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Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.



Russian TV Cameraman Killed, Lugansk Residents Hide in Soviet Bunkers from Kiev Troop Shelling, Far Right Rally Calls for War,

June 30, 2014

Last word ‘camera’! Russian journalist killed in E. Ukraine working till dying breath

Russia TV, June 30, 2014 09:45
Edited time: June 30, 2014 11:52
Anatoly Klyan, Russian cameraman from Channel One TV

Anatoly Klyan, Russian cameraman from Channel One TV

The Russian cameraman from Channel One TV who was shot by Kiev forces in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, never stopped working. Even when he was fatally shot he managed to record till his last breath. The video caught his final moments.

Anatoly Klyan, 68, was fatally wounded in the stomach and died Sunday night. Along with a few other journalists, he had boarded a bus full of women – mostly mothers – who were traveling to a military base in Donetsk to demand that their sons be dismissed from the unit and allowed to go home.

Kiev armed forces opened fire as soon as the bus entered the territory of the military base, the driver immediately turned the bus back to escape the deadly shooting.

After the bus made it out of shooting range, the driver stopped the bus to wait for other journalists who were following in cars, said Evgeny Lyamin, Russia's Channel One TV correspondent, who was with Anatoly till his last moments.

“When we all got out of the bus, either of us were either calling home or their editors,” he said, “And in about a minute we saw a single flare in the sky and then the shooting started. Everyone ran toward the bus. They were shooting at the vehicle.”

People were trying to hide on the bottom of the bus to escape the shelling, shows a video, released on YouTube. The sounds of bullets are heard in the recording, which later displays the bus with several holes, allegedly from the bullets.

Lyamin said that he later jumped in the bus and was on the driver’s side.

“A bullet passed me and I saw that it hit the driver. I saw blood on his head. He started driving anyway, but fell dizzy and then the bus stopped.”

Then Lyamin saw that someone was wounded, and realized that it was his colleague Anatoly Klyan.

It wasn’t immediately clear how seriously the bullet had wounded the cameraman. Another video shot by LifeNews crew shows that the passengers on the bus were trying to help Klyan. Women were holding his hand and someone was asking him to stay conscious and look him in the eye.

“We all ran into the bus and Tolik [Anatoly Klyan] said ‘I was shot,’” said he couldn’t breathe,” said Vitaly Khanin, Ren TV correspondent. Khanin said he was holding him and told him to look him in the eyes.

“He [Klyan] looked away and closed his eyes when someone was tapping his hand,” he added.

According to Lyamin, the cameraman was working till his last breath. He never stopped thinking about the camera which had accompanied him throughout his 40-year career in journalism.

“We were trying to find a car to get him to the hospital. But when we started taking him out of the bus he turned around and his last words were ‘The camera. The camera,” said Lyamin.

People lying on the floor of the bus (screenshot from RT video)

People lying on the floor of the bus (screenshot from RT video)

He added that the cameraman was conscious for a while in the car, but then he fell unconscious when they were near the accident and emergency station.

“They tried to revive him for about half an hour but then they came and said there is nothing more they could have done,” said Lyamin.

Alleged bullet holes in the bus (screenshot from RT video)

Alleged bullet holes in the bus (screenshot from RT video)

‘No chance to survive’: Rossiya TV journalists Kornelyuk and Voloshin killed in Ukraine shelling

Journalists from other Russian media, including Mir 24 Channel, Ren TV and LifeNews, were also caught in the fire as they were following the bus. According to Ren TV correspondent Aleksandr Leonenko, their car was shelled when they entered the city.

“We managed to escape [the car] and hide,” he said.

The incident happened hours before the end of the truce between Kiev troops and self-defense forces in eastern Ukraine. The ceasefire expires at 22:00 (19:00 GMT) on Monday.

Captive Russian journalists told they’d be ‘cut to bits’ and ‘barbecued’

Klyan’s death shocked his colleagues who had been working with him for decades.

“He [Klyan] was an experienced man. We met during a war conflict in Yugoslavia and in many other conflicts,” said Vladimir Avdeev, NTV cameraman, adding that Klyan covered the conflicts in Nicaragua, Angola, Mongolia and Chechnya.

