11:15
20.5.2014
BBC's Ukrainian service has a video report on a chocolatier in Lviv, in western Ukraine, that offers Putin busts in milk or white chocolate.
11:06
20.5.2014
11:05
20.5.2014
09:53
20.5.2014
Russia's central bank is earmarking 3 billion rubles for loans to enterprises in Crimea, Interfax reports, quoting authorities on the annexed peninsula. Russia has set June 1 as the end of the transition to the Russian ruble from the Ukrainian hryvnya.
08:49
20.5.2014
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has expressed support via Facebook for the eastern oligarch Rinat Akhmetov's call last night for workers to conduct a symbolic strike to protest what he described as banditry and "genocide" being waged by the separatist "Donetsk People's Republic."
Avakov warns "haters" that "it's too late." He says "the people's power and energy will sweep trash better than any [antiterrorism officers]."
Akhmetov's System Capital Management employs around 280,000 people in eastern Ukraine, and many of his employees have been patrolling streets in the past week alongside police in Mariupol and elsewhere to discourage separatism. Here is his video appeal to them and others to stage their walkout:
Avakov warns "haters" that "it's too late." He says "the people's power and energy will sweep trash better than any [antiterrorism officers]."
Akhmetov's System Capital Management employs around 280,000 people in eastern Ukraine, and many of his employees have been patrolling streets in the past week alongside police in Mariupol and elsewhere to discourage separatism. Here is his video appeal to them and others to stage their walkout:
08:33
20.5.2014
On the gas front, in the same Bloomberg Television interview, Medvedev suggested the Ukrainian government must present a timetable for settling its multibillion-dollar gas debt and make a “substantial” initial payment.
08:31
20.5.2014
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev suggested in a Bloomberg Television interview that "[w]e are slowly but surely moving toward a second Cold War, which no one needs."
When asked, Medvedev declined to provide any assurance that Russia would not incorporate the Donetsk or Luhansk regions of Ukraine, where pro-Russia separatists put on hastily organized referendums on independence and subsequently asked to be annexed by Russia, the agency reported.
He said progress in relations with the United States achieved under his presidency (2008-2012) "are now being reduced to zero."
08:17
20.5.2014
08:12
20.5.2014
Kremlin propaganda chief Dmitry Kiselyov scoffs at the notion that there was anything sinister in Rossiya 1 TV's use of old footage from the North Caucasus to illustrate a detailed account alleging a civilian was killed by pro-Kyiv forces to send a message to pro-Russians.
It was simply a "random error" or maybe "a mistake in a computer or a young nymph editor," according to Kiselyov, the head of Russia's newly reorganized information agency, Rossiya Segodnya.
...and at the same time denies having seen the footage:
Here's our own Carl Schreck's report exposing the news program's video sleight of hand, which was published as part of RFE/RL's ongoing #UkraineUnspun series:
It was simply a "random error" or maybe "a mistake in a computer or a young nymph editor," according to Kiselyov, the head of Russia's newly reorganized information agency, Rossiya Segodnya.
...and at the same time denies having seen the footage:
Here's our own Carl Schreck's report exposing the news program's video sleight of hand, which was published as part of RFE/RL's ongoing #UkraineUnspun series:
07:55
20.5.2014
From our newsroom this morning:
Reports from Russia say Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has told troops to return to their permanent bases after spring military exercises near the border with Ukraine.
Shoigu's action comes one day after Russian news agencies said President Vladimir Putin had also ordered Russian forces near Ukraine back to their bases.
But NATO and the United States have said they'd seen no signs of any pullback since then.
Moscow has failed to carry out such promises before.
Russia has massed what NATO says are 40,000 soldiers near its border regions with Ukraine, where pro Russian separatists in the country's east have declared independent states.
Kyiv and its Western allies fear the Russian troops could be used to invade in support of the rebels following Moscow's annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea in March.
Shoigu's action comes one day after Russian news agencies said President Vladimir Putin had also ordered Russian forces near Ukraine back to their bases.
But NATO and the United States have said they'd seen no signs of any pullback since then.
Moscow has failed to carry out such promises before.
Russia has massed what NATO says are 40,000 soldiers near its border regions with Ukraine, where pro Russian separatists in the country's east have declared independent states.
Kyiv and its Western allies fear the Russian troops could be used to invade in support of the rebels following Moscow's annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea in March.