• ‘Free Ukraine Street’ : Russian Embassies Get Pointed New Addresses

      Officials in many European cities are giving streets, squares and intersections in front of Russian missions names with pro-Ukraine themes.

      The unassuming intersection in front of the Russian Embassy in central Oslo didn’t really have a name until Tuesday, when its local council bestowed on it a particularly pointed one: “Ukrainas Plass,” or Ukraine’s Square.

      “We wanted to make a statement that we find Russia’s actions totally unacceptable,” said Tore Walaker, a councilor for Frogner, the neighborhood where the embassy is, which has been the scene of spirited protests since the Russian invasion.

      Russian embassy staff will soon have to pass a sign identifying the area as Ukraine’s Square on their way to work, said Jens Jorgen Lie, the chairman of the Frogner borough council.

      “It’s not helping to stop the war,” he said. “But we do the little we can and must.”

      As Russian embassies have become a focus for protests in Europe and around the world against President Vladimir V. Putin, officials in some European cities are expressing their outrage at the invasion of Ukraine by trying to change street names.

      In the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, an unnamed street leading to the Russian Embassy was officially named “Ukrainian Heroes Street” on Wednesday, according to the city’s mayor, Remigijus Simasius, who added that mail might not be delivered to the embassy if it did not use the new address. “Everyone who writes a letter to the embassy will have to think about the victims of Russian aggression and the heroes of Ukraine,” he said in a post on Facebook.

      Tirana, the Albanian capital, said it would name a street segment that is home to the Russian Embassy “Free Ukraine.” In Latvia, the Russian Embassy in Riga will now lie on “Ukraine Independence Street,” according to a local deputy mayor. And in Copenhagen, city officials will next week discuss changing the name of the street on which the Russian Embassy sits from “Kristianiagade” to “Ukrainegade.”

      In England, lawmakers have lobbied for the street address of the Russian Embassy in London to be switched to “Zelensky Avenue,” after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who vowed in an address to Britain’s House of Commons this week that he would never surrender to Russian forces. “Britain must shame Putin at every possible opportunity,” said Layla Moran, a spokeswoman on foreign affairs for the Liberal Democrats.

      The borough of Kensington and Chelsea, an affluent area that contains the Russian, Ukrainian and other embassies, said it supported the Ukrainian community, but had not yet received any official applications to change the name of the street.

      “We share the world’s anger at Putin’s assault on Ukraine and are horrified at the plight of the men, women and children caught up in the conflict,” the borough said in a statement, but added: “It is actions rather than symbolism that they desperately need now.”

      The proposals for name changes have been met with largely positive reactions from supporters of Ukraine, though some question the effectiveness of such symbolic moves. Others have said the renaming of streets should be even more extensive.

      In Oslo, Eugenia Khoroltseva, an activist with family in Ukraine and Russia who has demonstrated near what is now Ukraine’s Square since the invasion began, said of the renaming: “I fully support it on behalf of the pro-democratic Russian community living in Norway.”

      In a statement on Wednesday, the Russian Embassy in Oslo said the move would be “regarded as an anti-Russian action, whether by the government or the district authorities. Norwegians should consider this.”

      In Copenhagen, the Russian Embassy noted that its street — Kristianiagade — carried the former name of Norway’s capital, a symbol of “historical bonds and good relationships between Denmark and Norway.”

      “I think the Norwegians will understand,” said Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, a Danish lawmaker who is leading the proposal for renaming the street Ukrainegade. “I think there are many things we should do to help the Ukrainians. There is no action that is too small.”

      The inspiration, he added, came from the naming of a plaza in front the Russian Embassy in Washington after Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition leader and outspoken critic of Mr. Putin who was assassinated in 2015. A similar proposal to rename a square outside a Russian consulate was made by a politician last year in the town of Kirkenes, close to the Norwegian-Russian border, but was met with resistance.
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      “This is a war we will never forget and a war that the Russians should never forget,” Mr. Ellemann-Jensen said.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-embassies-street-names.html

    • Guerre en Ukraine : à #Dnipro, des russophones font tout pour ne plus parler russe

      Dans une partie de l’Ukraine, la langue la plus couramment parlée est le russe. Mais pour de nombreux habitants, la guerre ravive un élan patriotique qui passe aussi par une réappropriation de la langue ukrainienne. Illustration à Dnipro, en plein cœur du pays.

      (...)

      Et dans cette guerre linguistique, la ville de Dnipro prend aussi sa part. "Nous avons changé les dénominations d’une trentaine de rues, confirme Mirailo Lysenko, maire adjoint en charge de l’aménagement.

      "La plupart [des rues] ont pris le nom de nos #villes_martyres et d’autres ont pris le nom d’importantes personnalités ukrainiennes, conclut Mirailo Lysenko. Les nouvelles plaques sont en train d’être fabriquées. Dans quelques semaines, le passage Moscovite va ainsi devenir #passage_Azovstal, du nom de cette usine métallurgique symbole de la résistance de #Marioupol.

      https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/europe/manifestations-en-ukraine/reportage-guerre-en-ukraine-a-dnipro-des-habitants-font-tout-pour-ne-pl

    • Russia not waging campaign against Ukraine’s culture, says diplomat

      “Russia have not launched a campaign to demolish monuments to prominent Ukrainians or rename streets, bearing their names, and have never done so,” Maria Zakharova stressed

      Russia has never sought to harm Ukraine’s #culture in any way, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Friday.

      “Who has ever tried to intentionally damage Ukraine’s cultural heritage, when and in what way?” Zakharova said. “Unlike our neighbors, we have never been prone to such behavior. We have not launched a campaign to demolish monuments to prominent Ukrainians or rename streets, bearing their names, and have never done so.”

