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Here's an update from RFE/RL's news desk on the situation in eastern Ukraine:
Kyiv Says Fighting In East Intensifies
The Ukrainian military says that fighting between government troops and Russia-backed separatists has intensified in eastern Ukraine.
Senior government official Andriy Lysenko said on May 28 that one soldier had been killed in recent fighting.
Russia-backed fighters have accused the army of carrying out dozens of attacks in recent days as both sides charge each other with not observing a ceasefire.
The uptick in violence saw a patrol from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission shot at in the Donetsk region on May 27.
The mission's chief monitor, Ertugrul Apakan, condemned the attack, in which nobody was injured.
Amid the increased violence, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called for greater foreign assistance and has appointed former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen as his adviser.
Rasmussen said on May 28 on Facebook that he will do his “utmost to promote security, economic reforms, and stronger EU ties” in his new capacity.
Poroshenko has not specified on what issues Rasmussen will be advising.
Rasmussen described the “security situation” in eastern Ukraine as “alarming.” He also said Ukraine must fight corruption and implement reforms.
Russian Duma member Leonid Kalashnikov, deputy chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told Interfax that Rasmussen’s appointment was “a hostile gesture” toward Russia.
“It shows that Ukraine has chosen the West and NATO as the vector of its drifting movement,” he said, describing Ukraine as “a beachhead against Russia” that “will be used sooner or later.”
Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Facebook that Rasmussen’s appointment, like many other Ukrainian moves, is “for show” because “Ukraine badly needs…attention from the outside.”
With reporting by Interfax, TASS, and dpa
Here's another quirky story from Crimea courtesy of RFE/RL's features desk:
In Crimean Port, A Hospital Reportedly Takes A 'Potemkin' Approach To Impress
The Potemkin Village, that tried and true manifestation of Russian bureaucratic ingenuity whose place in popular lore has been cemented for centuries, has been updated for the 21st century.
The Potemkin hospital.
A hospital in Sevastopol, the largest city on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea seized by Russia in 2014, was eager to show off its freshly renovated operating room in its new children's ward earlier this month.
According to the Crimean news website Primechaniya, the city's head, Governor Sergei Menyeilo, and the chief of the city's health department, Yury Voskanian, visited the facility on May 18 to dedicate the new surgery.
The problem was, according to a facility staffer quoted by Primechaniya, that the renovation for the new operating room used up all the funds allocated for the project, and there was no money left over for new equipment.
The hospital's chief ordered that machinery and equipment should be taken from other units in the hospital, and other facilities in the city, and placed in the new ward for the dedication ceremony, the staffer told the news site.
After the ceremony finished, employees quickly returned the equipment to where it came from, the site said.
"They took what they could. Something from the First Hospital. Something from the maternity hospital. The air cleaner didn't work at all; we don't know where they got it from, but then they took it away. Oxygen tanks from the maternity hospital. And then taken away," another employee told the news site. "And the new operating [room] is now closed again."
Read the entire article here