South Front Ukraine Crisis News 22-5-2015: Kiev STILL shelling civilians in E. Ukraine

    

Last night, maintenance party 28 of Kiev's forces started advancement in settlement Mariinka around the city Donetsk. Also, pro-Kiev militant attacked in the sector of Donetsk airport. City Donetsk, settlement Shirokino and town Gorlovka were hard shelled by artillery of Ukraine's forces. Witnesses report about causalities among civilians there. Furthermore, Kiev's military hit passenger-train around town Yasinovataya yesterday. 22 train carriages were burned. Meanwhile, according to Novorossian warriors' reports Kiev are concentrating military equipment including battle tanks, armored vehicles and artillery around town Dzerjinsk and settlement Shirokino.

Ukraine's parliament on Thursday backed a decree allowing the country to rescind its commitments outlined in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Social Charter. The decree was passed at second reading by 249 votes in the Verkhovna Rada, 23 more than the minimum required. Thus, now Kiev government forces and pro-Kiev militants won't violate Ukrainian law when they torture civilians and prisoners of war. Though, when is it stopped them?

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Kiev's decision to renege on its international commitments by refusing to guarantee protection of human rights in the zone of military operations in the east indicates "a criminal character" of the state, the top foreign policy parliamentarian in Russia's State Duma assembly said on Thursday, adding that Ukraine therefore undermined its positions in Europe's political bodies. "When a country weasels out of its obligations, this is simply an indication of a criminal character of this state," Alexey Pushkov, head of the International Affairs Committee at the Russian parliament's lower chamber, said in an interview with Vesti FM radio station.

The term "annexation of Crimea" will remain in the declaration of the EU Eastern Partnership summit in Riga, but a special position of Armenia and Belarus will be mentioned in it, a source in the Western delegation told TASS on Thursday. "The situation looks as follows now: the wording will remain, but a reference will be introduced to the position of countries that disagree with it during voting in the UN," the source said. The summit's participants in clause 4 of the document urge all sides to observe the Minsk agreements, express full support to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine and the Contact Group, and pledge to keep backing all diplomatic efforts of the Normandy format (Russia, France, Germany, Ukraine).