Putin names regiments after Ukrainian, Belarusian cities, Warsaw, and Berlin:
By RFE/RL
Russian President Vladimir Putin has named several military units after cities or other places in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Germany, and Romania, a step that may be seen as provocative by people in those countries.
The decrees -- which give a number of regiments and divisions honorary names that hark back to World War II, when dictator Josef Stalin was in power -- were signed by Putin on June 30 and were made public on July 2.
The decrees say that the names are intended "to preserve glorious military and historic traditions, and to nurture loyalty to the fatherland and military duty among the military personnel."
According to the decrees, the 6th Tank Regiment of the Russian Army is now called the Lviv regiment, the 68th Tank Regiment -- Zhytomyr-Berlin, the 163th Tank Regiment -- Nizhyn. The decrees give the Russian spellings of the names of the Ukrainian cities of Lviv, Zhytomyr, and Nizhyn.
Relations between Kyiv and Moscow are severely strained over Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and its involvement in a war that has killed more than 10,300 people in eastern Ukraine.
Russia's actions in Ukraine have also deepened concerns in Belarus, Poland, and other countries about Moscow's intentions, and have badly damaged ties with the European Union and the United States.
in 1944, Stalin named the 93rd Tank Brigade after Zhytomyr for its role in World War II. The brigade was later reformed into the 68th Tank Regiment, which was dissolved after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The regiment was reestablished last year.
Under the decrees, the 933rd Missile Regiment is now called Upper Dnipro regiment, after the Dnipro River in Ukraine.
In addition, Russian Army regiments were renamed after the Belarusian cities of Vitsebsk, Kobryn, and Slonim, as well as Warsaw, Berlin, and Romania's Transylvania region.
Romany woman "found with throat slashed":
By RFE/RL
Media reports in western Ukraine's Zakarpattya region say that a 30-year Romany woman was killed in the city of Berehove amid tensions over a series of attacks on Romany community members.
The reports quote members of the local Romany community as saying that unidentified attackers slashed the woman's throat.
Ukraine's National Police said in a statement on July 2 that a woman "with injuries to her throat" was found on a street in Berehove and that medical personnel were unable to save her life. It did not name the victim or include any information about her ethnicity.
Police said they are treating the woman's death as a "premeditated murder" but so far have found no evidence that it was a hate crime.
"At this point" police have found nothing to suggest a motive involving "racial or any other type of discrimination," the statement said.
The woman's death occurred eight days after police arrested seven people in an adjacent region of Lviv in connection with a deadly June 23 attack on a Romany camp.
Police said at the time that a 24-year-old Romany man was killed in the attack in a forest near the city of Lviv, which was carried out by a group of masked men.
According to police, four other people were hospitalized with knife wounds as a result of the attack -- including a 10-year-old boy, two 19-year-old men, and a 30-year-old woman.
That violence was the fifth attack on a Romany camp in western Ukraine in the past two months.
In a joint letter to Kyiv authorities on June 14, four groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International condemned what they said was a growing number of attacks by radicals in Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities have "failed" to respond to most incidents, leading to "an atmosphere of near total impunity that cannot but embolden these groups to commit more attacks," the groups said.
The letter said that several neo-Nazi and far-right ultranationalist groups, including C14 and Right Sector, were behind at least two dozen attacks or harassment cases against Roma across Ukraine so far during 2018.
The Council of Europe rights group estimates there are some 260,000 Roma in Ukraine, whose population is about 48.5 million. (w/Novyny Zakarpattya and Ukrinform)