An excerpt:
For much of the 20th century, Europe was filled with capital cities at war. As recently as the 1990s, places like Belgrade, Sarajevo and Zagreb all fell into this tragic category. But today there is only one: Kiev in Ukraine.
Thanks to the predatory ambitions of Vladimir Putin, Ukraine is the sole European country that is waging war on its own soil. And Kiev has a very 20th century ritual: the daily announcement of the communiqué from the front. At 12.30 precisely, Colonel Andriy Lysenko, a lantern-jawed military spokesman, reads out the latest news from the east, where Ukrainian troops are fighting battles of attrition with Russian forces and their local allies, who occupy about half of the neighbouring regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Monday, June 13. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
NATO Chief Says Four Battalions Going To Baltics, Poland
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the military alliance will agree this week to send four multinational battalions to Poland and the Baltic states to boost their defense and show that NATO is "ready to defend any ally."
Stoltenberg said on June 13 the new plans are due to be formally approved at a NATO defense ministers' meeting that begins in Brussels on June 14.
"NATO has taken robust action to protect our nations and to contribute to stability in our neighborhood," Stoltenberg said. "But the challenges we face are enduring, so we need to be prepared for the long haul."
Stoltenberg said the battalions will be deployed on a rotational basis rather than being based permanently in countries.
The easternmost of NATO's 28 members, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have said they feel threatened by Russia in light of its illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.
U.S. NATO Ambassador Douglas Lute said details of the number of troops to be deployed and from which countries will be announced at the July NATO summit in Warsaw.
NATO officials say some 4,000 troops will be involved in the new deployments.
The United States, Britain, and Germany have committed to acting as so-called framework countries for three of the battalions.
Based on reporting by AP and dpa
How about something a little less gloom-and-doom?
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (click to enlarge):
