:-)
Here's our own recent story on the organization, "Under Fire In Ukraine, OSCE Questions Its Worth."
Irena Chalupa for Atlantic Council (Chalupa is a former Ukrainian Service director of RFE/RL):
[Colonel Igor] Girkin conceded in an interview with Svobodnaya Pressa (“Free Press”), an internet news site, that in April he expected a Russian takeover of the Donbas region to go as smoothly and bloodlessly as Russia’s just-completed seizure of Crimea, in which Girkin had taken part. “I planned to do everything like in Crimea, I hoped that everything would go according to the Crimean scenario. We planned to help local leaders establish popular rule, conduct a referendum and unite with Russia.” In June, Girkin complained in Donbas that he was unable to persuade significant numbers of Donbas men, especially the young, to join the war against Ukraine. Asked now why the Donbas conflict has not resulted in a popular, pro-Russian uprising, he doesn’t quite manage an explanation. Of one thing he is sure: that Russia has failed to give it enough support.
He's kidding, right? Right?!
From our News Desk:
U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden is due to arrive in Ukraine on November 20 for a two-day visit.
The U.S. ambassador to Kyiv, Geoffrey Pyatt, announced the dates for the "working visit" in a tweet.
The visit comes amid persistent tension over the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
A statement on the U.S. Embassy website said Biden and his wife will leave Morocco for Kyiv in the afternoon on November 20.
It said Biden will meet with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on the morning of November 21 and attend a working lunch with President Petro Poroshenko that afternoon.
Biden will attend a round-table discussion on anticorruption before departing for Istanbul.
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
Ukraine's prime minister has rejected a Russian call for direct talks between Kyiv and pro-Russian separatists, saying his government would not to talk to Moscow's "mercenaries."
Arseniy Yatsenyuk spoke at a government meeting after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was calling for "establishing stable contacts between Kyiv and Donbas aimed at reaching mutually acceptable agreements."
Donbas is a term for an industrial section of eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian rebels hold large parts of two provinces.
Yatsenyuk said in Russian, "We will not hold direct talks with your mercenaries."
He called on Moscow to "stop playing games aimed at legitimizing bandits and terrorists."
"If you want peace, fulfill the Minsk agreement," Yatsenyuk said, referring to a September 5 agreement, which Russia signed off on, that imposed a cease-fire and set out steps toward peace.