Ukraine SITREP June 24th, 17:10 UTC/Zulu: a watershed moment?
The Saker ■ When I heard this morning that Putin had asked the Federation Council to repeal the resolution on the use of Russian armed forces on the territory of Ukraine I was frankly baffled. Truly, I had not expected such a move. I had noticed yesterday that the so-called "consultations" (as opposed to "negotiations") between the Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov, a senior representative for the OSCE Tagliavini, Ukraine's second president Kuchma, Ukrainian Choice movement leader Medvedchuk and the Donetsk People's Republuc's Prime Minister Borodai, South-East movement leader Tsaryov and representatives of the Lugansk People's Republic had resulted in the Novorussian leaders agreeing to a temporary cease-fire, but I did not expect that the situation would change so rapidly. Let's recall what was going on just a few days ago. - How did we get here?
Andrew Korybko ■ Ethnic and cultural cleansing in Ukraine [...] What Koval has proposed to do to the citizens of Donbass is completely illegal under international law and characterized as a crime against humanity. Forcible deporting and transferring a population, imprisoning them for no reason other than their address, and specifically targeting an ethnic and cultural group is explicitly forbidden under Article 7 of the Rome Statute. Perhaps because Yatsenyuk and others in his administration believe the protesters in the east to be “subhuman”, they do not feel that “human rights” apply to them. Accordingly, these “sub-humans” won’t have the right to their former property as well (due to the forcible resettlement), so it is likely that their homes and businesses will be the “free land” that Kiev has promised to its militant henchmen deployed in the east.
VoR: Military helicopter downed near Slavyansk
Itar-Tass: Self-proclaimed Donetsk, Lugansk republics adopt act on unification