Crisis in Oekra�ne #105 De bevrijding van Oost-Oekraine

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Tijdlijn van de ontwikkelingen in Oekra�ne
NOVEMBER
* Nov 21: Kiev suddenly announces suspension of trade and association talks with the EU and opts to revive economic ties with Moscow, triggering months of mass rallies in Kiev.
* Nov 30: Riot police try to break up the Kiev demonstration by force. Protest turns against Yanukovich and his government.

DECEMBER
Protests continue with crowds of up to 800,000. Some clashes with police. Opposition forms bloc called Maidan. Yanukovich and Putin meet, Putin agrees to buy $15 billion of Ukrainian debt and to slash by a third the price of Russian gas supplies to Ukraine.

JANUARY
* Jan 22: Three people die in protests in Kiev. EU threatens action over crisis. Talks between opposition, Yanukovich fail.
* Jan 23: Washington threatens sanctions over violence.
* Jan 26: Unrest spreads to pro-Yanukovich east.

FEBRUARY
Anti-government protests turn increasingly violent. At least 77 people killed in clashes between demonstrators and police.
* Feb 21: Opposition leaders sign EU-mediated peace pact with Yanukovich.
* Feb 22: Ukraine's parliament votes to remove Yanukovich, who flees. Arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko released from jail.
* Feb 26: Ukraine appoints new government. Angry Russia puts 150,000 troops on high alert.
* Feb 27-28: Armed men seize Crimea parliament, raise Russian flag. Militia take control of two airports in Crimea.

MARCH
* March 1: Putin wins parliamentary approval to invade Ukraine, angering the White House. Russian forces fan out in Crimea.
* March 6: Crimea's leadership votes to join Russia. U.S. President Barack Obama orders sanctions on those responsible for Moscow's actions in Ukraine.
EU leaders hold emergency summit to find ways to pressure Russia to back down and accept mediation.
* March 15: Two killed in clashes between pro-Russian demonstrators and Ukrainian nationalists.
* March 16: Referendum held in Crimea, shows overwhelming support for joining the Russian Federation.
* March 21: Putin signs laws completing annexation of Crimea. The U.S. imposes sanctions on Putin's close allies, EU follows with similar measures.
* March 23: NATO says Russia has amassed a large force at Ukraine's border.
* March 24: Ukraine pulls troops from Crimea.

APRIL
* April 2: NATO suspends cooperation with Russia.
* April 7: Pro-Russia activists in eastern Ukraine proclaim the creation of the "Donetsk People's Republic".
* April 12: Separatists take control of city of Slaviansk in eastern Ukraine. Kiev prepares troops.
* April 13: One Ukrainian state security officer killed and five wounded in operation against separatists.
* April 14: Obama warns Putin in phone call that Moscow would face further costs for its actions in Ukraine.
* April 17: Pro-Russian separatists seize armored vehicles of Ukraine forces trying to recapture rebel-controlled town.
* April 18: The United States, Russia, Ukraine and the EU reach deal for illegal armed groups to disarm and end occupations of public buildings and spaces.
* April 19: Separatists say they will not sign deal until the Kiev government steps down.
* April 24: Ukraine sends in troops again to try to expel the separatists in Slaviansk, kill five rebels.
* April 25: Ukrainian forces mount full blockade of Slaviansk. Separatists detain group of international observers, say a Kiev "spy" among them.
* April 26: G7 leaders agree to impose extra sanctions on Russia over Ukraine. Yatsenyuk cuts short a Vatican trip to see Pope Francis, saying Russian warplanes violated Ukraine's airspace seven times overnight. Russia denies the claim.
* April 27: Rebels say the OSCE observers are "prisoners of war" and present them in front of the press, where they say they have not been mistreated.
* April 28: West imposes new sanctions on Moscow. Russia vows a "painful" response. Russia says troops have returned to barracks after conducting exercises on the border with Ukraine. The West says there is no sign of this pull-back. Russia assures the US it will not invade Ukraine.
* April 29: Russia accuses Washington of seeking to revive Iron Curtain policies. Putin warns sanctions could harm Western interests in Russia's lucrative energy sector, denies there are Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.
* April 30: Kiev says its armed forces are on "full combat alert" against a possible Russian invasion. Interim president Oleksandr Turchynov admits Kiev is "helpless" to prevent rebels over-running towns. Rebels storm the regional police building and town hall in Gorlivka. The International Monetary Fund approves $17-billion aid deal for the beleaguered Ukrainian economy.

