agreement that was later signed (for pre-term presidential elections in December 2014). I refused to do it. I said that we have never been and never will be puppets. Therefore, remove your armies because this will be the beginning of guerrilla warfare throughout Ukraine... the discussion had to do with the fact that we would not back down and would not lay down our weapons - that we would stand until the end. Perhaps this became clear to him when he decided to end the so-called anti-terrorist operation and pull back the troops. Although the snipers were still active then."

Soon after the protests, Yarosh registered the Right Sector political party and unsuccessfully ran for president in May 2014. He was elected to parliament as an independent candidate in October of that year in a single-mandate constituency in his native Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. He hails from Dniproderzhynsk, a predominantly Russian-speaking industrial city in the oblast.

Since getting elected to the legislature, Yarosh has only registered for five out of 113 sessions.

When Russian-separatist forces started taking over government buildings and law enforcement stations in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in April 2014, Yarosh and his followers formed a volunteer corps of armed fighters.

The group has been credited for holding the town of Pisky near Donetsk airport, where Yarosh was wounded on Jan. 21 by shrapnel from a Grad rocket.

Right Sector has refused to integrate with either the interior ministry or the Ukrainian military.

Most recently, Right Sector has teamed up with Crimean Tatar activists to blockade Russian-occupied Crimea. The blockade, which began in late September, has cut off three major highways from the peninsula, with volunteers and members of Right Sector refusing to let cargo through into the peninsula, which Russia annexed in March 2014. The move was meant to protest against Russia's occupation and draw attention to human rights abuses on the peninsula.

In July 2014, upon Russia's request, Interpol placed Yarosh on its wanted list for allegedly committing "public incitement to terrorist activities involving the use of mass media" and "public incitement to extremist activities involving the use of mass media."

When asked to comment on the Interpol posting at that time, Yarosh told the Kyiv Post over the phone that "this is a normal phenomenon, this is war, the enemy (Russia) tries to neutralize the elements that are resisting Moscow's occupation (of Ukraine)."

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 #7
Jerusalem Post
November 11, 2015
Ukrainian Jewish leader accuses Kiev of 'flirting with radicals'
By Sam Sokol
 
"Today it is obvious that the government has played with the radicals. Instead of putting them in their place a year ago," says Jewish oligarch Vadim Rabinovich.

One of Ukraine's most prominent Jews on Tuesday voiced concerns over Kiev's use of far-right radical nationalist groups in the battle against Russian-backed separatists, warning that the police have lost their "monopoly on the use of force."

"The government must stop flirting with ultra-radical organizations, which are increasingly gaining ground in Ukraine," opposition MP and Jewish oligarch Vadim Rabinovich wrote on the website of his Opposition Bloc political party, demanding that the administration of President Petro Poroshenko cut ties with such groups.

The Opposition Bloc is largely composed of former supporters of deposed pro-Russian President Victor Yanukovich.

While he did not refer to specific organizations, it is likely that Rabinovich was referring to Right Sector and the Azov Battalion, both of which have been provided with weapons and training by the Ukrainian military and operate in the disputed Donbas region. Right Sector rose to prominence during last year's Maidan revolution in Kiev, taking part in clashes with riot police. Azov, meanwhile, was established after the separatist takeover of the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Luhansk and has been reported to include a large contingent of avowed neo-Nazis.

While Right Sector has until recently had a Jewish spokesman and has taken a public stand against anti-Semitism, the group still includes many members affiliated with anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi movements.

Earlier this year, the government announced that the group's founder Dmitri Yarosh was to become an adviser to Ukrainian Chief of Staff Viktor Muzhenko, in a bid to further integrate the group's militias into the army.

"Today it is obvious that the government has played with the radicals. Instead of putting them in their place a year ago, today, because of the connivance of the authorities of Ukraine," many of them are armed and members of affiliated paramilitary forces, asserted Rabinovich.

He cited a July gun battle between Right Sector members and local police in Mukacheve, in which several people were killed.

About the same time, around 10 members of the group were surrounded by police in a standoff in the Zakarpattia region. Right Sector activists subsequently protested in several cities, calling for the dismissal of senior Ukrainian officials.

In response, Poroshenko called for police to disarm what he termed "illegal groups," asserting that they threatened national stability.

However, the group was not disbanded, and tensions were ratcheted up even further when in August a national guardsman was killed by a grenade outside of parliament during a Right Sector protest.

According to Foreign Policy magazine, "Kiev and the far Right are at a stalemate," with Poroshenko lacking the power to disband such groups, which themselves lack the ability to "openly move on Kiev either."

"The government, in fact, lost its monopoly on the use of force by police officers," Rabinovich accused," stating that "the country has started to operate [on] the principle of the 'swashbuckling' 90s," where whoever had weapons was in the right.

He added that he believes the far Right is enabling a "blossoming of fascist sentiments in the country."

Rabinovich, who heads the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, does not speak for Ukrainian Jewry in this matter, a spokesman for the Dnipropetrovsk Jewish community told The Jerusalem Post.

"Since Vadim Rabinovich is presenting the position of his political party...it is not a Jewish voice of Ukraine," he said.

Relations between Rabinovich and Ihor Kolomoisky, a fellow Jewish oligarch closely tied to the Dnipropetrovsk Jewish community, have soured in the last year.

Russia has repeatedly accused Kiev's post-revolutionary government of fascism and anti-Semitism, and while local Jews have largely dismissed such statements as propaganda, several developments - such as the elevation of an alleged neo-Nazi to a senior police post last November and the granting earlier this year of official government recognition to a Ukrainian militia that collaborated with the Nazis - have caused an outcry by the Jewish community.

While anti-Semitic violence is low by Western European standards, vandalism rose significantly in 2014.

Speaking at a joint press conference earlier this week, the heads of several Jewish organizations called on Kiev to do more to prosecute hate crimes, which they asserted have been downplayed.

Ukraine must crack down on anti-Semitic crimes, while educating the public, said Eduard Dolinsky of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, who added that he does not believe that Ukrainian civil society has adequately responded to the issue.

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 #8
www.aljazeera.com
November 11, 2015
Ukrainians emboldened despite broken political promises
Two years after the Euromaidan protests, an active civil society movement has taken root.
By Philippa H Stewart

Despite the disillusionment, Ukraine civil society activism is on the rise. [Getty Images]
Kiev, Ukraine - It is a busy night in a cafe close to Maidan - the scene of the protests two years ago, which became known as Euromaidan, and led to the war in the east of the country and a brief wave of optimism among many of its citizens.

But, today, conversation here revolves around the perceived failings of the government that came to power in the aftermath of the protests, the low turnout in the country's recent local elections, and how many of former President Viktor Yanukovich's allies are on course to be elected in the second round of voting taking place on November 15.

