The Economist's @NoahSneider on The Battle Of The Memes in the Ukrainian conflict (paywall protected).
h/t: @ChristopherJM
From a new Reuters story quoting purported eyewitnesses to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July:
The accounts from four villagers of Chervonyi Zhovten, which was then, and is now, controlled by the rebels, are significant because they indicate the rocket was in the early stages of its flight path.
That would mean it must have been launched from rebel ground nearby, challenging the suggestion of Moscow and the separatists that the plane was brought down by the Ukrainian military. At the time, the nearest Ukrainian-held area was about 6 km (3.7 miles) away.
And later:
"It took off, at first we thought that a plane was crashing. But it was a rocket," said Kovalenko, 45, who then saw what she thought was smoke coming from the 'Progress' mine in Torez, a town 9.5 km away to the north-west.
Her daughter Anastasia Kovalenko, 14, said she saw a rocket flying over the village, and then a plane in the distance blowing up.
Olga Krasilnikova, 30, also said she saw a rocket, some time between 4 and 5 p.m. "I saw it was flying, flew right over me. From that side," she said, pointing to the outskirts of the village . "I saw smoke in the sky, then I heard an explosion and I saw a huge blue (cloud of) smoke."
Kyiv expects the first $5 billion of its $17.5 billion credit from the IMF just in time for the weekend:
Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko says Kyiv expects the first tranche of $5 billion under a new four-year International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout program to be disbursed no later than March 13.
The IMF on March 11 approved the $17.5-billion loan for Ukraine to stave off default.
Jaresko said at a briefing in Kyiv on March 12 that the central bank would receive $2.2 billion of the money, which will be used to stabilize the national currency.
The hryvnia has lost more than two-thirds of its value against the dollar over the past year amid the conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the east.
Jaresko said the remaining $2.8 billion would go to the government.
She announced that Kyiv would launch a program to privatize many of the country's 3,300 state-owned companies by the end of this year.
Jaresko also said Kyiv will begin talks with its creditors on restructuring its debt, adding that a solution should be found within at least two months.
The IMF said successful debt restructuring would be "a key consideration" for the payment of further tranches.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP