EU extends sanctions against Russia over Ukraine crisis
BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Union has extended by six months a visa ban and asset freeze targeting several close associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin and others involved in Russia's annexation of Crimea and other territorial disputes in Ukraine.
The EU said Monday that the "assessment of the situation did not justify a change in the regime of sanctions" under which 149 people and 37 entities are currently listed. The 28-nation EU has coordinated its sanctions in close cooperation with Washington.
The extension came amid continued unrest in eastern Ukraine throughout the year.
Despite a cease-fire declared in February, both Ukrainian troops and the Russia-backed separatists carried out regular artillery strikes until they pledged anew to implement the truce from Sept. 1.
Two soldiers killed in eastern Ukraine despite ceasefire
Kiev, Sept 14, 2015 (AFP) -- Ukraine on Monday said two soldiers were killed in fresh clashes with pro-Russian rebels, troubling a new truce that has mostly held for the last two weeks.
"Over the last day, we lost two soldiers in fighting as well as two wounded and one who is listed as missing," Kiev military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told journalists.
Lysenko accused rebels of sporadically firing mortar rounds in the conflict-ridden Lugansk and Donetsk regions and said government forces had returned fire.
The new ceasefire in Ukraine's war-torn east came into force on September 1, stilling much of the fighting that had rumbled on in hotspots despite an earlier truce deal in February.
The move is the latest attempt to stop a conflict that has killed some 8,000 people since April 2014 and left almost 18,000 wounded, according to UN figures.
Pro-Moscow militants in Donetsk -- whom the West and Kiev say Russia has armed and supported -- reported Monday that two civilians in the frontline town of Gorlivka were wounded by a landmine on Sunday.
The leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany, who thrashed out the earlier truce deal after marathon talks in the Belarussian capital Minsk, are set to meet again in Paris in early October.
Russia has a pretty odd way of interpreting legal terms. Late last week, the Investigative Committee launched a criminal case against top Ukrainian defense officials, accusing them of genocide for the shelling of separatist militias. You heard that right: Genocide. Watch Brian Whitmore's latest Daily Vertical:
Crimean Tatar Mejlis Chairman Refat Chubarov confirmed activists’ plans to block an administrative border between the Crimean peninsula and Kherson Oblast of Ukraine.
“Either on [September] 20th or the 21th we are blocking the border. We have made the decision,” he said today.
According to Chubarov, the blockade will be carried out not only “due to repressions of the Russian authorities of the Crimean Tatar people on the peninsula, but also due to unsuccessful actions of the Ukrainian government.”
Crimean Tatar leaders had announced their plans to block Ukrainian goods from crossing the border into Crimea earlier. According Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev, “Ukraine shouldn’t provide for the occupation regime of Crimea.”
After these announcements, Crimea’s de-facto head Sergei Aksyonov said that the peninsula was ready for the blockade. There were “absolutely no fears” about that he said.
Boryspil City Council members gifted Mayor Anatoliy Fedorchuk a golden toilet during a meeting on September 10.
The "gift" was a result of the mayor's proposal to spend 119,000 hryvnas from the city budget on an architectural and garden element, The Armchair of Desires -- a sculpture of an armchair.
The toilet was briefly placed on the mayor’s table, but soon moved back to the floor.
A woman began to yell that placing the table on the table was inappropriate, and ended up sitting on the toilet to prevent anybody from moving it.
“You should put bread on the table, not toilets!” she said.
The mayor complained that the table “bought on community money” was ruined, as the toilet left scratch marks on its surface.
The purchase of The Armchair of Desires was never voted on by the council.
A golden toilet became a symbol of corruption in Ukraine back in 2011 when the French news agency AFR reported that then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had one in his Mezhihirya residence.
Only 20 percent of Crimeans took part in the by-elections to the Russian State Council of Crimea
“For by-elections these are acceptable numbers and they don’t diminish the legitimacy of Crimean people’s choice,” said Chairman of the Electoral Commission in Crimea Mikhail Malyshev.
Two United Russia party members won the elections.
According to Malyshev, the elections were “transparent and were held without violations.”