Meanwhile, Moscow has strongly condemned the attacks on its journalists in Ukraine. According to Russia’s Foreign Ministry, the death of Anatoly Klyan has shown that Ukrainian law enforcement agencies apparently don’t want to de-escalate the armed conflict in the east of the country and are blocking the truce.

Kiev troops won’t scare off Russian journalists, says an official statement of Channel One TV, made after the death of its cameraman, Anatoly Klyan, near the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

“Ukrainian power continues killing journalists in the south-east - it [Kiev] is not satisfied that it is impossible to hide the actions against its own people,” it said, “There [in Kiev] they prefer to deal with the rebels without witnesses.”

“Our duty is to inform the country and the world what our journalists have witnessed,” it added.

Klyan’s death became the next in the series of deaths of journalists in eastern Ukraine. Earlier this month, Rossiya TV journalist Igor Kornelyuk and his colleague, sound engineer Anton Voloshin, were killed in shelling near Lugansk.

in May, Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian interpreter Andrey Mironov were killed when they were caught in a mortar attack close to the village of Andreevka, a couple of kilometers from Slavyansk.


=================================

Soviet-era bunkers help Lugansk residents hide from Kiev troop shelling

Russia TV, June 30, 2014 12:30
A bomb shelter in Lugansk, eastern Ukraine (screenshot from RT video)

A bomb shelter in Lugansk, eastern Ukraine (screenshot from RT video)

Amid fierce conflict between Kiev troops and self-defense forces, residents in eastern Ukrainian regions are ready to hide in Soviet-era bomb shelters, which may protect them and their children from army air raids and artillery fire.

“They keep bombing us – which is why we are working here…This is our bomb shelter - Watch out!” Vadim Streltsov a Lugansk resident, told RT’s Marina Finoshina.

Streltsov volunteered to clean up bunkers that were built in Cold War times, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.

“As you can see, the infrastructure is destroyed, so we're taking the most important first steps to fix it, and allow people to shelter here,” he said on a tour of the bunker with RT.

According to the Lugansk residents, the facility has everything people need if Kiev troops start shelling the city again.

“Here we've got beds, and we also have drinking water.500 [liters] here and another 500 in another room…You can easily live here for at least a week,” Vitaly Dubinin, local resident told RT, adding that they also have warm clothes, a kitchenette and first aid kits.

This is not the only bomb shelter in the city as Lugansk has about 100 of them. And they are helpful as even during the interview with Vitaly, one could distinctly hear the sound of shooting.

‘Let’s wage war!’ Huge crowd rallies in Kiev for end of ceasefire, martial law (VIDEO)

According to Vitaly, it was coming from the village of Metallist, 10km from Lugansk.

“They're trying to enter the city, and are attacking the outskirts,” added Dubinin.

The shooting occurred despite the truce between Kiev troops and self-defense forces in eastern Ukraine which expires at 10pm (19:00 GMT) on Monday.

Vitaly Dubinin, local resident walks in the bomb shelter in Lugansk, eastern Ukraine (screenshot from RT video)

Vitaly Dubinin, local resident walks in the bomb shelter in Lugansk, eastern Ukraine (screenshot from RT video)

Vadim’s little daughter Nastya sees bombings and explosions almost every day.

“The sky was lit up with explosions when we were walking home through a field. Then there were sirens and everyone started running away - it was terrifying,” she described her experience with the bombings, “The same thing happened later that night.”

The regions of eastern Ukraine have been continuously targeted by Kiev troops in the recent months. According to UN reports, at least 356 people, including 257 civilians, have died since the beginning of the ‘anti-terrorist’ operation in the eastern regions of Lugansk and Donetsk. There were 14 children among the dead.

Fearing deepening of the crisis, scores of refugees have left the country. The number of Ukrainian refugees in Russia has reached 110,000 people, the UN’s refugee department stated.

