Ukraine Day 814: LIVE UPDATES BELOW.
Yesterday’s live coverage of the Ukraine conflict can be found here.
- READ OUR SPECIAL REPORT:
An Invasion By Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine
_1462968442966_1462968444.jpg)
Ukraine’s first deputy interior minister, Eka Zguladze, who has overseen the creation of Ukraine’s new National Police force, is resigning.
The head of the Interior Ministry (MVD), Arsen Avakov, tweeted:
Translation: Eka is quitting as 1st deputy minister. The Cabinet of Ministers has accepted the decision on her request. Eka will make a statement, there is no need for rumors. Sincerely: GREAT THANKS for her work!
Translation: Eka Zguladze has accepted my proposal to contine working as part of the MVD reform team, heading a special group of advisers. We have a lot of work ahead of us!
Zguladze, who was the deputy head of the Georgian Interior Ministry from 2006 until 2012, when she served several months as acting minister, has yet to make an official statement herself.
She was appointed to the Ukrainian MVD in December, 2014.
During her tenure, she has overseen the introduction of a new Western-style, civilian police force, which is intended to eventually replace to the older, Soviet-style militsiya.
New-style police have key role in Ukraine – BBC News
When police officer Valerie Voloshchuk puts on her smart navy uniform in the morning, twists her blonde hair into a neat bun and fixes her pearl earrings, she never quite knows what will await her on patrol. The 27-year-old former lawyer and one-time air stewardess has been in this job only a few months.
Yesterday explosive devices in the Donbass killed one Ukrainian soldier and wounded three others, in addition to two power plant workers.
Two of the soldiers were wounded by a tripwire mine near the town of Popasnaya, in the Lugansk region.
It was in this same region that two workers at the Luganskaya Thermal Power Plant were wounded by a grenade blast, on the outskirts of Schastye. According to the Lugansk Regional Military-Civil Administration, the grenade had been fired from an under-barrel launcher some time earlier and lain undiscovered.
Fresh fighting was reported this morning by the ATO Press Center, according to whom Russian-backed fighters conducted 11 attacks yesterday.
Colonel Andriy Lysenko, military spokesman for the Presidential Administration, gave a briefing today:
Meanwhile the Russian-backed, self-declared Donetsk Peoiple’s Republic (DNR) announced today that three of their fighters had been wounded by Ukrainian fire within the last 24 hours.
According to the DNR, Ukrainian forces fired on separatist-held territory 154 times yesterday; 67 times with 82 and 120 mm mortars.
The DNR claimed that the majority of attacks were directed at the outskirts of Donetsk and Gorlovka.
— Pierre Vaux
Stanislav Krasnov, a former volunteer fighter and activist with the Azov Civilian Corps who is accused of spying for Russia, has ended his hunger strike after 28 days without food.
On April 25, Krasnov told a court hearing that he had stopped drinking water for the last three days. Later that day, he collapsed and fell unconscious, after which he resumed drinking.
Krasnov was arrested by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) on February 28. The SBU claimed that they had tracked his movements from a cache of explosives on the highway between Kiev and Kharkiv.
The SBU also produced audio intercepts, which they say implicates him in the management of Russian intelligence assets operating in Ukraine.
However Krasnov and his lawyers say that the charges against him are fabricated and that he was tortured during his arrest.
On Friday last week, Krasnov’s lawyer, Lyubov Skrizhalevska, told RFE/RL’s Crimean service, Krym.Realii, that her client was in a “critical, dangerous condition.”
Yesterday, Krasnov wrote a letter to his supporters, announcing the end of his hunger strike.
Translation:
Glory to Ukraine!
Today, 10.05.2016, I am ending my hunger strike, on the 28th day after I declared it.
I am doing this after considering calls from Hero of Ukraine Stepan Ilkovich Oblak and MPs Ihor Mosiychuk and Andriy Lozovoy.
But also, because of the real threat of the use of punitive psychiatric methods on me, when I won’t have chance to starve myself.
Mentally, I feel well. With God’s help and your support, hunger-striking wasn’t as difficult as I had expected.
Since Friday I have been in SIZO [pre-trial detenion], sitting alone in a cell for condemned men. The chekists probably think that this will somehow influence me. Nearby on this floor almost everyone is a fighter from a volunteer battalion.
I thank you for your support and send my huge respects.
— Pierre Vaux