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Ukraine Brings Back Military Conscription, Arrests Russian Defense Attache
[AnNahar] Ukraine has juggedPlease don't kill me! the Russian defense attache in Kiev and decided to bring back military conscription with immediate effect to deal with a spreading pro-Moscow insurgency in its east.
Ukraine's parliament voted on April 17 to "recommend to the acting president to restart conscription into the Ukraine armed forces without delay" in order to "bolster Ukraine's defense capabilities in connection with aggression from the Russian Federation." Ukraine scrapped compulsory military service for young men only this year, under a law introduced in 2013 by Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin-friendly president who ended up fleeing mass pro-Western demonstrations two months ago. Ukraine currently has 130,000 personnel in its armed forces. With reserves, this could be boosted to around 1,000,000. The move came after Turchynov said the Western-backed authorities in Kiev were "powerless" to stop pro-Russian separatists in the east from taking over public buildings. The West and Kiev believe that the unrest is being fomented by Russia in a bid to destabilize the former Soviet Republic ahead of planned presidential elections on May 25. In another dramatic development, Kiev overnight ordered out a Russian diplomat arrested for espionage, risking a tit-for-tat response from Russia. Quoting a government statement, local media reports said Wednesday that Ukraine has arrested the Russian defense attache in Kiev, accused him of spying and said he must leave the country. "The defense attache of the Russian embassy in Ukraine is declared persona non grata," said the statement, adding that the unnamed official had been caught in the act and "arrested." Also on Thursday, the Kremlin revealed that German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... on Sunday asked Russian President Vladimir Putin  ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...to help free a team of OSCE observers that had been captured in Ukraine. "Angela Merkel made a request to help facilitate the release of military observers from a number of European countries including Germany that were tossed into the calaboose in the southeast of Ukraine," the Kremlin said following phone talks between the two leaders. "Both sides noted the importance of utilizing the mediating potential of the OSCE across Ukraine to the maximum degree." Putin for his part reiterated Moscow's calls for Kiev to pull back troops from the rebel-held east. "Vladimir Putin stressed that the most important thing today is to withdraw military units from the southeastern regions, stop violence, to immediately launch a wide national dialogue as part of a constitutional reform with the involvement of all regions and political forces." The Kremlin said the two leaders agreed to speak again shortly. Posted by: trailing wife 2014-05-02 |
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