"Protests turn into fierce street battles in Kiev" by Maria Danilova | Associated Press, January 20, 2014
KIEV — Antigovernment protests in Ukraine’s capital escalated into fiery street battles with police Sunday as tens of thousands of demonstrators hurled rocks and firebombs to set police vehicles ablaze.
Dozens of officers and protesters were injured.
Police responded with stun grenades, tear gas, and water cannons but were outnumbered.
Many of the riot police held their shields over their heads to protect themselves from the projectiles thrown by demonstrators on the other side of a cordon of buses.
The violence was a sharp escalation of Ukraine’s two-month political crisis, which has brought round-the-clock protest gatherings but had been largely peaceful.
Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko tried to persuade demonstrators to stop their unrest, but he failed and was sprayed by a fire extinguisher in the process.
And he is a supporter!
Klitschko later traveled to President Viktor Yanukovych’s suburban residence and said that Yanukovych has promised to create a commission to settle the crisis.
Another opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, said that Yanukovych had called him to offer negotiations.
The US Embassy called for an end to the violence. ‘‘We urge calm and call on all sides to cease any acts provoking or resulting in violence,’’ it said in a statement.
Then stop stirring it up!
The crisis erupted in November after Yanukovych’s decision to freeze ties with the European Union and seek a huge bailout from Russia.
The decision sparked protests, which increased in size and determination after police twice violently dispersed demonstrators.
But anger rose substantially after Yanukovych last week signed an array of laws severely limiting protests and banning the wearing of helmets and gas masks.
Many of Sunday’s demonstrators wore hard hats and masks in defiance of the new laws. They set several police buses on fire and some chased and beat officers.
Police responded with tear gas and stun grenades.
Water cannons were also fired at the protesters in temperatures of about 18 degrees, but the clashes continued.
The harsh new laws brought a crowd of tens of thousands to the protest at Kiev’s central square on Sunday.
While most remained on the square, a group of radicals marched toward a police cordon several hundred yards away blocking an area housing government offices and began attacking riot police with sticks to push their way toward Ukraine’s Parliament building. The crowd then swelled to thousands.
Looked like a bunch of Nazis to me.
The blasts of stun grenades echoed and plumes of smoke rose above the crowd. Activists chanted ‘‘Shame!’’ and ‘‘Revolution.’’
The Interior Ministry said more than 70 police were injured, four of them seriously; there were no immediate figures for the number of protesters who sustained injuries.
The ministry also said a criminal case had been opened on charges of mass disorder.
Convictions under that charge could result in prison sentences of up to 15 years.
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"In the alleys of Kiev, weapons get lethal; Police use more force; protesters hurl firebombs" by Andrew E. Kramer | New York Times, January 21, 2014
KIEV — The catapult that went up on a street Monday was a clear sign the protests that have been going on for more than two months were taking a darker turn.
The catapult, about 10 feet tall, was piled with bags full of cobblestones to send into the ranks of the police. Men in masks hovered around it but did not let loose, apparently fearful of hitting protesters, given the large crowd nearby.
Clashes between demonstrators and police continued Monday, after fighting broke out the day before between police and protesters who had gathered to object to new laws limiting public assembly in Ukraine. A struggle began for a swath of a side street near Independence Square, center of the protest.
As the police have escalated their use of force — hurling stun grenades and firing rubber bullets that have maimed at least four people and injured scores of others — so have the protesters.
“We’re on a crusade now,” one man wearing a balaclava said, pointing proudly at the scrap-wood catapult, designed to fire cobblestones about 200 yards down range, with presumably devastating effect.
Protests began in November after President Viktor Yanukovych declined to sign a free-trade agreement with the European Union, negotiating a financial aid deal with Russia instead.
A movement that seemed to be fading was reenergized by opposition to laws against public assembly passed last week.
This as I was told above it was round-the-clock protests, blah, blah, blah.
“We stood, we asked peacefully, but the government didn’t hear us,” said Svyatislav Y. Shamis, 32, a lawyer. “The Parliament voted for these unpopular laws, blatantly violating human rights. They constantly steal, and they pass laws for themselves and their businesses.”
Occupy Wall Street knows how you feel.
Two dazed men walked into a group of demonstrators Monday morning naked, barefoot, and covered in welts, a video showed. The men said they had been detained by police, stripped, and shot multiple times at close range with rubber bullets.
I no longer believe videos cited by my propaganda pre$$, sorry.
The Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper said at least 11 protesters had been abducted by unknown men on side streets near the square since Sunday. The Interior Ministry published an order Monday that authorized police to use lethal force if needed, though there was no indication they had done so.
In other words, they are using restraint. That's pointed to as a virtue in Thailand, an afterthought of a phrase here. Instructive insofar as it tells you which protests meet with the approval of the propaganda pre$$.
Protesters threw Molotov cocktails made with bottles and gasoline. The bombs arced with sparks and then burst into fire on the shields of the riot police.
Opposition leaders including Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, a leader of the Fatherland Party, and Vitali Klitschko, leader of Punch, a political party, have renounced the violence but have been powerless to stop it.
