Comparisons of Vladimir Putin to Slobodan Milosevic are all the rage. But what does the Milosevic experience tell us about where Russia may be headed? Read Brian Whitmore's latest Power Vertical post, "Slobodan's Ghost."
(NOTE: Video contains graphic images.) Reuters has issued video after officials in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk say that at least three people were killed in shelling there yesterday. One of the victims was a female guard at a school that was badly damaged in the strikes, while residents of apartment blocks said one of their neighbors was killed by shrapnel.
Reports now suggesting at least one person died in the downing of the Ukrainian military transport plane today:
That concludes our live blogging for Monday, July 14. Follow news from throughout RFE/RL's region HERE.
Washington has accused Moscow of supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine with military hardware, including tanks.
A "fact sheet" released yesterday by the State Department says the U.S. has "no evidence that Russia’s support for the separatists has ceased," adding, "In fact, we assess that Russia continues to provide them with heavy weapons, other military equipment and financing, and continues to allow militants to enter Ukraine freely."
The fact sheet says Moscow continues to accumulate military equipment -- including a type of tank no longer used by Russian forces -- at a deployment site in southwest Russia.
"We are concerned much of this equipment will be transferred to separatists, as we are confident Russia has already delivered tanks and multiple rocket launchers to them from this site," the State Department said.
NATO said Russia had increased its soldiers on the frontier to some 10,000 to 12,000, up from less than 1,000.
A NATO official said the larger number of troops is "not a step in the right direction" but rather "a step away from de-escalating the situation."
President Petro Poroshenko held an emergency meeting with his leading security officials in Kyiv on July 14.
Afterward, he said that "information has...been confirmed that Russian staff officers are taking part in military operations against Ukrainian forces."
Poroshenko also said there is a need for tactical changes by Ukrainian forces to strengthen the defense of the border and protect people living near it.
With reporting by Reuters, AP, and dpa
Subtle.
Pro-Kyiv military blogger Dmitry Tymchuk says "it is currently known that two pilots have been captured by the insurgents" following the downing yesterday of an AN-26 transport aircraft carrying supplies for the Ukrainian military. Other reports claimed one body was found at the crash site. Eight people were reportedly aboard the plane.
Tymchuk also tries to address some of the discussion and criticism of his suggestion yesterday that Russia was preparing an "invasion on July 15":
Nobody says that tomorrow there will be a Russian war against Ukraine in a different format than the one that we have been seeing for [the past] four months. As of tomorrow, the commanders of the Russian special forces groups must be ready for deployment to Ukraine. We already went through it in April, when the Russian subversive and reconnaissance groups [SRG] roamed around Donbas just like in [their own] home.
We, the IR group, do not think that Russia is ready for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine–with escalating numbers of Russian troops on the border, we don’t observe “complete” operational and tactical groups, which will be able to carry out such an invasion. Perhaps there will be attempts to invade under the guise of “peacekeepers,” but this is clearly a fallback. For now, the Kremlin’s task is to maximally destabilize the situation in Donbas with the goal to draw the conflict out into a full-blown civil war.