Archive for the ‘Ukraine’ Category

Ukraine War 2014 – ‘Stay Indoors’ Anti Terorist Opertion Slavyansk – Video


Ukraine War 2014 - #39;Stay Indoors #39; Anti Terorist Opertion Slavyansk
Ukraine War 2014 - #39;Stay Indoors #39; Anti Terorist Opertion Slavyansk Ukraine War 2014 - #39;Stay Indoors #39; Anti Terorist Opertion Slavyansk Ukraine War 2014 - #39;Stay Indoors #39; Anti Terorist Opertion...

By: News Update World

Here is the original post:
Ukraine War 2014 - 'Stay Indoors' Anti Terorist Opertion Slavyansk - Video

(English) Andriy Lysenko. Ukraine Crisis Media Center, 9th of October 2014 – Video


(English) Andriy Lysenko. Ukraine Crisis Media Center, 9th of October 2014

By: Ukraine Crisis Media Center

The rest is here:
(English) Andriy Lysenko. Ukraine Crisis Media Center, 9th of October 2014 - Video

Ukraine Sees Shelling Worsen as Merkel Says Truce Not Met

Ukraine reported intensified shelling in its war-ravaged east as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the terms of a month-old truce arent being met.

The government reported one death among its forces the past day, saying pro-Russian insurgents fired artillery rounds at the military on 33 occasions. While the cease-fire isnt flawless, the tendency in Ukraine is unambiguously positive, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. The rebels yesterday described the truce as all but dead.

Its obvious that the Minsk agreement isnt implemented yet, Merkel said today after talks with Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz in Berlin. Drones could be used to monitor the truce, but the condition for everything is that the cease-fire really holds. You can see how fragile the situation is right now.

While the truce, sealed Sept. 5, has reduced the bloodshed in Ukraines easternmost regions, its been marred by daily violence. There have been at least 331 deaths since the deal was agreed, the United Nations estimates. The rebels say theyre ready to resume peace talks once Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe agree on the terms.

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said today in Washington that more international financing will be needed to prop up Ukraines war-battered economy, but that not all of the funding should come from the IMF. Lagarde, speaking at an event during the IMFs fall meetings, said other lenders will need to participate, without providing details.

The Washington-based IMF has already approved a $17 billion bailout loan to help Ukraine stay afloat.

Ukrainian central bank chief Valeriya Gontareva said last month the official support program from the IMF envisages a 6.5 percent shrinkage in the countrys gross domestic product this year. She said the really drastic deterioration of economic conditions will cause a revision showing an even larger economic contraction.

I suppose that it will be minus 9 percent, or even 10 percent, she told reporters in Kiev on Sept. 13.

Olexander Motsyk, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., told reporters in Washington that 3,000 Russian troops remain on the Ukrainian side of the border between the two countries. He said the cease-fire has been violated more than 1,000 times though its difficult to say if the violations have been committed by Russian forces or pro-Russian separatists.

One civilian was killed in Donetsk in fighting today, the city council said on its website, while artillery rounds were heard all day in the city.

Continued here:
Ukraine Sees Shelling Worsen as Merkel Says Truce Not Met

IMF Chief: Ukraine Will Need More Bailout Funding

Ukraine will need additional bailout financing from outside the International Monetary Fund to keep the war-torn economy afloat, the head of the IMF said Thursday.

The cost of the conflict with Russia-backed separatists has changed the country's cash needs since the IMF originally designed a $30 billion international bailout program in April, of which the fund pledged to cover $17 billion.

"Additional funding will have to come" after the IMF reviews the current bailout strategy in December, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at a Bretton Woods Committee event on the sidelines of the annual IMF and World Bank meetings of finance ministers and central bankers.

"To assume that the additional funding will have to come from the IMF, I think is rather far-fetched," she said. "If the economy has to be restored and stability maintained, money will have to come from multiple sources."

The IMF chief's comments acknowledge what many economist and analysts outside the fund have been warning for some time. The IMF's latest forecast still projects the economy expanding next year, albeit at a sluggish rate, even though the World Bank said the country will likely be in a deep recession until at least 2016.

The IMF says the April bailout was predicated on the expectation that the conflict in eastern Ukraine would halt in early autumn.

"Can you say that the hostilities have stopped? Can you say that there is a cease-fire? Can you say from an economic point of view and fiscal point of view that the situation has been restored? No," Ms. Lagarde said.

Major Ukrainian manufacturing infrastructure, much of it in the war-ravaged east, is damaged or not operating. Kiev's budget is suffering from weak revenues and rising military costs. And the country's devalued currency is still wreaking havoc on the financial system.

"The economy is in quite a difficult situation," Ukraine's ambassador in Washington, Olexander Motsyk, told reporters on Thursday, declining to say how much financing was needed.

"The policy of Russia is to destroy everything in Donbas," he said, referring to the Don River basin in Ukraine, where Western nations say Russian forces helped a pro-Moscow insurgency fight off Ukraine's military.

Read the original here:
IMF Chief: Ukraine Will Need More Bailout Funding

Ukraine Says Shelling Worsens as Rebels Eye Independence

Ukraine said shelling in its war-ravaged east intensified as the pro-Russian militants the army has been battling described a month-old truce as all but dead.

The insurgents fired artillery rounds at the military 33 times in the past day and keep trying to storm the airport in Donetsk, the combat zones biggest city, the Defense Ministry said today on Facebook. Five civilians died yesterday amid shelling in Donetsk, with sporadic blasts still audible this morning, the city council said on its website.

There is no truce, buffer zones are non-existent, Andrei Purgin, deputy premier of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic, said yesterday via Russian state-run news service RIA Novosti. Such casualties make any political union with Ukraine impossible.

While a Sept. 5 cease-fire has stemmed the bloodshed in Ukraines easternmost regions, its been marred by daily violence. The Foreign Ministry in Kiev says the truce has been violated more than 1,300 times, killing 64 soldiers and 36 civilians. Purgin said the rebels are ready to resume peace talks once Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe agree on the conditions, according to RIA.

Ukraine, the U.S. and the European Union blame Russia for providing weapons, financing and troops to the separatists, a charge Moscow denies. The two sides imposed tit-for-tat sanctions that have depressed economic growth in both the EU and Russia, causing the latter to flirt with a recession.

Russias ruble strengthened 0.2 percent against the dollar today in Moscow, trimming its slide over the last three months to 14.9 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Russias central bank shifted the rubles trading band yesterday by the most since March 4 after the fourth intervention this month took the amount spent to defend the currency to $1.85 billion.

Ukraines hryvnia, this years worst-performing currency, was little changed at 12.95 per dollar.

While the cease-fire may not be fully observed, Russia deems the move constructive and a positive process, Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putins foreign-policy aide, told reporters today in Moscow. Putin may meet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French leader Francois Hollande at a summit in Milan next week. He isnt asking for sanctions to be lifted, Ushakov said.

Poroshenko said last week that shelling must stop for 24 hours for the government to pull its troops back and create a 30-kilometer (19-mile) buffer zone. The government in Kiev said yesterday marked the second occasion since Oct. 5 that a halt in shelling by the military went unreciprocated.

A day of silence announced by the National Security and Defense Council was accompanied by rebel shelling against government troops and cities in the Luhansk region, which resulted in a number of wounded and killed, Luhansks city council said in a statement on its website.

Read the rest here:
Ukraine Says Shelling Worsens as Rebels Eye Independence