The New York Times reports: Unidentified gunmen opened fire on the mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Monday, seriously wounding him while he was riding a bicycle near a major highway, municipal officials said, potentially shifting the crisis in the east of the country onto new and perilous ground.

The mayor, Gennady A. Kernes, had been regarded as seeking to steer a middle course as pro-Russian militants conduct a campaign of occupations of key facilities in eastern cities that is widely believed to be aimed at drawing the region closer into Moscow’s orbit or prompting a Russian intervention similar to the events that led to the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea.

Municipal officials said that the gunmen shot Mr. Kernes in the back around 12 p.m. local time and that he was undergoing surgery for life-threatening injuries.

No arrests were reported.

The mayor’s death would be the first assassination of a major politician in the east and present a new challenge to the interim authorities in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, who have seemed largely powerless to dislodge pro-Russian militants and regain control of the east.

Mr. Kernes has said he supports a united Ukraine and opposes Russian intervention. [Continue reading…]

The Telegraph reports: Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine show the media three Ukrainian intelligence officers they say they detained in the town of Gorlivka.

Paul Goble writes: Aleksandr Dugin, the Eurasianist leader who enjoys enormous influence in the Kremlin, says that countries adjoining the Russian Federation “can preserve their territorial integrity only by maintaining good relations with Russia” and that those who cross Moscow can have no such expectations.

In an interview published in Yerkramas, a newspaper directed at the Armenian community in the Russian Federation, Dugin reiterated and then extended comments he made after Azerbaijan voted at the United Nations in the support of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Dugin recalled to the Armenian publication that he had said that “Russia is the guarantor of the territorial integrity of each post-Soviet country. Russia is also the guarantor of the territorial integrity of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and it is also the guarantor of Karabakh as well.”

Were Russia to give up these functions, something it is not about to do, Dugin continued, “then the territorial integrity of Armenia and Karabakh will not be guaranteed to the extent that Russia is a proportional power and naturally countries in the zone adjacent to Russia can preserve their territorial integrity exclusively by maintaining good relations with Russia.”

That means that these states “must be either neutral or have close ties,” he said. If they adopt “an anti-Russian policy,” then doubts will arise about the maintenance of their current borders. [Continue reading…]

The Wall Street Journal reports: The elusive commander of the pro-Russia militants who have seized the east Ukrainian city of Slovyansk has revealed himself for the first time since the crisis began, saying in a taped interview that his armed crew arrived in Ukraine’s east from Crimea.

Igor Strelkov, the commander whom officials in Kiev have described as a Russian intelligence officer, gave a picture of the fighters he brought to Slovyansk, who since early April have transformed the city into the epicenter of eastern Ukraine’s pro-Russia unrest. The new government in Kiev has described Slovyansk as the “most dangerous city in Ukraine.”

“The unit that I came to Slovyansk with was put together in Crimea. I’m not going to hide that,” Mr. Strelkov told the Moscow-based Komosomolskaya Pravda tabloid in a video interview released Saturday. “It was formed by volunteers—I would say half or two-thirds of them citizens of Ukraine.”

The unit includes people from western and central Ukraine, as well as local fighters from the region itself, according to the commander. “Strictly speaking, it was by their invitation that the unit arrived in Slovyansk,” he said.

Ukraine’s State Security Agency had earlier described Mr. Strelkov as an active-duty officer of Russia’s elite Main Intelligence Department. Mr. Strelkov didn’t directly address the Russian reporter’s question about possible Russian military-intelligence involvement in his mission. The commander also didn’t speak about himself or his background. Moscow has denied its involvement in the unrest in eastern Ukraine.

Most of the men in the command possess war experience, including former service in the Russian or Ukrainian militaries and tours in Chechnya, Central Asia, the former Yugoslavia and Iraq, according to Mr. Strelkov. He said some “even managed to visit” Syria. [Continue reading…]

Simon Ostrovsky writes: On Thursday, armed gunmen who held me prisoner for three nights and three days released me into the streets of Sloviansk, in eastern Ukraine. My release was as unexplained as my capture.

