Novorossia/ Ukraine update 74\2015.. far-right protesters demand end to Minsk deal

Ukrainian radicals stage massive march, demand end of ceasefire in E. Ukraine

Ukranian far-right protesters demand end to Minsk deal

Kyiv’s New Police: Some 2,000 new police recruits start work in nation’s capital

Kiev cops get ‘Police Academy’ style uniform

NATO provocations strain Russia’s relationship with West

Putin: West seeks to split Russian society with economic sanctions

France will have to pay for Mistrals

Ukraine rebels withdraw from key frontline village

My Day down a Donbass MineGraham Phillips

http://en.voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/6266-the-war-in-novorossia-online-07032015-chronicle.html

Roundup of the day for July 02-03, 2015
1. The situation over the last day in the DPR and the LPR.
2. OSCE observers will not go to the elections in Donbass without the consent of Kiev.
3. The United States condemned the DPR plans to hold local elections.
4. Verkhovna Rada to recalculate foreign currency loans at the old rate.
5. If not shelling, then cold: Kyiv will not give gas to Donbass.
6. Semenchenko can lose the parliamentary immunity.
7. Semenchenko threatens Kiev war criminals with the US and EU penalties.

http://en.voicesevas.ru/news/6270-lpr-militias-kiev-troops-getting-prepared-for-offensive.html

July 3. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops are getting prepared to stage an offensive and for these ends are concentrating engineering forces on the other bank of the Severny Donets River tasked to build boat bridges, Igor Yashchenko, a deputy chief of staff of People’s Militia of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), said on Friday.

“We have information about the presence of engineering troops on the opposite bank of the Seversky Donets River. These troops are tasked to build boat bridges. These fact testifies that the Ukrainian side is using the fragile truce to build up its forces and prepare an offensive,” LugankInformCentre quoted him as saying.

This fact, he said, arouse grave concerns, along with Ukraine’s reluctance to agree constitutional reforms with the LPR.

Yashchenko said People’s Militia in the LPR “has information that Ukrainian people who don’t want to fight against their brothers are leaving Ukraine’s territory to go to Donbas.”

“Over the past week, several Ukrainian nationals discharged from the army after the ‘anti-terrorist operation’ and who saw the real situation with their own eyes have sided with the LPR and want to join the LPR militias,” he said and stressed that unlike the Ukrainian army, the army of the Luhansk republic was 100% volunteer.

“We are ready to give a possibility to defend the interests of the republic’s population to all who can and deserves to be a servicemen of People’s Militia,” he underscored.

The Minsk accords were signed on February 12, 2015 after 14-hour negotiations between the leaders of Normandy Four (Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko) in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk. Concurrently, Minsk hosted a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement.

A 13-point Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk agreements in particular included an agreement on cessation of fire from February 15, withdrawal of heavy armaments, as well as measures on long-term political settlement of the situation in Ukraine, including establishment of working subgroups as priority tasks.

The ceasefire however has been repeatedly violated.

http://tass.ru/en/world/805807

http://en.voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/6269-two-ukrainian-traffic-officers-defect-to-side-of-dpr.html

Two Ukrainian traffic officers defect to side of DPR

MOSCOW, July 3 /TASS/. Two senior Ukrainian traffic officers, Vitaly Balbekov and Alexey Kobzar, who defected to the side of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said on Friday that they hoped to continue serving in the republic’s law enforcement bodies.

“We have come here with a single purpose to continue serving our people and our city,” Vitaly Balbekov told a news conference at the Donetsk News Agency.

He added that he and his friend Alexey Kobzar had applied for service to the Interior Ministry of the Donetsk People’s Republic. “We have asked its leadership about that. I hope they will be able to meet our request halfway. At least, they promised us,” Balbekov said.

Both officers used to be employees responsible for road traffic and the state of roads at the Ukrainian Road Traffic Inspectorate of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry for the Donetsk region.

“We came under the influence of our commanders who ordered us to leave Donetsk. They promised it would be two weeks. We found ourselves in Mariupol. Two weeks, a month and a year passed. Over that time we understood we had made a mistake and decided to return home to our native city where we were born, grew up and lived all our lives and where we have family and relatives,” Balbekov told journalists.

His fellow-officer, Alexey Kobzar, said the militias had received them well.

It’s not the first time that Ukrainian officers who disagree with the Kiev government’s actions switch sides and defect to the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. On June 22, Major General Alexander Kolomiyets, the former aide to Ukraine’s defence minister, defected to the side of the DPR. Prior to that, Oleg Chernousov, the former chief of the Luhansk customs, and the two brothers, Alexey and Yuri Miroshnichenko — both were Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service employees who worked at the Ukrainian embassy in Paris — had returned to Luhansk over disagreement with Kiev’s official policy.

http://tass.ru/en/world/805837