Olena Oliynyk, a civil society activist, was surprised by the low voter turnout.

"I asked people why there were so few votes. Firstly, they are disillusioned; there's such a huge distance between what was expected [after Euromaidan] and what actually happened," she explained, talking over the hum of the cafe and alternating between English and Ukrainian.

"People are exhausted by the economic downturn. The reform process they were expecting hasn't come."

Oliynyk, however, has not relinquished the optimism sparked by the protests of November 2013.

The former international contract lawyer gave up her job in the wake of Euromaidan to become part of Ukraine's burgeoning civil society. She joined the hundreds of NGO workers and volunteers determined not to let the demonstrations and everything that followed stand for nothing.

Believe in Ukraine, the NGO Oliynyk co-founded, which gives legal advice to citizens, is only six months old, but she believes it has already accomplished some important work, especially around last week's local elections, which were seen as a barometer of the mood of the country.

Yet, with low turnouts and majority votes for oligarchs and property tycoons, that mood seemed to be at best apathy and, at worst, disillusionment.

"We did so much work before the election," said Oliynyk. "We held events called 'I am for the fair elections' and we explained to people the different methods of manipulation used by the politicians to get elected. Many were promising changes that wouldn't be in their power as local officials."

"And we explained that the oligarchs had control of most of the media because they have the money, and told people not to take everything they saw as real."

The election's most recent exit polls show a firm east-west split, with President Petro Poroshenko's party maintaining its dominance in the west and centre of the country, despite the growing discontentment with the ruling party.

The eastern and southern regions are largely on course to elect oligarchs and representatives of the old regime.

In Kharkiv, Hennadiy Kernes, a former ally of Yanukovich, has already been elected after gaining more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round. In Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine's third-largest city, two anti-Poroshenko politicians face a runoff.

Some newer parties, formed after Euromaidan, appeared to give voters hope, but with 130 parties splitting a 46 percent turnout, no single new force has managed to organise itself effectively, meaning that it is still those parties with powerful financial backers that get the majority of the publicity.

"[In the presidential elections] I voted for Poroshenko, but that was not a vote for him, that was a vote against Yanukovich and [the] old system. In fact, there were no better candidates," said Anastasiia Chornohorska, who works for Euromaidan Press, a group that supports the Euromaidan protesters.

"I always vote in elections. I think every voice is important. Also, there were candidates and parties [in these elections] that I really like. Some of them I know personally. I voted with pleasure, and this is one the great achievements of this revolution: new, smart people in politics."

Disillusionment

This month marks the second anniversary of the Euromaidan protests. Analysts say Poroshenko's failure to deliver on the reform he promised when he was elected is likely to be reflected in the demonstrations marking the day on November 21.

"There's two aspects to this. There are people who did the repression and the murders, and the people who did the high-level thieving. And the average person doesn't see that any of these people have been dealt with," said Taras Kuzio, a senior fellow at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, at the University of Alberta.

"The average Ukrainian believes that he is bearing the brunt of the economic and financial crisis, not the elite, and thinks that that's unjust, and therefore Poroshenko, I don't think he'll be removed from power, but he certainly won't be re-elected," he said.

"The politicians don't respect voters. They think: 'Today I'm not very popular, but I'll do a few tricks with political consultants and advertising, I'll promise some things and then I'll not do it.' It is a disrespect for what public opinion polls say about you, which is that the public thinks you're doing something wrong."

Kuzio said Ukraine finds itself at a similar stage to where it was in 2006, following the Orange Revolution, when an atmosphere of disillusionment permeated the country.

"One of the most emotional aspects of this will be the fact that nobody has gone to jail for the Euromaidan murders [the killings of protesters] and that will hurt him [Poroshenko] tremendously," said Kuzio.

"Already last year he was booed by some of the survivors' relatives, so this year he is going to be even more so."

According to Kuzio, a major difference between now and 2006 is that the threat seemingly posed by Russia is keeping the coalition from public falling out.

"Most people are aware of that [the threat of Russia]," he said. "When there was a riot outside the Ukrainian Parliament and somebody threw a grenade, that was condemned by most people, including nationalists, and so they understand that we need to be careful and not to cross a line that can then be used by Russia."

Alex, a TV producer living in Kiev who preferred not to give his surname, said he did not vote for Vitali Klitschko, who merged his party with Poroshenko's before the elections and looks set to be re-elected as Kiev's mayor, despite having high hopes for him when he first took up the post a year ago.

"[I thought] his years in Germany would give him a vision on how to transform Kiev into a modern European city, a comfortable place to live, not a cow milked by corruption schemes, especially in construction. But he never presented a clear vision and there was no long-term strategy in what he was doing," said Alex.

"The reopening of a movie theatre that was ... burned down a year ago during a showing of a gay-themed movie, was turned into Klitschko's election event, while volunteers - who mobilised the public after the fire to make sure the cinema would be restored and not razed and the land given to a developer [and] who mobilised the public to volunteer at clearing the rubble - were not even invited to speak at the opening."

But, despite this criticism, he did say that "Klitchko's team is definitely a lot easier to approach by people with various initiatives than his predecessors".

Alex was one of the people who protested at Maidan on November 21, 2013, with high hopes for change.

"I was on Maidan the very first evening when people gathered. No one could've imagined what we'd have to go through, especially the number of deaths."

"But for some reason, I always felt that one day there would be this conflict with Russia," he added of the war that followed in eastern Ukraine.

Still, he believes the demonstrations have led to improvements.

"[There have been] lots of positive changes...," he said. "Ukrainians have become a lot more active, the civil society has flourished, people know they have to keep control of the politicians and initiate changes themselves, not wait for the government to do something."

It is that attitude that keeps Oliynyk going.

"We are more intelligent than the politicians and the old guard," she said.

"We have more resources and more ideas and we love Ukraine. We will not give up and let it slide back to the old ways."

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 #9
Bloomberg
November 10, 2015
Russia Said to Plot Strategy to Block IMF Lending to Ukraine
By Andrew Mayeda

Russia is exploring strategies to try to block the International Monetary Fund's next loan payment to Ukraine as a dispute between the two countries over a $3 billion bond comes to a head, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Russia bought the bond from the government of Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych in December 2013, before he was overthrown and Russian forces annexed Crimea in a move that set off a conflict that has killed 8,000 people. Ukraine proposed the security be included in a restructuring of debt held by private creditors. Russia has refused to accept the terms, insisting the bond is a loan between governments, rather than commercial debt.