On Monday night I was pulled out of a car at a checkpoint, then blindfolded, beaten, and tied up with tape. After spending hours alone on the floor of a damp cell with my hands tied behind my back and a hat pulled over my eyes, I was led into a room where I was accused of working for the CIA, FBI, and Right Sector, the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist group.

When I refused to give the password to my laptop, I was smacked in the arm with a truncheon. When I was asleep on the floor, masked men came to wake me up and tell me how no one would miss me if I died, and then kicked me in the ribs as they left.

But as it turns out, I had it pretty easy, because I was let go.

In the four nights that I was held captive, a dozen other nameless detainees were ferried in and out of the cellar of the Ukraine state security (SBU) building by the pro-Russia militants who had taken it over. Some were journalists, some were drunks, and others were Ukrainian activists stupid or brave enough to visit what’s become a stronghold for Russian nationalists within Ukraine. [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: Ukrainian forces killed up to five pro-Moscow rebels on Thursday as they closed in on the separatists’ military stronghold in the east, and Russia launched army drills near the border in response, raising fears its troops would invade.

The Ukrainian offensive amounts to the first time Kiev’s troops have used lethal force to recapture territory from the fighters, who have seized swaths of eastern Ukraine since April 6 and proclaimed an independent “People’s Republic of Donetsk.”

Ukraine’s acting president accused Moscow of supporting “terrorism at the state level” against his country for backing the rebels, whom the government blames for kidnapping and torturing a politician found dead on Saturday.

“The window to change course is closing,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned in a hastily arranged appearance in the State Department, where he cited President Barack Obama’s comments earlier on Thursday that Washington was ready to impose new sanctions if Moscow did not alter its policy.

In unusually blunt comments, Kerry accused Russia of using propaganda to hide what he said it was actually trying to do in eastern Ukraine – destabilize the region and undermine next month’s planned Ukrainian presidential elections. [Continue reading…]

The Associated Press reports: Ukraine’s foreign minister has blasted the Russian decision to start military maneuvers along their border and said Thursday his country will fight any invading troops.

Andriy Deshchytisa told The Associated Press in Prague that Russia’s decision to launch the military exercises “very much escalates the situation in the region.”

Deshchytisa said his country had been taught a lesson by Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

“We will now fight with Russian troops if … they invade Ukraine,” he said. “The Ukrainian people and Ukrainian army are ready to do this. Ukraine will confront Russia. We will defend our land. We will defend our territory.” [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: Pro-Russian gunmen in Ukraine confirmed on Wednesday that they had taken hostage an American journalist, whom they were holding according to “war rules”, they said, in the town of Slavyansk.

Simon Ostrovsky, a correspondent for Vice News, had not been seen since early Tuesday. He had been covering the crisis in Ukraine for several weeks, first in Crimea and then in the east of the country. He had been following the activities of masked gunmen as they seized government buildings.

Ostrovsky had visited Slavyansk several times. The town has been under the control of a heavily armed pro-Russian militia since 6 April.

The rebels have seized the nearby police and security station, as well as the city hall, turning it into a sandbagged garrison, complete with sniper positions. Men suspected to be Russian soldiers have also been spotted in Slavyansk, together with irregular “Cossacks” from southern Russia.

Stella Khorosheva, a spokeswoman for the pro-Russian insurgents, said on Wednesday that Ostrovsky was being held at the local branch of the rebel-occupied Ukrainian security service. Separatists have blockaded access to the building with a large wall of tyres and debris. Outsiders are not admitted.

“He’s with us. He’s fine,” Khorosheva told the Associated Press on Wednesday. Asked why Ostrovsky was being held hostage, she said he was “suspected of bad activities”. She did not elaborate but said the insurgents were now conducting their own investigation.

Khorosheva later told journalists that Ostrovsky was suspected of spying for Right Sector, a far-right Ukrainian nationalist party, or other possible “enemy groups”.

Since an apparent shoot-out at a Slavyansk checkpoint on Sunday left three dead, the separatists have become increasingly aggressive. They have harassed western journalists turning up at checkpoints into the city. [Continue reading…]

This is the most recent report Ostrovsky filed for Vice News: