Crisis in Ukraine: Daily Briefing – 2 February 2016, 8PM Kyiv time

The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (RNBO) reported that yesterday towards Donetsk, Russian-terrorist forces shelled Ukrainian positions near Horlivka and Pisky with mortars. Russian-terrorist forces fired on Ukrainian positions at Zaytseve, Mayorsk, Novhorodske and Avdiyivka. Towards Mariupol, Russian-terrorist forces fired on Ukrainian positions at Maryinka and Pyshchevyk. There was no combat on the Luhansk sector of the front. The RNBO reported that in the last 24 hours, no Ukrainian soldiers were killed and two were wounded in action.

Ukraine’s Parliament adopted preliminary approval of Constitutional amendments on the Judiciary. The most significant proposed changes are that the High Council of Justice gains the right to appoint and remove judges (confirmed by the President); judges must be at least 30 years of age with at least 5 years of experience in legal work; judges must go through an assessment process and undertake a year of training in the National judges school. In October 2015, the Venice Commission gave a positive assessment of the proposed changes. According to procedure, Constitutional changes must be approved by two sessions of Parliament – final approval by a Constitutional majority of 300 MPs.

US Secretary of Defense A. Carter stated that the US Department of Defense is seeking $3.4 billion for 2017 to counter Russian aggression, a fourfold increase over 2016, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported. Carter stated, “We’re reinforcing our posture in Europe to support our NATO allies in the face of Russia’s aggression. That’ll fund a lot of things. More rotational U.S. forces in Europe, more training and exercises with our allies, more prepositioned warfighting gear, and infrastructure improvements to support it.” NATO Secretary General J. Stoltenberg welcomed the announcement, stating, “This is a clear sign of the enduring commitment by the United States to European security. It will be a timely and significant contribution to NATO’s deterrence, and collective defence.”

Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers reported that a pilot train on the “new Silk Road” arrived in China on the Ukraine-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan-China route, bypassing Russia following Russia’s ban on the transit of Ukrainian goods through its territory. Ukraine’s PM A. Yatsenyuk stated “Our trading partners have clearly demonstrated their desire in collaboration with Ukraine to build a new transit route. […] We managed to reach accord and launched this experimental train to make Russia understand that the economic and transit blockade of Ukraine would fail […] It has failed.”

The EU’s External Action Service East Stratcom Task Force published its thirteenth weekly Russian disinformation review. “The main aim of this product is to raise the awareness about Russian disinformation campaign. And the way to achieve this goal is by providing the experts in this field, journalists, academics, officials, politicians, and anyone interested in disinformation with some real time data about the number of disinformation attacks, the number of countries targeted, the latest disinformation trends in different countries, the daily basis of this campaign, and about the coordination of the disinformation spread among many countries.” The weekly Disinformation Reviews are accessible at http://eeas.europa.eu/euvsdisinfo/