Borrowing countries must demonstrate to the IMF that their debt is sustainable, a condition that fund staff can satisfy by seeking assurances from creditor nations that a default is unlikely. The IMF is also considering easing a policy that bars loans to borrowers who are behind in payments to official creditors, proposing to allow such lending as long as the borrowing nation meets its obligations under the IMF program and bargains in good faith with the creditor country, said another person familiar with the matter.

Private Discussions

Faced with this situation, Vladimir Putin's administration may withhold its assurance that Ukraine can repay its debts to Russia, said the first person, who has direct knowledge of the Russian strategy. Russia could also argue that Ukraine hasn't negotiated in good faith, the person said. The people asked not to be identified because the discussions aren't public.

The Kremlin hasn't yet decided whether to pursue these paths at the IMF, said the person familiar with Russia's strategy.

At stake is whether Ukraine receives the next $1.7 billion installment in its $17.5 billion bailout from the IMF. The strategy would probably face resistance from the U.S. and its Group of Seven allies, which back IMF aid to Ukraine and collectively control most of the votes on the fund's executive board needed for approval. But the Kremlin could chip away at support among big creditor countries such as China and Saudi Arabia, some of which may be reluctant to relax the IMF's policy of non-tolerance on official arrears.

Russia's Argument

Russia's protests over the $3 billion bond are unlikely to be heeded by the IMF, said Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington. "This is the kind of thing you say when you don't have an argument," he said. "The trouble lies elsewhere," Aslund said, citing domestic resistance to the Ukraine government's efforts to broaden the country's tax base as an example of something that represents a greater challenge to the IMF program.

The press office of Russia's finance ministry didn't immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the strategy. Russia Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak said Tuesday that "we want to resolve the issue without big consequences for Ukraine as a potential borrower from financial markets," though the "alternative is either court or payment."

Olga Stankova, an IMF spokeswoman, declined to comment. Gerry Rice, the fund's chief spokesman, said Oct. 29 that the IMF board is expected to take up the issue of changing the lending-into-arrears policy in the "near future." That vote will take place this month, said the person familiar with the proposal.

Ukraine Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said the nation has met "almost all of the conditions" for the IMF program, though it needs to adopt a new tax code and anti-corruption legislation. "Assuming we can submit an appropriate budget and stick to the deficit target of 3.7 percent, I don't see any major issues," she said in an interview Friday.

Russia has vowed to take Ukraine to court if President Petro Poroshenko's administration follows through on its promise to default on the loan. Putin's government isn't willing to bend on the bond unless the U.S. and European Union relax economic sanctions against Russia, said the person familiar with the Russian position.

The bond, which matures Dec. 20, has features of both commercial and official debt. While it took the form of a tradeable Eurobond, it was sold at a 5 percent coupon, compared with a rate on 2017 debt at the time of about 12 percent.

Arrears Policy

The IMF changed its arrears policy in 1989 to allow countries borrowing from the fund to continue receiving loan installments even if they miss payments to commercial creditors. But the fund's executive board left in place its policy of non-tolerance toward official arrears, despite a recommendation by staff that exceptions be allowed. That means that if a country misses a payment to a sovereign creditor, it would be disqualified from further IMF aid.

The IMF disbursed $5 billion in funds to Ukraine in March and another $1.7 billion in August. Fund staff members completed a mission to Kiev on Oct. 2 as part of a review to determine if the country can receive the next loan installment. The IMF originally targeted Sept. 15 for the third disbursement when the bailout was approved in March.

A U.S. Treasury official, briefing reporters Tuesday on condition of anonymity, said Ukraine has taken steps consistent with the IMF to address its debt situation, and it's imperative that the IMF continue to provide appropriate support to Ukraine.

While voting against or even abstaining from an IMF lending program is a rare move, Russia probably doesn't have the support among other member nations, even prospective allies like China, to block the Ukraine program, said Andrea Montanino, a member of the fund's executive board from 2012 to 2014.

"Russia will be isolated," said Montanino, now director of the Atlantic Council's global business and economics program in Washington.

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#10
www.foreignpolicy.com
November 11, 2015
Oligarchs on the Airwaves
Ukraine's top TV channels are controlled by powerful business interests - and they aren't shy about making sure the coverage goes their way.
BY IRYNA FEDETS
Iryna Fedets is a research associate with the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting, a think tank in Kyiv, Ukraine, where she studies the business climate, international trade, and regional development.

Monday, October 19, turned out to be the last day of work for Roman Sukhan, who for years had worked as a TV anchor for Channel 5, one of Ukraine's top news stations. "I'm fired. For what? I have no idea," Sukhan wrote on Facebook on the same day, making his frustration with his former employers public. Not stopping there, he used the opportunity to accuse the channel of several unsavory practices.

According to Sukhan, while working at the station - which is owned by Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine's president - he received under-the-table money transfers to his private bank card every month in addition to his regular salary. Unofficial salaries are widely used in Ukraine to evade taxation. It's no wonder the country's shadow economy is almost half the size of the official GDP, according to government estimates.

More damning for Ukraine's media industry - and perhaps, the future of its democracy - is Sukhan's other accusation: that every show on Channel 5, except for the straight news programs, airs content for money. He did not provide specific examples, but described the practice using the slang word "jeans," which in Ukraine denotes one-sided stories that promote particular people, business interests, or political parties - who have paid for the privilege. Ukrainian journalists and media experts have learned to recognize jeans by a common set of features: they cover trivial events, such as ribbon cuttings; they fail to present opposing points of view; and they often feature quotes from dubious "experts" with little relevant experience.

Channel 5's editor in chief has denied Sukhan's allegations, citing unsatisfactory performance as the reason for his firing. But this incident has once again drawn attention to corruption in Ukraine's television channels and other media outlets - and the impact of Sukhan's public claim is strengthened by the fact that the channel is owned by the country's president.

Television is pervasive in Ukraine - it is the dominant factor in shaping public opinion. In a 2015 poll conducted nationally, 94 percent of respondents said they get their news from television, and while 42 percent also get information from the Internet, the remaining 52 percent rely solely on TV. A pre-election poll conducted in October found that, after leaflets and billboards, television is the most important source of information about political candidates. Particularly as the country undergoes a painful, still-uncertain democratic transition, the compromised integrity of such a predominant source of politically relevant information threatens to undermine the ability of Ukrainian voters to exercise their democratic rights.

President Poroshenko's Channel 5 - the channel that fired Sukhan - was the first TV station in Ukraine to devote 24 hours a day to news and political talk shows. It gained substantial public trust for being the only station to give the floor to the opposition during the 2004 Orange Revolution, at a time when few Ukrainians had access to online media. Today, though, Channel 5 is better known for its laudatory coverage of the government. The channel airs positive stories that personally feature Poroshenko and frequently produces uncritical items about the president's routine activities, such as statements issued by his office or details of his travels, leading media monitors to conclude that it is "slowly turning into Poroshenko's press office."

