The flag was down a while ago. Here's the repainting work going on...back to wheat-colored.
The frequency of fresh sightings of heavily armed military columns snaking through eastern Ukraine, possibly of Russian origin, invites skepticism at the most optimistic pro-Kyiv analyses.
But here's an interesting Reuters piece on "Ukraine Rebel Movement Faces Uncertain Future." An excerpt:
A recording of separatist leaders released by Ukraine's state security service suggested more Russian citizens fighting in Ukraine were looking to leave. A rebel fighter told Reuters the insurgency was in a critical phase.
"Everything is coming to a head," he said.
Much about the circumstances of Borodai and Strelkov’s departures is unknown, and it is difficult to tell yet whether they mark a change of tactics or a winding down of Russian support.
Rebel website Novorossiya reported 1,000 fighters, more than 100 armoured vehicles and new weapons supplies had been promised in return for Strelkov’s resignation. It did not say which entity or individual had made this promise.
Interfax notes that the Russian Foreign Ministry demands that the perpetrators of the vandalism in Bulgaria -- splashing red paint on a monument in Sofia's Lozenets to Soviet soldiers -- be punished for their "outrageous act of vandalism."
"A note of protest" was "sent to the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry immediately," the agency quotes the ministry as saying.
In reporting the Ukrainian flag stunt atop the Moscow spire, ITAR-TASS's story never once mentions "Ukrainian" or "Ukraine." Classic. Take it away, Comrades:
A group of vandals painted blue a star on top of one of the Moscow skyscrapers and hang a yellow and blue flag on the skyscraper on Kotelnicheskaya embankment last night.
Moscow police have detained four suspects hot on the heels and brought them to a nearby police station.
Also, on the defilement of a monument to Soviet soldiers in Bulgaria, the Russian Foreign Ministry fulminated, according to ITAR-TASS:
"We feel deeply indignant with the defilement of the grave of Soviet liberator soldiers in Sofia's Lozenets quarter by unidentified vandals overnight...," the Foreign Ministry said on its website. "The sculptural composition and the wall with the names of buried soldiers was stained with red pain in several places."