Vatican peace doves attacked by crow and seagull seconds after being released

[Seshmeister]

http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/26/vatican-peace-doves-attacked-by-crow-and-seagull-seconds-after-being-released-4277939/?ITO=facebook


http://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ad_125598921.jpg?w=650&h=471&crop=1#038;h=726


Two white doves released by children alongside Pope Francis as a gesture of peace were almost immediately attacked by other birds.

As tens of thousands of people in St Peter’s Square looked on, a seagull and a large crow swept down on the doves as they were freed from a window of the Apostolic Palace.




http://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ad_125600524.jpg?w=650&h=448&crop=1#038;h=690

One of the birds lost feathers as it broke free from the attack, but the other was repeatedly pecked by the crow. Their fate is unknown.

The doves had been released after Pope Francis appealed for peace in Ukraine following anti-government protests in which several people have died.

http://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ad_125596650.jpg?w=650&h=481&crop=1#038;h=741

[Satan]

Oh you know I'm going to be blamed for this... especially the crow. http://www.cosgan.de/images/smilie/teufel/d025.gif

[Seshmeister]

I hope Ukrainians aren't too superstitious... :)

[katina]

I hope Ukrainians aren't too superstitious... :)

Sign of the Times?? My family and myself had paid a very high price for Ukraine....it´s seems that history is repeating itself.

[Seshmeister]

I wonder if this tactic of protesters attacking cops with weapons made from fireworks is going to catch on.

It's pretty spectacular to look at...some of the footage from the Ukraine looks like Armageddon...


http://rendering.ru/media/varlamov/maidan1/14.jpg

[katina]

Holodomor

[Seshmeister]

You would think that would make everyone in the Ukraine want to join Europe rather than tie themselves to Russia.

I wonder though how much of Stalin's work ever made it into the history textbooks taught to people in the Ukraine.

[katina]

Everyone? Of course not.

[Nitro Express]

Ukrainians have a distrust of Russians for good reason. Joining the corrupt EU set up by bankers really is no improvement either. Iceland told the EU and it's bankers to fuck off and the Ukraine would be wise to do the same. The unicorns and rainbows jesuit pope can fuck himself as well. Nobody with a brain is going to buy his line of bullshit either. Like all protests it's wise to investigate beyond the surface to see who's really behind it and what the agenda really is.

[Seshmeister]

Everyone? Of course not.

Well that's the thing, I think I read somewhere that 40% of East Germans still vote communist despite the Stasi and everything else that was done to them over the years.

People have a great habit of thinking things used to be better when they were younger...

[Nitro Express]

Well that's the thing, I think I read somewhere that 40% of East Germans still vote communist despite the Stasi and everything else that was done to them over the years.

People have a great habit of thinking things used to be better when they were younger...

It's because their lives probably didn't improve that much after communism. Also, once you have a person programmed it's hard to un-program them. If you are lazy and uneducated, the capitalist system is pretty rough; especially, for someone who came out of the communist system where all you had to do was do what you were told to do. What ushers in communism is the exploitation of people who never could really make the capitalist system work for them. You need the disgruntled masses. Lennin called them useful idiots. The holy grail is to have happy slaves. Throw them some freebies. Enough to keep them pacified and skim the rest. Much like managing a rock star.

[ashstralia]

I wonder if this tactic of protesters attacking cops with weapons made from fireworks is going to catch on.

Happened in Redfern, Sydney 10 years ago. Not on such a grand scale though.

[Seshmeister]

Oof it's getting worse over there... :)

[Nickdfresh]

Well that's the thing, I think I read somewhere that 40% of East Germans still vote communist despite the Stasi and everything else that was done to them over the years.

People have a great habit of thinking things used to be better when they were younger...

My understanding is that a large proportion of the population in the Ukraine is of Russian decent and looks toward Russia culturally and even politically (a result of Stalin's "planter" policy and the exacerbation of the famine called the Holomdor in the 1920's). The traditional Ukrainians look more towards the West in general, and have strong ties to Poland....

[katina]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10649170/Ukraine-protests-Were-letting-Putin-win.html

Ukraine protests: We're letting Putin win
Ukrainians are fighting and dying for the right to be European – but they have been betrayed by the failure of a weak and divided West to stand up to the Kremlin

As Kiev burns, Western policymakers are eating ashes. Our efforts to help Ukraine towards Europe, democracy and the rule of the law have failed spectacularly. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is celebrating not just sporting triumph in Sochi, but geopolitical victory in the affairs of his most important neighbour.

It is easy to overcomplicate the Ukraine story with historical, ethnic and geographical details. The country is often said to be split between east and west, between Russian- and Ukrainian-speakers, between those nostalgic for Soviet certainties and those who want a Western-style future. Ukraine’s business elite is divided too, between the cronies of president Viktor Yanukovych and those who resent his predatory ways. The opposition is a motley lot: imagine Nigel Farage, Ed Balls, football fans and the Women’s Institute huddling under a common banner.

But the real picture is much simpler. Most Ukrainians want their country to be part of Europe. Russia, the former imperial master, forbids this. It wants Ukraine to be part of its new Eurasian Economic Union – a counterweight to the European Union, albeit one run by crooks and spooks in Moscow, rather than eurocrats in Brussels.

Without Vladimir Putin, Ukraine would be at peace today. It was Russia which forced Ukraine to shun the economic agreement offered by the EU in October, launching a crippling trade war against Ukrainian exports. It was Russia which offered cheap gas and soft loans as the Ukrainian economy tottered. It was Russia which installed hundreds of “advisers” in key Ukrainian public bodies and ministries, including the SBU secret police, to ensure that they toe the Moscow line. Without Russia’s silent putsch, Ukrainians would have not have needed to build barricades in the streets in protest at the regime’s misrule. Even then, without the continued and escalating Russian pressure on Mr Yanukovych, the conflict could have been defused.

Kremlin meddling in Ukraine is not new. It has systematically breached an agreement made in Budapest in 1994 under which Ukraine gave up its Soviet nuclear weapons in return for a promise that Russia would never submit it to economic coercion or other aggression. It has repeatedly cut gas supplies to Ukraine, and fostered a culture of murky energy-trading intermediaries whose money poisons Ukrainian politics. Russia maintains a naval base, complete with spooks and special forces, in Sevastopol in Crimea. That region is home to a resentful population of ethnic Russians who wonder why this balmy peninsular was handed over to Ukraine in Soviet days. They are in constant friction with the Crimean Tartars, deported en masse from their ancestral homeland in 1944 in an exceptional act of Stalinist savagery.

