Just re-upping an important sidenote, highlighted by The Guardian, to Saturday's "anti-Maidan" demonstrations in Russia:
Ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych has controversially spoken out from self-imposed exile in Russia, promising, exactly a year after he fled Kiev, to return to Ukraine to “ease people’s lives” and help stop the war.
Yanukovych’s interview with Russia’s state-owned Channel One was his first public appearance since he gave two bizarre press conferences in Rostov-on-Donin February and March 2014, claiming he remained Ukraine’s president.
“I regret that I was unable to do anything,” Yanukovych said. “As soon as it’s possible, I will come back and do everything in my power to ease people’s lives. The main task now is to stop the war.”
Today's map from Ukrainian military authorities...
Moscow has assailed Kyiv over the latter's media ban -- which targets dozens of Russian stations and their journalists' accreditations, and should last until the current conflict is over -- as "openly discriminatory."
Ukrainian officials have made some arguably questionable decisions with respect to the media since the conflict erupted.
But Russian media have also been guilty of credulity, spreading disinformation, and seemingly participating in the abuse of prisoners of war and hostages.
Notably, Russian TV channel Dozhd was not among the banned media by Ukraine.
Whether intentional or not, in this RT piece, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov laughably describes Russia as "a country where media activity is regulated by law, and where Russian and foreign journalists have equal rights to obtain information."
Stunning, and stunningly "brazen," to quote Washington.
Oh, are "they"? :-)
And in cased you missed it, another bit of Russian information warfare debunked via The Independent:
Cuz trollers gonna troll:
Novosti.dn.ua quotes Ukrainian forces as saying that on Saturday they shot down "another" unmanned drone (UAV), this one from over Starobelsk.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk spoke with Fox News in a bid to pressure the West further to supply weapons to his country as it battles pro-Russian fighters and their Kremlin patron, Vladimir Putin. (h/t: @EliotHiggins)
“We are very far from a collapse,” Yatsenyuk told Fox News. “You know why? We don't have a cease fire … because a cease fire means that no one shoots. Cease fire means that Russian-led terrorists do not make any kind of ongoing shellings, that they do not kill Ukrainian soldiers and innocent people.”
He later adds:
Yatsenyuk also said Saturday there is “no doubt” that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to take over Ukraine.
“But let me provide you a bigger scope, what's really the ultimate goal of President Putin. ... He's fighting with all of us.”
He also repeated his plea for Western allies to supply weapons to the out-gunned Ukrainian forces.
“We have to defend ourselves,” Yatsenyuk said. “Russia is constantly supplying tanks, surface-to-air missiles and the rest of the stuff. And again everyone knows this. We still use outdated Soviet-style equipment.”