From our News Desk:
Ukraine's Batkivshchyna party has kicked out hundreds of members from its ranks as part of the country's lustration campaign.
The party's leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, told the ICTV television channel on September 12 that 1,518 members of her party had been expelled after their "dishonest" activities were revealed during implementation of the lustration law.
According to Tymoshenko, checks revealed that some individuals representing her party in Ukraine's parliament and regional power structures "dishonestly" voted for "illegal" land distribution and state budget allocations during the last 2 1/2 years.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed the lustration bill into law on October 9.
Under the law, up to 1 million public servants, including cabinet ministers, will be screened for loyalty to root out the corrupt practices of the administration of former President Viktor Yanukovych.
From AP:
Ukrainian military officials say they have observed a reduction in the presence of Russian troops in areas at the heart of fighting between government troops and separatist rebels.
Security spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Monday that Russian personnel stationed in field camps in Ukraine have been observed returning to their home bases inside Russia.
Moscow vehemently denies it has troops in Ukraine and that it provides support to separatist forces in Ukraine's largely Russian-speaking eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Lysenko's statement comes after an order by Russian President Vladimir Putin for thousands of troops posted near the Ukrainian border to return to their permanent bases.
Putin's spokesman said late Saturday that Putin had ordered approximately 17,600 troops to return home from the southern region of Rostov.
Just in from AFP:
Ukraine national guard chief Poltorak nominated as defense minister
From Reuters:
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday proposed National Guard commander Stepan Poltorak for defense minister, the presidential website said.
Poltorak would replace Valery Heletey, who offered his resignation as defence minister on Sunday after facing open criticism for the rout of Ukrainian forces by Russian-backed separatists at the end of August.
Parliament will vote on Tuesday on Poroshenko's nomination of Poltorak, 49, who has headed the National Guard since April.
From "The EU's Wavering Over Russia" by Judy Dempsey on her "Strategic Europe" blog:
For an organization that aspires to have regional or even global ambitions, the EU has played an insignificant role in helping resolve the Ukraine crisis.
The union has ceded responsibility for the crisis to the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia. These leaders first discussed Ukraine during World War II commemorations in Normandy in July. They have chosen to continue this four-way dialogue.
This new format is one of two recent trends that reveal much about the EU’s ambiguous attitude toward the Ukraine crisis and Russia.
The quadrilateral established in Normandy will emerge again on October 16. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the presidents of France, Ukraine, and Russia, Francoise Hollande, Petro Poroshenko, and Vladimir Putin, are expected to discuss Ukraine on the margins of a summit of European and Asian leaders in Milan.
Poland is notably absent from the talks on Ukraine. Germany has sidelined Poland’s role, despite the extremely close ties the two countries have forged over the past several years. Not surprisingly, France and Russia didn’t object to Warsaw being relegated to the backseat. It’s as if Poland’s attempts to help develop the EU’s Eastern Partnership and, later, its efforts to mediate during this year’s antigovernment demonstrations in Kiev have been forgotten.
Nor are the EU institutions involved in any substantial way in the four-party discussions. That only confirms how the big member states call the shots over the EU’s foreign policy.
This reflects badly on the EU’s outgoing foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.
Read more here.