But Russia’s interference in Ukraine has intensified in recent months, just as Western efforts have floundered. European policymakers still cling to the notion that talks with Russia can bring a mutually beneficial solution to Ukraine’s agony. That is a false hope. The Kremlin does not like win-win solutions. It likes outcomes in which it wins, and its detestable Western rivals lose, preferably humiliatingly – this, for Mr Putin, is a matter of personal prestige. In short, though the EU finds the whole notion of geopolitics old-fashioned and unappealing, geopolitics is happening on its doorstep. And it is losing.

America is out of the game, too. The Obama administration has neglected its European allies since the day it took office. Its senior official dealing with Ukraine, Toria Nuland, is admirably energetic – and blunt (she recently declared “F--- the EU” in a phone call to her ambassador in Kiev, bugged and then leaked by Russian intelligence). But she lacks the clout to make the wheels of policy turn in Washington. Without Moscow’s interference, the EU and United States could marshal their modest resources to make a difference. Faced with Russia in all its implacable fury, both are outgunned. The fallout from Edward Snowden’s leaks of secret material from the National Security Agency has corroded and weakened the transatlantic alliance: fury with American snooping in countries such as Germany has paralysed what should be vital discussions on security.

Now all the likely outcomes are bad. Perhaps the authorities will decide that they cannot crush the protesters and will draw back, meaning months of tension, jitters and uncertainty. Even then, Ukraine’s territorial integrity has been shattered, perhaps fatally. In the west, government buildings have been set ablaze. The region – the old Austro-Hungarian Galicia – was the site of a decade-long insurrection post-war against Soviet rule. If pro-Moscow authorities in Kiev try to crack down there, civil war looms. That involves not just human suffering (and quite possibly large numbers of refugees) but also economic dislocation and grave risks of outsiders being drawn in. What happens if someone – a real or invented band of nationalist guerrillas, say – attacks one of the east-west oil or gas pipelines?

Equally worrying is Crimea – site of the Charge of the Light Brigade 160 years ago – which could now be the flashpoint for another conflict with Russia, with far more devastating effects. The region is on the verge of declaring independence from Kiev (a move likely to prompt Russian intervention to protect the separatist statelet).

If the crackdown continues, and succeeds, we will see a dreadful roll-back of the gains of the past 10 years. The newly passed repressive laws will be used in full, not just against public protest but against independent media, civil society, and other institutions. We may see the reintroduction of a visa regime for visitors from Western countries. All kinds of foreign-related and foreign-sponsored activity will be impeded or banned. Ukraine will become another Belarus.

Once the country is at the Kremlin’s mercy, Mr Putin can extort a heavy price. He is known to disparage the very notion of Ukraine’s statehood, in public and in private. He could demand that it join a Russian-led security alliance. Russia’s military integration with Belarus is already proving a headache for Nato, which is struggling to work out how it can defend Europe’s north-eastern flank with its slender remaining resources. If the regime in Kiev proceeds with military and security integration with Russia, Central Europe will experience what the Baltic states have felt for several years: the icy sensation of a hard security threat.

Last time Europe faced a security problem of this magnitude was in the Yugoslav wars in the Nineties. For years the West failed to grasp the problem. It is in a far worse state now. The countries that have tried hardest to help Ukraine, such as Poland and Sweden, feel frustrated and exhausted. In the rest of Europe, the appetite for confrontation with the Kremlin, the real instigator of the crackdown, has never been lower. The danger now is that, in despair, the West seeks to broker a solution to the Ukrainian problem through a deal with Russia. That will infuriate and disillusion the protesters, stoking extremism and violence. It is hard to imagine a more dangerous message to send to the Kremlin: create chaos in your former empire and the West will then let you dictate the terms of settlement.

Instead, the West should be flexing its muscles. Two policies stand out. One is to bolster the countries that may be next in the Kremlin’s firing line. Georgia and Moldova are both worried that their move towards Europe will incur the same pressure and interference now being experienced by Ukraine. We should support them, and the most exposed countries that are already in Western clubs, such as the small Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Second, the Achilles’ heel of both the Yanukovych regime and his Kremlin backers is money. However much they steal, they cannot dispose of it at home. They need our banks, our real-estate market, our stock exchanges and our secretive company law to hide and launder their assets. They use our law firms and auditors to make it look legal. This happens in Vienna, New York – and London. It is to our lasting shame that we have been accomplices in this. We should unleash our money-laundering and anti-bribery laws. We should freeze assets and impose visa bans on those involved in looting and repression on our doorstep.

Ukrainians are fighting and dying for the right to be European. Theirs is not a naive belief in the EU’s virtues, but a profound belief that liberty, legality and decency are better than crony capitalism and the neo-Soviet bombast of the Putin Kremlin. They believe in our values more than we do ourselves. Why are we letting them down?

[ELVIS]

Like all protests it's wise to investigate beyond the surface to see who's really behind it and what the agenda really is.

You mean like George Soros of the fake Left preparing a “Lybian scenario” for Ukraine ??

[ELVIS]

America is out of the game, too.

That's bullshit...

[ELVIS]

It's pretty spectacular to look at...

Especially when you know it's staged...

[katina]

That's bullshit...

That is the only sentence of the article that I don´t agree with.

[katina]

Government Snipers Shooting protesters in Kiev


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahjaTulXPGQ

[katina]

Oof it's getting worse over there... :)




Really worse :(

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2563609/Truce-Kiev-collapses-hours-official-day-mourning-28-people-killed-protests-erupts-violence.html

[Seshmeister]

I always wonder about the psychology of soldiers or police who are happy to stand there shooting unarmed people especially their own neighbors and countrymen.

[BITEYOASS]

With the exception of South Korea, the rest of the world better forget about the USA taking part in an armed intervention anytime soon. Because we're up to our necks in debt thanks to cowboy McDumbfuck and his teabagging shitheads in congress (who use to be known as the GOP before the recent name change), the road system is all fucked up, and the general public is going to say "HELL NO!" when asked (or should I say conned) to take part in another war.

