[PostFactum]

[PostFactum]

So today:
1. The right hand of DNR leader - Maxim Petruhin has been killed.
2. Ukrainian border guardians fight with Russians on Ukrainian border: Mariupol area.
3. Large column of Russians crossed Ukrainian border, they moved to Torez city.
4. Separatists captured water dam and want workers to open it.
5. The city of Slovyansk is without electricity.
6. In Lugansk oblast terrorists capture provider offices and switch off the internet.
7. Few terrorists have been eliminated. P.S. I've mentioned that army stopped giving definite info about dead from both sides as often as it was. From time to time in media we can see photos of dead Russians and Ukrainian soldiers. That's photo of dead Russian special force soldier, he had Russian passport.

[Winnipegger]

CBC has an article about Poroshenko's inauguration. He pledged to negotiate entry into the EU. He met Vladimir Putin in Normandy. He told him "Russian annexed Crimea was, is, and always will be Ukrainian."

Bold words. Expect more trouble from Russia.

[PostFactum]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

CBC has an article about Poroshenko's innauguration. He pledged to negociate entry into the EU. He met Vladimir Putin in Normandy. He told him "Russian annexed Crimea was, is, and always will be Ukrainian."

Bold words. Expect more trouble from Russia.

It was road in one way for Crimea. As said ex-president Kuchma, it will take tenth of years to take it back, but not sure at all.

[Winnipegger]

Tuesday
Ukraine president orders civilian safe passage corridor in east

This morning
Ukraine crisis: Poroshenko ready to talk peace if militants lay down arms

[PostFactum]

News are the same, separate fight...but. Russians sent via border their tanks, Ukrainian soldiers saw that separatists have two tanks. Russians lost all shame.

[Winnipegger]

Russia let tanks into eastern Ukraine to aid separatists, Kiev alleges

$1:

Ukraine’s Interior Minister accused Russia on Thursday of allowing three tanks and other military vehicles to cross the border into east Ukraine to help pro-Russian separatists there.

Russia did not immediately respond to the accusations but Reuters correspondents saw three tanks in the border town of Snizhnye in east Ukraine.

[PostFactum]

-2 tanks today, one left.

[Winnipegger]

Ukraine crisis: Government troops recapture port city of Mariupol

$1:

Mariupol is the second-largest city in the eastern Donetsk region that has declared independence from the government in Kyiv. The key port sits along the main road leading from Russia to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in March from Ukraine.
...
Ukraine and the West have accused Moscow of fomenting the unrest in eastern Ukraine and supporting the separatist fighters. Russia, however, has denied sending troops or weapons to Ukraine and has described the Russian citizens fighting with the separatists as volunteers.

But on Friday, rebel leaders confirmed they now have three tanks and the U.S. State Department officials said it's sure those weapons came from Russia.
...
Harf told a briefing earlier that a convoy of three T-64 tanks, several MB-21 "or Grad" multiple rocket launchers and other military vehicles had crossed from Russia into Ukraine in the last three days.
...
Pushilin repeated the separatists' call for Russia to send peacekeeping troops into eastern Ukraine. Russia has said this could only be done with UN authorization.

I find this strange. Russia invades in force. I was told that when Ukraine became Soviet, Russia tanks rolled into Ukraine, capturing the country. History in Wikipedia is a lot more complex. When Russia invaded Crimea, their military came primarily from Russia bases already in Crimea, but they surrounded Ukrainian military bases in force. What they're doing now is weak, spotty, small. This kind of small scale action costs lives and money. It's not effective to capture anything. Are they worried that any direct action would meet NATO counter-action? Or are they worried the people of Ukraine will resent being captured and subjugated? Are they just trying to destabilize Ukraine? I don't see how Russia can win anything. Polls published in the Washington Post said 70% of people in east Ukraine want borders to remain as they are. How is killing people going to help their cause? Are they trying to show strength? I don't see how this is showing strength. It's just maximizing death.

[Winnipegger]

This happened last night, but no one has posted it yet. So...
Ukraine crisis: pro-Russian rebels attack military plane

$1:

pro-Russia separatists shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane, killing all 49 crew and troops aboard
...
Nine crew and 40 troops were aboard the Il-76 when it went down early Saturday as it approached the airport at the city of Luhansk, the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office said in a statement.

Ukraine crisis: president vows vengeance against pro-Russian rebels
Ukraine president's statement

And this statement is old, but CBC keeps quoting it...

$1:

"On behalf of all Canadians, I extend my condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives. Canada also strongly condemns the incursion into Ukrainian sovereign territory of tanks and armoured personnel carriers flying the Russian flag, and calls for Ukraine's territorial integrity to be respected."

-Statement from Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird

[DrCaleb]

Also, because no one is saying it - where to simple rebels get the ordinace to shoot down a plane?

[PostFactum]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Also, because no one is saying it - where to simple rebels get the ordinace to shoot down a plane?

And tanks, and Chechen citizens.

[BartSimpson]

My condolences to Ukraine on the loss of so many loyal troops. I can only hope that the criminals responsible face a swift and decisive justice for their crimes.

[PostFactum]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

My condolences to Ukraine on the loss of so many loyal troops. I can only hope that the criminals responsible face a swift and decisive justice for their crimes.

Nice to hear. But third time our president gives terrorists possibility to take off weapons, fucking idiot can't he understand that they will not.

[Winnipegger]

He did send in troops to take Mariupol. And the airport at Prokofiev Donetsk. Politicians always say "lay down your arms". What politicians mostly do is talk. Besides, these are citizens of Ukraine; he wants them to be Ukrainian, not a military opponent.