Saturday, June 18, 2016

Ukraine bans Russian films in media war

Ukraine’s National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting is set to
reconsider recent bans on the broadcast of Russian films in the country.

This development follows a request sent by Council head Yuri Artemenko to the Minister for Culture and Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, about the need to review the list of banned films.

According to Mr Artemenko, the list of banned films is based on the list of actors prohibited from entering Ukraine, as a result of which a number of Ukrainian and Soviet productions are affected by the ban. The Council head spoke up for such films as Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980, dir. Vladimir Menshov), Afonya (1975, dir. Georgiy Daneliya), and The Garage (1979, dir. Eldar Ryazanov), among other Soviet classics.

Mr Artemenko’s appeal is supported by head of the Ukrainian Security Service Vasily Gritsak, who has called for a review of the approach to Russian films in Ukraine.

The international security organisation OSCE says there are many daily violations of the Minsk ceasefire accord by both sides.
Ambassador Martin Sajdik, an OSCE special representative, spoke of 4,700 violations in just 24 hours, including deployments of heavy weapons that should have been stored.
Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine - not just in the east - and millions of Ukrainians have ethnic Russian relatives. There was a shared culture in Soviet times, before 1991, and most Soviet-era films can still be shown in Ukraine.
Similarly, Russia has banned many Ukrainian performers. That blacklist includes many Ukrainian pop and rock stars popular in Russia, BBC Ukraine specialist Olexiy Solohubenko reports.
Last August, a Russian court jailed Ukrainian film-maker Oleg Sentsov for 20 years for plotting terrorist acts in Crimea. He pleaded not guilty.

Deutsche Welle: Ukraine takes offense at UN chief's view of Russian role peace talks

Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Nations Volodymyr Yelchenko has said
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "cannot be a provider of good offices" in the Ukraine conflict. His comments follow remarks Ban made at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday which appeared to praise Russia.

Ban said Moscow had "a very important role to play and I really count heavily on the leadership of the Russian Federation."
The UN chief's spoken comments were slightly different from the text in his prepared speech which said Russia "has a critical role to play ... in addressing other pressing global issues, from ending the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, to safeguarding human rights and controlling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
The government in Kyiv has accused Russia of supporting separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. "I'm completely outraged by such a statement," Yelchenko said. "I don't understand how the head of the United Nations can say such things."

The ambassador added that Ban's remarks appeared "to praise the role of the Russian Federation in settling the conflict in Ukraine, when the Russian Federation is the main player [being aggressive towards] Ukraine."
Yelchenko said he would be writing an official protest letter to the UN chief and added: "I don't think that he has any moral right anymore to say anything about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine."
On Thursday, Russia's state-owned Rosneft and London-based BP announced they would invest $300 million (266 million euros) in prospecting and geological data analysis.
Putin met Royal Dutch Shell chief Ben van Beurden before the energy giant signed a memorandum of understanding with Russian gas giant Gazprom on the potential construction of a major liquefied gas plant in the country.
The CEOs of France's Total, Societe Generale and JCDecaux and European multi-national Schneider Electric are participating in the forum.

Tanks amass near East Ukraine demarcation line

Recent signs suggest that renewed violence may be in store for eastern
Ukraine. Hot spots along the line of contact have come under heavy separatist fire in recent weeks; 58 cease-fire breaches were registered along the demarcation line on June 15, a marked rise from the 10-20 daily violations in previous months. And on June 14, a local media outlet quoted reports from Ukrainian military officials that Russia-backed separatists in Donbas had amassed 30 tanks near the strategic town of Avdiivka. 

Throughout the conflict in Ukraine, tanks have been a common sight, even after the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the line of contact in February 2015. But since then, only small numbers of tanks have operated close to the demarcation line. Local media and observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe sometimes publish accounts of military vehicles in the area, but never as many as 30, which constitutes nearly an entire armored battalion. The massing of tanks at the scale described in Donbas is unusual and, if true, indicates that military action could be expected in that sector of the demarcation line.

On June 14, a local media outlet quoted reports from Ukrainian military officials that Russia-backed separatists in Donbass had amassed 30 tanks near the strategic town of Avdiivka, reports the private intelligence firm Stratfor. This large number of armored vehicles would definitely violate the Minsk accords and signal a new willingness from Moscow to re-escalate the conflict.
“Local media and observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe sometimes publish accounts of military vehicles in the area, but never as many as 30, which constitutes nearly an entire armored battalion. The massing of tanks at the scale described in Donbass is unusual and, if true, indicates that military action could be expected in that sector of the demarcation line.”
Stratfor points out that the Ukrainian military has a history of disseminating false information about the situation at the front and this information has not been independently verified. However, Ukraine has never been untruthful about this large of a deployment.