[ELVIS]

They've been brainwashed into thinking ordinary people are the enemy...

[Satan]

They've been brainwashed into thinking ordinary people are the enemy...

Yes.... the BCE and the Religious Reich have been doing that for 30 + years now.

Blame it on the queers, blame it on the Mexicans, blame it on the unemployed, blame it on the Muslims, etc.

[ELVIS]

Blame it on the progressive left...

[Satan]

Blame it on the progressive left...

Yeah, they get blamed for all sorts of shit too. Even though they have only slightly more political power than the others I mentioned.

At this point I think they are down to 2 senators (one of whom doesn't even call himself a Demoncrat) and maybe a handful in the House. And they haven't had the White House since 1980.

[ELVIS]

Fell out of love with Bill, eh ??

[Satan]

I'm the Devil, not Monica Lewinsky. I was NEVER "in love" with Bill.

[ELVIS]

Hmmm...


:biggrin:

[Nickdfresh]

You mean like George Soros of the fake Left preparing a “Lybian scenario” for Ukraine ??

Spell much?

What "fake Libyan scenario"? People sick of having their daughters and sons raped by a cunt?

[Satan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdTsJfoWjK4

[ELVIS]

What "fake Libyan scenario"?

I didn't say it was fake...

If it were fake, Gaddafi would still be alive...

[katina]

http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2014/02/22/p18hdgejv6sjgn6ijtahqg1h164/big.jpg

This handout picture taken and released by the Batkivshyna press service on Feb. 22, 2014 shows Ukraine's jailed pro-Western opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko leaving the hospital in Kharkiv. Tymoshenko walked free on Feb. 22 moments after parliament voted to oust the country's embattled President Viktor Yanukovych and set new elections for May. The latest developments in the ex-Soviet nation's three-month political crisis came after protesters took control of Kiev's charred city centre and seized Yanukovych's lavish residence on a day of dramatic twists and turns. Tymoshenko -- a fiery 53-year-old co-leader of the 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution whose freedom has been sought strongly by both Washington and the European Union -- waved to hundreds of supporters chanting "free Yulia!" AFP PHOTO/ BATKIVSHCHYNA PARTY PRESS-SERVICE / INNA PETRIKOVA
© AFP

[Nickdfresh]

I didn't say it was fake...

If it were fake, Gaddafi would still be alive...

Maybe. But he was a demented asshole through and through and deserved what he got...

[ELVIS]

Is that what you saw on TV ??

[ELVIS]

Press TV (http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/13/288718/western-propaganda-and-libya-revolution/)

My memory of Col. Muammar Gaddafi was that of a Libyan revolutionary and socialist politician who does not beat around the bush, telling it straight to your face and of course such attitude can be perceived by some as dictatorial.

http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/obama-gaddafi.jpg

If I look around Africa Continent, the closest to Col. Gaddafi is late Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana who identified that African Continent is partially free politically and most definitely not economically and that Africans need to “emancipate itself from mental slavery and that none but ourselves can free our mind” (Pan-African).

Some of my readers may wonder why the comparison of Gaddafi and Nkrumah? It was what they stood for and not who they are and by that I mean they stood for the unity of Africa as a continent through economic empowerment such as increased trades between countries in the continent as well as political and technological cooperation.

Gaddafi focused on key areas that can help prolong average life span of Libyans such as good road network; good healthcare facilities, better housing so that Libyans will not sleep rough, and he eliminated poverty focusing on those Libyans who are unable to work due to disability or ill health.

Gaddafi’s effort to stabilise Libya by bringing all different tribes together and also working with poverty-stricken West African nations did not gain popularity in the West (news blackout) because it was distorting their (West) plan for Africa and Middle East, hence incitement of tribal unrest and counter coup in Libya in the past.

They (West) use their propaganda machine (Western Media) to turn Gaddafi into Mr. Jekyll and Hyde (man with two faces) in the eyes of his neighbours as well as around the world portraying him (Gaddafi) as a tyrant/dictator/terrorist hated by his own people and the world over.

In their “War against Terrorism,” they finally succeeded to get behind Gaddafi’s skin particularly after 9/11 because he started working with them behind the scenes hence made him more enemies than friends within the Arab community because he allowed them (West) access to Libya and its facilities (marking the beginning of his downfall).

However, the financial and technical cooperation enjoyed by many West African countries under the regime of Gaddafi must be acknowledged, - countries such as Sierra Leone, Guinea-Conakry, Chad, Niger, Mali, Senegal, and Burkina Faso - because it shows the other side of Gaddafi that the world did not see.

The West also enjoyed financial support from him and his family and without a doubt it was a subject on the lips of many European and West African leaders, either they like it or not, and there were individuals who had benefited from different educational funds he supported around the world.

I was fortunate to know Libyans from Benghazi and Tripoli who acknowledged that the regime of Gaddafi gave them the chance to be true Libyans because they had peace and were able to move freely as a citizen without fear - unlike now after his demise.

The awakening that gripped Tunisia and Egypt was to the West’s detriment but perfect timing to incite regime change in Libya, because they already had their agents on the ground in Libya, making it easy for them to hijack the awakening and turning it into regime change in Libya.

The people of Benghazi under the supervision of the West seemed to be ideal to start the revolution for regime change; after all they had an old score to settle with Gaddafi even though majority from that part of the nation could vouch for political, economic and social peace enjoyed under Gaddafi and even Gaddafi had a home in Benghazi.

Some Western countries feared that allowing Gaddafi to continue as Libyan leader meant they had a lot to lose and one of such fears was over their financial indebtedness to Gaddafi, his family and people of Libya because repaying this money could deal a bigger blow to their own economy.

Also, deposing him would leave a power vacuum considering the volatile tribal division in Libya and an opportunity for them to have a say in Libya’s oil distribution network, which would in turn help sustain their businesses and economy through the period of Western economic crunch.

Like the situation with Mali, France took the lead and of course there was more than just political undertone for former French president’s involvement in Libya, some of which came out in French press while others did not make it to the print (News blackout?).

