Tests of Neptune cruise missile P-360 successfully completed in Ukraine

November 30, 2019 (112.com) Tests of the Neptune cruise missile P-360 successfully compete in Ukraine. During the tests, the missile performed a flight of several hundred kilometers, Defense Express reported citing Oleh Korostelev, General Director of the Ukrainian manufacturer Luch Design Bureau. "For the first time, we made an over 250 km desired track flight. That is, we can say now that the development of the aerial vehicle with the given characteristics has been completed," Korostelev said. Neptune uses a 150-kilogram high-explosive fragmentation (HE-FRAG) warhead and can be deployed on air, sea, and land platforms, though initial deployments are slated for Ukraine’s Azov Sea coastal missile defenses. The missile boasts a maximum effective range of just under 280 kilometers and is designed to destroy vessels with a displacement of up to 5,000 tons; frigates, generally; speed about 900 km/h, and the height of the flight above the crest of the waves - from 3 to 10 m.

The complex provides the simultaneous launch of up to 24 missiles (that is, a full volley of 6 launchers), with a launch interval in a volley of 3 to 5 seconds. The complex can be located up to 25 km from the coastline, and the required time for its deployment is up to 15 minutes. As it was reported earlier, missile test exercise took place in Odesa region, southern Ukraine.

Long-living scientist heads the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine for more than half a century

November 27, 2019 (UNIAN) A world-renowned outstanding scientist in the field of welding, metallurgy and metal technology, the President of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Borys Paton is celebrating today, November 27, his 101st birthday.

Borys Paton. Courtesy ZN.ua

He was born in Kyiv on November 27, 1918 in the family of scientist and founder of Paton Institute of Electric Welding in Kyiv, Professor Evgen Paton. His mother was a housewife. In 1941, he completed Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and became an engineer. Borys Paton joined the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine on November 18, 1958 and became its president in 1962. Currently, Borys Paton is the oldest president of the Academy of Sciences in the world. He made an incredibly important contribution to metal welding technology. Borys Paton created technologies for welding under water, in outer space and automatic welding of tank armor. 

In the early 1970s and 1980s Borys Paton had advised the Soviet authorities not to build the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It is well known, that Soviet politicians did not consider the prominent academician’s opinion. Now the whole world knows what catastrophic consequences this led to.

This is an aerial photo of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant taken two or three days after the 1986 explosion that spread clouds of radioactive dust across the western part of the Soviet Union and Europe.

(Volodymir Repik / AP)

Russia-made drone dropped a few cumulative grenades on Ukrainian position

November 26, 2019 (zn.ua) Ukrainian military men have shown consequences of the attack of the Russian unmanned aerial vehicle “Enix” (commonly known as a drone) on the positions of Ukrainian troops in the Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone. As one of the military men told, the drone was spotted due to its sound that resembles a sound of the electric mowing machine. Ukrainian military men fired at the drone while it was under their position but because of the bad weather it was not possible to take aim at it. The drone dropped six cumulative grenades RKG-ZEM and lost itself in the cloud. Luckily nobody was injured during this attack.

Shell hole left by cumulative grenade on the position of Ukrainian troops

Ukrainian reconnaissance reported that mentioned above drone “Enix” was manufactured in Kazan (Russian Federation) and long ago delivered to the combat area in the Eastern Ukraine.

Russian drone “Enix” on the launcher.

You may look a brief  Ukrainian video filmed on the position that suffered Russian drone's attack

U.S. State Department on Holodomor: Soviet Union could not break spirit of Ukrainian people

November 24, 2019 (UNIAN) U.S. State Department on Holodomor Remembrance Day has said the Soviet Union could not break the spirit of the Ukrainian people. "This November we honor and remember the millions of Ukrainians who perished eighty-six years ago during Holodomor, the catastrophic famine created by the barbaric policies of the Stalin regime," U.S. State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement by on November 23, 2019. According to her, through the deliberate seizure of Ukrainian land and crops and forced collectivization, the Soviet Union caused widespread starvation and death and immeasurable human suffering. "While this horrific tragedy was one of the most atrocious of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union could not break the spirit of the Ukrainian people," she said. Ortagus said Ukraine is again under attack today. "Russia's occupation of Crimea and continued aggression in eastern Ukraine has resulted in roughly 13,000 deaths. Even still Moscow attempts to manipulate and destroy the aspirations of the people of Ukraine. But Russia's malign campaign misjudges Ukrainians resilience and ignores their desire for a better future. That campaign is doomed to fail," she said. Morgan Ortagus stressed as people around the world unite in remembrance of the Holodomor's innocent victims, the United States reaffirms its commitment to a democratic and prosperous Ukraine – secure within its internationally recognized borders and able to shape its own destiny.

The Holodomor  derived from  "to kill by starvation" was a famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. It is also known as the Terror-Famine and Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, and sometimes referred to as the Great Famine or the Ukrainian Genocide of 1932–33. It was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country. During the Holodomor, millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government.

Reconnaissance unit of the German Air Force in Poltava

Many interesting pictures taken in Poltava airfield and downtown during the German occupation were found recently in the Germany State Archives. Later on it turned out that many of them were taken by officers and soldiers who served in the Long-Distance Reconnaissance Squadron 3(F)/10 (Aufklärungsgruppe 10 'Tannenberg') that has been stationed in Poltava from late 1941-till late 1942.

In early 1941, the 3rd Long-Distance Reconnaissance Squadron was converted to Ju-88. From June 1941 it participated in operation “Barbarossa” and flew reconnaissance missions for the 18th German Army in the northern sector of the Eastern Front. Many of these pictures were included in my new book “Poltava in the time of the German-Russian war 1945-1941. View through the lens of camera”.

