He pulled up to the last rebel checkpoint before the road to the airport became a no-man’s-land. Shirtless men in dusty jeans worked feverishly in the fading sunlight, digging and stacking sandbags, with an eye to the approaching night. Then the sedan passed into the silence of the edge of war; the Ukrainian army was hidden in the distance somewhere. Oleg stopped the car in front of a flatbed truck. Bullet holes pocked the windshield; shoes and clothing scraps were scattered around. The back was caked in blood. Some 30 rebels had died there, Oleg said, when the truck was ambushed en route to the airport by a Ukrainian RPG team. The only sound on the deserted highway came from a billboard flapping in the wind overhead. “This cannot go without punishment,” Oleg said.
A silver van pulled up suddenly, and a man in a black cap pointed a submachine gun from the driver’s side window. “Who are you?” he shouted. A young couple, holding hands, approached on the sidewalk about 100 yards away, taking slow and deliberate steps toward an apartment building set back in the trees. Bursts of gunfire echoed nearby. Then the sedan was back onto Donetsk’s busy streets. “And now there is no war. So it’s a feature of civil war,” Oleg said, meaning that sometimes people don’t recognize it until it’s right upon them. “Most people still don’t understand that this is war. But when there will be more victims and more death, they will stand up.”
Read the entire article here
UKR separatist paper sez 150 Americans (25 CIA) killed; load of US-made biological agents brought from Georgia: http://t.co/8CgS61uAPj
— Robert Coalson (@CoalsonR) June 12, 2014
One more #MedvedevSelfie from the beloved Crimea with its growing demand @djp3tros @JerryPopowicz pic.twitter.com/MSCFvsT7Fh
— Ruthen (@RutheniaRus) June 11, 2014
Are Ukrainian authorities trying to restrict journos from going to Slovyansk? @AFP team and other medias had to wait 2 hours yesterday 1/2
— Paul Gypteau (@paulgypteau) June 12, 2014
at a Ukrainian-controled checkpoint, despite having all accreditations. Only press cars were stopped. We deeply regret this situation. 2/2
— Paul Gypteau (@paulgypteau) June 12, 2014
Putin, marking #Russia Day: "Crimea's accession occurred peacefully, upon the will of people and in accordance with the international law."
— Kirit Radia (@KiritRadia) June 12, 2014
Lamberto Zannier met with the refugees at a camp in Dmitriadovka, some 40 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, on June 12.
The Interfax news agency quoted him as saying the conflict in the east "is craziness which must be stopped."
He proposed that a roundtable conference be held between former Ukrainian Presidents Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, the current Ukrainian authorities, and representatives of the pro-Russian separatists.
On June 10, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko ordered the creation of humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to escape the eastern regions where government forces are fighting the separatists.
Authorities in the Rostov region, where the refugee camp is located, say there are nearly 4,000 refugees in the region and that the number continues to grow.
In response to Russians' media claims, #Ukraine's National Guard reminds it possesses no phosphorus weapons: http://t.co/45zbjZumWA
— Evgen Vorobiov (@vorobyov) June 12, 2014
Ukrainian army is using firebombs, claims Russian TV (http://t.co/zIZunxZvSj) while using CNN-footage from 2004 (https://t.co/nD3bjd3P3K)
— Olaf Koens (@obk) June 12, 2014
#NATO will assess long-term & far-reaching implications of #Russia’s aggression against #Ukraine. All NATO Allies have taken immediate steps
— AndersFogh Rasmussen (@AndersFoghR) June 12, 2014