It was obvious that Gaddafi had made many enemies in the Middle East, hence not much support came from that direction to help bring political solution, and of course Gaddafi had himself to blame because becoming Mr. Jekyll and Hyde for the West always end in regret.

In the heat of it all, even Libya’s strong ally, Russia, could not do much to resuscitate his government because by this time there had been promises and counter promises made to Gaddafi’s aides who were breaking ranks more than he anticipated and Western media were splashing news of defection daily, hence his regime was doomed.

Gaddafi losing grip on power was a combination of many factors, amongst which was his close ties forged with West during Iraq war when he allowed Libya to be used strategically against al-Qaeda, and by conniving with the West he carved enemies for himself within the Arab community, hence West collaborating to oust him seemed imminent because he lacked popular support.

The Western media news blackout on turn of events during the Libya revolution and news propaganda about atrocities purported to have been committed by Gaddafi’s supporters did not favour him, hence common conversation in public places around the world was that he must go.

Africa may not have a voice, but comparing news heard from mainstream Western media and online news from Press TV and others like it, it was obvious that the continent is well aware of the Western double standard, hence factual reporting by Press TV during Libya revolution form one of the reasons for a Western coup against the network.

Africa and the Middle East have been creating awareness in the mind of their younger generations that there is double standard in news reporting by the Western media, and one of the ways to identify existence of such double standard is for this younger audience to compare online reporting with mainstream Western media before forming opinion.

The Western leaders censor Western media to only report news they want the world to hear and Western media knows how to put it across nations of the earth fancifully and convincingly with no regards for psychological damage to listeners, and those networks that did not join the bandwagon suffered a witch hunt.

Gaddafi was a victim of such Western news propaganda and spreading lies is a continuous process of reporting by Western media and most recent is the reporting by a Western media showing a picture of mass killings to have been carried out by Syrian soldiers, but it was later proved to be untrue because picture from previous reporting were used.

People from Africa and the Middle East are more aware now that accusation made by the West against activities of leaders or nations may be untrue, hence they now use news comparison for verification before forming opinion.

The Western media have lost its popularity amongst many individuals from Africa and the Middle East, because it has become apparent that Western media through its satellite channels has been feeding them with propaganda and lies, hence they are switching from mainstream satellite stations onto the Internet for latest news and update.

Press TV’s true news reporting have placed the network on the wrong side of Western leaders, and witch hunting against the news network is a further conviction that the Western leaders through media have been feeding the people of the world with propaganda far too long.

It is ironic to see that Gaddafi, who was a dictator/tyrant hated by his people, could lend money to Western nations and yet they did not refuse to accept the money neither did they decline to use Libya as a base to torture individuals accused of terrorism.

Muammar Gaddafi is dead. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is incarcerated, hence another news blackout on the real truth behind why the West sped up regime change in Libya using military force and under the disguise of the United Nation Security Council.

The West claimed that Libya is now a free nation with peace and stability after Gaddafi’s death, but there is no stable unity government that includes all tribes in Libya and moreover the United State suffers its first casualty in Libya in 2012.

Libya has been politically volatile since the awakening and while Western media only touch on it after the death of the US diplomat, Press TV never stops reporting.


:elvis:

[katina]

Ukrainians get their first glimpse inside the luxury compound of the former Ukrainian leader's presidential compound, that had been hidden from the country for years.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-RzPRloiWo

[FORD]

by John Batchelor
February 25, 2014 (http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/ukraine-nationalistantisemitismneonaziviolence.html)
Threat of anti-Semitic violence should cause international alarm


President Viktor Yanukovich’s sudden, surprise departure from Kiev is the beginning of a long ordeal for Ukrainians. It’s also the start of a major threat to the several hundred thousand Ukrainian Jews.

Anti-Semitic violence in Ukraine may come as a surprise to an American audience accustomed to optimistic portrayals of the swiftly changing events in U.S. media. The last weeks have been dominated by talk of vigils for democracy, for the EU, for Western ways, played out for the cameras in the bonfire-lit Independence Square.

The Russian media, by contrast, have devoted time, since autumn, to explicating the virulent history of the ultranationalist neo-Nazi parties from western Ukraine that rally under the black and red flag of the grandfather of Ukrainian fascist parties, the 85-year-old Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Its flag can be seen in pictures of the parliament building surrounded by masked and helmeted protesters.

In her Sunday appearance to discuss the crisis on “Meet the Press,” National Security Adviser Susan Rice was not asked about the fears of the Jews of Ukraine. Nor has the White House mentioned Jews or anti-Semitism during the several remarks directed at Moscow advising Russian President Vladimir Putin not to intervene in the Ukrainian chaos.

Ukrainian Jews, on the other hand, are speaking out loudly now that Kiev is descending into anarchy.

A grave threat

The transition agreement toward elections that was brokered on Friday between European Union ministers and Yanukovich was immediately broken by the Ukrainian fascists, according to my sources. Yanukovich then fled the capital, and law and order in the streets left with him. So did the safety of Ukraine’s Jews.

Rabbis in Kiev and across Ukraine spoke out, warning their congregations to stay off the streets and remain in their homes. The Jewish Agency in Jerusalem has moved swiftly to offer aid to elderly Jews living in greater Kiev. Food-delivery men are braving gunshots and Molotov cocktails to help them. Reports from Kiev say the police have been replaced by roving bands of undetermined loyalty.

Jewish organizations worldwide and the state of Israel regard the appeals from Ukraine as grave and immediate.

The fresh report of the firebombing of a new synagogue in Zaporizhia, 250 miles southeast of Kiev, increased the alarm in Israel and accelerated planning for all contingencies, including evacuations.
The Kremlin will act to protect the millions of Ukrainians and Russian citizens who are at risk from the fascists and anarchists in general.

In the coming days, either Yanukovich will choose to stay in Ukraine and contest the coup in Kiev or he will abdicate and pass the mess into the hands of the EU and Russia. Early indications from Moscow point to the likelihood that Yanukovich is unreliable.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was on the telephone to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to sort out the failure of the EU to live up to the promises it made to Yanukovich and Moscow. Berlin insists that a solution for the disorder in Kiev not only includes a legitimate leadership with police power but also involves finding up to $27 billion to keep Ukraine solvent in its obligations.