      The EU’s accusations against Russia of damaging Ukraine’s cultural heritage cause confusion, Zakharova said. “What are you talking about? Do the people, who level such claims, know anything about our common history, about present-day reality?”

      The EU’s weapons supplies to Ukraine are in conflict with the objective to protect and restore Ukraine’s cultural heritage the bloc has been declaring, the diplomat said.

      “That’s another example of Brussels’ destructive logic: it is prepared to sacrifice basic principles of international humanitarian cooperation and politicize culture, sports, science and youth policy, while pursuing its aims or the aims imposed on it,” Zakharova said.

      https://tass.com/politics/1460203

      #monuments

  • North Korea’s Missile Success Is Linked to Ukrainian Plant, Investigators Say - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-missiles-ukraine-factory.html

    North Korea’s success in testing an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears able to reach the United States was made possible by black-market purchases of powerful rocket engines probably from a Ukrainian factory with historical ties to Russia’s missile program, according to an expert analysis being published Monday and classified assessments by American intelligence agencies.

    The studies may solve the mystery of how North Korea began succeeding so suddenly after a string of fiery missile failures, some of which may have been caused by American sabotage of its supply chains and cyberattacks on its launches. After those failures, the North changed designs and suppliers in the past two years, according to a new study by Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

    Such a degree of aid to North Korea from afar would be notable because President Trump has singled out only China as the North’s main source of economic and technological support. He has never blamed Ukraine or Russia, though his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, made an oblique reference to both China and Russia as the nation’s “principal economic enablers” after the North’s most recent ICBM launch last month.

    Analysts who studied photographs of the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, inspecting the new rocket motors concluded that they derive from designs that once powered the Soviet Union’s missile fleet. The engines were so powerful that a single missile could hurl 10 thermonuclear warheads between continents.

    Those engines were linked to only a few former Soviet sites. Government investigators and experts have focused their inquiries on a missile factory in #Dnipro, #Ukraine, on the edge of the territory where Russia is fighting a low-level war to break off part of Ukraine. During the Cold War, the factory made the deadliest missiles in the Soviet arsenal, including the giant SS-18. It remained one of Russia’s primary producers of missiles even after Ukraine gained independence.

    But since Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was removed from power in 2014, the state-owned factory, known as #Yuzhmash, has fallen on hard times. The Russians canceled upgrades of their nuclear fleet. The factory is underused, awash in unpaid bills and low morale. Experts believe it is the most likely source of the engines that in July powered the two ICBM tests, which were the first to suggest that North Korea has the range, if not necessarily the accuracy or warhead technology, to threaten American cities.

    It’s likely that these engines came from Ukraine — probably illicitly,” Mr. Elleman said in an interview. “The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. I’m very worried.

    • Yuzhmash - Wikipedia #Ioujmach
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuzhmash

      Today
      In addition to production facilities in Dnipro, Pivdenne Production Association includes the Pavlohrad Mechanical Plant, which specialized in producing solid-fuel missiles. Pivdenmash’s importance was further bolstered by its links to Ukraine’s former President Leonid Kuchma, who worked at Pivdenmash between 1975 and 1992. He was the plant’s general manager from 1986 to 1991.

      In February 2015, following a year of strained relations, Russia announced that it would sever its “joint program with Ukraine to launch Dnepr rockets and [was] no longer interested in buying Ukrainian Zenit boosters, deepening problems for [Ukraine’s] space program and its struggling Yuzhmash factory.”

      The firm imposed a two-month unpaid vacation on its workers in January 2015. With the loss of Russian business the only hope for the company was increased international business which seemed unlikely in the time frame available. Bankruptcy seemed certain as of February 2015. As of October 2015, the company was over 4 months late on payroll. The employees worked only once per week, the last space related product were shipped in early 2014. 2014 revenues (in severely depreciated Ukrainian Hrivnas) are 4 times less than 2011.

    • … et en français #OKB-586
      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_d'études_Ioujnoïe

      Au sein du groupe industriel Pivdenne
      Outre les Usines Sud de Dnipropetrovsk, la Sté Pivdenne possède les Ateliers de Mécanique de Pavlohrad, spécialisés dans les missiles à propergols solides. L’importance du groupe PivdenMach n’est pas sans rapport avec l’ascension politique de son ancien directeur (de 1986 à 1992), Leonid Koutchma, embauché comme ingénieur en 1975 et qui fut le directeur-général des Ateliers du Sud jusqu’en 1992. Celui-ci devient par la suite Premier ministre de l’Ukraine puis président de l’Ukraine de 1994 à 2005.

  • Le renouveau des #juifs d’Ukraine
    https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/161016/le-renouveau-des-juifs-dukraine

    Le rabbin Shmuel Kaminezki assiste à une prière matinale dans la #synagogue de la Rose d’Or, à Dnipro, le 8 septembre 2016. © Rafael Yaghobzadeh La guerre a donné l’occasion à certains Juifs d’Ukraine de s’affirmer, tandis que la diaspora contribue à raviver la communauté. Mais dans le pays qui a connu la « #Shoah par balles », la société ukrainienne a encore du mal à leur faire de la place.

    #International #Dnipropetrovsk #europe #Igor_Kolomoïsky #mémoire #seconde_guerre_mondiale #Ukraine

  • Kolomoisky suggests #Ukraine build 2,000-kilometers wall against Russia

    #Dnipropetrovsk regional state administration deputy head #Hennadiy_Korban has presented to the Ukrainian presidential administration an engineering project and a feasibility study of a 1,920-kilometers-long wall along the Russian border with an approximate value of euro 100 million.


    http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/kolomoisky-suggests-ukraine-build-2000-kilometers-wall-against-russia-3517

    #Russie #barrière_frontalière #mur