MAY
* May 1: Some 300 pro-Russian militants seize prosecutor's office in Donetsk amid violent clashes with police. Conscription reintroduced for all Ukrainian men aged 18-25.
* May 2: Ukrainian commandos launch pre-dawn raid to retake Slavyansk. Rebels shoot down two helicopters and two servicemen are killed.
* May 3: Slavyansk rebels free OSCE inspectors after Kremlin envoy intervenes. Two days of mourning proclaimed over Odessa deaths. Fierce firefights around Slavyansk and nearby towns as military seeks to retake control.
* May 4: Kiev vows to expand "anti-terrorism" operations. Yatsenyuk launches probe into security forces in Odessa over the deaths.
May 5: A fresh assault begins on Slovyansk. The interior minister says more than 30 rebels are killed. Four servicemen are also killed. Russia warns Europe's peace is at risk. UN chief Ban Ki-moon offers to mediate personally as the West launches new diplomatic push.
May 6: Russia rejects a German-led move for a new peace meeting. Germany says Ukraine is on the verge of war.
May 7: In a surprise announcement, Putin calls for rebel independence referendums to be pushed back and endorses Ukraine's planned presidential election. He says Russian troops pulled back from border. The new overall toll from Ukrainian military operations stands at 14 servicemen dead.
May 8: Rebels vow to press on with referendums despite Putin's call. Russia conducts military exercises, test-fires several missiles, and says nuclear capabilities are on "constant combat alert." NATO says there is no sign of a Russian troop pull-back.
May 9: Putin flies to annexed Crimea after overseeing a display of military might in the Red Square where he paid tribute to Russia's "all-conquering patriotic force." Clashes break out in Mariupol that the interior minister says leave 21 dead.
May 10: France and Germany threaten to step up sanctions against Russia if the May 25 election is disrupted and urge Kiev to cease "offensive" operations before the vote.
May 11: "Referendums" are held in the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk. Fighting is reported around Slovyansk as rebels try to retake TV tower.
May 12: Pro-Russia activists declare resounding victory in a twin referendum on sovereignty for eastern Ukraine. The provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk voted on Sunday to secede from Ukraine. Russian gas giant Gazprom gives Ukraine until June 3 to pay $1.6bn for natural gas. The EU ramps up sanctions on Moscow.
May 13: Seven Ukrainian soldiers killed in rebel ambush in the deadliest single loss of life for the military since the start of the uprising.
May 14: Ukraine hosts "national unity" talks based on an OSCE roadmap but rebels are not invited.

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Op donderdag 24 juli 2014 17:00 schreef meth1745 het volgende:

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How, ik zeg niet dat het een NAVO missie is, enkel dat de deelnemers leden van de NAVO zijn.

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Op donderdag 24 juli 2014 17:02 schreef RetepV het volgende:

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Oh, grappig. Het pro-Westers parlement is hopelijk uiteen gevallen in pro-Westerse politici en pro-Westerse nazi's... Dan kunnen die nazi's opgeruimd worden, en kan er misschien een oplossing komen voor de situatie in Oost-Oekraine die NIET aan vele burgers het leven zal kosten.

twitter:

yuliagorbunova_ twitterde op donderdag 24-07-2014 om 20:31:00 Exhumation of a mass grave in Sloviansk. Locals said they saw insurgents dumping bodies there in June http://t.co/3piLVFfzpm reageer retweet

SPOILER

Om spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.

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Op donderdag 24 juli 2014 20:52 schreef deelnemer het volgende:
U.S. says Russia firing artillery across border at Ukrainian military

(Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday that Russia was firing artillery across the border into Ukraine to target Ukrainian military positions in the conflict against pro-Russian separatists.

"We have new evidence that the Russians intend to deliver heavier and more powerful multiple rocket launchers to the separatist forces in Ukraine, and have evidence that Russia is firing artillery from within Russia to attack Ukrainian military positions," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

Harf, speaking at a regular media briefing, said the information was based on intelligence reports. "I can't tell you what the information is based on," she said.

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Of the 54 rounds collected, only five appeared to have been manufactured after the Soviet collapse. All of these rounds bore stamps from Luhansk.

The presence of the ammunition from multiple Soviet factories that were busily manufacturing standard ammunition for Soviet rifles in the late Soviet period aligns neatly with historical factors at play in Ukraine. Put simply, these rounds, along with the samples from Luhansk, carried the headstamps one would expect in Ukrainian military arsenals and in the unregistered stockpiles from the Soviet collapse. The provenance of the stamps also aligns with rebel claims that much of their ammunition was captured from dispirited government troops, or was purchased from corrupt local police or sympathetic military officers.

