Ukrainian troops are in high alert again following the events of the past few days when Russia accused Ukraine is carrying out armed incursions into Crimea, that was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. The spice up the soup is the 25th anniversary of Independence of Ukraine on August 24, and Russia's parliamentary elections on September 18.
Meanwhile Russia has announced they are moving new air defence missiles to Crimea, that are designed to hit airborne target at the range up to 400 kms, and ballistic missiles at the range of 60 kms. Ukraine also claims some 40.000 Russian troops are massed on the Crimea-Ukraine border.
On the other hand Russian UN representative Vitaly Churkin said “There is chaos in Kiev. They don’t know what to do with Donetsk. The Minsk agreements are quite clear, but they have no political will to implement them. Instead of doing this, Kiev “distracts attention to other things,” he added.
"Events in Donbass in 2014-15 showed that the Kremlin tactic is to raise the stakes before negotiations. The main political question now is what will happen to the Minsk process. Will Russia break away from it or will it demand new concessions?" the Russian Vedomosti newspaper wrote. "Putin in his rhetoric has returned to the start of 2014. Once again, he does not deem the Ukrainian authorities legitimate." Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst in Ukraine, said he thought the Kremlin had its own revised peace plan for eastern Ukraine up its sleeve. "Putin will scare the West with the prospect of full-scale conflict with Ukraine," he said. "He is trying to increase pressure on Kiev to force Ukraine to accept a Russian plan to resolve the conflict in the east."
Ukraine has called the UN to gather in a crisis meeting to deal with the matter.
More than 9.500 people have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine according UN figures.
Without taking sides - war sucks. Always. Make love, not war people! - nor even trying to understand all this political nonsense, this blogger wonders how all this effects the forthcoming Eurovision song contest hosting and what must be happening behind closed doors both in Kiev and Geneve and EBU's headquarters, and if all this has something to do with the delays in the choosing the host city and venue. Propably not. If 2005 was a mess and almost drove EBU nuts it seems we are in a good way again..... back then it was only Ukrainian themselves involved though, now there's also Russia.
Russia that has apparently confirmed its intention to participate in the 2017 Eurovision..... They may need Sergey indeed to stop the booing starting again....
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