May 15, 2018 - Ukraine’s security service charges RIA Novosti Ukraine editor with high treason
Ukraine’s security service charges RIA Novosti Ukraine editor with high treason
Investigators have issued official charges with high treason to the Editor-in-Chief of RIA Novosti Ukraine news agency, Kirill Vyshinsky, the press service of the SBU state security service said.
"The chief of the propagandist anti-Ukrainian media resource RIA Novosti Ukraine, Kirill Vyshinsky, has been informed of suspicions regarding a committed crime," the report said. "He has been detained. The criminal case for him cites charges under Clause 1 of Article 111 [High Treason] of the Ukrainian Criminal Code."
The SBU said the pretrial investigation continued.
The chief of the SBU press service, Yelena Gitlyanskaya said earlier on Tuesday Kirill Vyshinsky had been detained.
Somewhat later, reports spoke of searches in the Kiev office of the news agency and at the apartment of reporter Lyudmila Lysenko.
The press service said the SBU had exposed operations of an alleged network of media resources controlled by the Russian Federation, which Moscow believably used as instruments in its ostensible hybrid information war against Ukraine.
May 15, 2018 - Kiev accuses Rossiya Segodnya news agency of subversive activity in Ukraine
Kiev accuses Rossiya Segodnya news agency of subversive activity in Ukraine
Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office has accused the Rossiya Segodnya international news agency of subversive activities in the country’s territory.
"The investigation has found that the federal state unitarian enterprise Rossiya Segodnya in 2014 created the Russian news agency Novosti Ukraina without obtaining state registration, required by the Ukrainian law on news agencies, for conducting subversive activities against Ukraine. The agency was used for several years to fill the Ukrainian media space with distorted information about events in Ukraine and in various ways excused the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula by the Russian Federation," the Prosecutor General’s Office spokeswoman Larisa Sargan said in a statement in Facebook on Tuesday.
Sargan said the investigation also exposed the complicity of a number of Ukrainian citizens in "illegal activities by the aforesaid media resources in Ukraine," and gathered "considerable evidence proving the aforesaid illegal activities."
Sargan confirmed that a decision was about to be made whether the person who led the RIA Novosti Ukraine agency should be detained and charged with high treason.
Earlier on Tuesday, the security service SBU searched the agency’s office in Kiev and the homes of some of its staffers. The editor-in-chief, Kirill Vyshinsky, was detained.
May 16, 2018 - RIA Novosti Ukraine chief taken to SBU pre-trial detention center in Kherson
RIA Novosti Ukraine chief taken to SBU pre-trial detention center in Kherson
Chief editor of the RIA Novosti Ukraine news agency Kirill Vyshinsky, detained in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev on Tuesday, has been taken to the city of Kherson and put into a pre-trial detention center belonging to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), Spokesperson for the so-called ‘Crimean’ Prosecutor’s Office [part of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, based in Kherson - TASS] Tatyana Tikhonchik told TASS on Wednesday.
"The detained has been taken to Kherson and is currently kept at the Ukrainian Security Service’s pre-trial detention center,"
she said. According to the spokesperson, the prosecution intends to request the Kherson City Court decide on a measure of restraint later on Wednesday. Tikhonchik added that a court hearing was likely to be held on Thursday, May 17.
The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s spokesperson Larisa Sargan said that the prosecution would insist Vyshinsky be arrested.
"Vyshinksy has been charged with high treason under Article 111.1 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code… A preventive measure is yet to be worked out. The prosecution will insist that he be arrested," Sargan wrote on Facebook.
Meanwhile, Vyshinsky’s wife Irina has told Russia’s Channel One that her husband has some health issues and cannot not do without medicine.
"I am very concerned because my husband has rather serious health issues. A person in his condition cannot do without medicine," she said, adding she did not have immediate information about her husband’s condition.
On May 15, the SBU carried out a large-scale operation against RIA Novosti Ukraine staff members, accusing them of high treason. Vyshinsky was detained outside his home early on Tuesday. Soon after that, searches were conducted in the news agency’s Kiev office and press center, as well as in some journalists’ apartments. At the same time, the SBU issued a statement claiming that "a network of media structures, which Moscow used for carrying out a hybrid war" against Kiev had been exposed.
May 16, 2018 - Russia to do its utmost to secure release of journalist detained in Ukraine
Russia to do its utmost to secure release of journalist detained in Ukraine
Moscow will do everything it can to make sure that the journalist apprehended in Ukraine is released and other media workers are not treated that way, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.
"We voice strong protest over Ukrainian law enforcers’ raid against the Rossiya Segodnya news agency," she noted. "Russia will do everything it can to make sure that the Russian citizen is released and there are no more such actions against other media outlets."
