Dead puppies, possible political persecution, no trust in MH17 investigation results: European media on Ukraine

“38 dead puppies found on a plane to Canada” was perhaps the most popular topic about Ukraine in the Dutch, Belgian and German media last week. All these media reported that there were 500 dogs on board. Those that survived the flight were dehydrated, weakened, and vomited when they were found. Canadian media, referring to human rights activists, informed that flights from Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, full of puppies, are conducted regularly. It is a profitable industry. According to the expert Scott Weese, the seller may expect from $ 3,000 to $ 4,000 for an animal. Many Canadians have mistakenly assumed that dogs are bred in their own country.

Lawyers for the suspects in the downing of the MH17 plane consider the long-term investigation unreliable, write the Dutch NOS, and the Belgian Nieuwsblad. Lawyer Boudewijn van Eijck believes that during the investigation, the State Prosecutor’s Office relied too much on information and witnesses from Ukraine, and this country is interested in finding Russia guilty. Van Eijck questioned whether the experts involved in the investigation had enough knowledge and experience to draw reliable conclusions.

Former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will be questioned by the State Bureau of Investigation (IDP) on Tuesday (June 30th) before his court hearing the next day. Poroshenko is suspected of abusing his official position by illegally pressuring the then head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, Yegor Bozhok, to appoint Serhiy Semochko his deputy. Former Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka previously described the investigation against the former president as “legal trash”, writes the Brussels resource Euractiv.

The situation around the floods in Ukraine was reported in a short paragraph by the Belgian newspaper Nieuwsblad, but in no way mentioned the context – deforestation –  which is widely present in the Ukrainian information space.

The same Belgian Nieuwsblad, as well as the German die Welt, wrote that Ukraine disclosed information from secret materials about the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. “Ukraine has declassified the documents of the Soviet KGB special service at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, which exploded in 1986. There were many problems at the power plant long before the explosion: archive documents contain information about construction defects, accidents, and emergency stops from 1971 till the period of the catastrophe.” This follows from a book presented on Monday by the Ukrainian secret service SBU and the Institute of National Remembrance. “You can also read the minutes of official calls on April 26 and about radioactive radiation in the capital of Ukraine,” the article in die Welt reads.

“In Europe, the number of cases of the new coronavirus is increasing. In several republics of the former Soviet Union, contagion has increased since the lifting of quarantine restrictions, including Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. But also in Italy, the number of infected is increasing,” wrote the Belgian Knack.

Image: Mind.ua