Ukraine Day 866: LIVE UPDATES BELOW.
Yesterday’s live coverage of the Ukraine conflict can be found here.
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An Invasion By Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine
Valentin Likholit, known by his nom de guerre “Batka” (“Father”), former head of the Aidar Battalion where Ukrainian soldier Nadiya Savchenko served, was arrested Friday, July 1 on charges of unlawful formation of armed persons, theft, looting, kidnapping of persons and stealing of their personal property and equipment, Gordonua.com reported.
His lawyers filed a petition asking that he be released to await trial under house arrest but it was rejected.
“Batka has been locked up for 2 months. There was a fight in the courtroom. They poured water on the judge. I saw how the police were giving weapons to some of those in plainclothes. Then people in balaclavas and civilian clothing, one of them armed with a machine gun, entered the courtroom. The cops said they were military spetsnaz.
There was another brief clash, after which the ‘balaclavas’ were removed from the building. If they were really from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, it’s not clear what they were doing in the building, in the center of Kiev.
An investigative operations group from the police arrived. The people’s deputies and fighters from the volunteer battalions announced the blockading of the courtroom.
I don’t want to make a judgement, but I will note that if the prosecutor’s office were as active with cases of collaborators such as Kazakov, then today’s incident might have been avoided. It’s offensive. Difficult. My poor country.”
“This is the session where the issue of the selection of the measures of restraint for Valentin “Batya” Likholet from Aidar will be decided.
The plaintiff is Severodonetsk Mayor Kazakov and his accomplices which infiltrated the ‘Russian World’ in the current capital of Lugansk Region and remained unpunished. The charge: ‘three tape recorders, three foreign movie cameras, three domestic cigarette cases, a suede jackets.’
Valentin Kazakov is a protege of the head of the Opposition Bloc, Yury Boyko.
Judge Kristin Gladun is conducting herself normally and in balanced fashon but it must not be forgottgen that she is the one who took Andrei Portnov off the wanted list and the GPU is investigating a criminal case involving her. That is, she is essentially on the hook. Yegor Sobolev says Batya was the commander of Nadezhda Savchenko. Savchenko did not come to the trial. Former Aidar battalion commander Melnichuk gave testimony against Batya, but that’s another story completely.
According to Gordonua.com, Igor Mosiychuk, an MP from the Radical Party said that supporters of Likholit from Aidar had decided to put up a tent camp on the Kreshchatik. “This could be the start of a new stage of the national revolution,” he said.
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
At 6:00 am, the ATO reported on its Facebook page that Russian-backed militants had fired 48 times on their positions including with artillery banned under the Minsk accord. In Luganskoye, 122-m and 120-mm artillery were used. The areas around Verkhnetoretskoye, Troitskoye and Avdeyevka, where 120-mm artillery was used, remained hot spots.
On the Mariupol line, 19 enemy shellings were recorded. Near Krasnogorovka, 120-mm artillery was used and ATO positions at Talakovka, Novotroitskoye and Beryozovoe were fired on. Lugansk Region was quieter, with one shot from a rifle near Popasnaya.