The rain seems to be abating. Milder weather is forecast for the next few days. This is good news, as we intend to go to the countryside for Easter.
In the east, all is calm, after yesterday’s battle for the military airfield in the Donetsk region. Or, at least, no information is getting through. More taped conversations involving separatists – talking to each other, and to Moscow – have been published online by the SBU. The name Yevgeniy Fyodorov keeps coming up. This State Duma deputy became famous by declaring that the late Russian rock star, Viktor Tsoy, collaborated with the CIA during the Soviet era, and that the American secret services, assisted by Hollywood professionals, wrote songs for him aimed at causing the decadence and ruin of the Soviet Union. In the mind of Fyodorov, the song most responsible for triggering the collapse of the USSR was entitled ‘We Demand Changes’.
On the road out of Crimea, border guards arrested four young people – one boy and three girls – who were transporting money for Donbas: wages or financial aid intended for the separatists, almost two million hryvnas in total.
Russian television showed images of a helicopter hit by rocket-launcher fire, claiming that the separatists were shooting down Ukrainian helicopters and aeroplanes. This video has been shown for the past month, and it turns out that it was actually shot in Syria, near Aleppo. According to Russia, the number of separatists killed varies between four and thirty, but the Ukrainian authorities say there have been no fatalities and dozens of arrests. There has certainly not been any video footage or photographs of the Kramatorsk airfield after the fighting that showed any dead or wounded.
There was a confrontation yesterday, outside the courthouse in Kiev, between Pravy Sektor and former Berkut members who had come to support their colleague, arrested for having shot at protesters in the Maidan. The Pravy Sektor activists surrounded the berkutovtsy and demanded that they get down on their knees and ask the Ukrainian people for forgiveness. They apologised but refused to kneel. The incident ended peacefully: the Pravy Sektor members agreed with the Berkut agents that they would all go to the east of Ukraine together to defend the state’s integrity. Just like a Hollywood happy ending.