Ukraine

[Seamus_L]

Pat Buchanan’s 2008 article “Blowback From Bear Baiting” really sums up the situation with Russia and the West.

 

[HansTrappist]

The rioters were killing cops and kidnapping them. There were radical elements who infiltrated the protests and deliberately set about antagonizing and provoking the police - including targeting them. Cops are known to get just a little upset when you are killing and kidnapping their comrades.

One approved protest that set off the increase in violence was supposed to just march up to a certain building. It ended up instead marching on the building, violently taking it over and setting it on fire. You can be sure that action was not approved of or called for in the protest permit. There have been a few innocent deaths as a consequence of these attacks.

I cannot say this enough: if anything even remotely analogous to what is happening in the Ukraine was replicated in the streets of Washington, there would be thousands in prison. News that “protesters” were deliberately targeting police with sniper fire, killing them and even kidnapping cops would be met with fierce action and a restoration of lawful order even with the most brute force - and the U.S gov’t couldn’t and wouldn’t care less what anybody else thought about it, and would laugh to scorn accusations of violating human rights and the rest of it.

A riot is not a lawful activity and only the most naïve people actually think what happened in Kiev constitutes a “riot”. Riots are more spontaneous than this. There were radical militant elements that infiltrated the protesters and ensured that chaos and bloodshed resulted. They succeeded. We saw something similar attempted here in Toronto for the G8 not too long ago.

You hit the nail on the head!

It was the rioters who first resorted to lethal tactics.

The Berkut showed tremendous restraint and had initially responded with non-lethal tactics to these violent “protesters.”

There are numerous videos on YouTube showing the Police getting brutalized with Molotov cocktails and yet they continued to respond with non-lethal measures. It was only after many police were murdered that the Berkut were forced to respond with lethal measures.

John McCain and Victoria Nuland are directly responsible for helping to incite this violence by having traveled to Independence Square in Ukraine and emboldened these criminal “protesters.”

 

[tomarin]

Pat Buchanan’s 2008 article “Blowback From Bear Baiting” really sums up the situation with Russia and the West.

The problem with this attitude is, how do you stand up for human rights and basic human freedoms if you regard any stand-taking as meddling in other countries’ affairs?

 

[AnastasiaRomano]

You hit the nail on the head!

It was the rioters who first resorted to lethal tactics.

The Berkut showed tremendous restraint and had initially responded with non-lethal tactics to these violent “protesters.”

There are numerous videos on YouTube showing the Police getting brutalized with Molotov cocktails and yet they continued to respond with non-lethal measures. It was only after many police were murdered that the Berkut were forced to respond with lethal measures.

John McCain and Victoria Nuland are directly responsible for helping to incite this violence by having traveled to Independence Square in Ukraine and emboldened these criminal “protesters.”

Well, it was Berkut who on the night of Nov. 30 (the day after the meeting at which the EU economic agreement had been scheduled to be signed) first used force to disperse the peaceful protesters. Had the government not used force then, there’s a good chance that the protests would have fizzled out or become a minor part of the Kyiv background just like the “Free Yulia” tents that have been standing along Khreschatyk (the main street) for a couple years now. Instead, the government used force, and the protests rapidly grew in number because even people who hadn’t cared enough about the EU agreement to protest it were horrified by the beatings.

 

[gilliam]

Ukraine’s parliament has just voted to remove the acting interior minister, Vitaliy Zakharchenko, for using violence against the protesters during the unrest.

The parliamentary bill to dismiss acting Interior Minister Zakharchenko was approved by a majority vote of 332 out of the total 383 MPs present, Ukraine’s Rada TV reports

Footage posted by ITV News shows Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski addressing one of the Ukrainian protest leaders saying: “If you don’t support this [deal] you’ll have martial law, you’ll have the army. You will all be dead.” Mr Sikorski later retweeted a post from his wife linking to the footage, saying: “Tough love diplomacy.”

Ukraine’s parliament has just voted in favor of amending a law that could see the release of the jailed opposition leader, Yulia Tymoshenko.

 

[AnastasiaRomano]

Ukraine’s parliament has just voted to remove the acting interior minister, Vitaliy Zakharchenko, for using violence against the protesters during the unrest.

The parliamentary bill to dismiss acting Interior Minister Zakharchenko was approved by a majority vote of 332 out of the total 383 MPs present, Ukraine’s Rada TV reports

If that vote total is accurate, that means that quite a few members of the president’s majority party voted in favor of it.