This, of course, will not settle any arguments, and it shouldn’t, given the small sample size. (We invite other researchers to gather and pool more data and see where it leads.) Some commentators might want to claim that the presence of cartridges manufactured on Russian soil suggests that a recent Kremlin hand was involved in funneling these rounds to the fighters, and thereby stoking eastern Ukraine’s violence. This sample certainly does not disprove that possibility, as similar cartridges would be expected to be found over the border in Russia, in neighboring countries, and in the pro-Russian enclave of Transnistria. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project posted a video report earlier this month of a sting showing one possible way that arms have flowed into eastern Ukraine from Transnistria. And any smart arms pipeline to the rebels would match headstamps smuggled into Ukraine to those already in Ukrainian stockpiles.

Still, given Ukraine’s arms-trafficking circles, smuggling weapons into Ukraine might not be necessary. And a fuller read of Ukraine’s peculiar stockpiling history means that these cartridges cannot be pinned to any external foreign support by identification alone, and that local sources are more than plausible for much of what was fired at the edges of Slovyansk in May. If that was the case, Ukraine has been suffering from what its corrupt arms dealers once shipped. Its violence, tied to surplus arms far beyond what its military might ever need, and that might better have been destroyed long ago, is a reminder of the many excess stockpiles around the world, all of them latent firepower, waiting for their day.

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Op donderdag 24 juli 2014 22:01 schreef AlexanderDeGrote het volgende:
Heeft iemand in dit topic er vertrouwen in dat het goed gaat komen met die 40 ongewapende marechaussees? Met al die vage mafkezen met een te groot geweer (van beide kanten) die daar zitten. Het lijkt wel een soort aas om een reactie uit te lokken van kwaadwillenden.

Echt een typisch Nederlandse halve oplossing. Of je maakt een goede deal met de rebellen of je imponeert ze met machtsvertoon. Wat moet zo'n man nu als hij geconfronteerd wordt met een agressieve rebel die al in Tsjetsjeni� gevochten heeft?

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Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians

(Donetsk) – Unguided Grad rockets launched apparently by Ukrainian government forces and pro-government militias have killed at least 16 civilians and wounded many more in insurgent-controlled areas of Donetsk and its suburbs in at least four attacks between July 12 and 21, 2014, Human Rights Watch said today.

The use of indiscriminate rockets in populated areas violates international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, and may amount to war crimes.

Grads are unguided rockets that cannot be targeted accurately, and are often fired in salvos from multi-barrel rocket launchers to saturate a wide area. Human Rights Watch called on all parties to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, particularly Ukrainian government forces, to stop using Grad rockets in or near populated areas because of the likelihood of killing and wounding civilians. Insurgent forces should minimize the risk to civilians under their control by avoiding deploying forces and weapons in densely populated areas.

“Grad rockets are notoriously imprecise weapons that shouldn’t be used in populated areas,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “If insurgent and Ukrainian government forces are serious about limiting harm to civilians, they should both immediately stop using these weapons in populated areas.”

[...]

http://www.hrw.org/news/2(...)ts-killing-civilians

Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians

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Ukraine Advances After Heavy Fighting

DONETSK, Ukraine – While most eyes of the world were focused on the July 17 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 that killed 298 people, Ukraine’s government forces continued assaults that regained territory from Russian-backed separatist fighters.

Using everything from small arms and mortars to heavy artillery and airstrikes, they have managed to retake some key cities in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, home to 15 percent of Ukraine’s population, forcing the insurgents to retreat to provincial capitals and their outskirts.

The military is closer than ever to fully encircling the rebels. But the wins have come at a steep cost. Hundreds of civilians have been killed since the government launched its anti-terrorist operation in mid-April.

In the past week alone, there have been dozens more casualties as well as heavy damage to residential buildings and infrastructure. The military also lost two more warplanes this week, shot down at an altitude of 5,200 meters by what Kyiv authorities say were rockets fired from Russian territory. Brought down near Savur-Mohyla and Dmytrivka, their shooting-down brought the total number of aircraft downed or damaged since the start of the conflict to nearly 20.

Kremlin-backed guerillas also continue to control a strategic border crossing near Izvaryye in Luhansk Oblast, which they use to transport weapons and reinforcements from Russia into Ukraine, according to Kyiv and Western intelligence sources.

