Christopher Miller has written an excellent story for Mashable aboutTatyana Rychkova, a 35-year-old former baker who has spent the past few months working as volunteer running supplies to Ukrainian soldiers:
She decided to volunteer after she visited the Airborne Brigade camp where her husband, Vadim Rychkov, worked as head of the unit’s communications.
“I saw the squalor they were living in and decided something needed to be done,” she says.
Even after her husband was killed in action here in August, Rychkova didn’t leave the front. If anything, his death only invigorated her.
In the 23 years since Ukraine declared independence, the country’s defense budget dwindled. With each successive administration, the military was stripped further of funds and material. Armor and artillery was sold off or fell into disrepair.
“There was no reason to think that we would need to have a strong army,” Oleksiy Melnyk, co-director for foreign relations and international security programs at the Kiev-based Razumkov center told me recently. After all, there was the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which the United States, Great Britain and Russia were to guarantee Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in exchange for its surrender of its nuclear arsenal, then one of the world’s largest.
So when Kiev launched its counter-insurgency operation in mid-April to root out separatists in eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, it found itself woefully unprepared.
Besides the poor condition of its armor, the army numbered only about 6,000 troops — and they lacked the training and even basic equipment needed to fight the pro-Russian rebels, who Moscow covertly supplied with advanced weapons systems.
Following his election in May, President Petro Poroshenko announced a partial mobilization, which helped with the personnel issue. But the soldiers still needed equipment.
Read the entire article here
Heavy artillery shelling heard from the center of Donetsk, probably coming from the airport area
— Paul Gypteau (@paulgypteau) September 24, 2014
Several flashes visible over #Donetsk airport on the live stream. Faint explosions also heard.
— Conflict News (@rConflictNews) September 24, 2014
Sergey Lavrov and @JohnKerry are listening @BarackObama speech / Лавров и Керри слушают Обаму. pic.twitter.com/hXryVruXgr
— MFA Russia (@mfa_russia) September 24, 2014
No only people are displaced in #Ukraine. #Donetsk university to move to Vinnytsia - via @ukrpravda_news http://t.co/QmT7wLIgr7
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) September 24, 2014
Meanwhile, in sanctions-bound Moscow...
Back to the future. Belarusian and Russian mozzarella have arrived. pic.twitter.com/EUw34esnjF
— Paul Sonne (@PaulSonne) September 24, 2014
Ukraine's economy in freefall: @IIF says Kyiv needs $13-15 bln thru 2015 on top of IMF $ even if war doesn't resume http://t.co/UgQzKsgjM5
— Andrew S. Weiss (@andrewsweiss) September 24, 2014
Prominent Russia watcher and regular Power Vertical Podcast guest Sean Guillory has posted a short blog in response to Obama's remarks about the Ukraine situation at the UN. Here's the upshot of what Sean take on things:
A key part of Barack Obama’s speech to the UN General Assembly was the crisis in Ukraine, specifically what he called Russian aggression. “Russian aggression in Europe,” the US President stated, “recalls the days when large nations trampled small ones in pursuit of territorial ambition.” What followed was pretty much White House boilerplate. But then Obama said:
Moreover, a different path is available – the path of diplomacy and peace and the ideals this institution is designed to uphold. The recent cease-fire agreement in Ukraine offers an opening to achieve that objective. If Russia takes that path – a path that for stretches of the post-Cold War period resulted in prosperity for the Russian people – then we will lift our sanctions and welcome Russia’s role in addressing common challenges. That’s what the United States and Russia have been able to do in past years – from reducing our nuclear stockpiles to meet our obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to cooperating to remove and destroy Syria’s declared chemical weapons. And that’s the kind of cooperation we are prepared to pursue again—if Russia changes course.
This is the first time Obama has put forth conditions for the possible removal of sanctions against Russia. It was somewhat vague: Russia would have to take the path of “diplomacy and peace.” Interestingly, the return of Crimea seems to be off the table as a precondition. And by invoking the cease-fire agreement Obama seems was fine with Luhansk and Donetsk turning into a frozen conflict and dominated by Russia. Essentially, Obama’s support for Ukraine is rather light—the US will support the embattled country “as they develop their democracy and economy,” but nothing more. Obama is playing cautious with Russia, as he did by refusing to give Poroshenko arms. Overall, he favors good relations with Russia and “addressing common challenges” over a long drawn out conflict in Ukraine, even if that means Ukraine has to give up a lot as a result. I wouldn’t call it a return to the “Reset,” but clearly Obama is looking for some détente with Russia.
We are now closing the live blog for today. Don't forget that you can keep abreast of all our ongoing Ukraine coverage here.
Good morning. Since we were last here, Arseniy Yatsenyuk has spoken to the UN General Assembly in New York. Here's a report from RFE/RL's news desk on what he had to say:
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has urged countries not to lift sanctions against Russia until Kyiv regains control of all its territory, including Crimea.
Addressing the UN General Assembly, Yatsenyuk demanded that Russia pull back its forces from eastern Ukraine, "stop the supply of Russian-led terrorists" and start "real talks, peace talks."
Moscow denies sending troops into Ukraine.
Yatsenyuk said Russia must abide by "all points" of the cease-fire agreement reached between the rebels and Kyiv in Minsk on September 5.
He said that, despite the declared cease-fire in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were dying from rebel shelling.
Yatsenyuk also delivered a defiant message to Vladimir Putin, telling the Russian leader that Moscow may win on the battlefield, "but you will never win the fight against the nation, the united Ukrainian nation."
The United States has imposed multiple rounds of economic sanctions targeting Russia's energy, defense and financial sectors, as well as penalties on government officials and other individuals close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The European Union also has ordered sanctions.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held brief talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the crisis in Ukraine.
According to the State Department, Kerry stressed the importance of quickly implementing all 12 points of the Minsk agreement.
Earlier in his address to the UN General Assembly, U.S. President Barack Obama said Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March harks back to an era "when large nations trampled small ones in pursuit of territorial ambition."
Reiterating Washington's stance that Russia is fueling an armed separatist movement in eastern Ukraine and has moved its own troops across the border, Obama vowed to continue a push for international pressure on Moscow.
"We will impose a cost on Russia for aggression, and we will counter falsehoods with the truth," he said.
But the U.S. president also expressed hope the cease-fire could bring a lasting peace if the Kremlin complies with it.
"If Russia takes that path -- a path that for stretches of the post-Cold War period resulted in prosperity for the Russian people -- then we will lift our sanctions and welcome Russia’s role in addressing common challenges," Obama said.
He added that the United States and its allies "will support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy."
“We call upon others to join us on the right side of history -- for while small gains can be won at the barrel of a gun, they will ultimately be turned back if enough voices support the freedom of nations and peoples to make their own decisions,” Obama said.
(AFP, AP)