Lawyers for Russians Aleksandr Aleksandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev now say that their defendants falsely claimed to be unemployed. According to the defense, the defendants are employed by the national police of the so-called “LPR.”
The lawyers will ask the court to clarify the question about the men’s employment, considering the language barrier.
“The issue lies in a defect of translation. The translator is not a lawyer. [The question] was translated as: ‘Where are you working now?’ If it was a question about where he worked at the time of detention, it would be another thing. They worked under a contract in the national police of ‘LPR.’ There are documents,” said Aleksandrov’s lawyer Yuriy Hrabovskyy.
“He doesn’t understand why he is called Russia’s serviceman. He said that he was unemployed. The man doesn’t have legal education. … He really doesn’t work, so he considers himself unemployed. However, I am sure that he wasn’t fired and tha he remains an acting member of Luhansk national police,” said Yerofeyev’s lawyer Oksana Sokolovska.
During the trial that started today, the two men claimed to be unemployed.
In a video published in May, Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev said they were on active duty with the Russian military in eastern Ukraine when they were captured on May 16.
Moscow says the two men were no longer employed by the state when they were captured.
The Verkhovna Rada failed to add an antidiscrimination rule to the Ukrainian Labor Code.
Only 206 deputies supported the draft law, while 226 votes were needed.
If approved, the law would prohibit any kind of employment discrimination based on gender identity, disability, presence of HIV/AIDS, political, religious and other beliefs, or other features.
Adoption of the law is necessary to proceed in the process of lifting visa restrictions between the EU and Ukraine.
Volodymyr Hroysman, the parliament speaker, promised to reconsider the issue.
Congress Passes Bill Giving Lethal Aid to Ukraine
By RFE/RL
WASHINGTON -- Congress has passed a defense policy bill that authorizes up to $50 million in lethal military aid for Ukraine and mandates a White House response if Russia is deemed to be violating a key arms control treaty.
The White House said hours after the $607 billion bill was passed by the Senate on November 10 that President Barack Obama was likely to sign the legislation.
The House of Representatives passed a similar version of the bill last week.
Obama vetoed the previous bill over provisions that forbade the White House from moving the remaining prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba to U.S. prisons.
But he appears to not be threatening a veto on this bill over the Guantanamo prisoner issue this time.
Among other things, the package appropriates $300 million to help Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed separatists.
That includes $50 million for lethal weaponry such as antiarmor weapon systems, mortars, grenade launchers, small arms, and ammunition.
The Obama administration has previously resisted calls to provide Ukraine with lethal aid, fearing that could provoke Russia.
The legislation also sets a deadline for the administration to tell Congress whether Russia continues to be in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear-capable missiles from Europe in the late 1980s.
The State Department’s most recent arms control report released in June said Russia was testing a missile system that violated the treaty.
Moscow, for its part, has denied the allegations and accused the United States of deploying banned weapons systems.
The legislation also includes $715 million for Iraqi forces battling Islamic state militants.
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Tuesday, November 10. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Ukraine Sets November 29 As Date For Mariupol Elections
Ukraine's federal parliament voted on November 10 to set November 29 as the date for local elections in the eastern city of Mariupol and the nearby town of Krasnoarmiisk.
The localities, which are on government-held territory in the turbulent Donetsk region, were supposed to participate in regional elections last month.
However, hundreds of polling stations in the localities did not open for the elections because of an unspecified "mistake in the ballots," the Interior Ministry said at the time.
Much of the surrounding Donetsk region and the neighboring Luhansk region are controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
The two self-declared separatist republics agreed last month that they would postpone their own elections until sometime next year.
The concession by the separatists was made after negotiations between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Paris.
No date has been set for elections in the separatist-held regions.