My sources point to a calm, adamant, confident Kremlin that will act to protect the millions of Ukrainians and Russian citizens who are at risk from the fascists and anarchists in general. The Jews are part of the population that Moscow will move to protect. My sources indicate that Russia will move to reinforce the military installations in Crimea and then prepare adequate means to help other regions where Russian citizens are concentrated, like Odessa.

As for the U.S., it finds itself in a position of supporting chaos in Kiev with Rice’s unfocused remark that “the United States is on the side of the Ukrainian people.”


The view from Moscow

I wrote recently of the Kremlin’s opinion that Barack Obama’s administration has interfered in Ukrainian affairs. My sources have told me that the Kremlin holds that Rice has been in contact with the investor George Soros, who has used his wealth and influence openly to unsettle affairs in Ukraine at least since the Orange Revolution of 2005. The Kremlin maintains that the Obama administration has led the protesters to understand that Washington supports their demands to join with the EU and not with the Russian Federation.

Moscow waited for the end of the Sochi Games before it moved to straighten out the mess in Kiev. Moscow conceded to all the demands by the EU and U.S. and lent its authority to the agreement that Yanukovich signed before the fascist gangs destroyed the resolution. Now the country is fragmented, lawless, beggared, fear-racked.

Moscow, I am told, understands that the most difficult challenge will be dealing with the fascist parties like those under the red and black flag as well as Oleh Tyahnyok’s Svoboda (Freedom Party). The remaining protest parties are not nearly so worrisome, as the western Ukraine voters will be overwhelmed in any election by the Russian-linked eastern Ukraine, which represents 55 to 60 percent of the population. Moscow’s choice, Yanukovich, won a closely monitored and EU-approved election in 2010. The easy assumption is that Moscow’s choice will win again in the early elections now called for.

What is not known is how Moscow can resolve the crisis while corralling the fascist bands that have overrun Kiev, wrecked the elected government and now threaten to repeat some of the darkest crimes of the last century.

John Batchelor is a novelist and host of a national radio news show based in New York City.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.

[Seshmeister]

Press TV (http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/13/288718/western-propaganda-and-libya-revolution/)

My memory of Col. Muammar Gaddafi was that of a Libyan revolutionary and socialist politician who does not beat around the bush, telling it straight to your face and of course such attitude can be perceived by some as dictatorial.


Just to clarify you are now citing Iranian State controlled TV as being accurate when it says Gaddafi was a good guy?

Are you fucking nuts?

Yes I would perceive someone who ruled over a country for over 30 years without a sign fucking free election who tortured, raped and murdered thousands.

The only interesting thing about your post is the extent of the crazy shit coming out of the Iranian government propaganda department.

[Nickdfresh]

Press TV (http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/13/288718/western-propaganda-and-libya-revolution/)

My memory of Col. Muammar Gaddafi was that of a Libyan revolutionary and socialist politician who does not beat around the bush, telling it straight to your face and of course such attitude can be perceived by some as dictatorial.

...

:elvis:

Jesus fucking christ, you're just like the dumb fucking German slut crying for Hitler at the Nuremberg rally. Why don't you suck his dick, then? you might be a bit too old though, he preferred younger men and girls (to add to his rape collection)...

[Angel]

I always wonder about the psychology of soldiers or police who are happy to stand there shooting unarmed people especially their own neighbors and countrymen.

Stanford prison experiment...

[katina]

A very interesting article, written by an outstanding historian, Timothy Snyder.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/?insrc=hpss

Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda
Timothy Snyder

From Moscow to London to New York, the Ukrainian revolution has been seen through a haze of propaganda. Russian leaders and the Russian press have insisted that Ukrainian protesters were right-wing extremists and then that their victory was a coup. Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, used the same clichés after a visit with the Russian president at Sochi. After his regime was overturned, he maintained he had been ousted by “right-wing thugs,” a claim echoed by the armed men who seized control of airports and government buildings in the southern Ukrainian district of Crimea on Friday

Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul’s newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d’état.

In fact, it was a classic popular revolution. It began with an unmistakably reactionary regime. A leader sought to gather all power, political as well as financial, in his own hands. This leader came to power in democratic elections, to be sure, but then altered the system from within. For example, the leader had been a common criminal: a rapist and a thief. He found a judge who was willing to misplace documents related to his case. That judge then became the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were no constitutional objections, subsequently, when the leader asserted ever more power for his presidency.

In power, this leader, this president, remained a thief, but now on a grand, perhaps even unsurpassed, scale. Throughout his country millions of small businessmen and businesswomen found it impossible to keep their firms afloat, thanks to the arbitrary demands of tax authorities. Their profits were taken by the state, and the autonomy that those profits might have given them were denied. Workers in the factories and mines had no means whatsoever of expression their own distress, since any attempt at a strike or even at labor organization would simply have led to their dismissal.

The country, Ukraine, was in effect an oligarchy, where much of the wealth was in the hands of people who could fit in one elevator. But even this sort of pluralism, the presence of more than one very rich person, was too much for the leader, Viktor Yanukovych. He wanted to be not only the president but the oligarch-in-chief. His son, a dentist, was suddenly one of the wealthiest men in Europe. Tens of billions of dollars simply disappeared from the state budget. Yanukovych built for himself a series of extravagant homes, perhaps the ugliest in architectural history.

It is hard to have all of the power and all of the money at the same time, because power comes from the state, and the state has to have a budget. If a leader steals so much from the people that the state goes bankrupt, then his power is diminished. Yanukovych actually faced this problem last year. And so, despite everything, he became vulnerable, in a very curious way. He needed someone to finance the immediate debts of the Ukrainian state so that his regime would not fall along with it.

Struggling to pay his debts last year, the Ukrainian leader had two options. The first was to begin trade cooperation with the European Union. No doubt an association agreement with the EU would have opened the way for loans. But it also would have meant the risk of the application of the rule of law within Ukraine. The other alternative was to take money from another authoritarian regime, the great neighbor to the east, the Russian Federation.

In December of last year, the leader of this neighboring authoritarian regime, Vladimir Putin, offered a deal. From Russia’s hard currency reserves accumulated by the sale of hydrocarbons he was willing to offer a loan of $15 billion, and lower the price of natural gas from Russia. Putin had a couple of little preoccupations, however.

