[W:855]interesting images

[Rogue Valley]

Women at work in the city of Mariupol, only a few miles from the front line.

 

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Ukraine Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk (top, purple tie) meets with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Kyiv. Over the past 5 years, Ukraine has invested $4.8 billion in green/renewable energy projects.

 

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An evening in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.

 

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The first light dusting of snow in Kyiv.

 

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Russia's war isn't educational, it's a matter of life and death. On Europe's front line Ukrainian school children are taught about mines, explosive devices and emergency medical procedures,
should they or their friends become injured.

 

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Yuliya Badritdinova (40) is the Managing Director of McDonald's Ukraine. The are 100 McDonald s restaurants in Ukraine and unlike in the US, all outlets are owned by the company.
The company here will concentrate on Kyiv, Odesa, and Kharkiv, with plans to open restaurants in every Ukrainian city of 200,000 or more people.

 

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Kyiv headquarters of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine.

 

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The dark-haired man in the suit facing the camera is Oleksiy Danilov, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine. Here is is visiting the National Cybersecurity
Coordination Training Center of the Institute of Special Communication and Information Security located at the National Technical University of Ukraine in Kyiv. The NSDC is very much like the
National Security Council (NSC) in the US, advising the president on matters of national security and defense.

 

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Ukrainian International Relations university students attend a lecture on Real Politic.

 

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The Ukraine military Report on November estimates that Russia's cannon fodder forces in Ukraine suffered 41 killed and 66 wounded. And none of them will get any
medals, state funerals or be hailed as hero's by Putin. He'll just cross them off the payroll.

 

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Ukrainian pop singer and songwriter Iryna Bilyk (49).
Her discography consists of 12 albums. Iryna was born in Kyiv in 1970.

 

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200 Border Guard cadets graduated from the Interior Ministry Training Academy.

 

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Volodymyr Tsemakh was one of the prisoners involved in the "35 for 35" swap in September between Ukraine and Russia. Tsemakh was in charge of anti-aircraft units
in a portion of occupied Ukraine when MH-17 was shot down by a Russian Buk unit killing all 298 aboard. Dutch prosecutors have asked Moscow to extradite Tsemakh.
Moscow has refused. Not only refused, but allowed Tsemakh to return to his hometown in occupied Ukraine. That should tell you plenty.

 

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Kyiv at night looking northwards.

 

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37y.o. Denys Volochayev and 38y.o. Dmytro Kaplunov were killed by a landmine in the war zone on Dec 1. Denys was born on December 23, 1981; Dmytro born on December 4, 1980.
Both soldiers served as officers and snipers, working in special-ops Alfa unit of the SBU (Ukraine Security Service).

 

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Ostroh Academy National University in Rivne has opened a new computer studies building with a 41-meter high tower. The European style campus has sports complexes and
renovated educational facilities. For the needs of students there are 10 dormitories with more than 1,000 thousand students living on campus.

 

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The Moscow grave of Russian tax advisor Sergei Magnitsky who died in police custody 11 months after exposing a large-scale theft from the Russian state, sanctioned and carried out by Russian officials.
Currently 6 countries have passed Magnitsky Acts, but the EU is lagging behind.

 

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Carpathian stream in the moonlight.

 

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A 200 hryvnya banknote issued by the National Bank of Ukraine. The hryvnya (₴ or грн) has been the official currency of Ukraine since 1996. They are issued in 1,2,5,10,20,50,100,200,500, and 1000 denominations.
There are 100 kopeck's (kopiyok) in each hryvnya. Kopeck coins come in 10,25, and 50 denominations. There are currently about 24 hryvnia per dollar and 26 hryvnia per euro and the exchange rate is allowed to float.
The hryvnya banknote's have a significant number of sophisticated counter-fitting defenses. Depicted on the 200 hryvnya banknote above is poet and writer Lesya Ukrainka (1871 – 1913).

 

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National Police Quick Response Team (QRT) in Luhansk oblast where a part of Ukraine's territory is occupied by the Russian military. In 2014 armed Russian GRU agents
rapidly took over police stations in Luhansk oblast. Ukraine does not want a reprise of this Kremlin terrorism anywhere on its sovereign soil. This QRT can be anywhere in
the area of government-held Luhansk oblast within 15 minutes. More significant numbers follow after the initial QRT.

 

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Yevgenya Plikhina, Ukraine's deputy editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan Magazine, was fired from her job after she complained
on social media about some streets in Kyiv being blocked for the funeral of sniper and SBU Colonel Denis Volochaev who was
KIA in eastern Ukraine on December 1.

 

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Today is the 25th anniversary of the Budapest Memorandum, which saw Ukraine surrender the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange
for security “assurances” that proved utterly worthless when Russia invaded in 2014. From the left; President Boris Yeltsin signs for Russia,
President Bill Clinton signs for the United States, President Leonid Kuchma signs for Ukraine, Prime Minister John Major signs for Great Britain.

 

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Lysenko Kharkiv National Opera and Ballet Theater in the city of Kharkiv. In Ukrainian the K here is silent so the city name is pronounced Harkiv.

 

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There was a horrible fatal fire in a Odesa building that contained the Odesa College of Economics, a hotel and a restaurant business in which a 17-year-old girl perished.
26 additional people were hospitalized, many in serious condition.

 

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Soldiers of the 36th Separate Mechanized Battalion are welcomed home in the city of Nikolaev.