Ground crew with a Motorenanwärmer 38 (heater for engines) working on the Ju-88 D "Habicht (Hawk)" of the 3. / (F) 10 (see emblem on the nose) at the Poltava airfield - March 1942

Snowy winter of 1941 on Poltava airbase.

Flooded Poltava in early spring of 1942.

Luftwaffe officers in Poltava city park.

What would parenting be like if fathers took six months of parental leave? Take a look.

November 19, 2019 (The Washington Post) The photos all show seemingly mundane moments of family life: A parent bathing an infant in a kitchen sink, another wrangling toddlers into a stroller, or coaxing a forkful of food into a daughter’s mouth. If the parents had all been mothers, the photos wouldn’t be particularly exceptional. But all of the images are of men — fathers who, given generous parental paid leave by their government, chose to stay at home with their child for at least six months.

The images are part of a photo exhibition called “Swedish Dads,” a series of portraits of 45 fathers on display through November at the Embassy of Sweden in Kyiv. The exhibition, by Swedish photographer Johan Bävman, has toured 65 countries, but this is its first time in Ukraine. As he debuts his photo series for Ukrainian audience, Bävman hopes to tell a story of gender equality in parenting, of a new perception of masculinity and what a society could look like if it truly prioritized both.

Yesterday the exhibition was shown at the Office of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine

Whether another bust of the King will come to Poltava some day?

November 14, 2019 After the reconstruction, a hall dedicated to the history of Cossack Ukraine was reopened in the Poltava Regional Museum. In the museum, visitors can see household items, weapons, uniforms, a Cossack boat, portraits of Ukrainian hetmans, maps and much more. Among the exhibits of this hall there is also a bust of Charles XII, created by Swedish sculptor and historian Bernhard Englund and delivered to Poltava in 2009 by a delegation of the Swedish Military History Society (SMB) headed by Einar Lyth. 

During the presentation of the new museum hall, I asked the deputy director of the Poltava Regional Museum Volodymyr Moklyak about the prospect of transferring the bust created by Bernhard Englund to the Museum of the Battle of Poltava.

 He replied that such a transfer in the near future seems to be not possible and it might be easier to order another bust of the Swedish king and deliver it directly to the Museum of the Battle of Poltava.

Over 6,000 Ukrainians in prisons abroad – Rada's human rights committee

November 12, 2019 (UNIAN) Around 6,180 citizens of Ukraine are currently serving their sentences in foreign prisons. "There are 168 Ukrainians accused of transit of illegal migrants in Greek prisons alone," says Dmytro Lubynets, the chairman of an ad hoc group and the Committee on human rights, de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories in Donetsk, Luhansk regions and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, national minorities and interethnic relations, according to the press service of the Verkhovna Rada's Office.

"Organized criminal groups very often invited them to allegedly work on cruise ships, but actually involved them in illegal trafficking. The terms of the punishment are from 20 to 280 years!" he said. "That is why we decided to create an ad hoc group from among representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the National Police, and the Ministry of Social Protection. It is designed to promptly develop concrete steps for the return of the Ukrainians home," he added. The group, which is seeking ways to return Ukrainian citizens serving sentences in Greece, has developed a plan of priority steps to start the process to bring them home. 

President Poroshenko starts re-registration of confectionery assets to his eldest son's name

November 7, 2019 (UNIAN) The fifth president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, has started the process of re-registering confectionery assets to the name of his eldest son, Oleksiy Poroshenko. The change in the Central European Confectionery Company (CECC) beneficiary ownership was recorded in the open register of national public figures, the Anti-Corruption Action Center said. As of November 6, Oleksiy Poroshenko was listed as the CECC's beneficiary. The data is also confirmed by Ukraine's State Register of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and NGOs. It states that control of the company was transferred to Oleksiy Poroshenko as a result of obtaining corporate rights of Dutch-registered Roshen Europe B. V., which owns an 85% stake in the CECC. Roshen did not deny the report, saying that only the beneficiaries knew about the reasons for the change of ownership, the Ukrainian media outlet Novoye Vremya said. 

The CECC is one of the key assets in the structure of Roshen Corporation and is the founder of a number of other enterprises. Simultaneously, there is a change in the beneficiary ownership of the following CECC-founded enterprises: LLC Roshen De Luxe, LLC CC Roshen, LLC Roshen-Volyn, LLC Roshen Svit, and others, which until recently had been declared by the fifth president. Petro Poroshenko remains the beneficiary of a number of other enterprises controlled by the CECC. As UNIAN reported earlier, Roshen Corporation, the largest confectionery manufacturer in Ukraine, reduced production at its factory in Lithuania and laid off two-thirds of workers.

A new book on Poltava's history has been issued

November 1, 2019 My new book "Poltava in the time of the German-Russian war 1941-1945. View through the lens of camera" written in co-authorship with famous Ukrainian historian Viktor Reveguk was presented yesterday in Poltava Regional Museum. Poltava Regional Council decided to time the publication of the book to coincide with the celebration of the 75th anniversary of liberation of Ukraine from the Nazi invaders. 

The book is dedicated to the insufficiently known period of Poltava's history when the city was under German occupation from September 19, 1941 till 23 October 1943. The main feature of this book is more than 250 photos taken during 1941-1944 that were found in many archives of Russian Federation, Germany, and United States. 

Many of these pictures were purchased due to financial support of Svenskt Militärhistoriskt Bibliotek. Unfortunately this book was published  in a small print run but nevertheless all who attended the presentation were able to purchase this undoubtedly interesting book.