Interview: Putin-Mask Protester 'Safe' In Ukraine After Midnight Run From Russia
By Christopher Miller
KYIV -- Vladimir Putin has asked for political asylum in Ukraine -- sort of.
It’s not actually the Russian president, but Roman Roslovtsev -- an anti-Kremlin activist known for staging one-man protests against Russia’s strict law on public assembly while wearing a rubber Putin mask -- who is asking Ukraine to provide him sanctuary.
Roslovtsev fled Moscow around noon on August 20, leaving the room he rented in the Russian capital and all of his belongings -- including the mask -- behind, he told RFE/RL in an interview in Kyiv on August 22. He took with him only his Russian “internal passport,” some cash, and the clothes on his back. Fearing Russian security services were listening to his phone calls, he didn’t even tell his mother.
A friend ferried him into Belarus by car and he approached the Ukrainian border just before midnight, Roslovtsev said, making his way on foot before hitching a ride on a truck.
There Roslovtsev told Ukrainian border guards and a security-services officer: “Please, I want political asylum in Ukraine.”
A spokesman for Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service, Oleh Slobodyan, confirmed to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service on August 21 that Roslovtsev requested political asylum at passport control at the Novi Yarylovichi crossing in northern Ukraine, on the border with Belarus.
After letting Roslovtsev enter Ukraine, border guards treated him to coffee and put him on the first bus to Kyiv, where he arrived -- exhausted but feeling free -- at around 10 a.m. on August 21. “I feel good [in Kyiv]…I am safe,” he said.
Read the entire story here.
Today's Daily Vertical commentary by RFE/RL's Brian Whitmore looks at Ukraine's 25th anniversary of independence. He says the celebrations are being held "under the barrel of a gun."
Ukraine Celebrates 25th Independence Day As Tensions With Russia Worsen
By Christopher Miller
KYIV -- Ukraine marked 25 years of independence from the Soviet Union on August 24 with a massive parade of soldiers and heavy weaponry through central Kyiv, in a show of force designed to boost the morale of the country’s servicemen and reassure Ukrainians amid heightened tensions with Russia.
Flanked by battle tanks, missile carriers, and other equipment, hundreds of uniformed troops marched through Independence Square in the country’s largest military procession since it declared independence in 1991.
“Independence has given us democracy and freedom, the feeling of civic dignity and national unity,” President Petro Poroshenko said, addressing the crowd.
Thousands of flag-waving Ukrainians dressed in traditional embroidered shirts cheered, “Glory to Ukraine!” and “Death to enemies!” -- chants popularized during the Euromaidan protests that drove a Russia-backed president from power in 2014. Generals saluted from armored transport vehicles and the national anthem rang out: “The glory and the freedom of Ukraine has not yet perished.”
Parliament in Ukraine adopted an independence declaration on August 24, 1991, three days after the collapse of a hard-line coup attempt in Moscow that was meant to prevent the Soviet Union from falling apart. Ukrainians overwhelmingly approved independence in a December 1, 1991, referendum, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist later that month.
Independence Day celebrations have taken on a martial tone since Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and fomented separatism in eastern Ukraine, where a war that started that April has killed more than 9,500 people. Poroshenko said in his address that 2,504 Ukrainian servicemen are among the dead but that “the enemy has failed…to bring Ukraine to its knees.”
WATCH: Ukraine Rehearses For Independence Day Military Parade
Besides potentially boosting morale, the large-scale military parades have enabled Kyiv to showcase its military, which has been revitalized after deteriorating following the Soviet collapse.
In 2014, Independence Day came amid a major offensive by the Russia-backed separatists that killed hundreds of Ukrainian troops, led to a demoralizing battlefield defeat, and more or less solidified the conflict lines. Kyiv then agreed to a cease-fire deal -- the first of two agreements known as the Minsk accords -- on terms critics say were beneficial to Moscow.
This year, there are fears that another offensive is looming.
INFOGRAPHIC: Ukraine Besieged (click to enlarge)
Fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists has flared in eastern Ukraine since June, with Kyiv suffering its worst battlefield casualties in a year. Officials in Kyiv say Russia has increased its troop presence near Ukraine’s borders, and Russian accusations that Kyiv tried to stage attacks in Crimea early in August -- denied by Ukraine -- have added to the tension.
Last week, Poroshenko warned of the possibility of a “full-scale invasion on all fronts” and put Ukraine’s military on high alert. He said that he was prepared to impose martial law should the situation worsen.
Surrounded by military materiel during the August 24 celebration, Poroshenko told Ukrainians: “Today, our main guarantor is the armed forces of Ukraine. And this is much more serious than the Budapest memorandum,” a reference to a treaty signed in 1994 by Ukraine, Russia, and the United States.
The accord was meant to provide security assurances by its signatories in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons. But many Ukrainians have deemed the deal a failure after Russia’s military-backed annexation of Crimea and its interference in eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv and NATO say Russia has sent large numbers of troops and weapons during the conflict.
While the idea of parading deadly weapons through the capital irked some Ukrainians, others said the event gave them a sense of pride.
“The parade is for our patriotism. It is important to raise the spirits of Ukrainians, especially when we are at war,” said Volodymyr Bondarchuk, 74, a Soviet Army veteran who wore a pressed suit and a medal commemorating his service.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
