From RFE/RL's News Desk:
NATO's secretary-general has dismissed as "nonsense" accusations made by the Russian president that the Ukrainian Army is acting as the Western alliance’s “foreign legion.”
Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on January 26 that the foreign forces in Ukraine are Russian.
He spoke after Vladimir Putin told university students in St. Petersburg, "Essentially it is not the army at all but a foreign legion -- in this case, it is a foreign NATO legion,” whose main purpose is to "contain" Russia.
Putin indicated he was referring to volunteer battalions fighting within the Ukrainian Army.
Putin claimed that "many" Ukrainian men were trying to "dodge the mobilization" and sought to leave for Russia.
Putin said the period of stay in Russia could be increased for Ukrainian citizens, primarily those of conscription age.
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the Ukrainian Army of acting as “NATO’s foreign legion” whose main purpose is to "contain" Russia.
Putin indicated he was referring to volunteer battalions fighting within the Ukrainian Army during a speech to university students in St. Petersburg on January 26,.
"Essentially, it is not the army at all but a foreign legion -- in this case it is a foreign NATO legion, whose goal has nothing to do with the national interests of Ukraine," he said.
Putin claimed that "many" Ukrainian men were trying to "dodge the mobilization" and sought to leave for Russia.
He added: "And they are doing the right thing because they are simply being used there [in eastern Ukraine] as cannon fodder."
Putin said the period of stay in Russia could be increased for Ukrainian citizens, primarily those of conscription age.
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
The president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has called on Russia to immediately release jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko.
Anne Brasseur issued the call on the January 26 opening day of PACE's winter plenary session in the French city of Strasbourg.
Deputies also approved Savchenko's membership in Ukraine's delegation to PACE, a position that confers immunity from prosecution.
Brasseur said the immune status obligates Russia to release Savchenko immediately from pretrial detention in Moscow, where she is being held on suspicion of contributing to the death of two Russian journalists during a military operation in eastern Ukraine.
Savchenko says she was kidnapped by pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine last July and smuggled across the border.
She is on the 45th day of a hunger strike to protest her detention and is reportedly in ill health.
WATCH: Video of the raid (above)
By the Crimean Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- The headquarters of the only television channel broadcasting in the Crimean Tatar language on the annexed Black Sea peninsula are being searched by representatives of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and Investigative committee.
Dozens of armed, masked men in unmarked military clothing surrounded the headquarters of ATR channel on January 26 in the latest evidence of a crackdown on Crimea's Muslim minority.
They were preventing people from entering or leaving during the search.
In a statement broadcast live, ATR saying the investigators want to confiscate the channel's main computer server.
ATRs' Deputy Director Lilya Budzhurova condemned the search in a live statement, saying that the company was ready to provide the investigators with the server later but that its confiscation now might disrupt broadcasts.
The OSCE's representative on freedom of the media, Dunja Mijatovic, condemned the "raid" on ATR, saying: "This practice of intrusion of free and independent media cannot be tolerated in the OSCE region."
Activists, community leaders, and rights groups say Crimean Tatars have faced discrimination, pressure, and abuse for their opposition to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last March.