General condemns Putin order renaming Russian regiments after Ukrainian cities:
By RFE/RL
A top Ukrainian military officer has condemned an order by Russian President Vladimir Putin to name several Russian military units after cities and other places in Ukraine.
General Viktor Muzhenko's comments on July 3 were the latest in a growing number of critical responses to Putin's decree.
Putin's decrees gave a number of regiments and divisions in the Russian armed forces honorary names that hark back to World War II.
Putin's order was "a claim to the lands of other nations,” Muzhenko wrote on Facebook on July 3.
"With these decisions Russians continue their old tradition -- to steal others' history and glory. That is a clear signal to the world that the aggressor does not plan to limit itself with Donbas [eastern Ukraine] and Crimea," wrote Muzhenko, who is the chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' General Staff.
According to the Kremlin, the renaming decrees are intended "to preserve glorious military and historic traditions, and to nurture loyalty to the fatherland and military duty among the military personnel."
The Soviet victory in World War II has always been a venerated holiday, including after the Soviet breakup, and Ukraine, like Russia, has honored its war veterans and victims.
But the Kremlin in recent years has embraced nostalgia of the war victory to a larger degree, using it in part to demonize Ukraine after the 2014 Euromaidan protests and to help justify the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula.
Under the decrees, the 933rd Missile Regiment is now called the Upper Dnieper Regiment, after the river in Ukraine. The 6th Tank Regiment is now called the Lvov Regiment and the 68th Tank Regiment the Zhitomir-Berlin Regiment and the 163rd Tank Regiment is called the Nezhin Regiment.
The decrees all use Russian spellings of the Ukrainian names, which in Ukrainian are Lviv, Zhytomyr, and Nizhyn.
In 1944, Stalin named the 93rd Tank Brigade after Zhytomyr for the city's role in World War II. The brigade was later reformed into the 68th Tank Regiment, then dissolved after the Soviet collapse. The regiment was reestablished last year, a development that caught the attention of military historians.
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.
Russia's actions in Ukraine have also deepened concerns in Belarus, Poland, and other ex- Soviet and Soviet bloc countries about Moscow's intentions, and the moves have also badly damaged ties with the European Union and the United States.
Hunger-striking mother of Crimean Tatar jailed in Russia hospitalized:
By the Crimea Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
The mother of a jailed Crimean Tatar man has been rushed to hospital after two weeks on a hunger strike to demand the release of her son, who was convicted of terrorism charges he contends are false.
Crimea-based human rights group Crimean Solidarity said on July 3 that Raime Primova was hospitalized with extremely low blood pressure.
Primova, 68, has a single kidney and has been diagnosed with liver disease.
She told RFE/RL earlier that she started the hunger strike on June 20 after sending a request to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) seeking the release of her son, Nuri Primov.
Primova said that she was only drinking water and a doctor was monitoring her health.
Primov was arrested in Russian-controlled Crimea in 2016 and was convicted of being a member of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in Russia.
Primov, who denied the charge, is serving a five-year sentence in a prison in the Russian republic of Mari El.
Moscow's takeover of Crimea in March 2014 was vocally opposed by many members of the Crimea Tatar population, who make up a sizable minority on the peninsula.
Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they call a campaign of repression targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatars and others who opposed Moscow's seizure of the peninsula.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
