When this God-damned war will be over?

Dear readers, probably this information will force somebody to look at the Russian-Ukrainian war with different eyes. This guy was born in Lviv in 1974. In 1996 he received an invitation to perform at Opera de la Bastille in Paris. In 1997 he graduated from the Lysenko Music Academy in Lviv and then was invited to the Paris Opera where he became an opera singer. Following the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war he returned to Ukraine and joined the fighters against Russian occupants as a member of the 7th Battalion of the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps of the Right Sector. 

He took the military call sign Mif, a reference to his favorite aria of Mephistopheles from the opera Faust. After the war he planned to continue his career in Paris. On 29 June 2016, at approximately 6 a.m. he was killed by a sniper shot near the town of Luhansk. His name is Vasyl Slipak.

Video showing Vasyl Slipak loading his machine gun and singing Ukrainian folk song.

Vasyl Slipak sings an Aria of Mephisto from Opera "Faust"

E.U. to extend Russian sanctions, amid signs unity is fraying

June 21, 2016 (Ukraine Today) European leaders insist resctrictions to be kept unless Minsk agreements fully implemented. The European Union is preparing to extend sanctions against Russiafor another six months this week, but what happens after that is uncertain as cracks in the bloc's unity have begun to show. The E.U. top diplomats are expected to agree to prolong the sanctions, which expire at the end of July, at a meeting in Luxembourg on June 21st, though E.U. leaders will not give them a formal blessing until their summit in Brussels next week.

To this point, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has firmly guided the bloc toward maintaining sanctions, keeping Russia-friendly members of her own government on the sidelines while convincing skeptical states like Slovakia, Hungary, and Italy to set aside their objections and go along. But Merkel can no longer hide growing evidence that the mood in Berlin is shifting in favor of Russia in what may be the first sign of a serious break in the European consensus.

Ukraine is sinking in garbage

June 11, 2016 Look at this awful video

https://youtu.be/Yh4vIYcdgNM

showing the biggest scrap heap in Europe located near the village of Grybovychi not far from Lviv. Day by day heavy garbage trucks have been delivering there tons of trash from all Lviv region. There was never any question of any sort of waste recycling. Now this scrap heap is covered with clouds of poisonous smoke that you can see at

https://youtu.be/T2O-n4ocuhE

It is not still clear whether it was an intentionally set fire or whether the garbage ignited by itself. Two fire fighters were killed by a big landslide caused by the fire and heavy rain. The height of the collapsed garbage hill was about 30 meters. To extinguish the fire local authorities were forced to call for firefighting aircrafts.

https://youtu.be/PIp80BBqvrc

But even after this fire is extinguished the problem of waste disposal remains a burning problem in our country. Not long ago a TV program dedicated to the so-called “Swedish recycling revolution” has been broadcast in Ukraine. Many Ukrainians learned that more than 99 percent of all household waste in Sweden is recycled in one way or another. This means that the country has gone through something of a recycling revolution in the last decades, considering that only 38 per cent of household waste was recycled in 1975. Many recycling plants using modern technologies were built across the country. 

Most Ukrainians never knew that Swedes separate all recyclable waste in their homes and deposit it in special containers in their block of flats or drop it off at a recycling station. But most impressive was the fact that Sweden now is not only recycling domestic garbage but is also importing tons of garbage from Norway.

Nato and Russia to discuss Ukraine

June 9, 2016 (BBC News Europe) Nato and Russia are to meet to discuss the Ukraine crisis, which has severely strained relations since Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014. The Nato-Russia Council will convene in the next two weeks to discuss the peace process in eastern Ukraine, as well as the situation in Afghanistan. But Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that it was not a "return to business as usual". Nato has moved to bolster its forces in its east European member states. The forthcoming meeting, Mr Stoltenberg said, was "the continuation of our political dialogue as agreed by Nato heads of state and government". "At the same time, there will be no return to business as usual until Russia again respects international law," he added.

The Nato-Russia Council was established in 2002. Meetings at ambassadorial level have not taken place since June 2014, although there has been other political dialogue. Nato announced last month that an extra armoured brigade would be deployed in eastern Europe, meaning a total of three will be there on a continuous basis.

General Philip Breedlove, the senior US commander in Europe, talked of "reassuring... Nato allies and partners in the wake of an aggressive Russia in eastern Europe and elsewhere". Russia is widely accused of covertly backing the rebels who now control much of eastern Ukraine after a bloody armed conflict with the government in Kiev. 

A US destroyer visited the Polish port of Gdynia on Friday

Late last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin described Nato's expansion as a threat to his country. A national security paper was updated to say that Nato's recent build-up of military potential around Russia's borders constituted "violations of norms of international law". Tension between Nato and Russia, which both possess huge nuclear arsenals dating back to the Cold War, has clouded international relations since the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine following the peninsula's disputed referendum on self-determination.

Russian troops preparing offensive to create land corridor to Crimea

June 2, 2016 (Uaposition) Russia is now preparing an offensive in order to create a land corridor through mainland Ukraine to the Russian-occupied Crimea, according to Deputy Secretary of National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Mykhailo Koval who addressed the participants of the meeting of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Seimas of Lithuania and the Sejm and the Senate of the Republic of Poland, an UNIAN correspondent reported. Koval noted that ”Russia violates the provisions of the Minsk agreements, and does not intend to comply with them.”

”The Russian troops are preparing for the resumption of active offensive operations in order to advance to the administrative border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as penetrate the land corridor to Crimea,” said Koval. He emphasized that international sanctions against Russia ”are effective, but not enough to force Russia to abandon the plans of aggression against Ukraine.”

The full article is available at: http://uaposition.com/latest-news/russian-troops-preparing-offensive-to-create-land-corridor-to-crimea-nsdc/

74 years ago USSR has blown up Dnieper Hydroelectric Station, which dam was the largest in Europe at the time of its construction.

Many strategically important dams and plants were dynamited by retreating Red Army troops in 1941 after Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station has been mined in advance in August 1941 by 157^th NKVD regiment. 20 tons of ammonal were used by miners under the command of Colonel Boris Epov.

Colonel Boris Epov

When two German divisions: 9^th and 14^th approached the city of Zaporizhia the order to set the station off has been given by the Red Army high command. The explosion has been set off at 20:15 August 18^th 1941. American journalist H. R. Knickerbocker wrote that year: “This way Russians have proved now by their destruction of the great dam at Zaporizhia that they mean truly to scorch the earth before Hitler even if it means the destruction of their most precious possessions”. The tidal surge killed many unsuspecting civilians, as well as Red Army officers and soldiers who were crossing over the river.

These pictures were taken soon after the dam was set off

When Zaporizhia was taken by Wehrmacht, it took 46 days for German military builders to repair the station. New electric equipment was delivered from Germany in summer 1942 and thus power generation was restarted. In 1943 the station was dynamited again by retreating German troops. The dam suffered extensive damage, and the powerhouse hall was nearly destroyed. Both were rebuilt between 1944 and 1949.