Kyiv Says Some NATO Countries Send Arms, Report Shines Light on Plight of …
Kyiv Says Some NATO Countries Send Arms, Report Shines Light on Plight of Russian Orphans
Plus, a Moldovan newspaper is threatened after an expose of a leading cleric, and Belarus isn’t the worst bully in the neighborhood anymore.
by Piers Lawson, Ioana Caloianu, Barbara Frye, and Anders Ryehauge 15 September 2014
1. Official: NATO countries begin Ukraine arms supplies
NATO countries have begun to supply arms to Ukraine to help its soldiers fight pro-Russian separatists in the east, Defense Minister Valery Heletey told a 14 September news conference, Reuters reports.
Valery HeleteyHeletey did not give details of the weapons being delivered or identify the countries involved, the BBC reports. A similar statement made earlier was denied by five NATO members, including the United States.
The defense minister was speaking as NATO troops started annual military exercises in western Ukraine and as fighting escalated between Ukrainian and rebel forces on the northern side of Donetsk, the EUobserver and The New York Times report.
The 11-day NATO exercises, which began today, will include “countering improvised explosive devices, convoy operations, and patrolling,” according to EU Observer. They involve more than 1,000 troops from Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, the UK, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine itself.
Reporting on the fighting around Donetsk, The New York Times says artillery fire could be heard throughout the night of 13 September and the next day, as Ukrainian forces at the airport and areas northwest of the city exchanged fire with separatists who control the city and most of the surrounding territory.
“It’s not a cease-fire – it’s full-on fighting,” a rebel fighter said, according to The New York Times. The paper says it is not clear who started the fighting or why, but there is little doubt that “the two sides are engaged in close combat.”
Each blames the other for cease-fire violations, the paper says, pointing out that while “large-scale battles of recent months” have not been repeated, the clashes on Sunday marked a significant escalation in hostilities.
In other developments in Ukraine:
- A team of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe came under fire near Donetsk on 14 September, RIA Novosti reports.
- President Petro Poroshenko faces a backlash from pro-European politicians in Ukraine over for his decision to postpone the implementation of part of an EU trade deal to avoid threatened Russian retaliation, The Wall Street Journal reports
- Russia is considering appealing to the World Trade Organization over the imposition of sanctions against it, RT.com reports.
- Russia will create a multibillion dollar “anti-crisis fund” next year to help companies hit by sanctions, Reuters reports.
- Crimea held local and regional elections on 14 September that critics have described as unfair and undemocratic, Reuters also reports.
2. ‘Full horror’ of suffering of Russian orphans is unveiled
Almost one in three children with disabilities in Russia lives in a violent environment in a state orphanage, a Human Rights Watch report says.
Many children live their entire lives in institutions, HRW says, where staff have been known to “beat them, inject them with sedatives, and send them off to psychiatric hospitals for days or weeks at a time to control or punish them.”
The 93-page report, “Abandoned by the State: Violence, Neglect, and Isolation for Children with Disabilities in Russian Orphanages,” concludes that many orphanage children often lack access to health care, nutrition, and opportunities for play. Furthermore they receive little to no formal education.
HRW urged Russia to provide support for such children to live with their families or in other family settings rather than in institutions.
The Russian government has developed a plan to decrease the number of institutionalized children, but “it is not yet clear how and to what extent regional governments” have moved on the plan’s imperatives, according to HRW.
There are no solid figures on the number of orphans in Russia, but the Red Cross estimates it to be in the region of 600,000 – with up to 95 percent of these being “social orphans” with at least one parent alive.
HWR says health care workers pressure parents to give up their children to the system.
Child welfare campaigners told the BBC last year that ambitious plans to reduce the number of orphans were running into strong resistance from institutions that benefit from state funding. An orphanage gets about 1.5 million rubles ($40,000) from the government annually for each child it takes in, the BBC reported.
“This system is extremely profitable for the corrupted bureaucracy. That’s why even the best practice in Russia experience of moving children to family care, is paralyzed and stopped by the system through the members of parliament,” children’s right campaigner Boris Altshuler said at the time.
HRW urged officials to devise a plan, with deadlines, to deinstitutionalize children.
“Until the Russian government and donors act, tens of thousands of Russian children may spend their lives between four walls, isolated from their families, communities, and peers, and denied the range of opportunities available to other children,” HRW researcher Andrea Mazzarino said.
3. Moldovan newspaper’s expose on church leader spurs threats
A Moldovan newspaper has received threats after publishing an investigation into the personal life of the leader of the country’s Orthodox Church, Radio Free Europe reports.
