Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 13, updated -- Ukraine is a major provider of helicopters and air services to the UN, and amid the Kyiv government's “counter-terrorism” offensive on May 13 video surfaced of a white helicopter marked “UN,” here.

The UN has in the past complained of governments using UN-marked equipment for their own military goals. Shortly after being shut out from asking Syria-related questions to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his outgoing Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, Inner City Press submitted these questions on deadline to Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric:

This is a Press request for UN comment on deadline on this video http://youtu.be/W0P_sv_x4E0

featuring “UN” helicopters in Ukraine. Is this appropriate? Why would Ukraine have helicopters with such markings inside Ukraine? What does the UN allow Ukraine to use them for? What will the UN do? On deadline.

  For an hour there was no response, even an interim one, from Dujarric. Inner City Press asked another as well, and has questions pending back to the first week of Dujarric's tenure in March.

Update: then after an hour, acknowledgement of receipt and "will revert." Watch this site.