Russia Says Air Units Deploying South To Ashuluk For Drills
Russia’s Defense Ministry says the first phase of joint air-defense exercises by the Commonwealth of Independent States began on August 18.
The ministry says troops from 20 air-defense and missile-defense units in the Moscow region have been put on high alert for the CIS Combat Commonwealth 2015 exercises, which are schedule to continue until September 11.
The ministry says the exercises involve more than 1,000 servicemen as well as surface-to-air defense missile systems, fighter jets, assault attack helicopters, aircraft used for close air support in ground attacks, and military transport planes.
The ministry says that after the first phase of the exercises are completed, the troops and military hardware will be redeployed to the Ashuluk training range in southern Russia’s Astrakhan region.
Ashuluk is about 500 kilometers from Russia’s border with eastern Ukraine.
Troops from five other CIS countries are taking part in the military drills -- Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia.
Troops from other countries are participating as observers.
Based on reporting by Interfax and TASS
The Ukrainian public organization Social Boost and the Development Program of the United Nations have created a website and apps for the ReDonbass project, which allows for monitoring and accessing information about the destruction of residential buildings and social and economic infrastructure as a result of hostilities in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.
Any registered user can upload data, which will then appear on a map.
According to the information available on the website at the moment, in two war-torn regions there are 207 completely destroyed facilities and 348 that require repair.
Since the launch of the project, only 21 facilities have been fully restored.
An excerpt:
The war in eastern Ukraine is a war of trenches and shelling and of men who are tired of both.
In Pisky, a village on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk, a contingent of Ukrainian army soldiers -- 7th Company of the 93rd Brigade -- holds a small section of the front. Opposite their positions are Russian-backed separatists who wage their war from trenches of their own. During the day it is mostly quiet, an errant shell on the hour usually reminding those on the line that the war is waiting for darkness.
At night, the fighting starts when the air cools, and it doesn’t stop until an hour before sunrise. This is the war in Ukraine.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
Russian Police Seize 470 Tons Of Contraband Cheese Products
Russian police say they have arrested six people on charges of running an international smuggling ring that brought contraband foreign cheese products worth about 2 billion rubles ($30 million) into Russia.
Police in St. Petersburg say they also seized 470 tons of materials used to produce cheese, along with counterfeit labeling equipment.
Authorities were enforcing a 2014 Kremlin ban on Western cheese and other agricultural products that was imposed in retaliation for U.S. and European Union sanctions over Russia’s role in Ukraine’s conflict.
In recent weeks, in tacit acknowledgment that the ban has been widely violated, Russia’s agricultural oversight agency Rosselkhoznadzor has been publicizing the destruction of tons of contraband food.
Televised images of cheese being bulldozed by Russian authorities has stirred up anger among ordinary Russians suffering from economic hardships that have worsened as a result of the international sanctions.
Based on reporting by AP and Interfax
In today's Daily Vertical, RFE/RL's Brian Whitmore looks at a possible false-flag operation being planned in Ukraine:
