Section: San Francisco Chronicle (USA)
Ukrainian lawmakers suspend military cooperation with Russia
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday voted to suspend military cooperation with Russia in a long-anticipated move signaling a further break in relations between the once-close partners. Kiev also produced what it claimed was fresh confirmation of involvement by Russian intelligence in sowing unrest in breakaway eastern regions,...
Ukraine lawmakers suspend military cooperation with Russia
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s parliament has voted to suspend military cooperation with Russia in a long-anticipated move signaling a further break in relations between the once-close partners. The five cooperation agreements scrapped Thursday by the Verkhovna Rada include one giving the Russian military transit rights to reach Moldova,...
Like Ukraine, Georgia is now torn between Russia and the West
[…] it finds people in this former Soviet republic walking a thin tightrope between the lure of business opportunities in the West and the threats from Russia, their neighbor to the north, which in 2008 helped two Georgian provinces break away into the Russian orbit and has warned Georgia not to cozy up to the West. Russian Foreign Ministry...
Ukraine open to hosting missile defense system
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A senior Ukrainian security official says his country is open to placing a ballistic missile-defense system in Ukraine to ward off the potential risk of attacks from Russia. NATO’s U.S.-led missile-defense plans envisage deploying elements of the missile shield around Europe for what it says would be defense against...
UN lowers global economic growth estimate amid modest pace
The U.N. is keeping a wary eye on upcoming monetary policy changes in the United States, where the Federal Reserve is “expected to start raising interest rates in the second half of 2015,” as well as uncertainty about the Greek debt crisis’ effect on the eurozone and possible “spillovers” of conflicts including...
Russian captured in eastern Ukraine says he is fine
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Representatives of Amnesty International and the OSCE have visited the two captured fighters whom Ukraine claims are Russian soldiers in a Kiev hospital. Ukraine and Western countries assert that Russia is sending soldiers and equipment to bolster the separatist rebels. …read more Source: San Francisco...
AP Interview: Georgia’s leader warns of Russian expansion
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Russia is poised to use its armed forces to expand further into former Soviet states, Georgia’s president said Tuesday, calling on the West never to accept any Russian aggression. Russia’s 2008 war with neighboring Georgia and its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 showed that Moscow is ready to exploit any...
Economic toll of conflict builds up for Ukraine
For average Ukrainians, the economic decline has caused a plunge in the value of the national currency, which in turn pushed inflation to highs of 60.9 percent, meaning the cost of living has soared far above modest increase in wages. Finance minister Jaresko trying to renegotiate debt terms with an array of creditors, part of an IMF rescue plan...
Ukraine accuses captured Russian soldiers of ‘terrorist crimes’
MOSCOW — Two Russian special forces soldiers captured in eastern Ukraine will be prosecuted for “terrorist crimes” committed during a mission of sabotage that killed a government soldier, Ukraine’s State Security Service chief said Monday. The capture of the two wounded men, one of whom is shown confessing in a video posted by a Ukrainian...
Crimean police detain Tatars commemorating mass deportation
MOSCOW (AP) — Police in the capital of Russia-annexed Crimea have detained demonstrators trying to take part in an unauthorized motorcade to observe the anniversary of the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars. In May 1944, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin accused the Tatars of collaborating with German forces and ordered their deportation, many to...