I pray that the parliament’s actions can help bring stability and peace back to Ukraine.

 

[gilliam]

If that vote total is accurate, that means that quite a few members of the president’s majority party voted in favor of it.

I pray that the parliament’s actions can help bring stability and peace back to Ukraine.

Shortly after the president and opposition signed the peace deal, MPs voted in parliament to return Ukraine to its 2004 constitution, approved an amnesty for protesters accused of involvement in violence and voted to dismiss Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko.

Daniel Sandford, BBC News, Kiev
tweets: Today is turning into an utter humiliation for Yanukovych. His own MPs are deserting him, and dismantling his security team.

President Yanukovych has declared 22 and 23 February days of mourning for those killed in what he called “the mass disturbances,” reports the Interfax-Ukraine news agency

 

[Lormar]

Our Catholic brothers and sisters in the Ukraine need our prayers desperately. Of course, it doesn’t surprise me that this isn’t big news with the media. Our religion isn’t on their approved list of things to report.

The following is a copy of an email from a priest in the Ukraine:

We are in a very complicated situation. Today, the police of Ukraine

killed almost 60 peaceful citizens. They are shooting us with the
machine guns and tanks. Many priests from my diocese are in Kiev and we
support the peaceful protests which were transformed by the government
police in the killing of peaceful people. Almost 4,000 people are
wounded and many of them are in jails. The government released
prisoners and gave them weapons, and they are killing us.
The police and the prisoners are using guns and machine guns.
Yesterday, in my city which is located not far from Kiev, the citizens
stopped police from going to Kiev to kill our people. Also, I was very
busy calming the people who were very angry. We are willing to have
peace but they are killing us, and it made people angry. The police
killed lot of young boys, old ladies, men who were holding Ukrainian
flags and trying to express our desire to live in the country where our
rights and dignity are respected. I not able to go and support my
parishioners in Kiev because of the [deleted] and my parish.
The government told our Catholic Church in Ukraine, if we support these
protests, our church will be forbidden to exist in Ukraine and all the
Catholic organizations will be forbidden.

We are trying to survive

 

[tomarin]

Of course, it doesn’t surprise me that this isn’t big news with the media. Our religion isn’t on their approved list of things to report.

I disagree - it’s the lead story on any number of news websites (the New York Times, NPR) and has been for days.

 

[gilliam]

In

this BBC analysis piece, Russian journalist Fyodor Lukyanov explains why Vladimir Putin is unlikely to withdraw his support for Ukrainian President Yanukovych, despite being aware of his weaknesses.

“Putin fears chaos. The main driving force behind his policy towards Ukraine will be not a desire for expansion, but a desire to reduce the risk of chaos spilling into Russia. To this end, anything goes - both defensive and offensive means.”

 

[gilliam]

An anti-government protester has been admitted to hospital in Brovary, a city in Kiev Oblast in northern Ukraine, with his mouth sewn up with shoemaker’s thread, allegedly by riot police.

ibtimes.co.uk/ukraine-unrest-riot-police-sews-protesters-mouth-shoemakers-thread-1437335

 

[gilliam]

“It felt like real war,” says Amnesty International’s Zoryan Kis of his night spent in Independence Square earlier this week.
“One of the opposition leaders was injured with a rubber bullet, while speaking on the main stage. Whoever was shooting, was aiming at his face.”

 

[josie_L]

Evidence please.

Russia is not the Soviet Union anymore. And a huge portion of the Ukraine’s population is simply Russian.

Last I checked the man who’s the boss in Ukraine now was our darling not too long ago. Now, suddenly, he’s a totalitarian monster.

Here’s some information on Yanukovych as detailed by Kyiv Andrew

Originally Posted by KyivAndrew View Post

In the last presidential elections, the votes were pretty even between the democratic Tymoshenko and the authoritarian Yanukovych, but with irregularities and fraud (caurosel voting) in Yanukovych’s home province of Donetsk. Remember in 2004 Yanukovych was party to a major electoral fraud involving millions of votes fraudulently claimed for him and away from the legitimate winner Yushchenko.

But the last elections in 2010 stayed. The problem was the aforementioned Yushchenko so hated his erstwhile democratic ally Tymoshenko that he told his and other democratic candidate’s supporters to vote “proty vshikh” or against all on the Presidential ballot. This third spoiled option ballot was then chosen by about 5% of the electorate which was leaning toward Tymoshenko. If not for Yushchenko’s trouble making, Yanukovych would have lost. Indeed, Yushchenko, several days before the presidential vote made it law that Yanukovych could rely on what was called carousel voting, that is mobile voting stations showing up at factories, old folk’s homes, and voting en masse. The then President Yushchenko knew this would guarantee victory for Yanukovych basically.