The first was the gay conspiracy. This was a subject that had dominated Russian propaganda throughout last year but which had been essentially absent from Ukraine. Perhaps Ukraine could join in? Yes indeed: the Ukrainian prime minister began to explain to his population that Ukraine could not have closer cooperation with Europe, since the EU was interested chiefly in gay marriage.

Putin’s second preoccupation was something called Eurasia. This was and is Putin’s proposed rival to the European Union, a club of dictatorships meant to include Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Again, perhaps Ukraine could join? Yanukovych hesitated here, seeing the trap—the subordination of Ukraine of course meant his own subordination—but he did allow himself to be jollied along toward the necessary policies. He began to act like a proper dictator. He began to kill his own people in significant numbers. He bloodied his hands, making him an unlikely future partner for the European Union.

Enter a lonely, courageous Ukrainian rebel, a leading investigative journalist. A dark-skinned journalist who gets racially profiled by the regime. And a Muslim. And an Afghan. This is Mustafa Nayem, the man who started the revolution. Using social media, he called students and other young people to rally on the main square of Kiev in support of a European choice for Ukraine. That square is called the Maidan, which by the way is an Arab word. During the first few days of the protests the students called it the Euromaidan. Russian propaganda called it, predictably enough, the Gayeuromaidan.

When riot police were sent to beat the students, who came to defend them? More “Afghans,” but “Afghans” of a very different sort: Ukrainian veterans of the Soviet Red Army, men who had been sent to invade Afghanistan during after the Soviet invasion of that country in 1979. These men came to defend “their children,” as they called the students. But they were also defending a protest initiated by a man born in Kabul at the very time they were fighting their way toward it.

In December the crowds grew larger. By the end of the year, millions of people had taken part in protests, all over the country. Journalists were beaten. Individual activists were abducted. Some of them were tortured. Dozens disappeared and have not yet been found. As the New Year began the protests broadened. Muslims from southern Ukraine marched in large numbers. Representatives of the large Kiev Jewish community were prominently represented. Some of the most important organizers were Jews. The telephone hotline that people called to seek missing relatives was established by gay activists (people who have experience with hotlines). Some of the hospital guards who tried to stop the police from abducting the wounded were young feminists.

In all of these ways, the “decadent” West, as Russia’s foreign minister put it, was present. Yes, there were some Jews, and there were some gays, in this revolution. And this was exploited by both the Russian and Ukrainian regimes in their internal propaganda. The Russian press presented the protest as part of a larger gay conspiracy. The Ukrainian regime instructed its riot police that the opposition was led by a larger Jewish conspiracy. Meanwhile, both regimes informed the outside world that the protestors were Nazis. Almost nobody in the West seemed to notice this contradiction.

On January 16, Yanukovych signed a series of laws that had been “passed” through parliament, entirely illegally, by a minority using only a show of hands. These laws, introduced by pro-Russian legislators and similar to Russian models, severely constrained the freedom of speech and assembly, making of millions of protesters “extremists” who could be imprisoned. Organizations that had financial contacts with the outside world, including Catholic and Jewish groups, were suddenly “foreign agents” and subject to immediate harassment.

After weeks of maintaining their calm in the face of repeated assaults by the riot police, some protesters now chose violence. Out of public view, people had been dying at the hands of the police for weeks. Now some of the protesters were killed by the regime in public. The first Ukrainian protester to be killed was an Armenian. The second to be killed was a Belarusian.

Then came the mass killings by the regime. On February 18 the Ukrainian parliament was supposed to consider a compromise that many observers believed was a first step away from bloody confrontation: a constitutional reform to return the state to parliamentary democracy. Instead, the riot police were unleashed in Kiev, this time armed not only with tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets, but also with live ammunition. The protesters fell back to the Maidan and defended it, the way revolutionaries do: with cobblestones, Molotov cocktails, and in the end their bare hands.

On February 20, an EU delegation was supposed to arrive to negotiate a truce. Instead, the regime orchestrated a bloodbath. The riot police fell back from some of the Maidan. When protesters followed, they were shot by snipers who had taken up positions on rooftops. Again and again people ran out to try to rescue the wounded, and again and again they were shot.

Who was killed? Dozens of people, in all about a hundred, most of them young men. Bohdan Solchanyk was a young lecturer at the Ukrainian Catholic University, a Ukrainian speaker from western Ukraine. He was shot and killed. Yevhen Kotlyov was an environmentalist from Kharkiv, a Russian speaker from eastern Ukraine. He was shot and killed. One of the people killed was a Russian citizen; a number of Russians had come to fight—most of them anarchists who had come to aid their Ukrainian anarchist comrades. At least two of those killed by the regime, and perhaps more, were Jews. One of those “Afghans,” Ukrainian veterans of the Red Army’s war in Afghanistan, was Jewish: Alexander Scherbatyuk. He was shot and killed by a sniper. Another of those killed was a Pole, a member of Ukraine’s Polish minority.

Has as it ever before happened that people associated with Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, Armenian, Polish, and Jewish culture have died in a revolution that was started by a Muslim? Can we who pride ourselves in our diversity and tolerance think of anything remotely similar in our own histories?

The people were victorious as a result of sheer physical courage. The EU foreign ministers who were supposed to be treated to a bloody spectacle saw something else: the successful defense of the Maidan. The horrifying massacre provoked a general sense of outrage, even among some of the people who had been Yanukovych’s allies. He did something he probably had not, when the day began, intended to do: he signed an agreement in which he promised not to use violence. His policemen understood, perhaps better than he, what this meant: the end of the regime. They melted away, and he ran for his life. Power shifted to parliament, where a new coalition of oppositionists and dissenters from Yanukovych’s party formed a majority. Reforms began, beginning with the constitution. Presidential elections were called for May.

Still, the propaganda continued. Yanukovych stopped somewhere to record a video message, in Russian, claiming that he was the victim of a Nazi coup. Russian leaders maintained that extremists had come to power, and that Russians in Ukraine were under threat. Although the constitutional transition is indeed debatable in the details, these charges of a right-wing coup are nonsense.

The Ukrainian far right did play an important part in the revolution. What it did, in going to the barricades, was to liberate itself from the regime of which it had been one of the bulwarks. One of the moral atrocities of the Yanukovych regime was to crush opposition from the center-right, and support opposition from the far right. By imprisoning his major opponents from the legal political parties, most famously Yulia Tymoshenko, Yanukovych was able to make of democracy a game in which he and the far right were the only players.

