Pro-Russian Rebels Step Up Attacks in East Ukraine - BusinessweekPro-Russian separatists increased t...

1. Pro-Russian Rebels Stepping Up Attacks in East Ukraine
Pro-Russian Rebels Step Up Attacks in East Ukraine - Businessweek
Pro-Russian separatists increased the intensity of attacks on Ukrainian troops in the country's
embattled east, a military spokesman said, as the U.S. sent anti-mortar radar systems to aid the fight
against rebels.
The step-up in violence in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions left four government soldiers and five
civilians dead and 10 wounded in the past 24 hours from mines and shelling, Ukraine defense
spokesman Andriy Lysenko said today in his daily briefing from Kiev. The rebels also suffered "heavy
losses" during a failed assault at Donetsk Airport, he said, without elaborating on casualties among
the attackers.
"Terrorists continue to ignore the principles of humanitarian law and international conventions by
placing antipersonnel land mines near civilian areas," Lysenko said. "Casualties from such explosives
are comparable with casualties caused by shelling."
Leaders from the European Union and the U.S., including Vice President Joe Biden, accuse Russia of
not abiding by a September truce signed in Minsk, while Ukraine says Russian troops and vehicles
continue to cross the border in the east. Russia denies it's fomenting the war, saying the U.S. and
EU are responsible because of their support of the Kiev government, which came to power after
former President Viktor Yanukovych, a Kremlin ally, was ousted early in the year.
Border Shelling
Lysenko said Russia continues to shell Ukraine from across the border and is launching drones to
monitor Ukraine government troop positions. He also told reporters that 20 Russian military vehicles
crossed into the country in the past day.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the U.S.'s role in the conflict is part of a global plan to
hem in Russia and implement regime changes where possible.
U.S. strategy is "directed, not at the military defeat of the enemy, but more at changing regimes in
countries carrying out politics that Washington doesn't like," Lavrov said today at a Council on
Foreign and Defense Policy assembly in Moscow. "It uses financial pressure, economic pressure" and
"surely uses informational and ideological influence, supported by financed non-government
organizations."
Russia is readying another convoy of humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine and will leave "when
ready," TASS reported, citing Vladimir Stepanov, the deputy head of the Russian Emergencies
Ministry.
Radar Systems
Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters yesterday that the U.S. military has
delivered the first three of 20 light-weight radar systems that would detect and warn of incoming

2. mortar fire. U.S. personnel will begin training Ukrainian counterparts in mid-December to operate
the systems, Warren said, according to the U.S. Defense Department's website.
The conflict has intensified since rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk held elections earlier this month,
which Biden condemned during his Kiev visit yesterday with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
He also said the U.S. wouldn't accept Russia's March annexation of the Crimea peninsula.
"They were not democratic elections," Biden said yesterday. "They were a Kremlin-orchestrated
farce. Let me say as clearly as I can: America does not and will not recognize the Russian occupation
and annexation of Crimea."
Poroshenko joined other Ukrainian leaders in commemorating the 1930s famine that in on Nov. 28,
2006, lawmakers recognized as a genocide because millions of Soviet Ukrainians starved to death,
blaming the policies of then-Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The genocide decree was signed by former
President Viktor Yushchenko.
Ukrainian Famine
Poroshenko today likened the events in the east with the earlier famine, saying that Ukraine suffered
then because it wasn't a self-standing nation as a member of the Soviet Union and there was no
national army to protect Ukrainians' interests.
"Ukrainian peasants were the keepers of the national spirit of Ukraine, and it was against them that
the most dreadful weapon of killing by starvation was used," he said at a memorial obelisk to the
famine on the bank of the Dnipro River.
"The spiritual descendants of Stalin have not dissolved themselves in the sea of history," Poroshenko
said. "They are celebrating in a bloody ball in the temporarily occupied territories."
Yesterday, he vowed to push ahead with reforms that have also kept hobbled development as the
country works to form a new coalition government.
Reforms Now
"Reforms must be started immediately," he told state television. Ukraine's "aim is to reach European
standards of living gradually so that in 2020 we will be able to apply for EU membership. That is
what the draft coalition agreement is about."
Meanwhile, the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic said it will ship debris from the downed
Malaysia Air (MAS) liner to Kharkiv tomorrow at 10 a.m. local time.
The debris is packed into 11 rail cars, while the train will pull another passenger coach for officials
from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Netherlands.
To contact the reporter on this story: Aliaksandr Kudrytski in Minsk, Belarus at
akudrytski@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net; Balazs
Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net James Amott

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