This behaviour by Yushchenko was astonishing as all knew he was basically sabotaging Tymoshenko’s campaign. He hated her, to put it bluntly, and was willing to allow the country to suffer as a result. People became disenchanted in the Orange forces for this infighting. Instead of arresting Yanukovych for vote fraud in 2004, Yushchenko surprisingly made him his PM for a while. This thing would take 3 pages to fully explain. Some say it was the dioxin poisoning of Yushchenko by Yanukovych or the Kremlin which caused him to completely change.

In any event, after becoming President, current president Yanukovych has committed several major offences against Ukraine’s constitution which in any other country would result promptly in the President’s impeachment and have him kicked out of office. First, in the subsequent parliamentary votes he used Berkut forces to enforce voter falsification. Voters and honest voting station chiefs were beaten up by Berkut on Yanukovych’s orders. Thereafter, he bribed parliamentarians from the democratic parties (who held an equality) to leave the party under which they were elected and join his party. If some didn’t he had the tax police run down their or their spouse’s business. Ukraine’s constitutions stipulates a member of parliament cannot switch from the party under whose list he/she was elected to another but must resign. Yanukovych broke this constitutional law - bribing or personally threatening MPs is an impeachable offense and he committed it. Moreover, he and the Communists, against both their promises, formed a parliamentary alliance in Ukraine’s parliament against the democrats.

Yanukovych also broke Ukraine’s constitution in making Ukraine’s Supreme Court become totally subservient to his demands. Many legal scholars have pointed out this is also an impeachable offense, threatening Supreme Court Justices to create a police state.

**Basically, since becoming President, Yanukovych has gone on to break every constitutional law to enforce his autocracy. At a certain stage a democratically elected leader (even if the vote isn’t completely honest) crosses the line, changes the laws under which he was voted, and becomes a dictator. This is what Yanukovych has done.

He should have been impeached by now had he not bought off illegally members of parliament (the going rate was one million at least per chair). The Supreme Court of Ukraine had ample grounds for impeaching Yanukovych’s violations but he has personally threatened them into submission.**

Yanukovych should have been arrested by Yushchenko back in 2005 for Massive Vote Fraud. He wasn’t and Yushchenko gave him a second life instead of putting him behind bars. Yanukovych was the one egging then President Kuchma to send in the tanks onto the Maidan and fire at the million peaceful protesters gathered then there during the peaceful Orange Revolution. This information of Yanukovych begging for tanks to be sent in and used on innocent protesters back in 2004/5 has been confirmed by several of those in attendance for those talks with Kuchma. Yanukovych was baying for violence against the Maidan back in 2004. Now he’s got his wish in 2014, but the people are resisting. Many believe this is their last stand before Ukraine either becomes a hopeless corrupt police state, or a colony of Putin’s autocratic Russia (and given history Ukainians have bad experience to put it mildly being ruled from Moscow) which itself is playing its own hand now and probably without Yanukovych’s knowledge though he has complained of tremendous Russian bullying on Ukraine to the EU.

 

[josie_L]

continued. . . .

Umm…remember the “police” fighting the protestors and the “police” snipers who killed those innocent protestors yesterday are actually Riot Police or “Berkut”, more properly the militia inherited from the Soviet Union. Some of these Berkut have written of their ordeal secretly, being housed and isolated for 48 hours in their quarters and being hopped up on how brutal they are to be, and then let go.

I’ve seen pictures of Molotov cocktails landing on two Berkut I believe and other Berkut kicked and beaten and I deplore this. It was initially however Berkut who started off the violence back in December on Yanukovych’s orders when they were sent in and beat up innocent unarmed students in Kyiv’s Independence Square. No Berkut had been attacked then or even threatened. Remember, back then, there was no violence and the protestors had no arms but were just students from Ukraine’s universities who wanted an end to corruption in Ukraine and the rule of law. Yanukovych sent in these Berkut to physically beat these students and unleashed a violent storm which also involved the beating up of journalists resulting in the hospitalizations of many. Now Yanukovych is having opponents killed in the middle of the night and this is second nature to him.

Every time it seemed like things had cooled down, Yanukovych always upped the ante. I think a lot of people who were against force being used against the Yanukovych regime are at their wit’s end as they see no movement from him. He is a thug and a liar.

