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?
That pretty much explains the obfuscations and distortions I'm getting regarding the US and EU roles in the overthrow as well as the agenda-pushing attention it is getting.
I hope you can understand and forgive my lack of enthusiasm for most of this.
"Ukraine president flees capital as foes surge; Parliament sets election; leader decries ‘coup’" by Andrew Higgins and Andrew E. Kramer | New York Times, February 23, 2014
KIEV — Abandoned by his own guards and reviled across the Ukrainian capital but still determined to recover his shredded authority, President Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev on Saturday to denounce what he called a violent coup.
Yanukovych’s official residence, his vast, colonnaded office complex, and other once-impregnable centers of power fell without a fight to throngs of joyous citizens stunned by their triumph.
As Yanukovych’s nemesis, former prime minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, was released from a penitentiary hospital, Parliament found the president unable to fulfill his duties and exercised its constitutional powers to set an election for May 25 to select his replacement.
Hours after her release, Tymoshenko appeared before an ecstatic crowd of about 50,000 supporters at the protest encampment in Kiev, the Associated Press reported.
Speaking from a wheelchair because of back problems she suffered during 2½ years in prison, Tymoshenko praised the demonstrators killed in violence last week and urged the protesters to keep occupying the square.
‘‘You are heroes; you are the best thing in Ukraine!’’ she said of those killed. The Health Ministry on Saturday said the death toll in clashes between protesters and police had reached 82, the AP said.
Wow.
Where were our political leaders back in 2011, Americans? They stayed away while the pre$$ and police hammered those kids.
Lawmakers have not decided on interim leadership. And with both Yanukovych and his Russian patrons speaking of a coup carried out by “bandits” and “hooligans,” it was far from clear that the lightning-quick events were the last act in a struggle that has not just convulsed Ukraine but expanded into an East-West confrontation.
Yeah, great, a new Cold War!
In the capital, protesters carrying clubs and some wearing masks were in control of the entryways to the presidential palace Saturday morning and watched as thousands of citizens strolled through the grounds, gazing in wonder at the mansions, zoo, golf course, and enclosure for rare pheasants, set in a birch forest on a bluff soaring above the Dnieper River.
Okay, our thugs are good guys, but the thing I noticed here is that river. Ole Nostradamus mentioned that as a sign of the start of WWIII. So the Third Antichrist must be Putin, what with the peace deal in Syria and all.
“This commences a new life for Ukraine,” said Roman Dakus, a protester-turned-guard, who was wearing a ski helmet and carrying a length of pipe as he blocked a doorway at the palace. “This is only a start,” he added. “We need now to make a new structure and a new system, a foundation for our future, with rights for everybody, and we need to investigate who ordered the violence.”
Yanukovych surfaced on television Saturday afternoon, apparently from the eastern city of Kharkiv, near Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, saying he had been forced to leave the capital because of a “coup.”
Oh, the whole world sees that even if my paper is a believer in the pureness of these particular protesters.
He said he had not resigned and said his car had been fired upon as he drove away. “I don’t plan to leave the country. I don’t plan to resign,” he said. “I am a legitimately elected president.”
Yanukovych added: “What is happening today, mostly, it is vandalism, banditism and a coup d’état. This is my assessment, and I am deeply convinced of this. I will remain on the territory of Ukraine.”
He said he was traveling to the southeastern part of Ukraine to talk to his supporters — a plan that carried potentially ominous overtones, in that the southeast is the location, among other things, of the Crimea, the historically Russian section of the country that is the site of a Russian naval base.
I don't think they will be giving that up, so.... who wants war?
The president’s departure from Kiev, just a day after a peace deal with the opposition that he had hoped would keep him in office until at least December, climaxed three months of streets protests and a week of deadly violence in Kiev. It turned what began in November as a street protest driven by pro-Europe chants and nationalist songs into a momentous but still ill-defined revolution.
Occupy Ukraine!
With nobody clearly in charge, other than the so far remarkably disciplined fighting squads set up to protect a protest encampment in Independence Square, the Ukrainian capital and even the whole country faced a potentially dangerous power vacuum.
Looks like those wonderful thugs, 'er, protesters have it covered.
Adding to the combustible mix was uncertainty over the intentions of Russia, which now faces the loss of a key ally in a former Soviet republic and the prospect of a new government led by people it scorned as terrorists and fascists in what it considers a critical part of its own sphere of influence....
Many Ukrainians — and virtually all of the pro-Western protesters — believe Tymoshenko's conviction was politically motivated and regard her as something of a martyr to their cause.
She skimmed off and stole gas revenues when she was in charge.
She is widely expected to run for president in the coming election.
So I'm told.
With security officers having disappeared from the streets, protesters claimed to have established control over Kiev.
