Re-upping a fine AP investigative piece with further evidence of Moscow's direct influence on the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
When Alexander was due to finish his year of mandatory military service in October, his commander told him he had no choice: He had to sign a contract to extend his stay in the army and head to southern Russia for troop exercises.
The 20-year-old knew that meant he might end up fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Other soldiers he talked to had been sent there.
His commanders "didn't talk about it, but other soldiers told us about it, primarily paratroopers who had been there," Alexander said in an interview with The Associated Press, which is not using his surname for his safety.
Read more here:
Following today's attack in Kharkiv, @AB_Chapman wisely flagged this piece by our own @GKates from a year ago:
Ukraine's East-West Divide: It's Not That Simple
This is the Facebook post by the Ukrainian Security Council's Markian Lubkivskiy, with the auto-translate below it:
Via AFP:
Regional prosecutor Yuri Danilchenko said two people died, one of them a police officer, revising down an earlier toll of three killed.
"It was a homemade bomb packed with shrapnel, put in a plastic bag and hidden in snow by the side of the road," he told reporters.
Is it just us, or does Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's Twitter feed seem unfathomably oblivious to the tragedy in Kharkiv?