The worst is that he and his Regionnaire’s Party pay for thugs and youth from areas of Ukraine controlled by Yanukovych’s party like Kherson, Luhansk, Sevastopil and Donetsk, to show up drunk and with weapons at the anti-Yanukovych protests and start causing violence and a ruckus. These people are called “titushky” in Ukrainian. Yanukovych buses and trains in hundreds of these young male youths, some with criminal records like his own, to come to Kyiv and they get paid after they finish fighting with the anti-Yanukovych protesters and beating them up. They have clips on youtube of these guys being bused in, beating people up for Yanukovych, and being sent home. And these “titushky” or pro-Yanukovych thugs are guarded by the militia Berkut all the time and not arrested, to top this whole thing off! This is what Yanukovych has done to Ukraine’s youth.

Those who believe Yanukovych cares about Ukraine’s youth, its people, or culture are fooling themselves and I would argue those on CAF who defend his regime probably likewise don’t really care that much about Ukraine’s future but only post on here to vent their personal hatred of the West/EU/USA so Ukraine has become a proxy for their hatred of the West or themselves.

The Berkut in Kyiv are being fed a steady diet now that the protesters are on the payroll of foreigners, but not all are buying this. As I said, the Berkut in several of Ukraine’s provinces have no wish to join the ones in Kyiv (who incidentally hail from some of the places the titushky are shipped in from) in using violence against the population. Again the violence was initiated by Yanukovych and each time it began to dissipate, Yanukovych always upped the ante. Now, really, it’s just boiled over. Many of the protesters don’t wish to fight Berkut, but for weeks have been urging them to join the people - “Militsiya z Narodom” - is a common slogan, or the Militia with the People. As I said previously, Yanukovych even fired the Head of Ukraine’s army because Yanukovych is unsure he would give the command to kill innocent people. Berkut is more reliable to Yanukovych but if you asked me to wager how many of these guys wish to be doing what they are doing now, the rank and file, I’d say a minority. The problem is their chiefs, including the immoral Interior Minister, threaten their livelihoods if they don’t follow their orders. I don’t blame the rank and file Berkut, I blame the one giving them their orders - Yanukovych.

 

[gilliam]

Russia didn’t want the Ukraine president impeached, so he wasn’t impeached.

There is a motion that was tabled today to impeach him.

 

[josie_L]

Russia didn’t want the Ukraine president impeached, so he wasn’t impeached.

There is a motion that was tabled today to impeach him.

What?? Russia is attempting to intervene in Ukrainian political affairs, noooooo way!!!

 

[HansTrappist]

An anti-government protester has been admitted to hospital in Brovary, a city in Kiev Oblast in northern Ukraine, with his mouth sewn up with shoemaker’s thread, allegedly by riot police.

ibtimes.co.uk/ukraine-unrest-riot-police-sews-protesters-mouth-shoemakers-thread-1437335

Allegedly is the key word there my friend.

The Ukrainian authorities have shown tremendous restraint in responding to these terrorist protesters.

Can you imagine what would happen if a “protester” threw a Molotov cocktail at an American Police Officer? They would be shot dead on the spot. Heck, just looking at an American cop the wrong way will get you in a confrontational situation these days.

The Ukrainian Berkut tolerated the murder of many of their own before they were forced to defend themselves with lethal force.

Also, I find it extremely interesting how the Western media is trying to paint Putin as some sort of villain here when it was Victoria Nuland and John McCain who traveled to the Ukraine’s Independence Square to lend their support to these violent “protesters.”

It’s also funny to watch the Western propagandists in the midstream media demonize Viktor Yanukovych as “corrupt” whilst turning a blind eye to the corrupt opposition in Parliament and the naked corruption, threats, and blackmail tactics being used by the EU and the West against Yanukovych.

 

[Seamus_L]

Russia Pledges to Fight for Crimea if Ukraine Splits themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-pledges-to-fight-for-crimea-if-ukraine-splits/495034.html

 

[Robert_Bay]

Can you imagine what would happen if a “protester” threw a Molotov cocktail at an American Police Officer?

He wouldn’t have his mouth sewn shut with shoe thread. And if he did there would be hell to pay.

There are a lot of pics on the net by the way of protesters on fire. Probably from Molotov cocktails. Which US police would not be allowed to do.

Assuming you know all this already though

 

[gilliam]

Separating the Crimea may be the long term solution.