Metropolitan VladimirZiarul de Garda reported last week that Vladimir, Metropolitan of Chisinau and All Moldova, appears to live in a villa outside of Chisinau with a woman who is registered as the property’s owner, according to RFE. The newspaper also turned up a profile of the woman on a popular Russian-language social media site with photos of her and Vladimir “standing by the sea, on boats, eating, drinking, things like that,” the newspaper’s general director, Alina Radu, told RFE.
Vladimir, an Orthodox monk, is not permitted to marry and has taken a vow of celibacy, the news agency notes.
After the story was published, the newspaper received a call from a man identifying himself as the woman’s husband and calling from a number belonging to a security company she owns. The caller said the woman is his wife and “said he would deal with the newspaper ‘according to Chechen law,’ ” RFE reports. Police are investigating.
The newspaper says the church has not responded to repeated requests for comment on this story or a previous one that uncovered at least two businesses of which Vladimir is the registered founder under his lay name, Nicolae Cantarean.
Although officially secular, Moldova is predominantly Orthodox. The church maintains enough power that many politicians are afraid to cross it, although its Christian Humanist party typically does not fare well in elections.
4. Belarus is not ‘Europe’s only illiberal state’
The role of Belarus in mediating talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis gives the West an opportunity to rethink its view of the country, Ryhor Astapenia argues in the Guardian.
Alyaksandr LukashenkaWhile Minsk may “severely restrict freedoms,” it is “far from totalitarian,” writes Astapenia, who is an analyst for the Ostrogorski Center think tank.
For two years, hundreds of individuals (pdf), including government officials, judges, academics, intelligence officers, and prison administrators, have been under EU sanctions, along with dozens of companies. Among other things, Brussels is demanding an end to election rigging and repression of civil society, and the release of political prisoners.
Astapenia writes that Russian President Vladimir Putin has long had a more moderate reputation than his Belarusian counterpart, Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
“But now, they are more evenly matched than some might think,” he writes.
“The rise of Russian authoritarianism and the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine has fuelled the idea that if Belarus is a dictatorship, it is not the only one in Europe, nor is it the worst.”
In fact Russia’s human rights record is now comparable to that of Belarus, Astapenia contends, with “a rising number of [Russian] political prisoners and violent attacks against political opponents, the situation [in Russia] continues to deteriorate.”
More evidence that Belarus is not Europe’s sole dictatorship comes from Azerbaijan, Astapenia argues, with its roughly 100 political prisoners, a “dire” human rights record, and an “authoritarian rule of law.”
But while Belarusian and Azerbaijani authoritarianism is primarily the problem of those countries’ citizens, “Russia is threatening the entire region,” he writes.
For its part, Belarus wants to resolve fundamental differences with the United States and the EU, the country’s foreign minister, Vladimir Makei, wrote on the ministry’s website, according to the Azeri-Press Agency (APA), citing Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS.
The minister conceded that “certain fundamental problems” such as sanctions and “so-called “political prisoners” were an obstacle, but he said, “We have already taken many positive steps toward each other.”
The EU has budgeted 71 million to 89 million euros ($92 to $115 million) through 2017 to support social inclusion, environmental, and economic development programs in Belarus through its Eastern Partnership program.
“We decided to focus on areas where progress can be made and tried to solve some economic problems,” Makei wrote.
5. Russia, China, and Mongolia celebrate closer ties
Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed newly established ties between his country, China, and Mongolia, ITAR-TASS reports.
Speaking at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Putin said the “natural geographic proximity” of the three neighboring countries lends itself to implementing “good long-term projects in infrastructure, the power sector, and the mining industry.”
He added that their shared history during World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, is another source of mutual understanding.
While Russia and China “received the main blow from German fascism and militaristic Japan,” Mongolia was active in providing assistance to the Soviet Union.
“Even though the events of those days took place 70 years ago, they are very close to us today,” the Russian head of state said, according to ITAR-TASS.
In the past Mongolia has attempted a balancing act between Western countries and Russia. But China and Mongolia could offer some relief for Russia, which is buffeted by sanctions and isolation in the West over its role in the Ukraine crisis.
Last year, Moscow and Beijing agreed on a massive deal to export Russian oil to China.
In addition, Russia has provided Mongolia a counterbalance to China, with which it has had on-again, off-again relations. China occupied the mineral-rich Asian country in 1919 only to be ejected by Russian forces in 1921.
In a sign of the new warmth in relations, Putin has invited his Chinese and Mongolian counterparts to Moscow next year for celebrations of the 70th anniversary of victory in World War II, ITAR-TASS says.