Kyiv, Moscow agree to new cease-fire at start of school year:
By RFE/RL
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has proposed a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine starting on August 23 at the beginning of the school year and got unanimous support from Russia, Germany, France, and the United States.
The proposal was made late on August 22 in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancelor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron, who all voiced their strong support for a lasting cease-fire to allow children in eastern Ukraine to attend school, the Kremlin and Poroshenko's press service said after the call.
The cease-fire will be announced on August 23, according to the Kremlin and Poroshenko's press service. Macron's office and the German cabinet office also issued statements announcing and supporting the cease-fire.
Poroshenko's office said the leaders hope the truce "will lead to sustainable improvement of the security situation to benefit schoolchildren and the entire civilian population of Donbas."
Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy for efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine, had earlier expressed his support for the proposal in comments to the Baltic News Service as he visited Lithuania on August 22. Volker is due to meet with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on August 23.
The cease-fire for the back-to-school season "seems like a very good idea. We would obviously fully support that and hope the sides could do that," Volker told the news service.
Volker also commented for the first time on his meeting on August 21 with Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov, in which Surkov had claimed the two discussed some "fresh ideas" for achieving peace in Ukraine.
"Where I think we agreed is that the current situation, the status quo, is not good for anybody," Volker said in the Baltic interview. "What we need to do is to take a fresh look at how to increase security in Ukraine for the people that live there."
Volker will be joined on his visit to Kyiv on August 23 by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
Poroshenko announced his plan to call for the cease-fire at a ceremony opening a renovated musical theater in Syevyerodonetsk in the Luhansk region on August 22. He said he wanted to demonstrate Kyiv's desire for peace.
Several cease-fire deals have been announced and fizzled since Russia-backed separatists seized parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which border Russia, in 2014. (w/AP, Reuters, AFP, TASS, KUNA, Interfax)
U.S. sends first coal shipment to Ukraine to bolster energy security:
By RFE/RL
The United States has sent its first shipment of anthracite coal to Ukraine from the U.S. port of Baltimore under a deal designed to increase Ukraine's energy security.
Pennsylvania-based XCoal Energy and Resources signed a contract with Ukrainian state energy company Centerenergo on July 31 to provide 700,000 tons of anthracite coal in the next few months.
The deal followed talks by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration in June.
The first shipment of 62,000 tons is expected to arrive in Odesa’s Yuzhnyy port in three weeks, Voice of America reported.
Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Valeriy Chaly, at a launching ceremony in Baltimore on August 22, emphasized the importance of the deal for Ukraine’s energy security.
Most of Ukraine’s anthracite coal, which is the only fuel that can be used by several of its power plants, in the past came from parts of the Donbas that are now controlled by Russia-backed separatists.
Since the conflict in eastern Ukraine broke out in 2014, Kyiv has sought alternative suppliers of coal for electricity generation.
Ukraine's government cut off deliveries of coal from separatist-controlled areas in March, and has been struggling to meet its energy needs since then.
"We appreciate our American friends' support. I'm proud that in the time of war our nations create jobs, create opportunities," Chaly said.
Exports to Ukraine are part of Trump's plan to turn the United States into an energy-exporting superpower, putting it in direct conflict with Russia in Eastern Europe, where Moscow is currently the dominant energy supplier.
Trump's goal is to help European countries increase their energy security while reviving jobs lost by U.S. coal miners under Obama administration policies that heavily favored cleaner fuels such as natural gas, wind, and solar power.
For Eastern European states such as Lithuania and Poland, which are heavily dependent on Russian natural gas, Trump has offered to ship liquefied U.S. gas by tanker ships.
This week, Lithuania is expected to receive a first tanker delivery of liquefied gas from the United States. (w/Kyiv Post, Interfax)
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Tuesday, August 22, 2017. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.
Ukraine Rejects Claims It Supplied Rocket Engines To North Korea
By RFE/RL
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council has rejected reports that Kyiv supplied missile technology to North Korea, saying that such claims amounted to Russian disinformation.
The council on August 22 published the results of its investigation into the alleged sale of missile technology, including the RD-250 rocket engine, from Ukrainian state-owned plant Pivdenmash to North Korea.
Oleksandr Turchynov, the council's chief, reported the results of the investigation to President Petro Poroshenko on August 22, the council said in a post on its website.
The council concluded that Ukraine did not supply any missile technology to Pyongyang, Turchynov said in his report. The council has "unanimously come to the conclusion that Ukraine was not involved in the development of North Korea's ballistic-missiles program," Turchynov said.
It said Ukraine had stopped producing RD-250 rocket engines in 1991 and completely discontinued the production of this engine type in 1994.
The last batch of RD-250 rocket engines was exported to Russia before 2008, Turchynov said.
The council established a team of interagency investigators to look into claims made in a New York Times article earlier this month that Ukraine had helped North Korea with its missile program by providing advanced rocket engines.
The council concluded that the American newspaper had been the victim of Russian disinformation.
The August 14 article, titled North Korea’s Missile Success Is Linked to Ukrainian Plant, Investigators Say, said Kyiv had aided North Korea in developing its nuclear weapons delivery system.
The allegations were based on a study by missile expert Michael Elleman published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank.
Elleman’s study, as well as unnamed sources in U.S. intelligence, said that the rocket engines -- identified as RD-250s -- “likely” came to North Korea from Ukraine's Yuzhny machine-building plant known as Pivdenmash in Ukrainian or Yuzhmash in Russian.
Turchynov said that an “existing state export control system excludes any possibility of the transfer of military and dual-use goods" to countries under UN Security Council sanctions, such as North Korea.
Thirty RD-250 rocket engines and 10 RD-262s (a modified version of the RD-250), manufactured in 1991, were exported to Russia between 1992 and 2008, Turchynov said in his report.
Reports of the detention and conviction of North Korean spies for an attempt to steal missile technology papers from Ukraine in 2012 were not confirmed.
"Documentation for the production of missile technology and components is reliably stored at specially equipped premises, which is confirmed by the relevant authorities of Ukraine," Turchynov said.
The interagency investigation concluded that Russian is running a disinformation campaign intended to deflect suspicions about Moscow's potential participation in Pyongyang's military program and discredit Ukraine.
"The Working Group considers the article in The New York Times of 14 August 2017 to be a tactic of obfuscation and distraction of the international community's attention from the possible participation of the Russian Federation in North Korea's rocket program," Turchynov said in his report.
Poroshenko, commenting on the report, said he had instructed the Foreign Ministry to put together a group of experts and take the issue to the UN Security Council.