Artillery fire breaks out in east Ukraine
Donetsk, Ukraine, March 22, 2015 (AFP) -- Intensive artillery fire broke out Sunday near the rebel-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, apparently breaking an internationally brokered ceasefire between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government, an AFP reporter said.
The sound of explosions began at 9:00 am (0600 GMT) and appeared to come from the area of Donetsk airport, a once important Ukrainian air hub which was captured by rebels in January and has been destroyed in fighting.
Under a ceasefire that took effect February 15 both sides were meant to withdraw all heavy weapons and to stop shooting. Sporadic clashes have continued near Donetsk and the government-held port city of Mariupol, but overall the rate of fighting has sharply declined.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
West should consider all tools, including arms, for Ukraine - NATO general
BRUSSELS, March 22 (Reuters) - The West should consider using all its tools to help Ukraine, including sending defensive weapons, NATO's top military commander said on Sunday.
Asked whether he was in favour of sending defensive weapons to Ukraine, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove told a Brussels conference: "What we see (is) diplomatic tools being used, informational tools being used, military tools being used, economic tools being used against Ukraine."
"And so we, I think, in the West should consider all of our tools in reply. Could it be destabilising? The answer is yes. Also, inaction could be destabilising," he said.
From Reuters:
CIA DIRECTOR BRENNAN SAYS PUTIN HAS PUT PERSONAL INTERESTS AHEAD OF RUSSIAN PEOPLE
BRENNAN SAYS HE DOESN'T BELIEVE PUTIN IS HAPPY WITH THE UKRANIAN CONFLICT AND STATE OF RUSSIAN ECONOMY
An excerpt:
The current government of Ukraine has taken a nation that was once ranked 13th in the world as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1989, a nation with G20 economic potential, a nation with close to 50 percent of the former USSR's industry and military-industrial complex, a nation in which the USSR and Russia had invested close to $100 billion, a nation that is one of only nine countries with a civil aviation industry and one of only seven countries that regularly launches satellites, a nation with more than one-fourth of the world's fertile black soil, a nation with more than enough energy and mineral resources for self-sufficiency – and somehow managed to turn it into sub-Saharan Africa.
We are now getting dangerously close to the point of no return.
If the Minsk II peace agreement holds, and Ukraine implements the requirements of the agreement specifically related to the special status of the Donbas and decentralization of administrative functions, and, further, Ukraine restores its economic and trade relations with Russia, Ukraine can begin the long process of reconciliation and rebuilding.
If the Minsk agreement fails, Ukraine will continue along the path of economic collapse and disintegration as a state, likely resulting in the Yugoslavian scenario wherein Ukraine is divided up into several semi-autonomous states with borders close to the individual regions before they were added to Ukraine.
The longer the civil war continues, and the more civilian casualties incurred in the Donbas, the harder it will be to reconcile this region with the EuroMaidan Kyiv regime.
Pro-independence sentiment is growing not only in the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, but also in the Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Odesa oblasts – that is, in the entire region of Novorossiya.
Yanukovych's younger son reported dead in accident in Russia
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- An associate of Ukraine's deposed president says the former leader's son has died in an accident in which a vehicle plunged through the ice on Lake Baikal in Russia.
Nestor Shufrych, a deputy in Ukraine's parliament, said Sunday in a statement on Facebook that the 33-year-old Viktor Yanukovych, who had the same name as his father, was driving at the time of his death. He gave no further details.
Russian authorities haven't identified the driver who died Friday when a minibus carrying six people crashed through thin ice on the Siberian lake or confirmed reports that it was Yanukovych's son. The five passengers survived.
The former president has lived in Russia since being toppled from power last year. He also has an older son, 41-year-old Alexander, a wealthy businessman.