NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says Russia has given more than 1,000 pieces of military hardware to the separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Dnepropetrovsk Region completes construction of fortifications on
border with Donbass
KIEV, June 19 (TASS) -- Ukraine's Dnepropetrovsk Region was the first
to complete the construction of fortification structures on the border with Donbass (the Donetsk and Lugansk regions), the region's head Valentin Reznichenko said Friday.
"I am grateful to all builders who: completed their work. The Dnepropetrovsk Region is a reliable shield of Ukraine," Ukrainian publication Segodnya quoted Reznichenko as saying.
The fortification structures 100 kilometers long consist of 27 facilities with strongholds and reinforcing obstacles, trenches and special entrenchments for hardware.
Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko said March 9 that Ukraine is preparing a deeply layered defense system in the country's east.
The press center of the headquarters of Kiev's military operation against eastern regions specified that there are plans to create two defensive lines "to prevent the enemy from penetrating Ukrainian territory."
"The bulk of work is some 1,500 kilometers of trenches, over 8,000 entrenchments for hardware, more than 4,000 dugouts and the construction of a 60-kilometer passive obstacle," the punitive operation's headquarters said.
Poroshenko said the overall cost of construction of all defensive structures on the disengagement line in Donbass totals 1 billion hryvnias (about $47 million).
The Ukrainian president also said all fortifications should be built by mid-July. The heads of two regions of Ukraine were even reprimanded for failure to meet the delivery date. Donetsk Region Governor Alexander Kikhtenko lost his post after the reprimand.
Some info on the Ukrainian military's mobilization plans:
KYIV, June 19. (TASS) -- Ukrainian nationals liable for military service who have not served in the armed forces will fall under the new stage of mobilization in the country, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said on Facebook.
The General Staff said all those mobilized will undergo military training and will then be sent to military units and then to the area of Ukraine's military operation against its southeastern regions.
The ministry claimed that the opportunity to dodge the next stage of mobilization will be excluded 90 percent.
The sixth stage of mobilization in Ukraine, to be launched Friday, is to call up 50,000 people for 60 days.
Overall, the Ukrainian authorities plan to call into military service 100,000-150,000 people in 2015.
On March 25, President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree to increase the armed forces' strength to 250,000 people.
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Thursday, June 18. Check back here tomorrow morning for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading.
Putin's Ally Suggests Russian Leader Could Hold Early Vote
Aleksei Kudrin, a longtime ally of Vladimir Putin, suggested on June 18 that the Russian president could order an early vote to win a mandate for much-needed economic reforms.
Russia's economy, hit by Western sanctions over Ukraine, and its own dependence on oil prices, has entered a recession, dropping 2.2 percent in the first quarter of the year.
Prominent economists have warned that unless Russia makes drastic reforms, it is doomed for stagnation.
Kudrin, Russia's finance minister from 2000-11, suggested at an investment conference June 18 in St. Petersburg that Putin could hold an early election in order to "win the mandate" for economic reforms.
Kudrin told the Associated Press news agency that he hadn't discussed the idea with Putin, whose current term expires in 2018.
Still, he insisted the move was necessary, because of a "dire need of serious measures to restore the economy."
"If you're not ready to conduct [structural reforms] before the reelection, which anyone hardly does, then you need to do it after the election and do the election early," Kudrin explained.