Just in from Reuters:
Merkel aide wants EU travel ban on new Ukraine rebel leadership
BERLIN, Nov 5 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's top foreign policy advisor said on Wednesday he wants Ukrainian separatist leaders who were elected in Sunday's contested vote added to a list of rebels and Russian officials banned from travelling to the European Union.
"These are people whom I would say should be put on the list of visa bans," Christoph Heusgen said at a conference on foreign policy in Berlin, reiterating Berlin's view that the elections in eastern Ukraine violated September's ceasefire deal in Minsk.
From the dramatic account "The Battle of Ilovaisk: Details of a Massacre Inside Rebel-Held Eastern Ukraine" by Lucian Kim of "Newsweek":
Poroshenko promised the crowd imminent victory in his country’s proxy war against Russia. Crimea may have been lost without a fight, but eastern Ukraine would be different. “I am confident that the battle for Ukraine, for independence will end in success,” he said.
Little did Poroshenko know that 400 miles to the east a catastrophe was unfolding that would become a turning point in the war. The columns of armor Poroshenko said would be sent directly from Independence Square to the front line would hardly be enough to stop a stealth invasion by regular Russian troops.
This report tells in detail for the first time the pivotal events that made up the Battle of Ilovaisk. Reporting from both sides of the hastily drawn border in eastern Ukraine, and hearing evidence from key Ukrainian players and pro-Russian rebels, this account describes the Russian ambush of Ukrainian forces that forced Poroshenko to plead for an immediate cease-fire.
Read the full story here.
Just in from AFP:
Ukraine's prime minister said Wednesday that financial aid from the central government to the separatist eastern region will be stopped until "terrorists clear out of there."
However, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told a cabinet meeting that Ukraine would maintain gas and electricity supplies so as to spare "ordinary people" during the winter.
Here is today's situation map of eastern Ukraine by the National Security and Defense Council:
From "Bone By Bone, Ukraine Identifies Its Dead," by Maria Antonova of AFP:
Before the war, Oksana Biryukova's lab helped investigators connect criminals to crime scenes. Now her equipment is buzzing around the clock trying to identify the charred remains of Ukrainian soldiers.
The DNA laboratory in the southeastern city of Zaporizhia is the only one in the country charged with creating genetic profiles for the unidentified bodies of Ukrainian servicemen killed in the conflict with pro-Russian separatists.
"These samples arrive every day," Biryukova, the chief analyst at the interior ministry lab told AFP, nodding at brown boxes stacked in the corner of her gleaming white workplace.
"The full picture -- nobody knows it," she said. "The 400 that we have handled is just some of the work."
Trying to put a name to the remains of those killed in the seven months of brutal fighting in east Ukraine can be a difficult task.
Body fragments sent to Biryukova's lab are often so degraded that specialists have to run tests several times, she said, showing vacuum-packed bones and a piece of jaw lying in an unassuming refrigerator.
"Most of the time we can only use bone tissue (to run tests) because samples come from people who have burnt almost completely."
Read the full story here.
From AFP:
Russia's gas giant Gazprom on Wednesday confirmed receipt of part of the money Ukraine owes it for gas, but Kiev must now pay ahead for the gas to flow.
Ukraine's state-owned energy group Naftogaz said late Tuesday that Kiev has paid $1.45 billion, the first tranche of $3.1 billion of its gas debt.
"The banks told us that the amount Ukraine owes for last year is on their way," said Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov.
Gazprom had cut gas deliveries to neighbouring Ukraine in June, leading to fears by European consumers that Ukraine may be forced to tap into the gas it transports westwards.
After several acrimonious rounds of talks the sides reached an agreement last week that Kiev must pay the full amount it owes before the end of the year and set a new price for Ukraine at $385 that will be valid through March 2015.
Deliveries will resume "as soon as prepayment arrives", Kupriyanov told AFP, confirming that gas would flow 48 hours after Gazprom receives the money.
Gazprom says Naftogaz owes it a total of $5.3 billion, and a Stockholm arbitration court is to decide on whether Ukraine must pay the $2.2 billion difference or not.