Ukrainian admiral criticizes “biased” media coverage of international drill

UNIAN news agency, Kiev
12 Aug 05

Sevastopol, 12 August: The commander of the Peace Shield-2005 naval
exercise, Read-Adm Illya Chalyy, has criticized the biased coverage
of the peacekeeping exercise by some media outlets. The press service
of the exercise quoted Chalyy as saying that one of the objectives
of the exercises is to improve cooperation and deepen trust between
servicemen from different states, who learn to work together in
peacekeeping operations. “We are keen to help the public learn as
much as possible about international cooperation on the part of
the Ukrainian armed forces,” Chalyy said. “For this reason, we have
created appropriate conditions for journalists who report about Peace
Shield-2005,” Chalyy said.

“We are very sorry to see media reports that distort the peacekeeping
nature of the exercise. Reports about the landing of US special
operation troops on the Russian training ground in Crimea or about
the setting up of a NATO training ground misinform the public and
foster a negative public opinion,” Chalyy said.

He said that almost all servicemen of the US marine company that takes
part in the exercise are reservists who have nothing to do with special
operation forces. Chalyy added that the naval training ground near the
Opuk mount is rented by the Russian Black Sea Fleet. It was agreed with
Russia that the exercise would use this training ground, he said. The
stage of the exercise involving the Opuk training ground will be
monitored by Azeri, Armenian, Georgian, Kyrgyz and Russian observers.

Asked to specify which media outlets ran biased reports about Peace
Shield-2005, the head of the press service said that it was the
[Crimean pro-Communist] Krymskaya Pravda newspaper, the [Ukrainian
opposition] Inter TV channel and some Russian media outlets. The press
service of the Russian Black Sea Fleet said that their own monitoring
of the media had revealed nothing of this sort.

[Passage omitted: profile of the Peace Shield-2005]