It's no wonder that Poroshenko did not sell Channel 5 after being elected president in 2014, all while promising that his channel would be independent. The channel is hardly a moneymaking asset, but in this it is not alone. According to some commentators, even some of the country's top TV stations are subsidized by their owners. But the advantage of having a personal media outlet isn't profit - it's gaining leverage in the power struggle among big business players, all of which, in a country as corrupt as Ukraine, have ambitious political agendas. And in this regard, Poroshenko (who is worth over $900 million) has serious competition. In fact, all ten of the country's most popular channels are owned by powerful oligarchs.

Of these top ten channels, three are controlled by Viktor Pinchuk, three by Ihor Kolomoisky, three by Dmytro Firtash, and one by Rinat Akhmetov. All four of these men, who are among Ukraine's richest and most powerful, use their media might to advance their business and political interests. As Ukrainian media monitors have shown, most of the country's top TV channels air political advertising promoted as "news." This was especially obvious ahead of the local elections that took place on Oct. 25.

Channels controlled by Pinchuk, for example, are known for their aggressive coverage of the oligarch's charity foundation and for promoting political parties linked to deposed pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. The 1+1 channel also promoted political parties linked to its owner, Kolomoisky, by covering local election news favorable to these parties on a national level, failing to provide critical analysis or commentary, and neglecting to give voice to alternative opinions. The channel also targeted Mikheil Saakashvili, the head of the Odessa regional administration, who has publicly clashed with Kolomoisky.

Dmytro Firtash has been a long-time partner of Russian state oil company Gazprom and number 17 on Forbes' latest list of the wealthiest Ukrainians. His most popular channel, Inter, has been repeatedly caught broadcasting one-sided positive coverage of the Opposition Block, a pro-Russian political party. The channel has also attacked Kolomoisky, Firtash's political foe and his key competitor on the media market, "associating" him with a controversial mayoral candidate in Kharkiv and attacking his airline as profiting from flights to Russia.

And one TV station among the top ten, the "Ukraine" channel, belongs to Rinat Akhmetov, the country's richest person. Akhmetov enjoys ties to Ukraine's ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted from his post by the Euromaidan protests in 2014. Ahead of the local elections, this channel aired the views of particular politicians and public officials unchallenged in "straight" news stories.

A related problem in the Ukrainian media is a confounding lack of transparency about its ownership. Big business owners manage media outlets through numerous companies, and viewers are often unaware who owns - and controls the editorial line of - a given channel. In the 2015 poll cited above, 51 percent of respondents said information about the ownership of TV channels is "completely" or "mostly" inaccessible. A new law on the transparency of the media that entered into force in October aims to resolve this problem. The law requires all state-licensed media outlets to submit information about their ownership structure and ultimate beneficiaries to the National Television and Broadcasting Council of Ukraine, a state body, to publish this information on their websites.

There are bright spots in Ukraine's media landscape - but they aren't on the television. In 2000, Ukrainska Pravda became the first major online publication to cover political news. The site provided an independent web-based alternative to the conventional TV and printed media that were loyal to the government. Since then, Ukrainska Pravda has earned a reputation as an impartial investigative media outlet that uncovers corruption involving government officials, sheds light on oligarchs' business interests, and serves as a popular blogging platform for prominent activists and politicians.

Kyiv Post, Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper, has been under serious political and financial pressure during its twenty years of circulation. Nevertheless, it has maintained its independence and continues to publish investigative stories and editorials that are critical of the government. And Hromadske.tv, an online TV startup launched in 2013, is funded with donations from foundations and individual contributors. The channel is known for hosting upfront talks with political and civic activists in a simple studio and for livestreaming critical events such as the Euromaidan protests.

Often, it is these less well-funded but independent media outlets that produce Ukraine's best and most effective journalism. In the wake of the Euromaidan revolution, investigative reporters associated with independent outlets revealed Yanukovych's dishonestly obtained riches to the public, exposing the massive scale of the corruption in his government. Data journalism has revealed corruption in public procurement deals worth billions of hryvnyas, stoking popular outrage that could not be simply dismissed by the authorities. If they can figure out a way to compete commercially with the mainstream media, Ukraine's independent outlets may inspire the public to demand higher reporting standards.

That would be a positive change from the current media environment, in which media outlets are primarily tools of political power. Addressing these problems publicly, as Roman Sukhan and other Ukrainian journalists and media experts have done, will help Ukraine's TV viewers understand how their daily news shapes their political choices.

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 #11
Voice of America
November 9, 2015
Ukrainian Journalist Concerned About Direction of Country's Media
by Oleksiy Kuzmenko

Maxim Eristavi is an openly gay Ukrainian journalist who worked for Russian state media, and has been covering Ukraine for news outlets since day one of the Euromaidan uprising in 2014. Now he warns that Ukraine's media are on a slippery slope as they drop inconvenient facts to protect the country's image - something he says he has witnessed before, in Russia.

Eristavi is in a unique position to reflect on media in Ukraine and Russia. In 2012-2013 he worked for "The Voice of Russia," a now defunct Russian international radio station. In 2014 in Ukraine he co-founded "Hromadske International" an English-language media platform priding itself in impartiality.

Eristavi also contributed to the likes of CNN and BBC, while international outlets such as Mashable, Bild and The New York Times call his tweets an essential source on Ukraine.

In an interview with VOA, Eristavi said he is witnessing a disturbing trend.

"In Ukraine, the state is not in control of the media messages, but there's a growing and developing paranoia in the media. Journalists pick and choose topics they want to cover and distance from topics they are not comfortable with because they think that those can be used by Russia to diminish the image of Ukraine or to hurt the country in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war," he said.

He saw a similar pattern in Russia.

"When I was working in Russian newsrooms I would often see how propaganda would creep up on my colleagues. Usually it would start with self-censorship.

Individual journalists thought that criticizing the government of Russia or Vladimir Putin was unpatriotic and that it was a journalist's duty to defend Russia in the face of growing international pressure and criticism," he said.

Eristavi thinks Ukraine has the potential to develop a vibrant society with powerful and respectable media outlets, but he calls current developments in the country's media "toxic."

"In Ukraine we see many terrific investigative reports when it comes to corruption and abuse of power by the post-revolutionary government. But topics like violence against the LGBT people are not covered because it plays very badly with the image of Ukraine as a country that wants to join the European family," he said.

Eristavi argues that Ukrainian journalists are doing their country a disservice when they sugarcoat harsh facts. "The biggest push-back against propaganda would be high quality journalism and telling the truth."

According to a 2015 report by Freedom House, a U.S. government-funded democracy advocacy group, Russia's media are "not free," while Ukraine's are described as "partly free."

