According to the Deputy Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ General Staff, Colonel Vladislav Shostak, it is expected that Ukrainian companies will begin to produce their own combat aircraft, Ukrinform reported.

“We have an order for the production of combat aircraft, the executor of the project will be ASTC Antonov. We expect that the engines will be produced by Motor Sich,” Shostak stated.

The Colonel noted that Ukraine is considering purchasing foreign-made equipment, but gives priority to domestic companies.

Shostak also explained that Ukrainian companies are developing medium-range anti-aircraft missiles and are working towards modernizing existing models, in particular the S-125.

http://www.uawire.org/news/ukraine-to-begin-producing-combat-aircraft

Through a series of agreements, as well as official favoritism by former President Viktor Yanukovych’s government, the vast majority of communities remained loyal to Moscow. There are 12,515 Moscow parishes, compared to Kyiv’s 4,877 parishes. The number of churchgoers tells a different story, however; approximately fifteen million Ukrainians identify with the Kyiv Patriarchate, while only ten million remain loyal to the Moscow one.

And the numbers of defections are growing. Archpriest Heorhiy Kovalenko, a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, explained in 2014 that there had been transfers of individual parishes to the Kyiv Patriarchate since the mid-90s, but no mass transfers. But in that year alone, thirty parishes switched allegiances, according to the Kyiv Patriarchate. In terms of individuals, the numbers are even greater: according to the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, a Kyiv-based pollster, 31 percent of Ukrainians identified with the Kyiv Patriarchate in 2011, and 26 percent with the Moscow Patriarchate. By the end of 2015, however, the number loyal to Kyiv had jumped to 44 percent, while 21 percent remained members of the Moscow Patriarchate.

http://www.atlanticcouncil.stfi.re/blogs/new-atlanticist/thanks-to-russia-ukrainians-swell-ranks-of-kyiv-patriarchate

Stratfor Summary on Russia:

For more than a century, Russia has suffered periodic waves of mass emigration. Now it could face yet another one, perhaps leading to the largest brain drain the country has experienced in 20 years. According to Russia’s state statistical agency, 350,000 people emigrated from Russia in 2015 — 10 times more than five years ago. The outflow began in earnest in 2012, driven mostly by political friction in the country, but Russia’s current economic crisis has accelerated the pace. The Kremlin is attempting to curb the so­called suitcase mood, but other national interests remain a higher priority. As highly skilled Russians emigrate, the future of innovation and private business in the country has been called into question. Meanwhile, migrants from mostly Muslim former Soviet states are entering Russia in search of work, altering the ethnic and religious composition of the population and heightening tension in the process.

Wassyl Slipak, a Ukrainian opera singer living in France, was killed in Donbas on 29 June 2016.

Story: http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/06/29/paris-opera-singer-wassyl-slipak-killed-in-donbas-war/

Failure to report a crime

Beginning on July 20, 2016, “the failure to report a crime” will itself become a criminal offense. Russians will be required to inform the authorities about anything they know regarding preparations for terrorist attacks, armed rebellions, and several other kinds of crimes on a list that has more than half a dozen different offenses. Anyone who doesn’t faces up to a year in prison.

article20.org/ru/node/6164

http://www.diplomaatia.ee/en/article/fsb-information-warfare-specialist-russia-will-quickly-establish-private-military-units/

http://www.reuters.stfi.re/article/nato-bulgaria-blacksea-idUSL8N19835X?sf=zorddlw

KLESIV, Ukraine—A simmering conflict over amber mining, the economic lifeblood on Ukraine’s northwestern flank, boiled over into an armed skirmish here one recent afternoon.

At the end of March, police officers loosed a few rounds from automatic rifles in a standoff with hundreds of illegal miners. The miners fought back with a hailstorm of rocks.

“The resources belong to the people, not the cops, oligarchs and politicians,” said Oleksandr Vasilyev, a 42-year-old regional lawmaker and amber miner. . . .

The country’s trade in amber—fossilized resin from trees that died 40 million years ago and is prized by jewelers and artists—is worth as much as $500 million a year, officials say, but it generates little revenue for the cash-strapped government.

Companies that want to mine legally have to chase signatures from a legion of government officials, including the prime minister, a process that can take years. So swarms of miners without permits work on sprawling sites known as klondikes, using modified car motors to blast water into the ground and force amber to the surface. The work churns up the land and leaves behind a sandy, lunar landscape.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/lure-of-amber-pits-ukraines-illegal-miners-against-state-1464998300

Armenian – Azerbaijani skirmish explained

Artillery is still the king of battle.