As part of lawsuit against Russia, Ukraine demands that ban on Crimean Tatar Mejlis be lifted
Ukraine demands that Russia stop the persecution of the Crimean Tatars and restore the activity of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People as part of Kyiv's lawsuit against Moscow that was filed with the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
“We demand that Russia stop the violations of the International Convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination and to take measures to protect all ethnic groups in the occupied Crimea, in particular, Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians. …
Ukrainian Foreign Minister and OSCE head discuss expanding Special Monitoring Mission in the Donbas
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin, and the Acting Chairman of the OSCE, the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Integration, Sebastian Kurz, discussed the strengthening of the Special Monitoring Mission of the OSCE in the Donbas.
“We talked about the importance of strengthening the mission both in terms of its personnel and in a technical sense,” Klimkin stated at a joint press conference with Kurz in Kyiv. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister also noted that after the …
Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine announced plans to 'return' the Donbas in 2017
The Ukrainian Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, urged border guards to prepare for the "de-occupation of the Donbas" as soon as this year.
"In 2017, our goal is to attain the internationally recognized State border in the Donetsk Basin, and in the future, of the Crimea, as well. This process will involve the police, guards, and judicial authorities, but the border guards will be the first to act," he said, according to UNIAN.
According to the head of the Interior Ministry, the border guards …
Polish diplomats were not let into Russia through the border with Belarus
Border guards turned away the Polish diplomats, who were trying to cross the Russian-Belarusian border in the Smolensk region.
The incident occurred at the Krasnaya Gorka checkpoint. According to the FSB border management of the region, two cars with diplomatic license plates traveled from Belarus to Russia and were stopped at the border between the two countries on a Moscow-Minsk highway.
A border guard spokesman, Alexander Laznenko, explained that there are no border control staff that …
Ukrainian experts react to new IMF requirements
On January 16, Evropeyska Pravda newspaper published a document that it calls the latest version of the memorandum on cooperation between Ukraine and the IMF. To receive the next billion-dollar tranche, Ukraine must meet 12 requirements, seven of which are new. The requirements include carrying out pension reform by raising the retirement age to 63 years, selling the land, abolishing the simplified tax system, dealing with the registry of the recipients of social payments and other unpopular …