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 #12
Interfax-Ukraine
November 12, 2015
Ukrainian parliament will never back same-sex marriages - speaker

The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada will never legalize same-sex marriages in the country, says Rada Chairman Volodymyr Groysman.

"You and we stand for family values. I've heard some fake [suggestions] that there could be some same-sex marriages in Ukraine. God forbid this should happen. And we'll never support this," Groysman said while the parliament was considering anti-discriminatory amendments to the Labor Code on Thursday.

The speaker emphasized the importance of strengthening family values and did not rule out that the office of a special commissioner for family affairs could be instituted within the government.

At the same time, Groysman said the adoption of the anti-discriminatory amendment would open to Ukrainians the path toward visa-free travel with the EU.

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 #13
www.foreignpolicy.com
November 10, 2015
Ukraine Chooses Homophobia Over Europe
Ukrainians had a revolution to move closer to Europe. But they're not ready to embrace European values.
BY LEV GOLINKIN
Lev Golinkin is the author of A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka.

This spring, Ukraine's government decided to purge the country of its Soviet past. All through the land, chisels and winches went to work chipping away Communist symbols and toppling Lenin statues by the dozens. But the Soviet dictatorship was composed of more than stone. It was also an ideology, the chief component of which was a callous disregard for human rights. Recently, however, the Rada, Ukraine's parliament, proved that this part of its Soviet past is very much alive in modern Ukraine.

On Nov. 10 the Verkhovna Rada refused to pass a law that would have allowed Ukrainian citizens to have the long-awaited privilege of visa-free travel in the European Union. The reason behind the legislation's resounding defeat? A provision preventing discrimination against gays in the workplace. This provision, which is a precondition for visa-free travel set by the EU, ignited a vociferous outcry, and ultimately turned into a red line which the Rada refused to cross.

"As a country with a thousand-year-old Christian history, we simply cannot allow this," is how Rada deputy Pavlo Unguryan, a member of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's own party, explained it after a previous attempt to pass the legislation on Nov. 5 failed.

This isn't the first homophobic news to come out of Ukraine this year: On June 6, members of the ultranationalist group Right Sector attacked Kiev's gay pride parade, brutally injuring numerous marchers as well as police. In July, when a pair of gay activists decided to test the extent of Ukraine's new Western values by holding hands in the middle of Kiev, they were quickly assaulted by thugs. On Nov. 2, the Kyiv Post profiled Mykola Dulskiy, the founder of a vigilante group called Fashion Verdict, whose mission, according to the article, is to "sweep promiscuity, gambling, sexual offenders and homosexuality from the streets of Ukraine's cities." The "verdict" is delivered in a rather straightforward manner: Members of the organization track down and beat anyone they deem degenerate.

But the damage caused by the Rada's refusal to pass anti-discrimination laws extends far beyond generating just one more negative headline for Ukraine. It undermines the two biggest factors that enabled the country to survive the horrors of the two previous years: Western support and the dream of European integration.

EU association is the issue that ignited Ukraine's Euromaidan revolution in November 2013. "Ukraine is Europe" was the rallying call for the hundreds of thousands who flocked to Kiev bearing EU flags following then-president Viktor Yanukovych's decision to go against the will of his people and cast Ukraine's lot with Russia. Today, billions of dollars, over 2 million refugees and internally displaced persons, and thousands of lost lives later, a new group of politicians is once again dealing a blow to the dream of EU integration - all in the name of homophobia.

Some politicians, such as Oksana Syroyid, the Rada's deputy speaker, hinted in a Nov. 9 remark that the anti-gay discrimination requirement had been suddenly sprung on the Rada. In reality, the EU made it clear as early as 2010 and continued reminding the Rada of its importance in the lead-up to the vote. It must also be noted that Moldova - another former Soviet republic mired in post-Soviet corruption and malaise - already enjoys the privilege of visa-free travel because it managed to pass a similar law.

For the past two years, Ukraine has asked the West to provide it with billions of dollars, material support, and training, as well as to enact and sustain sanctions against Russia - sanctions that hurt not only the Russian economy but also the economies of Western Europe. Time and again, Ukrainian politicians fought to keep themselves at the forefront of Western agendas by reminding the West that Ukraine has been fighting not just for its sovereignty, but also for democratic values. "We have shown the world the true face of our nation, one that fights for European values and defends European security on its frontiers," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote in a June op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. This notion of a land struggling to escape its Soviet past and break out of Russia's orbit is behind everything the West has invested in Ukraine.

By turning down the chance to pass reforms that would enable visa-free travel to Europe, the Rada undercuts the very EU and American support that is keeping Ukraine alive. This couldn't have come at a worse time. Over the past several months, public statements by American leaders, including Vice President Joe Biden and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, have made it clear that Kiev's window of opportunity to battle the corruption that continues to plague the ex-Soviet republic is growing smaller. Europe, already strained by dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis and rehabilitating the Greek economy, is also running out of patience. "You keep reforming and we will keep supporting. That is the contract we are making with you," is how Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, put it during a visit to Kiev earlier this year.

There is a not-so-veiled flip side to that statement: Support, dear Kiev, is conditional. You stop reforming, we stop supporting.

When it comes to explaining the glacial pace of Ukraine's anti-corruption reforms, the Rada has excuses - the country is involved in a war with Russian-backed separatists, the entire system needs to be changed, old views must be rooted out, and so on. But when it comes to throwing away the privilege of visa-free travel to Europe, the Rada has no excuse.But when it comes to throwing away the privilege of visa-free travel to Europe, the Rada has no excuse. It should not, therefore, be surprised to discover that Europe (which has a history of Christianity at least as long as Ukraine's) has no time for a country that places a higher value on discrimination than European integration.

The ultimate irony in all this is that Eastern Europe already has a country with organizations of homophobic thugs and politicians who use conservative Christian traditions to justify an atrocious record of violating the rights of the LGBT community. That is the very country Ukraine is trying to separate itself from: Russia.

In perusing websites and statements by both Russian and Ukrainian far right groups and politicians, one is stunned by the identical tone: Both invoke the imagery of a nation with "a thousand-year history of Christianity" battling back the encroachment of decadent Western values in order to justify their cause. Both use the same derogatory terms for homosexuals. Both insist that their country can have a future only once it is cleansed of "foreign" influences. The only difference is, one set of slogans is written in Russian, the other in Ukrainian.

Last year, as the conflict between Ukraine and Russia heated up, a controversial political cartoon appeared on the Internet. In it, a young woman wearing the white, blue, and red Russian flag colors is comforting what appears to be a younger sister dressed in the yellow and blue of Ukraine's flag. Over the past two years, Ukraine has been fighting to prove that offensive cartoon wrong, to show the world that Ukraine is more than Russia Junior, and that Ukraine belongs in the West.