By Saturday morning they had secured key intersections of the city and the government district of the capital, which riot police officers had fled, leaving behind burned military trucks, mattresses, and heaps of garbage at the positions they had occupied for months. There was no sign of looting, either in the city or in the presidential compound.
In Parliament, members of the opposition began laying the groundwork for a change in leadership, electing Oleksander Turchynov, an ally of Tymoshenko, as speaker.
And that is a coup! No elections after legitimately-elected leader tossed out.
Underscoring the volatility of the situation and the potential power vacuum, Oleg Tyagnibok, the leader of the nationalist Svoboda party, asked the country’s interior minister and “forces on the side of the people” to patrol the capital to prevent looting.
Why would there be looting? Isn't that what government was doing?
Russia, which joined France, Germany, and Poland in mediating the pact Yanukovych and opposition leaders reached Friday, introduced added uncertainty by declining to sign the accord, which reduced the power of Yanukovych.
This stirred fears that Moscow might work to undo the deal through economic and other pressures, as it did last year to subvert a proposed trade deal between Ukraine and the European Union.
You know, I really am sick of the CIA/Jew World Order spin.
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Related: The Return of Occupy Wall Street
Good kids over there!
Opposition figure assumes power in Ukraine
Tymoshenko’s chances at a return to power, a stunning reversal of fortune in Ukraine’s political crisis. Putin, who is presiding over the close of the Sochi Olympics, has not spoken about recent events in Kiev. Naming Tymoshenko prime minister ‘‘would be useful for stabilizing’’ tensions in Ukraine, according to Russian news agencies.
They didn't like her!
Russia’s finance minister on Sunday urged Ukraine to seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund to avoid an imminent default. Russia in December offered Ukraine a $15 billion bailout, but so far has provided only $3 billion, freezing further disbursements pending the outcome of the ongoing political crisis.
Why would you bailout people who hate you? Let them suffer under the IMF and see how bad they had it.
Tensions mounted in Crimea, where pro-Russian politicians are organizing rallies and forming protest units and have been demanding autonomy from Kiev.
Oh, "they" foment protest.
Russia maintains a big naval base in Crimea that has tangled relations between the countries for two decades. The political crisis in this nation of 46 million has changed with blinding speed repeatedly in the past week. ‘‘We need to catch and punish those with blood on their hands,’’ The legitimacy of the parliament’s flurry of decisions in recent days is under question.
No, no. That's a U.S.-sponsored body so it's all legitimate.
The votes are based on a decision Friday to return to a 10-year-old constitution that grants parliament greater powers. Yanukovych has not signed that decision into law, and he said Saturday that the parliament is now acting illegally. However, legal experts said that de facto the parliament is now in charge. In Kiev’s protest camp, self-defense units that have taken control of the capital peacefully changed shifts Sunday. Helmeted and wearing makeshift shields, they have replaced police guarding the president’s administration and parliament, and have sought to stop radical forces from inflicting damage or unleashing violence.
Those great kids!
Ukrainians’ loyalties remain divided. Emotions mounted around statues of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, after angry protesters took them down in several towns and cities. On Sunday, some pro-Russian protesters took up positions to defend Lenin statues in Donetsk and Kharkiv. Statues of Lenin across the former U.S.S.R. are seen as a symbol of Moscow’s rule.
Time for the Crimea to secede.
Tymoshenko, whose diadem of blond peasant braids and stirring rhetoric attracted world attention in the 2004 Orange Revolution.
Yeah, she's one of their assets, agents, and tools! Btw, anytime the agenda-pushers give a protest a catchy name.... controlled coup attempt. Look at the love!
"More steps for stability in Ukraine; Lawmakers meet; army gives support" by David M. Herszenhorn | New York Times, February 24, 2014
KIEV — Ukrainian lawmakers moved swiftly Sunday to assert control over the government, racing to restore calm after a week of upheaval and bloodshed that ended in President Viktor Yanukovych’s flight and ouster Saturday and in sudden fears that the country might fall into civil war.
Not sudden to anyone who was observing the situation. Perfectly predictable, and wanted in some quarters.
But a series of bureaucratic events — a session of Parliament, and the continued running of government institutions — seemed to pull the country back from the brink.
For a few hours.
As Parliament acted, even Yanukovych’s party denounced him for the deadly crackdown on protesters. And the military vowed to support the new government rather than rallying to the ousted president’s side.
Then the coup is complete.
In its emergency session Sunday, the Parliament granted expanded powers to its new speaker, Oleksandr Turchynov, who now has the authority to carry out the duties of the president of Ukraine as well.
Keep him in mind. Looks like another CIA-appointed asset.