The far right, a party called Svoboda, grew larger in these conditions, but never remotely large enough to pose a real challenge to the Yanukovych regime in democratic elections. In this arrangement Yanukovych could then tell gullible westerners that he was the alternative to the far right. In fact, Svoboda was a house opposition that, during the revolution, rebelled against its own leadership. Against the wishes of their leaders, the radical youth of Svoboda fought in considerable numbers, alongside of course people of completely different views. They fought and they took risks and they died, sometimes while trying to save others. In the post-revolutionary situation these young men will likely seek new leadership. The leader of Svoboda, according to opinion polls, has little popular support; if he chooses to run for president, which is unlikely, he will lose.

The radical alternative to Svoboda is Right Sector, a group of far-right organizations whose frankly admitted goal was not a European future but a national revolution against all foreign influences. In the long run, Right Sector is the group to watch. For the time being, its leaders have been very careful, in conversations with both Jews and Russians, to stress that their goal is political and not ethnic or racial. In the days after the revolution they have not caused violence or disorder. On the contrary, the subway runs in Kiev. The grotesque residences of Yanukovych are visited by tourists, but they are not looted. The main one is now being used as a base for archival research by investigative journalists.

The transitional authorities were not from the right, or even from the western part of Ukraine, where nationalism is more widespread. The speaker of the parliament and the acting president is a Baptist preacher from southeastern Ukraine. All of the power ministries, where of course any coup-plotter would plant his own people, were led by professionals and Russian speakers. The acting minister of internal affairs was half Armenian and half Russian. The acting minister of defense was of Roma origin.

The provisional authorities are now being supplanted by a new government, chosen by parliament, which is very similar in its general orientation. The new prime minister is a Russian-speaking conservative technocrat. Both of the major presidential candidates in the elections planned for May are Russian speakers. The likely next president, Vitali Klitschko, is the son of a general in the Soviet armed forces, best known in the West as the heavyweight champion boxer. He is a chess player and a Russian speaker. He does his best to speak Ukrainian. It does not come terribly naturally. He is not a Ukrainian nationalist.

As specialists in Russian and Ukrainian nationalism have been predicting for weeks, the claim that the Ukrainian revolution is a “nationalist coup,” as Yanukovych, in Russian exile, said on Friday, has become a pretext for Russian intervention. This now appears to be underway in the Crimea, where the Russian flag has been raised over the regional parliament and gunmen have occupied the airports. Meanwhile, Russia has put army battle groups on alert and sent naval cruisers from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

Whatever course the Russian intervention may take, it is not an attempt to stop a fascist coup, since nothing of the kind has taken place. What has taken place is a popular revolution, with all of the messiness, confusion, and opposition that entails. The young leaders of the Maidan, some of them radical leftists, have risked their lives to oppose a regime that represented, at an extreme, the inequalities that we criticize at home. They have an experience of revolution that we do not. Part of that experience, unfortunately, is that Westerners are provincial, gullible, and reactionary.

Thus far the new Ukrainian authorities have reacted with remarkable calm. It is entirely possible that a Russian attack on Ukraine will provoke a strong nationalist reaction: indeed, it would be rather surprising if it did not, since invasions have a way of bringing out the worst in people. If this is what does happen, we should see events for what they are: an entirely unprovoked attack by one nation upon the sovereign territory of another.

Insofar as we have accepted the presentation of the revolution as a fascist coup, we have delayed policies that might have stopped the killing earlier, and helped prepare the way for war. Insofar as we wish for peace and democracy, we are going to have to begin by getting the story right.

March 1, 2014, 11:15 a.m.

[katina]

From KyivPost

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/revolution-a-non-shooting-war-338669.html

SIMFEROPOL, Crimea – In a move that is certain to escalate tension on the besieged peninsula, the parliament of the autonomous republic voted on March 6 to separate from Ukraine and join Russia.

The referendum to seal this vote was moved to March 16, angering Kyiv because regional governments can’t vote to secede from the nation. U.S. President Barack Obama said on March 6 that the proposed referendum on the future of Crimea would violate the Ukrainian Constitution and international law.
Although Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said he annulled the decision, he also admitted that the popular vote will likely be held – and rigged.

“This will be a farce, this will be falsefication, this will be a crime against the state, which was organized by the military of the Russian Federation,” Turchynov said, adding that he started a procedure to dismiss the Crimean parliament.

The scheduling of the referendum, which was supported by 78 out of 100 Crimean lawmakers, will pose two questions: Do you support the reunification of Crimea with Russia, or the restoration of the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea in 1992, leaving it as part of Ukraine?

“The question with the most votes is considered a direct expression of the will of the population expressing the Crimea,” the parliamentary decree states.

However, the referendum’s outcome appears to be a foregone conclusion, as Crimean deputies on March 6 urged Russia to prepare legislation to enable the peninsula to enter the Russian Federation as a federal subject. Russia’s lower house in parliament, the Duma, responded quickly, saying it would push through a bill to consider admitting Crimea on March 10, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Crimean Tatar chairman Refat Chubarov said that the parliament members who voted for annexation of Crimea were “lunatics” who had “lost their minds” and were “fulfilling someone else’s will” in a post on Facebook. Crimean Tatars strongly support Ukraine’s territorial integrity. They make up about 12 percent of the population, according to a 2008 Razumkov Center survey.

More than 50 percent of Crimea’s population is comprised of ethnic Russians with a disproportionate amount residing in Sevastopol where Russia leases a naval base. A late February poll by Kyiv-based Democratic Initiatives found that 42 percent of Crimean residents want Ukraine to unite with Russia.

Chubarov urged residents of the peninsula to boycott the referendum scheduled for March 16.

“The Mejlis (parliament) of the Crimean Tatars does not recognize this referendum. Accordingly, it calls on all residents of Crimea, regardless of their ethnicity, to completely boycott all stages of the preparation for, as well as the voting, on the day of the referendum,” he said.

“At a time when there are troops on the streets, when there is complete lawlessness, in the absence of legislation, the declaration of any referendum is an act aimed at further destabilizing the situation in Crimea,” Chubarov said.

