One cartoonist's take on the current situation:
Internet payment broker PayPal seems to have entered the fray over the Ukraine conflict, according to RFE/RL's Carl Schreck:
The U.S.-based online payment service PayPal has blocked an account set up by Russian opposition activists to raise funds for a report alleging Russian military involvement in the Ukraine war, citing the political nature of the donation campaign.
Vsevolod Chagayev told RFE/RL that PayPal informed him on May 14 that it decided to block the account because of the political nature of the report, started by Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov before his slaying, which asserts that more than 200 Russian military personnel have been killed in fighting in eastern Ukraine.
"I talked with employees of the Russian office, they said that this is the official position of the company," Chagayev said in e-mailed comments.
The Nemtsov report focuses on Russia's involvement in the armed conflict between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. It has been posted online its entirety and published in an initial print run of 2,000 copies.
The PayPal account was set up by the activists promoting the report to collect online donations to pay for an eventual mass printing and free distribution.
Chagayev says he opened the account on May 12, the same day that the report -- titled Putin. War -- was presented at the Moscow headquarters of RPR-Parnas, the opposition political party that Nemtsov co-founded.
Chagayev said the account attracted around 100,000 rubles ($2,000) in donations before PayPal informed him in the early afternoon on May 14 that it would be blocked.
"PayPal proposed to withdraw [the funds] as soon as possible," he told RFE/RL.
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