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"Im (sic) proud of America. Our great military beat the first terrorists, the first traitors; the confederates," he began. "If I had lived in the time of the civil war: Sherman's march and torching of the south would of [sic] been just a start. I hate traitors," he said. "I wish everyday I had a chance to live in the time period of the civil war- I would have loved help to destroy the confederacy," he said. He then called members of the Tea Party terrorists. He also claimed to be "leading the charge" against the Tea Party and Fox...

<p>Petro Poroshenko, the newly elected president of Ukraine, inherits a low-grade civil war against separatists backed by Russia, an economy rapidly descending into recession and a fragmented political system in which most power lies with a lame-duck, unrepresentative parliament. But as he sees it, he does have one thing going for him: For the moment, at least, a decisive majority of Ukrainians are behind him.</p>

Ukraine government forces launched an aggressive assault Monday on pro-Russian separatists who had earlier seized a terminal building in the Donetsk airport. The government forces used airstrikes and helicopters to battle the insurgents, not long after President-elect Petro Peroshenko vowed to take a tougher approach to the armed militants who have seized government buildings in a succession of cities in the Russian-speaking eastern part of the nation. See also: Ukraine's New President: Can a Candy King Lead a Post-Revolutionary Nation? The seizure of the airport posed the first immediate challenge to Poroshenko, coming only a day after his overwhelming victory...

The Italian press agency ANSA has published the name of the journalist killed outside of Slavyansk: Andrea (Andy) Rocchelli. He was 30 years old. RIA Novosti has also reported that Rocchelli worked for the photo agency Cesuralab which was working in the region, and that his translator, Andrei Mironov, was also killed.

As Ukraine heads to the polls Sunday, one man is a strong favorite to win: candy tycoon Petro Poroshenko, who has vaulted to the top of his nation’s political scene on the hope that he can unite a deeply divided electorate. Ukraine was already suffering from economic troubles when pro-Western street protests forced Kremlin-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country Feb. 22. Soon thereafter, Russian ­forces ­seized the Crimean Peninsula. And as an insurgency has grown in Ukraine’s east, the question ahead of the election was less about the eventual winner and more about what challenges the new president...

Kiev forces have killed at least seven militiamen and injured dozens of people, including civilians, in clashes in the Lugansk Region. Some Kiev troop conscripts reportedly tried to desert and flee to the militia, and were shot at by their commander. Both sides suffered losses during the battle near the village of Rubezhnoye, close to the city of Lisichansk in the Lugansk region. At least seven self-defense members were killed and 16 others injured, according to the militia. A spokesperson for Kiev’s troops reported two fatalities and seven wounded among their ranks. The shooting followed botched negotiations between forces of...

Outnumbered six-to-one, at least one Ukrainian Donbas Volunteer Battalion member was killed and 20 were wounded in an ambush by 150-200 pro-Russian separatists in the village of Karlivka, 35 kilometers northwest of Donetsk, the quasi-military unit’s press center said. An unspecified number were captured, the press center added. Reporting from Karlivka, Agence France-Presse stated that at least four separatists were also killed in the same confrontation. The ambush took place around 6 a.m. on May 23 while the group was approaching a separatist-held checkpoint near a dam reservoir next to the village where usually “7-10 people stood guard,” Semyon Semenchenko,...

The Democratic National Committee Chairwoman was vexed, you see, when MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell so baldly revealed Democrats’ super double-secret strategy to label every possible member of the rather large Republican family as a crazed, uncompromising, and basically inhuman “extremist,” and that the number of tea-party candidates that may lose their primaries tonight might make carrying out said strategy a tad more difficult. According to Wasserman Schultz, however, we’re all tea partiers now —

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- The U.S. military has doubled the number of aircraft standing by in Italy if needed to evacuate Americans from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, CNN has learned. A decision to evacuate as violence in the Libyan capital grows is "minute by minute, hour by hour," a defense official told CNN on Monday. Fierce fighting swept across the city Sunday after armed men stormed the country's interim Parliament. Sporadic bursts of gunfire and blasts could still be heard on the outskirts of the capital Monday evening. The violence appeared to be some of the worst since...

Ukrainian troops deployed in the country’s east should immediately return to their bases, the country’s parliament said in a memorandum. The freshly-adopted document also urges constitutional reforms based on the decentralization of Kiev’s power. With 226 votes required to pass the law, the Ukrainian parliament finally adopted the so-called ‘Memorandum of Peace and Consent’, 252 MPs voting in favor. In particular, the document calls "to restore law, order and public safety in the state by stopping bloodshed and bringing to justice those responsible for the killings of civilians during mass protests; to stop the anti-terrorist operation in Ukraine’s southeast and...