During his first formal address to the nation, in a recorded video that was broadcast Sunday evening, Turchynov sought to soothe any remaining fear of the police and security services after clashes in Kiev last week left 82 people dead — the worst violence in Ukraine since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
“The law enforcement structures are no longer threatening the life, health, and security of the citizens of Ukraine,” he said, standing next to a Ukrainian flag outside the Parliament building.
No, it's the "self-defense forces" that are the threat.
Turchynov, a veteran lawmaker who served previously as acting prime minister and as head of the security service, noted that Parliament had appointed an acting interior minister, who is in charge of the police, and had designated lawmakers to oversee the general prosecutor’s office, the Defense Ministry, and the security service.
There were still some signs of unease Sunday. The whereabouts of Yanukovych, who insisted in a statement Saturday that he was still president, remained unknown.
Word is he is boiled up at a Navy Yard.
In several cities in eastern Ukraine, including Donetsk, which is Yanukovych’s hometown, and Karkiv, pro-Russian demonstrators took to the streets to denounce the developments in Kiev.
They won't get as nearly as much attention from my agenda-pusher.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, continued to insist that Ukrainian opposition leaders had “seized power” illegally, and the Kremlin recalled its ambassador to Kiev, citing chaos.
Lavrov spoke by telephone with Secretary of State John Kerry, continuing a high-level dialogue on Ukraine, though Kerry voiced support for the Parliament’s actions.
"Secretary of State John Kerry spoke Sunday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and urged Russia to work with the United States and Europe to help Ukraine through the crisis, Kerry said the interim government "offer the best and most promising path forward to restore peace and stability to Ukraine quickly."
He should just keep his mouth shut these days!
But in a broader sense, there was still an easing of fears that a deepening schism could fracture Ukraine between the Russian-leaning east and south and the pro-European West.
First, Yanukovych’s Party of Regions even turned against him, issuing a strongly worded statement that said he was responsible for the deaths last week and accusing him of betraying the country.
“The country finds itself deceived and robbed, but even this is nothing in comparison with the grief that dozens of Ukrainian families, who have lost their relatives, are feeling,” the party wrote in a statement on its website.
“Ukraine has been betrayed,’’ the statement said. “Viktor Yanukovych and his team are responsible for this.”
Further assurance that stability had been reestablished came from the military.
This is reading like standard coverage of any coup in my paper. It's right off the template.
A statement posted on the Defense Ministry website Saturday, after Yanukovych’s departure, and attributed to the ministry and the military reaffirmed commitment to the constitution and expressed sorrow over the deaths in Kiev last week.
“Please be assured that the armed forces of Ukraine cannot and will not be involved in any political conflict,” the statement said.
In a separate statement, the military chief of staff, Yuriy Ilyin, who had recently been appointed by Yanukovych, said, “As an officer I see no other way than to serve the Ukrainian people honestly and assure that I have not and won’t give any criminal orders.”
Turchynov said in his address to the nation that he expected Parliament to name an acting prime minister and fill out the remainder of a unity government by Tuesday.
The term itself is ridiculous and meant to deceive.
Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister who was jailed by Yanukovych after losing the 2010 presidential election and was freed Saturday, issued a statement saying she did not want to be considered for the premier’s post.
Still, it left open the possibility that she will run for president.
The Parliament began its emergency Sunday session by adopting a law restoring state ownership of Yanukovych’s opulent presidential palace, which he had privatized.
That's not a good direction to go considering what has happened in AmeriKa.
After the residence, which is in a national park, was abandoned and then opened to the Ukrainian public, visitors reacted with fury and dismay at the astonishing display of wealth and excess, including collections of modern and antique cars and a private zoo.
But here in AmeriKa we worship the wealthy!
The vote to reclaim the palace was 323 to 0, with at least 106 lawmakers absent, most of them from the Party of Regions.
One of the party’s leaders, Volodymyr Rybak, who was ousted from the speaker’s post in a similarly lopsided vote Saturday, issued a statement Sunday saying he intended to return to the Parliament.
Other officials seemed to have fled for good.
Arsen Avakov, who was installed by Parliament Saturday as acting interior minister, told reporters Sunday an investigation had been opened into 30 or more officials who may have been responsible for the violence last week in Kiev.
Throughout central Kiev on Sunday, people continued to lay flowers and place candles at memorials to the dead demonstrators.
Outside the Cabinet of Ministers building, parents had their small children pose for photographs with victorious antigovernment fighters who were still armed with clubs and wearing helmets, but now stood guard over the government headquarters. Many also had flowers attached to their metal shields.
That's better than the rallies in Iran.
Avakov also said border guards Saturday had prevented the departure of a plane in eastern Ukraine with Yanukovych aboard, making it likely that he was still in the country.