Vadim Streltsov, local resident, opens a door to the bomb shelter, Lugansk, eastern Ukraine (screenshot from RT video)

Vadim Streltsov, local resident, opens a door to the bomb shelter, Lugansk, eastern Ukraine (screenshot from RT video)


=============================================

‘Let’s wage war!’ Huge crowd rallies in Kiev for end of ceasefire, martial law (VIDEO)

Russia TV: June 29, 2014 18:35

Edited time: June 29, 2014 19:29

A member of the Ukrainian far-right radical group Right Sector looks on during a protest at Independence Square in Kiev June 29, 2014. (Reuters / Konstantin Grishin)

Download video (2.98 MB)

Over 1,000 protesters led by the Ukrainian army’s Donbass Battalion fighters gathered for a rally in central Kiev on Sunday. The demonstrators are demanding that President Petro Poroshenko end the ceasefire and impose martial law.

The Sunday rally was organized by Donbass Battalion Commander Semyon Semenchenko, who told the pro-Kiev protesters on his Facebook page to gather near the presidential administration building. Some Azov Battalion fighters also reportedly took part in the demonstration.

A Donbass Battalion representative read out a petition to President Poroshenko on behalf of Ukrainians, with a demand to "stop the truce, impose a martial law in the country, provide the military with necessary armaments and measures to destroy terrorists and request the EU and the USA to impose a third round of sanctions against Russia."

RIA Novosti / Aleksandr Maksimenko

RIA Novosti / Aleksandr Maksimenko

Following the demonstration, the protesters marched to the infamous Maidan (Independence Square), the traditional place for political rallies and the symbolic location of the recent armed coup against President Yanukovich's government.

The protesters held a “people’s assembly,” during which they warned Poroshenko that “this Sunday campaign may be the last peaceful one,” Itar-Tass reported.

The demonstrators called on the newly-elected president to “listen to the real holder of power – the Ukrainian people.”

RIA Novosti / Aleksandr Maksimenko

RIA Novosti / Aleksandr Maksimenko

They added that if the president didn't “hear [their] demands,” they would “consider him a traitor of the country” and “he will share the same fate as [ousted President Viktor] Yanukovich.”

Talking to the gathered demonstrators, Semenchenko said that the Ukrainian military units fighting in the east are in a dire situation, as the money allocated by the government does not reach the army.

"The Finance Ministry still allocates money to support businesses that are in separatists’ control,” he said, referring to anti-government protesters in the eastern part of the country. “There are many traitors in governmental agencies.

Europe won’t help us,” he shouted to the crowd. “We should establish order ourselves. We can stop the aggressors’ invasion.”

RIA Novosti / Aleksandr Maksimenko

RIA Novosti / Aleksandr Maksimenko

A protest for peace

At the same time, in the eastern part of the country, residents of the city of Lugansk gathered to rally for peace, urging the Kiev authorities to “stop military actions and the crackdown” against Ukrainian civilians.

Authorities of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic made speeches in front of several hundred people.

Last week, Poroshenko presented a peace plan for the resolution of the conflict which outlined 15 steps – including a unilateral ceasefire on the part of Kiev's military, which launched a punitive operation in the country's southeast from June 20 to June 27.

Read more: Ukraine president proclaims 7-day ceasefire, rolls out peace plan

 A masked man, soldier of the volunteer Ukrainian army "Donbass" battalion, takes part in a rally by Maidan activists at Independence Square in Kiev on June 29, 2014. (AFP Photo / Sergei Supinsky)

A masked man, soldier of the volunteer Ukrainian army "Donbass" battalion, takes part in a rally by Maidan activists at Independence Square in Kiev on June 29, 2014. (AFP Photo / Sergei Supinsky)

On Monday, Donetsk self-defense forces joined the ceasefire, and on Friday the truce was expended until June 30 at 10 p.m. local time (18:00 GMT). Poroshenko declared that after the ceasefire ends, those militiamen who failed to lay down their weapons in eastern Ukraine “will be destroyed.”

The Ukrainian army is set for “tough actions” after the end of the truce, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov reiterated on Friday.

However, there have been a number of reports concerning breaches of ceasefire from both sides. In the latest incidents, Ukrainian forces shelled residential parts of Slavyansk for nearly an hour on Sunday, killing up to five people, the press service of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said, as cited by Itar-Tass. In another incident, shells were launched over the Russia-Ukraine border into Russia on Saturday, with one severely damaging a border crossing checkpoint in Rostov region.





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