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Five More Soldiers Killed in Ukraine

Citizens now crowd-funding a tank for beleaguered military

Ukrainian soldiers get new tanks and other military vehicles at a military base in the eastern town of Chuguyev, Ukraine
Ukrainian soldiers get new tanks and other military vehicles at a military base in the eastern town of Chuguyev, Ukraine / AP
December 19, 2014

Five more soldiers have died in Ukraine as another round of peace talks were delayed, Reuters reports.

The Ukrainian troops were killed in another flare-up of battles between the country’s forces and pro-Russian separatists in the East. Negotiations between the two warring parties were planned for Sunday but have now been postponed.

More than 4,700 people have been killed since the conflict began in the spring.

Ukrainian citizens are now providing their military—beleaguered by the country’s weak finances and months of fighting against the Russian-backed rebels—with knitted suits, scrap metal, and even a crowd-funded tank:

Up to 12 volunteers gather daily in a cramped room inside a refugee center in Kiev to rip old cocoa bean sacks into threads and knot them one by one onto fishing nets to make the suits.

Called 'kikimora' after a hairy bog-dwelling spirit of Slavic mythology, each takes seven days to complete, but costs around 150 hryvnia ($10) compared with the 2,000 hryvnia the army would have to pay for a regular suit, Lytvynenko said. […]

A crowd-funding website called 'The People's Project' encourages people to chip in as much as they can afford to buy equipment, including spare parts for damaged combat vehicles, dogtags and body armor.

It says it has completed more than half of its proposed projects and a 'First People's Tank,' a remote-controlled tank that can be used for reconnaissance and mine-sweeping, has raised 71 percent of its goal of $17,064, from 129 people.

President Barack Obama signed a new bill into law on Thursday that authorizes him to impose further sanctions on Russia in response to its aggression in Ukraine, as well as arm the Ukrainian military. However, Obama said he "does not intend to impose sanctions under this law, but the act gives the administration additional authorities that could be utilized, if circumstances warranted." He also did not indicate that he would provide lethal support to Ukrainian forces.

Published under: Russia , Ukraine