At a press conference in Brussels, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk also said that Crimean parliament has no “legal grounds at all” to set a referendum. Any issue related to territorial integrity is decided via a national referendum.

In an interview with the Associated Press on March 5, Yatseniuk said that Crimea would remain a part of Ukraine.

“This is Ukrainian territory and Russia wants to grab control over Crimea. But I will underline again, we will do our best in order to regain control over Ukrainian territory,” he said. “The Russian military is to be back in the barracks.”

But the Crimean parliament clearly disagrees, and took an attempt to legitimize Russia’s occupation of the peninsula. Since last week, thousands of Russian soldiers have besieged Ukrainian military bases and other infrastructural facilities, and issued ultimatums: pledge allegiance to Crimea, or face a military storm.

Putin has repeatedly denied that the troops on the ground are Russian, noting that their uniforms have no identifying symbols and could be purchased anywhere in the post-Soviet space. But two soldiers caught by the Ukrainian military on March 6 carried Russian passports and military IDs.
Moreover, many soldiers identified themselves to Ukrainian troops as being Russian elite forces, Ukrainian soldiers said. Moreover, the army vehicles stationed all around Crimea carry Russian tag numbers and even painted flags.

“Yes, of course they are Russian,” Alexey Khramov, a press officer for the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Sevostopol region, told the Kyiv Post in an interview during a tense standoff at Belbek airfield on March 4. “These men are our brothers. This might be the only reason they have not fired their weapons at us yet.”
Several Ukrainian military bases have been taken since last weekend, including an airfield in Belbek outside Sevastopol, where Russian soldiers fired bursts of live rounds into the air on March 4 as Ukrainian troops marched toward them unarmed, determined to carry out their daily tasks, which include maintaining several fighter jets.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian navy ship Slavutych repelled an attempted blitz overnight on March 4-5 by men donning similar uniforms to the Russian troops seen around the peninsula, according to soldiers aboard the ship.

Ukrainian authorities have said that there are 16,000 Russian troops in Crimea, up from 3,000 before the confrontation. They are armed with machine guns, sniper rifles and bazookas. Operating alongside them are several thousand pro-Russian militiamen in military fatigues, some of whom are also armed with automatic weapons.

The behavior they display is not that of professional military men. In one instance, they quarreled with a peaceful group of female demonstrators, tearing apart their handmade signs and shoving them into oncoming traffic. In another, they blocked a United Nations peace envoy from holding scheduled talks, forcing him to cut his Crimean visit short on March 5.

Together, the soldiers and militiamen had also blocked road access to the Crimean peninsula, and managed to briefly shut down flights in and out of Simferopol Airport.

Several Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars who oppose the actions of the Russian troops and militia now say they fear being out late at night, or even walking in city centers, which are now regularly patrolled by the armed groups.

“I don’t even go to Simferopol anymore,” said Eskander Japarov, a 40-year-old Crimean Tatar who lives in the village of Ana-Yurt. He moved to the hillside hamlet 21 years ago from after the fall of the Soviet Union, where his family was exiled after World War II.

“If they see me, as a Crimean Tatar man, they will attack me,” he said.

Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from the project www.mymedia.org.ua, financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action.The content in this article may not necessarily reflect the views of the Danish government, NIRAS and BBC Action Media.

Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached at millerjchristopher@gmail.com, or on Twitter at @ChristopherJM.

[katina]

Yanukovych heads list of those wanted for crimes

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/yanukovych-heads-list-of-those-wanted-for-crimes-338668.html

Since Feb. 28, the European Union, Austria, Switzerland and Lichtenstein have frozen the assets of 33 former senior government officials, including fugitive ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, and his two sons, Oleksandr Yanukovych and Viktor Yanukovych Jr.

Seven former officials are named on all four lists of sanctions: Viktor Yanukovych Sr., Oleksandr Yanukovych, ex-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, former presidential chief of staff Andriy Klyuyev, ex-Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, ex-Justice Minister Olena Lukash and ex-General Prosecutor Viktor Pshonka.

Nine who appear on the financial sanctions lists are also wanted for their alleged involvement in the mass murders of 74 people on Feb. 18-20, when anti-government protesters were gunned down by snipers working behind police lines or police officers.

The EU froze the assets of 18 individuals who are “subject to investigation in Ukraine for involvement in crimes in connection with the embezzlement of Ukrainian state funds and their illegal transfer outside Ukraine.”

Separately, EU member Austria froze the assets of 18 people, while Lichtenstein and Switzerland each named an identical list of 20 former officials whose assets were frozen.

New Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has accused the former president and his inner circle of absconding with nearly $70 billion while leaving the state treasury “empty.” The nation’s largest association of employers, led by billionaire chemicals tycoon Dmytro Firtash, on Feb. 26 stated that each year businesses nationally have had to pay some $20 billion in bribes to officials.

“Every type of business in every economic sector and segment has encountered the problem of corruption in Ukraine,” read the Federation of Employers of Ukraine statement. “Depending on the type and area of activity, each business has in the past years been forced to give up to 50 percent of its turnover in the form of bribes.”

On March 6, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered assets frozen and U.S. visas blocked for all persons who have “impeded democracy, contributed to violence or engaged in corruption in Ukraine.” It doesn’t specify who is included in the order but it applies to both Russians and Ukrainians, the Washington Post reported.

Russians were also included after the country invaded Crimea on Feb. 27 in contravention of international and bilateral treaties. On March 6, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists that he couldn’t reach a peace agreement over the peninsula with his American counterpart John Kerry.

In February Canada also imposed visa-travel bans for individuals deemed responsible for the violence in Kyiv. Due to privacy laws in the countries, the identities of those who face travel bans are unknown.
Ministers of the previous government Yuriy Kolobov (finance), Eduard Stavitsky (energy), Mykola Prysiazhniuk (agriculture) and former Kyiv city manager Oleksandr Popov have denied having accounts or assets in Switzerland, Lichtenstein or Austria, reported Interfax Ukraine.

[katina]

Oof it's getting worse over there... :)




A year after the first death. In memeory of Sergey Gagykovych Nigoyan and the other Heroes of Ukraine who died on Maidan.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb0oTj4DrfM&feature=youtu.be