09:21
27.5.2014
09:29
27.5.2014
09:48
27.5.2014
Pro-Kyiv "Information Resistance" blogger Dmitry Tymchuk highlights some of Ukraine's problems in policing its border with Russia. His conclusions are based on a meeting with border officials, he says, and the situation will be further assessed in "the coming days."
He notes on Facebook that there is rampant corruption -- many of the residents of Ukraine's border region with Russia "feed off the border" and therefore have a financial interest in seeing a lack of law enforcement there: "If a family, for instance a father and brother, for many years engaged in cross-border smuggling, it is difficult to expect that they will be honest." The fact that many of the border guards themselves are from that same community exacerbates the problem.
The policing of the border is underfunded, understaffed, and otherwise ill equipped, he adds.
To make matters worse, he says, the border services don't interact well with counterterrorism forces, citing examples when counterterrorism forces denied border guards' requests for assistance due to a lack of resources.
He notes on Facebook that there is rampant corruption -- many of the residents of Ukraine's border region with Russia "feed off the border" and therefore have a financial interest in seeing a lack of law enforcement there: "If a family, for instance a father and brother, for many years engaged in cross-border smuggling, it is difficult to expect that they will be honest." The fact that many of the border guards themselves are from that same community exacerbates the problem.
The policing of the border is underfunded, understaffed, and otherwise ill equipped, he adds.
To make matters worse, he says, the border services don't interact well with counterterrorism forces, citing examples when counterterrorism forces denied border guards' requests for assistance due to a lack of resources.
10:09
27.5.2014
10:35
27.5.2014
10:37
27.5.2014
AP video from within the ranks of the "Vostok Battalion" trying to seize the airport.
10:40
27.5.2014
10:50
27.5.2014
Important to remember that there are noncombatants dying in eastern Ukraine. This woman was killed instantly by shrapnel at a train station in Donetsk yesterday and her son was injured. It is unverified, but there were indications that she was struck by artillery from Ukrainian government forces.
11:09
27.5.2014
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk claims Russia's Gazprom owes Ukraine 2.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas worth around $1 billion following Moscow's annexation of Crimea. Yatsenyuk says that unless Gazprom and Ukraine's Naftohaz settle their dispute over gas supplies by May 29, Ukraine will take Gazprom to international arbitration court in Stockholm.
Also, in an interview today, Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller says Russia is waiting for Ukraine to pay off $2 billion in gas debt by May 30.
Ukraine has said it wants Russia to return to its previous lower price for gas before it repays its debt. Russia more than doubled the price for its natural gas supplies to Ukraine, to nearly $500, following the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych in February.
12:13
27.5.2014
Donetsk's railway station is operating normally, according to railway officials.