Two leaked tapes have emerged on the internet where Kiev-appointed governor allegedly threatens an ex-presidential candidate who called for a referendum. The official may also be behind the Odessa massacre and Mariupol shootings, the leak adds. On the first tape, which appeared on May 14, an oligarch and governor of the city of Dnepropetrovsk in southeastern Ukraine, Igor Kolomoisky, allegedly called ex-presidential candidate Oleg Tsarev and started threatening him. He told Tsarev to leave Ukraine immediately, saying it was in connection with the killing of Bogdan Shlemkevich, a soldier from Ukraine’s National Guard on May 9 in Mariupol, southeastern Ukraine....

Members of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist group Pravy Sektor took part in a commando-style raid against the Donbass referendum last Sunday, killing two unarmed civilians in the town of Krasnoarmeysk, an investigation by Paris Match has found. Rumours had spread among separatists for several weeks about radical Pravy Sektor militants hiding amid government forces loyal to Kiev to perpetrate actions targeting pro-Russian groups in eastern Ukraine. Though a small political force, Pravy Sektor played a significant part in the street fights the lead to the downfall of president Viktor Yanukovitch during the Maidan Revolution in Kiev last February. Formed as an...

Moscow believes information that Western, first and foremost American, mercenaries are operating in Ukraine to be true, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday. “We are waiting for answers, because we … have very strong suspicions that this might be true,” Lavrov said during an English-language interview with Bloomberg. SNIP----- According to the German Bild am Sonntag newspaper, around 400 elite commandos of notorious US private security firm Academi are allegedly helping Ukrainian authorities in a punitive operation against federalists in the country’s eastern regions. The newspaper said the Academi mercenaries have taken part in attacks against federalists near Slaviansk,...

A secret cable released by Wikileaks on Tuesday revealed that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Washington as far back as 2008 that US-EU-NATO meddling in Ukraine could split the country in two. “Following a muted first reaction to Ukraine’s intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Bucharest summit (ref A), Foreign Minister Lavrov and other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition, stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat,” said the 2008 cable classified by William Burns, than US Ambassador to Moscow and currently the US Deputy Secretary of State....

Censor.net reports that Yuri Lelyavsky, a journalist who was abducted by separatists in Slavyansk on April 25, has been freed. They report that Lelyavsky gave a press conference in his home town of Lviv on Monday. They report (translated by The Interpreter): According to him, militants abducted him on April 25, a few hours after his arrival in the town, and detained him for 15 days, reports Censor.NET with reference to Podrobnosti. "All that time I was in the basement of the SBU building. They kept me in a common room for the first few ours, but they then moved...

It said an armored column had come under fire as it approached a bridge. Two were killed when an armored car was hit and four others in an ensuing gunfight, a ministry statement said.

Leadership of the "Donetsk People's Republic" has declared independence of the region and has sough accession to Russia. "Upon the results of the referendum held on May 11, 2014 and based on the sovereignty declaration of the Donetsk People's Republic, we, people of the Donetsk People's Republic, declare that from now on the Donetsk People's Republic is a sovereign state," co-chairman of the "Donetsk People's Republic" government Denis Pushilin said at a news conference on Monday. "We ask to consider the issue of accession of the Donetsk People's Republic to Russia," Pushilin said. SNIP-- After the collapse of the Soviet...

If Kiev does not pay its gas bills by June 2, exports to Ukraine will be halted the next day, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller said. Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev meanwhile urged demanding advanced payment from Kiev as early as Tuesday. Miller told Medvedev on Monday that Gazprom will issue a preliminary June bill to Ukraine’s Naftogaz on May 13. According to Miller, Kiev already owes the company more than $3.5 billion, which compares to Gazprom’s annual gas supply to Poland. “In case Ukraine does not pay for the June supplies, Gazprom will notify the Ukrainian side, before 10am on June...

On May 12, General Grant ordered II Corps commander Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock to lead the attack on the Muleshoe, this time from the north, near its tip, where in theory it should have been most vulnerable... ..During the night Confederate pickets heard a rumbling that sounded like troops moving, and Maj. Gen. Edward Johnson alerted his brigade commanders... Within the works Rebels got the order to fire, but in the damp morning air many powder charges failed to ignite. The Yankees poured over the Confederate works by the hundreds, fighting hand-to-hand with bayonets and clubbed muskets. The Federals...

Soldiers from a private US security company with a record of alleged atrocities in Iraq are supporting Ukraine’s security forces in the volatile east of the country, the German newspaper Bild reported Sunday. The report, citing Germany’s federal intelligence agency BND, said 400 of the heavily-armed men employed by the group formerly known as Blackwater were deployed in the vicinity of Lugansk where pro-Russian separatists are seeking self-rule. The BND declined to comment on the report, while the security company -- now known as Academi -- dismissed similar reports in March. Bild reported that according to a BND assessment, US...