May 16, 2018 - Kiev’s threats over new Crimea bridge diversionary ploy to duck domestic plight — diplomat
Kiev’s threats over new Crimea bridge diversionary ploy to duck domestic plight — diplomat
The Russian president opened the newly-built Crimean Bridge on May 15.
Ukraine’s statements over the opening of the Crimean Bridge are baseless and aimed at distracting Ukrainians’ attention from domestic problems, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.
The motorway section of the Russian bridge was officially unveiled on Tuesday, six months ahead of schedule, and opened for car traffic at 5.30 on Wednesday.
"Regretfully, this [Ukraine’s threats against Russia] have become a normal occurrence for them. I think that this is an attempt to make loud statements all the time to distract their own people from the problems that currently exist on the territory of Ukraine," she said.
Zakharova said that previous reports by Western and Ukrainian media, alleging that the Crimean bridge construction "is a fake and maybe even a result of some kind of computer graphics," demonstrate that "all this flow of hoaxes just cannot be trusted."
"If those Ukrainian politicians had not claimed from the very start that there will be no bridge and labeled it all as Russian propaganda, then we could have probably taken today’s statements seriously," the spokeswoman continued. "I think that one should simply pay less attention to what Ukrainian politicians say."
The bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland by road and rail, is the longest in the country and one of the largest in Europe. Its span stretches across 19 kilometers. The construction and installation of the bridge kicked off in February 2016. The project’s total value is almost 228 billion rubles.
The Crimean Bridge originates on the Taman Peninsula, runs through a five-kilometer dike area and the Island of Tuzla, then crosses the Kerch Strait and reaches the Crimean coast.
On March 16, 2014, Crimean authorities held a referendum on reuniting with Russia against the background of a protracted political crisis and a coup in Ukraine. Over 80% of voters participated in the plebiscite, most of them supporting the idea (96.7% in Crimea and 95.6% in the city of Sevastopol).
May 15, 2018 - Putin lauds Kerch Strait Bridge’s ‘historic’ opening as ‘a miracle come true’http://tass.com/politics/1004392Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the Kerch Strait Bridge opening was ‘an historic event.
’"A miracle has come true," the Russian leader said at a meeting and a concert on the occasion of opening the automobile part of the Crimean Bridge.
"I sincerely congratulate you with this remarkable, ceremonious and truly historic day in the full meaning of this word! It is historic because in different historical epochs, even during the tsarist rule, people dreamt of building this bridge, then returned to this in the 1930s of the past century, in the 1940s and the 1950s and, finally, thanks to your labor and your talent this project, this miracle has come true," Putin said, addressing construction workers.
"Thank you very much for that," Putin said.
The Russian president separately thanked the project’s organizers who "without any exaggeration put general state interests above their personal and group interests."The Russian president also expressed gratitude to army engineers, ecologists, archeologists, scientists, designers, engineers and workers involved in the project’s implementation."Over 10,000 people are working on this construction site while at the peak of the work it engaged more than 15,000 people, almost 220 enterprises in related industries and, in actual fact, the entire country worked for that facility," Putin said.Putin called the construction of the Crimean Bridge "a remarkable result that makes Crimea and legendary Sevastopol even stronger and all of us closer to each other.""This will help develop the economy of Crimea and Sevastopol with a new pace and with a new quality and raise living standards," the Russian leader stressed.
The Russian president got behind the wheel in the cabin of a Kamaz truck to lead a convoy of 35 vehicles along the 19-kilometer bridge.
CRIMEAN BRIDGE, May 15. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has inaugurated the automobile part of the newly-built Kerch Strait Bridge. He got behind the wheel in the cabin of a Kamaz truck to lead a convoy of 35 vehicles (dump trucks, cranes, cement trucks, tanker trucks and other equipment) along the 19-kilometer bridge towards the Crimean seaside city of Kerch. He invited the CEO of the bridge building company, SGM-Most, Alexander Ostrovsky, into the cabin to join him for the brief journey.'
Cameras set up along the route recorded the brightest moments of the historic ride.
At the other end of the 19-kilometer bridge, in Crimea, Putin attended a brief open air show.
The Kerch Strait Bridge will open to cars and public transport on Wednesday, May 15, 2018.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin behind the wheel of the lead vehicle, a Kamaz truck, during a passage of construction machines on the Kerch Strait (Crimean) Bridge
© Sergei Bobylev/TASS
© Sergei Bobylev/TASS
© Sergei Bobylev/TASS
© Sergei Bobylev/TASS
© Sergei Bobylev/TASS
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to a group of workers after driving a truck to officially open the Kerch Strait (Crimean) Bridge
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