Eyeing Russia, U.S. leads fresh military drills in Ukraine
Yavoriv, Ukraine, July 20, 2015 (AFP) -- Ukrainian and US troops launched fresh drills Monday near the war-torn country's Polish border in a bid to show unity and resolve in the face of an increasingly resurgent Kremlin.
The annual Rapid Trident exercises involve 1,800 soldiers from 18 countries and last for just under two weeks.
Their immediate aim is to build resolve and cohesion within the ex-Soviet state's outdated and woefully underfunded armed forces -- caught in a 15-month east Ukrainian quagmire against pro-Russia militias that has claimed more than 6,500 lives.
But they also deliver a transparent message to the Kremlin about Washington and its allies' determination to thwart any expansionist ambitions Russian President Vladimir Putin may have.
"These joint manoeuvres... display a broad support for Ukraine in its struggle for freedom and sovereignty," Ukrainian forces commander Oleksandr Syvak told the festive flag-raising ceremony.
His US counterpart Alfred Renzi said the participating countries -- most of them NATO member but also such former Soviet nations as Moldova and Azerbaijan -- "will prove an ability to cooperate as one unified force for stability".
- Russia's counter-strike -
Putin has always denied charges of orchestrating Ukraine's separatist revolt to unsettle the pro-Western leadership that rose to power in the wake of last year's ouster of a Moscow-backed president.
But the veteran Russian leader -- immensely popular at home for his patriotic fervour and increasingly isolated abroad -- has done little to hide that he sees much of eastern Europe as part of Moscow's traditional sphere of influence.
Russia set nerves jangling across Europe by sending its fighter jets shooting toward the skies of Baltic and Nordic nations with increasing regularity in recent months.
Washington and NATO have denounced such steps as both hostile and dangerous to civilian aircraft.
The Kremlin counters that it is only doing what the United States has been for decades -- flexing its military muscle in far-off countries to build a "unipolar world".
The launch of Rapid Trident was quickly followed by the Russian navy's announcement that one of its warships stationed off Ukraine's Kremlin-annexed Crimean peninsula would conduct live rocket fire drills Sunday.
"After a long interruption and in order to demonstrate the navy's combat capabilities, the Ladny frigate will attack a dummy target from an anti-submarine system," Black Sea Fleet spokesman Vyacheslav Trukhachyov told Moscow's news agencies.
Russia marks its annual navy day Sunday and such activities are planned well in advance.
But the scale of Russia's celebration this year has been grander than most.
Trukhachyov said that more than 30 naval vessels and another 30 jets and military helicopters would show off their capabilities near their tsarist-era base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
The ships will be accompanied by Su-27 interceptor and Su-25 ground attack jets.
It was not immediately clear if any senior Russian officials intended to oversee the festivities.
Both Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev have stirred outrage in Kiev by visiting Crimea in the past year.
Yet the Western drills in Yavoriv -- a village lying just 15 kilometres (about 10 miles) east of Poland -- are upsetting to Moscow as well.
Russia accuses the United States of funding and arming the nationalist forces that spearheaded the pro-European protests in Kiev last year.
Much of Moscow's state media now portrays the West's military involvement in Ukraine as an effort to intimidate Russia and deny its legitimate geopolitical interests.
Russian Ex-PM's Daughter Under Fire For Leaving For Ukraine
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- The daughter of a former Russian prime minister is under fire from both Russia and Ukraine for accepting the job of a deputy governor in a Ukrainian region.
Maria Gaidar's appointment as deputy governor of Odesa, now led by former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, has been painted as a betrayal in Russia.
In Ukraine, she has been criticized for being hesitant to denounce Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
Gaidar, 32-year-old daughter of the 1990s prime minister Yegor Gaidar, told reporters in Kiev on Monday that she supports Ukraine's territorial integrity and that she would not renounce her Russian citizenship.
In Moscow, the human rights ombudsman Ella Pamfilova said Gaidar's Moscow-based charity foundation could be stripped of a presidential grant following her appointment.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
8,000 HIV Patients At Risk In Eastern Ukraine: UN Envoy
Vancouver, July 20, 2015 (AFP) -- Some 8,000 people with HIV in war-torn eastern Ukraine face a critical shortage of medicine and their supply will run out in mid-August unless a blockade is lifted, a UN AIDS envoy has warned.
Speaking to AFP ahead of the International AIDS Society (IAS) conference, which opened Sunday, Michel Kazatchkine called on key nations to intervene as soon as possible.
"I am calling on the United States, Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia to do something," said Kazatchkine, the UN Secretary General's special envoy for AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
He said 8,000 patients are "caught in the political crossfire between the Ukrainian government and Russian-supported fighters" because they need both antiretroviral treatments and opioids, which are now blocked at border check points.
The looming crisis is centered in the mostly Russian-speaking Lugansk and Donetsk regions.
The area once housed 25 percent of Ukraine's HIV-positive population, but thousands have ready fled, said Kazatchkine.
The 8,000 who remain are mainly injection drug users whose addictions are being treated with opioid substitution therapy (OST), and who are also taking antiretroviral drugs to keep their HIV infections under control.
He said the treatments are already paid for and the aid group Doctors Without Borders has pledged to deliver and oversee treatment.
But Ukraine will not allow the drugs to be shipped and argues the opioids require armed convoys, said Kazatchkine.
Russia bans the use of opioids to help wean addicts off drug addiction.