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http://www.kyivpost.com/c(...)fighting-357839.html

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If the West doesn’t do more for Ukraine now, it might soon be too late

VLADIMIR PUTIN has responded to the international outrage over the destruction of a Malaysian airliner by his proxies in eastern Ukraine by escalating his aggression. According to U.S. officials, tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons have continued to cross from Russia to Ukraine since the passenger jet was shot down. On Wednesday, two more Ukrainian military jets were hit by anti-aircraft missiles, which Ukrainian officials said had been fired from Russia. The State Department also said Thursday that Russian artillery was firing at Ukrainian positions from across the border.

The Russian president is clearly not impressed by Western responses to the killing of 298 innocent people and the subsequent attempt by his government and its proxies to deny and cover up the crime. And why should he be? After making a statement Monday that contained no tangible response and only a vague threat that “the costs for Russia’s behavior” will increase, President Obama departed for three days of fundraising on the West Coast. The message to Mr. Putin — not to mention the Israelis, Palestinians and Iraqis fighting their own wars — was that the president was not engaged enough by the crises to set aside the purely political activity of collecting checks from donors.

In Brussels, European Union officials met Thursday to discuss potential sanctions against Russia, including new measures against the banking, energy and arms industries. But no decisions will be made before next week, and even then Moscow will likely be given a new deadline for meeting a demand that it stop supplying the Ukrainian rebels. Previous deadlines to cease weapons deliveries have passed with no significant action.

While the West temporizes, a de facto Russian army is rapidly assembling in occupied portions of eastern Ukraine. A report in the Financial Times, sourced to U.S. intelligence officials, says it includes dozens of T-64 battle tanks, Grad rocket launchers, self-propelled guns, infantry combat vehicles with automatic cannons and armored personnel carriers, in addition to anti-aircraft systems like the one that shot down the Malaysian plane. This force is commanded by Russian citizens who infiltrated Ukraine from Moscow, including a Russian secret police colonel, and made up in large part of fighters from Russia.

Incredibly, the European Union’s position — tacitly supported by Mr. Obama — is that the Ukrainian government should stop attempting to expel the invaders from its territory and instead negotiate with them about the political future of Ukraine. Fortunately, newly elected President Petro Poroshenko has not capitulated to this appeasement strategy. However, his appeals for military aid from the United States and NATO, or at least more substantial sanctions, have so far been turned aside by Mr. Obama and the Europeans.

Frustration with Mr. Obama’s weakness now extends to the top ranks of the Democratic Party. A letter released Tuesday by three Senate committee chairs — Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Carl Levin (Mich.) and Robert Menendez (N.J.) — called on Mr. Obama to “impose immediate broad sanctions” against Russia’s defense sector, as well as broader measures against energy and financial industries, and to explore designating the rebels’ political structure as a foreign terrorist organization. While cooperation with Europe is desirable, the senators said, “the United States must not limit its own national security strategy when swift action will help fulfill our strategic objectives.”

Mr. Obama has already missed the opportunity for swift action to stop Mr. Putin’s escalation. If he does not act soon, it may be too late to save Ukraine.

http://www.washingtonpost(...)a85133bc9_story.html

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Poroshenko seeks urgent Rada debate on Yatsenyuk's resignation

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has asked Verkhovna Rada Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov to urgently arrange a parliamentary debate concerning the possible resignation of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

http://www.kyivpost.com/c(...)ignation-357852.html

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Op vrijdag 25 juli 2014 13:15 schreef deelnemer het volgende:

De belangrijke verbindingen tussen Lugansk en Donetsk.

De snelweg E40 / M-04 (Donetsk - Debaltsevo - Alchevsk - Lugansk- Izvaryne) is van groot strategisch belang. Debaltsevo is een belangrijk kruispunt in het gebied van de rebellen.

De H21 van Donetsk naar Lugansk is tweede keus. Hier werd eerder in de week gevochten ten zuiden van Lugansk rond Lutuhyne / Heorhiivka. Daarbij werd gemeld dat Heorhiivka was ingenomen.

Donetsk - Collapsed Railway Bridge

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Op vrijdag 25 juli 2014 15:24 schreef deelnemer het volgende:

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Is dat de brug bij Novobakhmutivka die 7 Juli is vernield, maar dan later en wat verder ingestort?

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Volgens de bron [671]

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Novobakhmutivka ligt langs de H20 richting Kramatorsk en Slaviansk.
Zakitne ligt langs de T-05-13 richting Krasnyi Lyman
Seleznevka ligt vlak bij Slaviansk