U.S. Considering Naming Envoy To Join Minsk Peace Talks Over Ukraine Conflict
Washington is considering heeding calls on all sides to appoint an envoy to the Minsk peace negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and separatists in the east, a senior U.S. State Department official said on July 5.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is due to visit Ukraine next week, has said he would like to help the agreement reached between the warring sides in the Belarusian capital in 2015 succeed, though it has so far has failed to spark even a lasting cease-fire.
Tillerson has also said he doesn't want to be "handcuffed" to the Minsk accord, however, if alternative ways of settling the war that has killed more than 10,000 arise.
The senior State Department official said all parties to the agreement "have asked for a U.S. interlocutor that they can work with -- some sort of Minsk coordinator or envoy ... and we are actively considering that."
The Minsk agreement was brokered by France and Germany and signed by Russia and Ukraine in early 2015. It calls for a cease-fire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, and constitutional reforms to give eastern Ukraine more autonomy.
With reporting by Reuters
Ousted Ukrainian President Says Will Not Participate In Kyiv's Treason Trial
Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych announced that he will not participate in a high treason trial against him that is scheduled to resume in Kyiv on July 6.
Yanukovych said he is recalling his lawyers from the court, which is trying him in absentia on charges of treason, violating Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and abetting Russian aggression.
Yanukovych fled Ukraine in February 2014 amid street protests during which his police forces killed dozens of people. He has been living in exile in Russia.
"I don't want to participate in the alleged adversary trial, the outcome of which was determined in advance," he said in a statement, adding that his lawyers are "powerless" to argue his case "in the country of obliterated justice."
Yanukovych said prosecutors are "accusing me of all past, present, and future woes of Ukraine" and called the trial "a sham."
He said that the Ukrainian law allowing the court to try him in absentia violates the European Convention on Human Rights, and the court violated his rights by refusing to allow him to participate in the trial by video conference.
Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Wednesday, July 5, 2017. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
CPJ To Release Report On Ukrainian Probe Into Sheremet’s Death
The Committee to Protect Journalists says it will release next week a report on the Ukrainian investigation into last year’s death of Pavel Sheremet, a Belarusian-born Russian journalist.
The New York-based group said it will release its report on July 12, nearly a year after Sheremet was killed by a car bomb in the Ukrainian capital.
No one has been arrested or prosecuted yet.
The CPJ report finds that Ukrainian authorities “offer no clear evidence to back their primary line of investigation of Russian involvement” in the killing, a statement said.
“This, coupled with errors including security footage being destroyed and delays in identifying and interviewing potential witnesses, suggests the need for an independent probe,” it added.
Sheremet was often critical of top political leaders and other government officials in his reporting.
In his last blog post before his assassination, Sheremet wrote that Ukrainian politicians who were former members of volunteer battalions that had fought separatists in Ukraine’s east could carry out a coup in Kyiv.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the bombing.
An update on that story we reported earlier...
Ukrainian Police Seize Servers Of Firm Linked To Global Cyberattack
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry says its cybercrime police department has prevented the second stage of a global cyberattack by seizing the servers of a small company.
Authorities on July 4 seized servers belonging to Intellect Service, the software developer of the Kyiv-based tax software firm M.E. Doc.
M.E. Doc was at the center of last week’s global outbreak of malicious software.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the servers of the M.E. Doc system in Kyiv had begun sending out and activating a computer virus at 1:40 p.m. local time on July 4.
Avakov said the attack was due to reach its peak at 4 p.m., but he said authorities stopped the attack before 3 p.m.
M.E. Doc was identified as "patient zero" of last week’s outbreak, which crippled computers at several multinational firms and knocked out cash machines, gas stations, and bank branches in Ukraine before spreading to other countries.
The company denies allegations that poor security helped seed the malware epidemic.
M.E. Doc is used by 80 percent of the companies in Ukraine to file taxes.
Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and Interfax-Ukraine