Klitschko caught in a clinch, huh?
The opposition has long expressed fears that the government would use an incidence of violence as a pretext to clear the otherwise largely peaceful protest movement from Independence Square.
Look at the pot-hollering-kettle mouthpiece media of AmeriKa!
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Picking it up the next day with that leftover thought:
"Ukraine accused of provoking violence; Opposition says government inciting radicals" by Andrew E. Kramer | New York Times, January 22, 2014
KIEV — As demonstrators in ski masks scuffled with police here Tuesday evening, opposition leaders accused the government of provoking the very violence it has been condemning in an effort to discredit and possibly split the protest movement.
They must have learned that tactic from the FBI's COINTELPRO operation!
“We see a radicalization of the opposition. We see the escalation of the conflict, but we hear the government speak of the street,” said Irina V. Gerashchenko, a member of Parliament with the Udar Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform. “This is very dangerous. The government should speak of the country, should speak of its citizens and civil society.”
Opposition leaders say the government of President Viktor Yanukovych has rebuffed all offers of negotiations, further fueling a dangerously volatile situation.
“Few days are left, or maybe even hours, when solving the political process is possible through negotiations,” said Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a leader of the opposition Fatherland Party. “This should be done while people are still willing to listen to politicians and accept the path to political resolution of the crisis.”
The government’s opponents pointed to three recent actions by the government that they said were intended to incite the more radical protesters and sow doubt in the minds of the moderates: new laws passed last week circumscribing the right for public assembly; the blocking of a protest march on a side street; and on Tuesday, sending cellphone messages to people standing in the vicinity of the fighting saying, “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, blamed politicians from the European Union and the United States for encouraging the fighting between the police and protesters that broke out in Kiev, the capital, over the past three days. The situation in the city, he warned, was “getting out of control.”
Members of Congress even visited the protests -- something they did not do to America's Occupy movement -- but they won't go to Sochi. Can the agenda be any more obvious?
US diplomats in December had told a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that the Ukrainian government should heed the opinion of the population or risk instability. Lavrov noted. “What was this, prophesy or a prediction?”
Maybe the US diplomats should worry about that in their own country because they are deaf to us. Honestly, I'm sick of the hypocritical bullshit coming from the U.S. government.,
Protest leaders said authorities seem to be giving the more radical protesters free rein while trying to frighten more moderate sorts, particularly with the threatening text messages sent Tuesday.
NSA track 'em down those agent provocateurs?
Three cellphone companies in Ukraine — Kievstar, MTS, and Life, — denied they had provided the location data to the government or sent the text messages, the Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper reported. Kievstar suggested it was instead the work of a “pirate” cellphone tower set up in the area.
So the Ukraine telecoms can't comment in any event just like AmeriKan telecoms regarding NSA snooping.
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"Two protesters shot to death in Ukraine" by David M. Herszenhorn | New York Times, January 23, 2014
KIEV — After two protesters were shot to death during clashes with police Wednesday, the first fatalities in Ukraine’s two-month civil uprising, President Viktor Yanukovych met with opposition leaders as efforts to defuse the crisis took on new urgency.
I was told Yanukovych wouldn't meet with…. never mind.
Even as Yanukovych met with three Parliament leaders at the presidential headquarters, the violent standoff between demonstrators and the authorities continued, edging Kiev toward a state of emergency.
Businesses and schools near the conflict zone were told to close, and riot police brought in at least one armored personnel carrier and permitted the use of water cannons even in freezing temperatures.
Fires continued to burn near Dynamo Stadium, where the main clashes have occurred in recent days, and where protesters have turned the charred carcasses of police buses into barricades.
In Independence Square, which demonstrators have occupied since Dec. 1, thousands of protesters reinforced barricades in anticipation of a mobilization by the authorities to clear the area.
The circumstances of the two shooting deaths remained murky, with protesters saying the men had been killed by police.
Related: They Don't Want Your Blood Money
I thought that might help you see through the murk a bit.
Authorities confirmed that two young men had died of gunshot wounds, and said the deaths were under investigation. The local news media reported that a third man died after apparently falling from an archway that protesters had climbed to hurl stones and firebombs at police.
The worsening violence came as Ukraine observed Unity Day, a commemoration of the unification of the eastern and western parts of the country in 1919 that is normally an occasion of national pride.
Gee, who would want to ruin that?
Yanukovych, who has often seemed aloof and remote during the political crisis, quickly issued a statement lamenting the deaths, though he placed the blame on the opposition.
Says who?
“I express my deep regret over the loss of lives in the conflict triggered by political extremists,” he said in a statement released by his office. “My sincere condolences to the bereaved families.”
Yanukovych also called for an end to the violence. “Once again, I ask people to resist the calls of political radicals,” he said.
“It is still not too late to stop and resolve the conflict peacefully. I ask people to return to their homes. We must restore peace, tranquility, and stability in Ukraine.”
Opponents of the government said three recent actions had been intended to incite the more radical protesters and sow doubt in the minds of moderates.