Jamala

Susana Alimivna Jamaladinova (Crimean Tatar: Susana Camaladinova;
Ukrainian: Сусана Алімівна Джамаладінова; Russian: Суса́нна Алимовна Джамалади́нова, born 27 August 1983), better known by her stage name Jamala (Crimean Tatar: Camala, Ukrainian and Russian: Джамала), is a Ukrainian singer, actress and songwriter. She represented Ukraine and won the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "1944".

Susanna Jamaladinova was born in Osh, Kirghiz SSR, to a Crimean Tatar father and an Armenian mother. Her Crimean Tatar ancestors were forcefully resettled from Crimea to the central Asian republic under Joseph Stalin, during World War II, although her own relatives fought on the Soviet side. During this deportation, one of her great-grandmother's daughters died on board of a freight truck and was tossed from the wagon "like garbage". Upon Ukraine's independence, her family returned to Crimea. Her maternal ancestors are from Nagorno-Karabakh. She claims to be related, through her maternal great-grandmother, to the Soviet Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian.

Jamala speaks Russian as her mother tongue, and she is also fluent in Ukrainian, which she learned as an adolescent. Though she wrote some songs in Crimean Tatar, she is not fluent in this language.

Her parents divorced for about four years so that her mother could purchase a house in Crimea for them under her maiden name. During this time, the Soviet authorities did not allow ethnic Tatars to purchase property in Crimea.

On 26 March 2015 "Ochyma" (Ukrainian: "Очима", English: "Eyes") was released as the lead single from her third studio album. "Shlyakh dodomu" (Ukrainian: "Шлях додому", English: "The Way Home") was released as the second single from her third studio album on 18 May 2015. On 15 June 2015 "Podykh" (Ukrainian: "Подих", English: "Breath") was released as the third single from her third studio album. She released Podykh (Ukrainian: "Подих", English: "Breath") on 12 October 2015 through Enjoy Records. Jamala successfully represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "1944". The song is about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 and particularly about her great-grandmother, who lost her daughter while being deported to Central Asia. Jamala wrote text for the song herself in 2014.


Jamala after winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2016.
In the second semi-final of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, Jamala performed 14th and reached the final, being among the ten participants who qualified for the grand final. As it was announced later, she placed 2nd, scoring 287 points and winning the televoting with 152 points On 14 May 2016, Jamala won the competition with 534 points.

Jamala's song was considered by Russian media and lawmakers to be criticism of the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the "ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine" in Donbass.After her win she was awarded the title People's Artist of Ukraine by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. On 17 May 2016, Poroshenko announced that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry would be nominating Jamala for UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

Eurovision Song Contest: Ukraine's Jamala wins competition

The country scored 534 points with its song 1944, about the deportation of
Crimean Tatars under Josef Stalin.
Australia finished second with 511 points, while Russia - which was the favourite going into the competition - was third with 491 points.
Joe and Jake, who represented the UK with their song You're Not Alone, finished in 24th place with 62 points.
Jamala is the first Crimean Tatar to perform at the contest and her song caused controversy because of alleged political overtones.
It references the year when Stalin deported almost all of the Tatar ethnic group from its native region of Crimea in what was then the Soviet Union.
The song has angered Russia, which annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, as tension between the two countries grew.

There have been calls in Russia for a review of her victory after a prankster told Russian TV that Jamala had admitted to him her song had a political subtext while he posed as an aide to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
A Russian MP, Elena Drapeko, blamed Russia's defeat on what she called an "information war" and "general demonisation" of her country.
But Mr Poroshenko hailed Jamala's victory and said her performance had been "incredible".
The juries from Russia and Ukraine did not award each other any points. However large numbers of the Russian public voted for the Ukrainian song, awarding it 10 points, while the Ukrainian public gave Russia's entry the maximum 12 points.

Russia’s Putin slams West over backing 'coup d'etat' in Ukraine

"Why support a coup d'etat in Ukraine? ... It is likely that the opposition, which is currently in power, would have come to power by democratic means," Putin said at a question and answer session during the the St Petersburg International Economic Forum 2016 (SPIEF 2016) on Friday.

The Russian president blamed the way Ukraine’s pro-Russian president was toppled for the bloodshed and ensuing violence.

Putin further said the ‘coup’ had scared the Russian-speaking people in the Crimean Peninsula and southeastern Ukraine.

Russia-West ties have been strained since Crimea joined Russia in a referendum in March 2014.

Crimean people voted to join Russia after rejecting the Western-backed government that took over power in Kiev in February 2014.

The United States and its European allies accuse Moscow of destabilizing Ukraine. Moscow, however, rejects having a hand in the crisis gripping the Eastern European state.

Ukraine's eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Moscow forces and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations in April 2014 to crush pro-Moscow protests there.

The crisis has left more than 9,000 people dead and over 20,000 others injured, according to the United Nations.