Football fans of Zenit, St. Petersburg (Russia) unfurl a banner in
support of Ukraine (words from the Ukrainian national anthem: Ukraine has not
died: not her glory, nor her freedom).
Ukraine’s military is
bankrupt. There are no car
batteries available for the military vehicles. The Ukrainian government,
scrambling for funding, has found a regional oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky, to contribute
money (several millions) to provide essentials for the Ukrainian military. What
is more, the US may help, but assembling the money, according to the US embassy
in Kyiv, will take weeks.
Meanwhile Russian
troops continue to grow in numbers on Ukraine’s borders, even though Moscow
claims to have ended military exercises. The Russian soldiers are not withdrawing
to their headquarters.
People in Crimea are continuing to be beaten, abducted and tortured by
militants. Ukraine continues to ask for international pressure on Moscow. Late today, the leader of the Muslim minority said
that Crimea's indigenous Tatars are considering their own referendum on whether
to be part of Ukraine or Russia.
In the political arena,
in Kyiv the Prime Minister, Yatsenyuk, announced that a new Constitution of
Ukraine will be presented to Parliament on April 15. The new constitution will include
a large package of reforms. Parliament insists that with this constitutional
change there must be substantial reform of local governments.
In other news, Obama has admitted that it looks like Putin is planning
more intervention in Eastern Ukraine.
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