They were the passing of laws last week restricting public assembly; the blocking of a protest march past Parliament on Sunday; and the sending of cellphone messages on Tuesday to people standing in the vicinity of the fighting that said, “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
With the situation increasingly ominous, it was unclear how much sway even the opposition leaders meeting with Yanukovych could exert over the demonstrators on the street.
They are out of control?
--more--"
Related:
Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
Operation Mockingbird
Why Am I No Longer Reading the Newspaper?
Just wanted to remind you of the interests behind the narrative I call a jew$paper.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"In Ukraine, calls to keep a shaky truce; But mood on street remains angry, defiant" by Yuras Karmanau and Maria Danilova | Associated Press, January 24, 2014
KIEV, Ukraine — The developments came as hundreds of enraged protesters in several regions in western Ukraine, where Yanukvoych has little support, seized government offices and forced one governor loyal to Yanukovych to resign….
Like in Thailand -- which happens to be absent my paper today.
‘‘We will be widening the territory of the Maidan [the large protest camp on Independence Square] further until these guys start reckoning with us,’’ opposition leader Vitali Klitschko said….
Protests began after Yanukovych turned away from closer ties with the European Union in favor of getting a bailout loan from Russia.
They backed out of the EU deal because of draconian austerity measures imposed and underwritten by the IMF that would have destroyed the country.
They turned violent this week after he pushed through harsh anti-protest laws, rejecting protesters’ demands that he resign.
Support for Yanukovych is very thin in western Ukraine, and most residents want closer ties to the 28-nation EU.
So what we are seeing here is after the failed coup there is now the attempt to split the Ukraine. Fine, you want to en$lave your$elf to international bankers, go ahead.
In Lviv, 280 miles west of Kiev, hundreds of activists burst into the office of regional governor Oleh Salo, a Yanukovych appointee, shouting ‘‘Revolution!’’ After forcing him to sign a resignation letter, an activist ripped it out of Salo’s hands and lifted it up to cheers. Salo later retracted his signature.
Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters smashed windows, broke doors, and stormed into the governor’s office in the city of Rivne, shouting ‘‘Down with the gang!’’ — a common reference to Yanukovych’s government.
Angry crowds also besieged government offices in other western regions.
Anger spread after a video was released online appearing to show police abusing a naked protester.
Another hoax video or old footage? Real? WhoTF knows anymore? All I know is when it is cited by my propaganda pre$$ I'm more than likely to not believe it anymore.
In the video, a young man is made to stand in the snow in freezing temperatures, while a policeman punches him in the head and others force him to pose for photos.
The Interior Ministry issued a statement, apologizing ‘‘for the impermissible actions of people wearing police uniforms’’ and launched an investigation.
Meaning they might not have been policeman at all and what we have here is another piece of staged and scripted propaganda. That's the safe and likely true bet. That is how I approach my new$paper now.
--more--"
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"In Ukraine, calls to keep a shaky truce; But mood on street remains angry, defiant" by Yuras Karmanau and Maria Danilova | Associated Press, January 24, 2014
KIEV, Ukraine — The developments came as hundreds of enraged protesters in several regions in western Ukraine, where Yanukvoych has little support, seized government offices and forced one governor loyal to Yanukovych to resign….
Like in Thailand -- which happens to be absent my paper today.
‘‘We will be widening the territory of the Maidan [the large protest camp on Independence Square] further until these guys start reckoning with us,’’ opposition leader Vitali Klitschko said….
Protests began after Yanukovych turned away from closer ties with the European Union in favor of getting a bailout loan from Russia.
They backed out of the EU deal because of draconian austerity measures imposed and underwritten by the IMF that would have destroyed the country.
They turned violent this week after he pushed through harsh anti-protest laws, rejecting protesters’ demands that he resign.
Support for Yanukovych is very thin in western Ukraine, and most residents want closer ties to the 28-nation EU.
So what we are seeing here is after the failed coup there is now the attempt to split the Ukraine. Fine, you want to en$lave your$elf to international bankers, go ahead.
In Lviv, 280 miles west of Kiev, hundreds of activists burst into the office of regional governor Oleh Salo, a Yanukovych appointee, shouting ‘‘Revolution!’’ After forcing him to sign a resignation letter, an activist ripped it out of Salo’s hands and lifted it up to cheers. Salo later retracted his signature.
Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters smashed windows, broke doors, and stormed into the governor’s office in the city of Rivne, shouting ‘‘Down with the gang!’’ — a common reference to Yanukovych’s government.
Angry crowds also besieged government offices in other western regions.
Anger spread after a video was released online appearing to show police abusing a naked protester.
Another hoax video or old footage? Real? WhoTF knows anymore? All I know is when it is cited by my propaganda pre$$ I'm more than likely to not believe it anymore.
In the video, a young man is made to stand in the snow in freezing temperatures, while a policeman punches him in the head and others force him to pose for photos.
The Interior Ministry issued a statement, apologizing ‘‘for the impermissible actions of people wearing police uniforms’’ and launched an investigation.
Meaning they might not have been policeman at all and what we have here is another piece of staged and scripted propaganda. That's the safe and likely true bet. That is how I approach my new$paper now.
--more--"