Ukraine's politicians just squandered the opportunity to justify the bloodshed and horror that so many of their people have endured over the past two years. Instead - and in spite of their loud declarations of being European - they chose to embrace homophobia, placing themselves firmly in line with Russia. Big sister would be proud.

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 #14
Sputnik
November 12, 2015
Holodomor Hoax: West's 'Golden Embargo' and Soviet Famine of 1932-33
By Ekaterina Blinova

In an exclusive interview with Sputnik, Russian economist, author and politician Nikolai Starikov shared his views on the controversy surrounding the famine of 1932-33 in the USSR and shed some light on the Western anti-Soviet sanctions policy in the early 1930s.

The disastrous famine of 1932-33 in the USSR, used by the West as a bludgeon against the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, should not be taken out of the surrounding historical context.

The famine, later heavily politicized and groundlessly dubbed "Holodomor," is only a part of the story of the young Soviet state and the hardships it faced after the First World War.

Hit severely by World War I and exhausted by civil war and foreign intervention, the Soviet state had to rebuild its industry and modernize its agricultural sector to survive and improve the living conditions of the Soviet people.

West's "Golden Blockade" and Stalin's "Piatiletki"

Western governments were initially hostile to the Soviet leadership and refused to recognize the new state. After the Entente intervention ingloriously failed, the Western powers - most notably Britain, France and the United States - tried to take over the USSR through economic pressure.

"In that period of time the Soviet leadership was focused on creating industries the Soviet state lacked. In order to accomplish the task, the Kremlin implemented so-called "piatiletki" ("five-year plans"). In fact the solution of the problem was divided into two phases: firstly, [the Soviet leadership planned] to construct new industrial facilities, secondly, to sharply increase the crop production through the use of farm machinery and then pay for new foreign equipment by money earned through agricultural exports," Nikolai Starikov, Russian economist, author and politician, told Sputnik.

"And here the West had made an attempt to catch the Soviet Union out," the author remarked.

"In 1925 a so-called "golden blockade" was imposed on the USSR: the Western powers refused to accept gold as payment for industrial equipment they delivered to Russia. All of a sudden they demanded that the Soviet government pay for the equipment in timber, oil and grain," Starikov emphasized.

Western governments explained that their decision was triggered by the Bolsheviks' refusal to pay the Russian Empire's debts.

But that is not all: in the early 1930s major Western powers - the United States, France and Britain - placed an embargo on trade with the Soviet Union and refused to sell anything to the USSR for everything but GRAIN.

"Imagine, the Soviet Union had been "caught" amid an all-out effort to rebuild and modernize its industrial basis," Starikov elaborated, "however, since then the equipment (the USSR had a crying need for) could be bought for grain only."

Vicious Cycle of Famine and Soviet Agriculture

But what about Russia's agricultural sector at that time?

It is worth mentioning that since the end of 19th century the Russian Empire had been suffering from repeated famines. Furthermore, during the First World War the area of Russia's cultivated lands had diminished significantly.

In the 1920s, Russia, including the territory of modern Ukraine, was struck by a series of famines, occurring every two to four years. The proponents of the so-called "Holodomor" concept (an idea that the Soviet government deliberately organized the devastating famine of 1932-33) usually ignore the fact that the Soviet Union had gone through severe famines in 1920-21, 1924, 1927 and 1928.

"The year of the two Russian revolutions, 1917, saw a serious crop failure leading to urban famine in 1917-18. In the 1920s the USSR had a series of famines: in 1920-23 in the Volga and Ukraine plus one in western Siberia in 1923; in the Volga and Ukraine again in 1924-25, and a serious and little-studied famine in Ukraine in 1928," Professor Grover Carr Furr of Montclair State University wrote in his book "Blood Lies: The Evidence that Every Accusation Against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands Is False," quoting research works by Prof. Mark B. Tauger, a renowned expert on famine.

The famines, caused by then Russia's agricultural backwardness, natural disasters and the wars' long-term effects, were a part of a broader food supply problem in post-WWI Russia.

Then, the question arises: were Western powers aware of the USSR's desperate need for grain when they imposed sanctions on the Soviet Union demanding grain as the only means of payment?

"Of course, Western political elites knew about that problem," Nikolai Starikov told Sputnik, commenting on the issue.

"In fact the West's demand that the Soviet Union should pay in grain for Western supplies could have lead to the further deficit in grain in the USSR," the economist underscored.

Starikov explained that having no other instruments to overthrow the undesirable Communist regime, Western political and financial elites planned to instigate the internal unrest through, in particular, the artificial deficit of food in the Soviet state. The need to use grain as a means of payment also bolstered Soviet collectivization, according to the economist.

In his book "Crisis: How is It Organized" ("Krizis: Kak Eto Delayetsya," 2009) Nikolai Starikov called attention to the fact that the West's "sanctions war" against the Soviet Union coincided with the Great Depression.

The embargo imposed on the USSR by Western governments dealt a severe blow to Western-Soviet trade. The economist emphasized that the move contradicted the best interests of Western producers, hit by the recession of the early 1930s.  

There is nothing new under the sun: while imposing anti-Russian economic sanctions in 2014, Western political elites have again completely ignored the interests of their own national manufacturers and businesses.

Starikov underscored that the Western embargo could have been just one of a plethora of factors which lie at the root of the devastating famine of 1932-33 in the USSR.

However, the famine could by no means be called a deliberate attempt of the Soviet leadership to starve its population in Ukraine, the Volga region, North Caucasus or Kazakhstan to death in 1932-33. Soviet collectivization also could not be regarded as a trigger for the famine.

Stalin's Collectivization: Breaking the Vicious Circle

"The famines of the 1920s, and especially that of 1928, were the background, the immediate context, for the rapid and, in part, forced collectivization of agriculture," Grover Furr told Sputnik commenting on the matter.

"This cycle of famines is crucial because it allows us to see that collectivization did NOT "cause" the famine of '32-'33. Famines occurred regularly. As Tauger proves, and as I mention in "Blood Lies" the famine of '32-'33 had environmental causes, just like all the others for 1,000 years," the professor stressed.

"The only way to stop this thousand-year cycle of famines was to modernize agriculture. This was the great triumph of collectivization - that it put an end to this cycle of famines," he underscored.

Professor Furr pointed out that both the proponents of the "Holodomor" concept and those who reject the "Holodomor" but blame the famine on collectivization, never talk about this cycle of famines, or of the famines of the 1920s.

"The famine of 1932-33 was the LAST famine! It really was an immense triumph, which is denied only because it was accomplished by communists and by socialism, not by capitalists and capitalism," Professor Furr added.

