Internal Security News

• (Interfax Ukraine) The active phase of the anti-terrorist operation near Sloviansk continued, with two Ukrainian servicemen reported killed and over 45 wounded from June 3-4. Separatists reportedly wielded artillery and automatic weapons, and Ukrainian media reported many residents fleeing the area. 
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Interim Ukrainian President Turchynov instructed National Security and Defense Council Secretary Andriy Parubiy, along with a number of agencies, to urgently consider whether it would be appropriate to impose martial law on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
   
• The Marynivka border checkpoint in Shakhtarsk district in Donetsk region was fired on by separatists in the early hours of June 4. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) A spokesman for the pro-Russian militia in Sloviansk said claimed the separatists had shot down two Ukrainian warplanes on June 3. 
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Ukrainian State Border Service redeployed the personnel of the Luhansk border guard detachment to another “safer” location after numerous assaults from “well-armed” separatist militants. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian media cited the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic as claiming that Ukrainian servicemen shot and killed more than 25 people in the hospital of Krasny Liman.
   
• An OSCE investigation into the explosion at the regional administration building in Luhansk on June 2, which separatists claimed was the result of an airstrike by Ukrainian forces while the commander of the Kyiv’s “anti-terrorist operation” claimed it originated within the building, determined that the explosion was the result of a strike from the air, stating that “these strikes were the result of non-guided rockets shot from an aircraft." An independent CNN investigation came to the same conclusion. 

Diplomacy News

• U.S. President Barack Obama voiced his support for Ukraine's newly elected President Poroshenko and called for the international community to "stand solidly behind" him, on a visit to Europe dominated by the crisis in Ukraine.
   
• Speaking from Poland, Obama also condemned Russia’s “dark tactics” and “aggression,”stating that the West “will not accept Russia's occupation of Crimea or its violations of Ukraine's sovereignty”, adding that "as we've been reminded by Russia's aggression in Ukraine, our free nations cannot be complacent in pursuit of the vision we share - a Europe that is whole and free and at peace." 
   
• (RIA Novosti) NATO is currently considering numerous assistance requests from Ukraine that include lethal aid, General Philip Breedlove, the alliance’s supreme commander in Europe, said.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow is not considering a return to the G8 format, but is open to cooperation and will continue to participate in G20 work. 
   
• (RIA Novosti) The second volume of the 'White Book', a Russian Foreign Ministry work on human rights violations in Ukraine, is scheduled to be released in June and will be available in a digital version. “"We hope not a single violation will be left unnoticed," said a Ministry spokesman. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia’s Foreign Ministry Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Supremacy of Law said that what has happened in Ukraine’s south-east cannot occur in Europe. “The events in Luhansk and Sloviansk surpass all sad records.”
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it was never Russia’s intention to destabilize the situation in Ukraine or send its troops to invade the country’s south and east. “There are neither military personnel nor Russian instructors in southeastern Ukraine,” Putin stressed. When asked whether Moscow ever planned to absorb Ukraine or push it to the brink of a crisis, Putin said, “No, we never did or will ever do anything like that.”
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister stated that Russia is not planning to submit to the United Nations Security Council an initiative on imposing a no-fly zone over the territory of Eastern Ukraine.
   
• The United States handed back its only Central Asian airbase to the government of Russia's close ally Kyrgyzstan.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that Russia’s actions threaten the stability and security of the entire Euro-Atlantic area.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia's Head of Presidential Administration, Sergei Ivanov, said that NATO advances toward the Russian border are more about “cheap politics” than military issues.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) An EU spokesman stated that Europe plans no short-term measures to block construction of the South Stream pipeline.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Cyprus’s economic ties with Russia, which include about US $100 billion in investments between the two countries, could be severed if the European Union applies a third round of sanctions over Russia’s role in the Ukrainian unrest.
   
• Ukrainian President-elect Poroshenko stated that Kyiv expects the world to support it in settling the Crimea problem, following a meeting in Warsaw with US President Obama. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian energy giant Gazprom delayed a deadline for Naftogaz Ukrainy’s transfer on advance payment from June 9 to 10 to accommodate a holiday in Ukraine on June 9. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a telegram to Petro Poroshenko congratulating him on being elected as the President of Ukraine.
   
• A Russian fighter jet buzzed dangerously close to a U.S. military plane in April, a U.S. official said, describing the fly-by as "straight out of a movie." The Russian jet flew within 100 feet of the nose of a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane over the Sea of Okhotsk between Russia and Japan, a Defense Department official said.
   

International Observation Missions News

• (Interfax Ukraine) The OSCE stated that it still has had no contact with two missing teams of observers, believed to have been taken by separatists in eastern Ukraine on May 26 and 29 respectively. 
   
• (RIA Novosti) The authorities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic stated that they are unable to guarantee the safety of the OSCE observers working in the region of Donetsk.
   

Governance News 

• President-elect Poroshenko said he would announce a plan for the peaceful resolution of the conflict in the east of the country soon after his inauguration on June 7.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine)  Poroshenko stated that he intends to present a “peace plan” immediately after his inauguration.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The head of the Party of Regions registered a draft resolution suggesting to the Verkhovna Rada that the International Criminal Court be involved in an investigation into whether a June 2 explosion in Luhansk was the result of a Ukrainian airstrike. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The Verkhovna Rada turned down a proposal to hold a debate on the denunciation of an agreement on a visa-free regime with Russia.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Acting President Turchynov went to eastern Ukraine “due to the situation there.” He visited a command post near Sloviansk in Donetsk. 
   
• Poroshenko said that he favors dialogue with Ukraine's east after early elections to the Verkohvna Rada and to local councils.