A former separatist begs for money:
DONETSK, Ukraine — The military commandant in this embattled city, Andrei Shpigel, was having an emotional discussion with officers and soldiers of his “DPR Army” on the veranda of a local restaurant. They were talking about the future of their self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Would it eventually become a peaceful region of Ukraine, or be annexed by Russia, or stay an independent but unrecognized separatist territory?
For Shpigel and perhaps 15,000 other rebel soldiers controlling this part of eastern Ukraine, a return of Kiev’s legal and military authority over their “republic” would mean potential prison terms and even worse: “mass physical elimination,” they agreed, nodding at each other. The commandant told The Daily Beast that DPR forces would never allow their self-proclaimed republic to reunite with Ukraine.
And yet, the struggle for quasi-independence appears to have lost momentum. “Whatever happened to the Russian ‘blitz’ that everybody was predicting a month ago?” I asked the soldiers. Then, Kremlin-backed rebel forces launched a violent offensive on Ukrainian positions in Maryinka, a village outside Donetsk city. It seemed that the clashes were going to escalate through the summer, much as they had done last year.
Here is today's map of the military situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
Our story on the alleged Russian officer captured driving a truck full of arms:
Ukraine's border-guards service says it has detained a Russian officer who was driving in a military truck packed with ammunition in the country's war-torn east.
The service said in a statement that the man acknowledged he was a Russian major in a rocket-artillery unit.
"He had no documents," said border guards spokesman Oleksandr Tomchyshyn. "He is responsible for ammunition supply. He said that while delivering the ammunition they had got lost."
Another man also detained late on July 25 in the truck identified himself as a pro-Russian separatist fighter.
The two men reportedly wore military uniforms without insignia.
The border-guards service said it found nearly 200 cases containing grenades and ammunition, including rocket-propelled shells, in the truck.
The vehicle was stopped about 45 kilometers southwest of Donetsk, the largest city in eastern Ukraine under rebel control.
It was reportedly driving from the direction of Olenivka, a town also held by the separatists, and halted only after Ukrainian border guards fired warning shots.
"We can assume that they took a wrong direction while driving, got lost and came on our checkpoint," military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanuk told journalists.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian military.
The self-proclaimed defense ministry of the rebel forces in Donetsk rejected Ukraine's claim, saying it "provokes irony."
Ukrainian state security agents have already questioned the alleged Russian major.
If he is confirmed to be a Russian soldier, his detention will lend weight to Ukraine's charges that Russia is directly backing the separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine and failing to honor a peace agreement signed in Minsk, Belarus, in February.
Moscow denies its regular forces are engaged in the conflict on behalf of the separatists, despite what Kyiv and Western governments say is undeniable proof.
According to the United Nations, the conflict has killed more than 6,400 people since erupting in April 2014 in Ukraine's industrialized, Russian-speaking east. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, Reuters, AP)