According to Nikolai Starikov, the problem of the 1932-33 famine has become a highly politicized issue. Juggling with the numbers of the famine victims some policymakers miss the point: in the first place the famine of 1932-33 was a tragedy for millions of Soviet people of various ethnic groups.

Was it ethically appropriate to use this tragedy to drive a wedge between Russians and Ukrainians during the Cold War era? What had the Western political elite done to prevent or minimize the disaster? And who benefits from labeling the tragedy as "Stalin's killer famine" today?

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.

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 #15
RFE/RL
November 12, 2015
Flurry Of Claims Spells Trouble For What's Left Of Ukraine Cease-Fire Regime
by James Miller and Pierre Vaux
James Miller @Millermena and Pierre Vaux @pierrevaux are analysts with The Interpreter online journal

Far from international front pages, the situation in eastern Ukraine is once again on the verge of open warfare.

While the situation around Donetsk, the capital of the Russian-backed fighters, has remained strained since the announcement of the newest cease-fire in September, with sporadic small-arms fire reported almost daily, it has deteriorated significantly in the last two weeks. In the first month of the cease-fire regime, both sides were reporting calm, even playing down attacks that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was reporting; but the Russian-backed separatists in the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) are now reporting more and more Ukrainian attacks, often alleging use of heavy weaponry. Meanwhile the Ukrainian military is now reporting attacks numbering in the realm of what was last seen in August during a period of particularly intense fighting.

On November 9, the Ukrainian military claims, Russian-backed fighters conducted 52 attacks, with more reported the next day. By noon on November 11, a Ukrainian military spokesman announced that one soldier had been killed and five wounded over the previous 24 hours.

Notably, the fighting is not limited to the Donetsk area now. Several other key flashpoints have seen attacks over the last week, including the lines near the separatist-held town of Horlivka, the Luhansk town of Schastye, and Shyrokyne, on the Azov coast. Early on November 11, the Ukrainian military reported fighting across a large span of territory -- nearly the entire front from the Russian border east of Luhansk to the Azov Sea near Mariupol.

Russia appears to be bringing tanks back to the fore, with the Ukrainian General Staff claiming early on November 10 to have spotted 20 in the center of Donetsk and another four deployed near the front to the west of the city. Later that day, marines in Shyrokyne told a television news crew that enemy tanks had been deployed to the edge of the village as Russian-backed fighters shelled their positions.

The Ukrainians reported on November 10 that 120-millimeter mortars, heavy weapons that should have been withdrawn in accordance with the Minsk agreements, were used to shell the town of Popasna, in the Luhansk region, and a nearby village. Kyiv also reports an increasing number of attacks from BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles and SPG-9 recoilless rifles.
Late on November 10, the military claims, Russian-backed fighters twice attempted to break through the Ukrainian lines outside Novozvanivka, a village just south of Popasna. According to Kyiv, the attackers suffered several casualties, including fatalities.

Combat was also reported near Starohnativka, a village that saw some of the heaviest fighting of this summer. One Ukrainian soldier was reported to have been wounded after a skirmish with small arms and grenade launchers.

Meanwhile, the separatists have made multiple claims over the last week that the Ukrainian Army has used Grad rockets to bombard western suburbs of Donetsk. These weapons are usually the harbingers of an offensive period, with their last major use by Russian-backed forces reported in August, during heavy fighting in the south of the Donetsk region.

The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) has confirmed finding evidence of two separate Grad impacts, several days apart, in the separatist-held Donetsk suburb of Staromykhaylivka and in the Kuybyshev district of the city. According to the SMM, both rockets appear to have come from the northwest, that is to say Ukrainian-held territory.
However, while only impacts from two rockets have been found, a DNR military spokesman claimed last week that three whole salvoes from Grad MLRS had been fired into Staromykhaylivka. Such a heavy barrage would surely leave greater traces. One theory raised is that these rockets are being fired from Grad-P portable, single-tube launchers, perhaps even by Russian or separatist diversionary forces.

The separatists also claim that Ukrainian troops went on the offensive early on November 10 attempting to break through the front line near Debaltseve, a city captured by Russian troops in February this year. Kyiv has denied these claims.

But the Ukrainian Novosti Donbassa website did report on November 9 that a military official had confirmed that Ukrainian troops had taken new ground in the village of Zaytseve, just outside Horlivka, over the weekend. Russian news reports have also reported that "unidentified soldiers" took control of the same area. The situation therefore can be described as dynamic.

A Dirty Word

Regardless of who is prosecuting it, fighting is definitely taking place on a daily basis in Donetsk, with dozens of reports every evening from residents on social media.
Unfortunately, this is part of a predictable pattern.

"Cease-fire" has been a dirty word in Ukraine since September 2014's Minsk agreement was nearly immediately broken by Russian soldiers and their proxies. The agreement, signed at the point of the Kremlin's guns following Russia's outright invasion in August, was signed by France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia, and was supposed to be a road map for permanent peace. However, the fighting never stopped, Russia never stopped supplying new weapons, and Russia and its proxies were soon launching offensives to capture new territory around Donetsk, the largest and most important city controlled by the Russian-backed militants.

In February, just days before Russian troops stormed and captured the strategically important town of Debaltseve, Minsk II was signed, a new cease-fire that netted similar results. In the months that followed, Russian troops built new forward-operating bases just behind the front lines, and tanks and heavy artillery regularly moved through areas where such weapons were banned under the cease-fire agreements.

A False Dawn?

The cease-fire that started in September, however, has been different. For the most part, fighting has been far more sporadic and far smaller in scale, and both Moscow and the Russian-backed separatists have been far more cooperative with efforts to restore some sense of normalcy in the Donbas. Why the sudden change? Some suspected that Putin was trying to appear like the peacemaker in advance of his visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Soon, as the Russian military began to bomb primarily U.S.-backed rebels in northern Syria, others argued that Putin was shifting gears from Ukraine to Syria. The OSCE, for its part, has consistently warned that Russian military support for the separatists was increasing, despite the cease-fire, and OSCE Secretary-General Lamberto Zannier even added that "you should really ask the Russians why they are suddenly becoming more cooperative" with efforts to bring about peace in eastern Ukraine.

The escalation in claims made by both Ukraine and the Russian-backed separatists bodes ill for the future of what little is left of the cease-fire regime, as either the Ukrainian military and the separatists are going at each other full-pelt already or Russian-backed fighters, already mounting an ever-climbing number of attacks, are inventing stories to justify a renewed offensive.

