Sources in Moscow have admitted that a number of men captured inside Ukraine were serving Russian soldiers, but said they crossed the border by mistake. The admission comes as President Vladimir Putin meets his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, for talks in Minsk. The pair shook hands ahead of the talks today (26 Aug). "The soldiers really did participate in a patrol of a section of the Russian-Ukrainian border, crossed it by accident on an unmarked section, and as far as we understand showed no resistance to the armed forces of Ukraine when they were detained," a source in Russia's defence ministry told the RIA Novosti agency. However, since this statement it has been discovered that these soldiers were, indeed, paratroopers.
"This is not our war.” said Russian Sgt. Aleksei Generalov, one of the captured paratroopers in Ukraine.
At the meeting in Minsk, Putin urged Poroshenko not to 'escalate an offensive against pro-Moscow rebels', and threatened economic retaliation for signing a trade accord with the European Union. Poroshenko replied by demanding a halt to arms shipments from Russia to the separatist fighters.
All I can say is:
In terms of reports from Ukraine, reductionist representations of both sides are dominating as the violence continues. Ukrainians are angry about the violence, the invasion of the country and annexation of Crimea, but the majority just want to get on with their lives, free from violence or conflict. But on the fringes, a more militarized element of Ukrainian society has been preparing for a Russian invasion for some time. More here.
In the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament), Parliament’s speaker Oleksandr Turchynov and Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk left the Batkivshchina political party. This is the party led by Ukraine’s ex-Premier Yulia Tymoshenko. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov also left the party and claimed the reason for quitting was disagreements about coalition with other political parties on the eve of the parliamentary elections. Turchynov and Yatsenyuk have both come out in favour of a united, and unprecedentedly transparent, approach to the upcoming parliamentary elections.
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