The New Atlanticist blog subtitled this article: “A Reporter Escorts 31 Bodies Home to Russia, Their Names Kept Hidden in Death as in Warfare.” UBO subtitles it: “Further proof of Russia lies about its continuing support and control of the terrorist separatists operating in Ukraine.”

Analyst: “The situation with the Russian-Ukrainian border has become a scandal, especially with daily reports of separatist leaders crossing it freely and especially considering it’s been nearly two months since the first Russian soldiers invaded the Donbas region. The government has few excuses as to why it hasn’t been able to better fortify the border, despite its lengthiness. Improving the border’s security has become the first major test for the Poroshenko administration.”

“I could not help but smile as the train pulled away from the station, knowing that my friends were safe, and that I had one more place in Ukraine to be proud of.”

 

President Poroshenko is faced with building a government, jump-starting a crippled economy, pacifying areas where the rule of law has ceased (thanks to Russian-armed “separatists”), and negotiating with a Russian government that continues to mount a brazen campaign of lies and propaganda (the latest being Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s June 6 attempt to wrap Russian aggression in Ukraine in the mantle of a defense of Russian Orthodoxy) – and doing these things all at once.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry rejected Russia’s claim that the aid is of a humanitarian nature. “The trick of so-called humanitarian aid is nothing else than a veiled attempt to assist hired Russian terrorists,” the ministry said.

 

According to a March 2014 Levada Center poll, nearly 40 of Russians and more than 50 percent of Muscovites want Russia to follow a European rather than Eurasian course, despite all the anti-Western “hysteria” in the media.

 

Heavy military equipment and vehicles with Russian flags have already reached Donetsk

Not long ago, Vladimir Putin and his regime revived the Stalin-era term “national traitors” to describe any Russian who opposes the policies of the Kremlin as a way to isolate and perhaps ultimately punish them for this political crime. Now, he is resuscitating another Stalin-era category - “worker wreckers.”

 

In spite of claims from the Russian side, tanks and armored personnel carriers continue to enter Ukraine through border posts lost to pro-Russian separatist actions. Ukraine has to regain control of its borders or the battle to regain control of its sovereign territory will be lost to the terrorist thugs now controlling much of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.

 

Vladimir Putin appears to be deliberately setting out to test the new Ukrainian president early in his administration when the lines of presidential power are not fully established. We can only hope that Petro Poroshenko rises to the occasion and proves to the Ukrainian people that he can effectively lead a nation that is now clearly at war. Any Ukrainian who thinks about it by now has figured out that the Russian blather about “Slavic brotherhood” comes down to nothing more than a demand to allow Russia to dominate in all. The strength of the Ukrainian people has already been tested but appears likely to be even more severely tested in the days ahead.

 

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