We can only speculate as to why the situation is once again deteriorating. In the last two weeks, Ukraine has complained of more cease-fire violations. The use of Grad rockets on behalf of the Ukrainian military, then, could be a direct response to this growing threat. The Russian-backed fighters, on the other hand, claim that Ukraine has been the aggressor. The fog of war makes it hard to sort who is telling the truth in this instance, and it is clear to some longtime observers of this crisis that both sides have tried to downplay violence since the newest cease-fire took place in September.

One key problem -- a cease-fire was always only the beginning of the peace process in Ukraine, yet the rest of the process has always taken a back seat. All of the agreements between Ukraine and Russia, going all the way back to Minsk I, which was signed 14 months ago, all have the same core conditions: the holding of local elections under Ukrainian law, the release of political prisoners, and the return of the control of the borders to Ukraine being three key elements. So far, none of those conditions has been met, and the return of the borders to Ukraine while Russian combat troops are still operating on Ukrainian soil is nearly impossible to envision. As long as the other conditions of the Minsk agreements go unfulfilled, the cease-fire will always be a fragile success balanced on the verge of the precipice of open warfare in Eastern Europe.

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 #16
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
November 11, 2015
Frontline update: UAF changes routine, "working against the clock" to prepare new offensive
Novorossia
http://www.novorosinform.org/news/id/41371
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski

"Update on the military situation in Donetsk from war-correspondent 'Mag'"

The General Staff of the UAF is in a hurry as actions throughout their territories show. Usually, shelling and combat operations increase before the weekend, but the schedule has noticeably begun to change over the last two weeks. Just a week ago, they didn't stray from the plan so much and shelling and attacks lasted from Friday evening until early Monday morning. [But now things are changing...]

Yesterday, November 9, and today, November 10, punitive forces shelled Donetsk and surrounding villages the entire night. In the morning, shelling was resumed for a few hours into the day. In the center of the capital of the DPR, nothing can be heard. Peaceful life is blossoming there. But on the outskirts, it is as if the war never stopped.

Some officials say that the Nazi battalions beyond Kiev's control are the ones shelling. This is complete nonsense. First of all, the Nazi battalions haven't had any heavy weapons, and either way [Kiev] has been afraid to issue them any. Kiev offered them to join the structure of the UAF or the Ministry of Internal Affairs so that they could obtain tanks and artillery. Those who went really received equipment and artillery. But we're talking about those who aren't submitting to the leadership of the UAF or the MIF.

Now, shelling isn't coming from one sector of the front with 1-2 mines and shells. Now they're starting to fire more often from all parts of the front simultaneously for 5-6 minutes.

I have a question. Are the "battalions disobeying Kiev" not behaving in an orderly manner? After last week, the NAF gave a short response in Peski district, and two Mi-8 helicopters urgently flew in but were intercepted by radio 15 300's. This never happened before. Usually, between 7 - 10 in Peski and Krasnoarmeysk and so on, the wounded are taken out in UAZ's. But two transport helicopters immediately flew in. These are some strange disobedient battalions...

Yesterday, after bombarding us with mines, a firefight ensued, and then the Ukrainians showered us with mines until the morning. The official authorities of the DPR counted around 120 mines that landed on the territory of Donetsk and surrounding towns. At approximately 6:40, there was a pair of loud bangs and residents weren't sure if Grad's were being fired again. During the day, it was quiet or, at least, no shelling was heard. But during the evening, action came at 17:45 when the Ukrainians started to shell the fields around the airport and Spartak with mines. After an hour, mines were launched at the main streets and the outskirts of Veseloe and the western outskirts of Zhabunki.

Simultaneously, the Ukrainians fired at the hillock where militia are positioned near the Yasinovatsky fork. Frankly speaking, it wasn't clear why they shelled the fields, the streets, and Zhabunki, as the settlement is in the neutral zone and only reconnaissance and sabotage groups from both sides drop go there and leave presents in the form of mines for each other. We're used to mines and shells flying far behind the backs of the militia on peaceful neighborhoods. But here there isn't even a front, and it's even 300m to 1 km away from positions.

Maybe they were trying to defuse the mines in this way?

Later, militia positions were subjected to fire. Afterwards, shooting began. Not even firefights. The Nazi's guns are firing, but ours are silent. Automatic grenade launchers and secondary guns were firing, but ours were silent, and the Ukrainians are beginning to fire fragmentation rounds and grenade launchers. We give a short burst, and then a Ukrainian tank rolls up and tries to shut up our shooter. And this lasts a few hours...

At approximately 19:00, I heard the roar of an aircraft, but the sound resembled a turboprop and not a jet. It flew to the north-east of Donetsk. In fact, many passers-by raised their heads and began to talk, and a Donetsk resident on the third floor event went to the balcony, and he also heard a rumble in the sky. For a while I've lived near the railway and in peacetime we used to hear incoming, landing aircraft. The dispatcher would send them for a second round over our neighborhoods before landing. The sound was very similar. I don't know if it was intelligence or if they were jamming our communications. At approximately 21:00, I heard a bang in the sky, and it was said that our air defenses fired. But not much can be seen with such low cloud cover.

Simultaneously, they shelled Donetsk and around Gorlovka, and there was fighting to the South of the DPR in Granitnoe district where the Viking battalion is positioned. The Ukrainians at first started to attack Viking positions from the north-west and after an hour the Ukrainians tried to shell and attack from the south-west. The result for the Ukrainians was the same as always.

There were also fights in Krasny Partizan district and later in the night in Zhovanka district.

I can tell anyone who is scared of an offensive that it's raining now and this is forecasted to continue all week. Therefore, running through fields in the mud and trying to move equipment is very problematic. Therefore, although the Ukrainians are hurrying to meet deadlines, weather is dictating conditions. They will have to wait for the frost. I wish all my readers patience and good health!

Note from J. Arnoldski: What war correspondent "Mag" describes appears to indicate efforts on the part of the UAF to clear existing mine fields with shelling and the dropping of new mines (intended to detonate the old ones?) in order to clear the way for forward movements. While doing so, the UAF appears to be increasing aircraft reconnaissance and distracting DPR militia with petty firefights and increased shelling at times different from the normal "schedule."  This can't be attributed to "uncontrollable" Nazi volunteer battalions, in Mag's view, as they don't have access to the artillery, the equipment necessary for conducting such preparatory operations, or the aircraft recently observed quickly retrieving wounded and flying around Donetsk. According to Mag, the UAF is attempting to prepare an advance before the snow and frost appear, but heavy rain is rendering any equipment and troop movements problematic anyway. All of this seems to accord with "deadlines" from the General Staff of the UAF for securing forward positions in preparation for a future offensive. In Mag's opinion, however, an offensive shouldn't be expected any time soon on account of weather conditions, and once again the UAF is merely "working against the clock" and trying to provoke NAF forces...unsuccessfully as always.

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