Russia Charges Crimean Tatar Official With Undermining Territorial Integrity
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has filed extremism charges against a leading Crimean Tatar official in the annexed Ukrainian region of Crimea.
Officials announced on January 30 that Ilma Umerov, deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, the community’s top executive organ, has been charged with "actions aimed at violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation."
Umerov is in Kyiv-controlled Ukraine. In March 2016, he made televised statements calling for Russia to return Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Crimean Tatars have complained of human rights violations since the annexation. The Mejlis has been outlawed by the Russian authorities.
On January 27, a Russian court in the Crimean city of Simferopol accepted charges of "disseminating extremist information" against rights lawyer Emil Kurbedinov, who has served as defense attorney in numerous cases involving Crimean Tatars.
About 15 percent of the population of Crimea is Crimean Tatar.
With reporting by Interfax and TASS
Anxious Ukraine Risks Escalation In 'Creeping Offensive'
By Christopher Miller
NOVOLUHANSKE, Ukraine -- The way Ukrainian commander Vyacheslav "Eagle-Owl" Vlasenko described it, his troops snuck into this rustic town of 4,000 people in broad daylight and took it -- and a valuable pig farm -- without firing a shot.
Concealed in trucks that looked like those used by the pig farm, the troops' advance into Nuvoluhanske -- which had been part of the gray zone, a ravaged no-man's land between the warring sides -- took their Russia-backed separatist foes by surprise.
"We used civilian trucks and a sort of maskirovka," Vlasenko, clad in fatigues, told RFE/RL at the command-and-control center of the Ukrainian Army's 46th battalion in nearby Zaitseve on January 23. It was a reference to a deception tactic widely credited to Russian military planners and employed by the Kremlin when it seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
"It was 1 p.m." Vlasenko said. "They figured out what had happened at 8:45 p.m. and began firing artillery, striking near our defensive positions on the east side of the pig farm."
Vyacheslav "Eagle-Owl" Vlasenko, commander of Ukraine's 46th battalion: "They figured out what had happened at 8:45 p.m. and began firing artillery."
Frustrated by the stalemate in this 33-month war of attrition, concerned that Western support is waning, and sensing that U.S. President Donald Trump could cut Kyiv out of any peace negotiations as he tries to improve fraught relations with Moscow, Ukrainian forces anxious to show their newfound strength have gone on what many here are calling a "creeping offensive."
Poroshenko Cuts Short Germany Trip Amid Renewed Ukraine Fighting
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has cut short a working visit to Germany to oversee an emergency situation that has developed around the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka.
Officials said on January 30 that there was heavy shelling from Russia-supported militants in Avdiivka, near the city of Donetsk overnight.
At least 12 people were reported killed, including three Ukrainian soldiers in the latest violence, despite the fact of an "indefinite" cease-fire was agreed last month.
A spokesman for Poroshenko told Interfax that the situation around Avdiivka has become "an emergency situation verging on a humanitarian disaster."
Earlier, Poroshenko met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, telling her that the West should extend and strengthen sanctions against Russia if there is no progress in implementing the Minsk agreements on resolving the conflict.
Poroshenko also discussed the conflict in eastern Ukraine with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel
The conflict between Ukrainian government forces and the separatists has killed more than 9,750 civilians and combatants in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.
Based on reporting by BBC, RIA Novosti, and Interfax
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Monday, January 30, 2017. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.