Going to hunt him down.
In votes Sunday, the Parliament dismissed the foreign minister, Leonid Kozhara; the education minister, Dmytro Tabachnyk; and the health minister, Raisa Bohatyriova.
Several lawmakers said re-creating the government was particularly urgent given Ukraine’s perilous economic situation.
Russia in December had come to Yanukovych’s rescue with a $15 billion bailout and an offer of cheaper prices on natural gas.
Not good enough. Now the Ukrainian people must suffer under IMF puppet rule.
A $2 billion installment of that aid was canceled as part of a deal reached Friday between Yanukovych and opposition leaders, and while Western officials have said they hope to offer assistance, it was unclear how quickly that help might arrive.
Among the reasons Yanukovych turned away from signing political and trade accords with Europe in November was his unwillingness to carry out painful austerity measures and other reforms that the International Monetary Fund had demanded in exchange for a large assistance package.
The Ukrainian people are going to regret what has happened, so regret it.
On Sunday, the fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, said there was concern about the political instability in Ukraine and the fund could provide assistance only in response to a formal request.
But she added that an economic program to help Ukraine had to be “owned by the authorities, by the people, because at the end of the day it will be the future of the Ukrainian economy.”
See: Dirty IMF
Pitching pennies over there.
For the moment, though, Turchynov, the new interim leader, said the priority was to restore a sense of normalcy and unity.
I don't think so, fool!
“Our first task today is to stop confrontation, renew governance, management, and legal order in the country,” he said, adding, “We have to rebuke any displays of separatism and threats to the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
Yeah, good luck with that last one, after confrontation initiated the illegal regime that is now claiming legal governance.
The spin would have Orwell's corpse dizzy in the grave.
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I gotta go to a DALLAS PAPER to get my verbatim print piece?
"Ukraine’s Parliament moves to dismantle leader’s government
KIEV, Ukraine — A day after President Viktor Yanukovych fled the Ukrainian capital and was removed from power by a unanimous vote in Parliament, lawmakers moved swiftly Sunday to dismantle the remaining vestiges of his government by firing top Cabinet members, including the foreign minister.
With Parliament, led by the speaker, Oleksandr Turchynov, firmly in control of the federal government — if not yet the country as a whole — lawmakers began an emergency session Sunday by adopting a law restoring state ownership of Yanukovych’s opulent presidential palace, which he had privatized.
Parliament voted to grant Turchynov authority to carry out the duties of the president of Ukraine, adding to his authority to lead the government that lawmakers had approved Saturday.
Beyond that, Parliament did not take any further action to appoint interim leaders, but speculation about an immediate major role for the freed former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, ended Saturday afternoon when she issued a statement asking not to be considered for the post again.
Depending on her health, Tymoshenko, who has complained of chronic back problems since she was jailed in 2011, may run for president in elections now scheduled for May 25, and many of her supporters are eager to build a campaign.
In a sign of her still-formidable political influence, Tymoshenko spoke by telephone Sunday with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, as well as with Stefan Fule, a top European Union official, and with Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Christopher Murphy, D-Conn, and Richard Durbin, D-Ill. Tymoshenko also met with ambassadors from the United States and EU countries.
That was taken out for the web version, and one can surely see why. The fingerprints on the coup!
Critics, including a small crowd of demonstrators gathered outside Parliament, said Tymoshenko should bow out, making way for a new generation of leaders.
The Ukrainians do not want failed US retreads they already booted once.
Tymoshenko, long Yanukovych’s political rival, was released Saturday from a prison hospital in Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine and quickly made her way here to Kiev, the capital, where she appeared briefly in a wheelchair in Independence Square. Tymoshenko was jailed by Yanukovych after losing the presidential election in 2010. Many in Ukraine and the West believe that her conviction was politically motivated.
Andriy Shevchenko, a member of parliament and the leader of Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party, said that she would ultimately decide what role she envisioned for herself, based on her health.
“It really depends on whether she wants to run our not,” Shevchenko said in an interview. “I think she has enough strength to be active in politics.”
In Kiev, Tymoshenko received an enthusiastic but not overly exuberant reception from the crowd in Independence Square. The response demonstrated her continued popularity and status as a symbol of opposition to Yanukovych.
Already been anointed.
Yanukovych, whose whereabouts remained unknown, appeared to be losing the support of even his former allies. On Sunday, Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, which days ago enjoyed a majority in Parliament, released a statement blaming him for the recent violence.
In the statement, the party said it strongly condemned what it called “criminal decrees,” which resulted in “human casualties, an empty treasury, huge debts and shame in the eyes of the Ukrainian people and the whole world.”
“All attempts to convince the president to act differently were ignored,” the statement said. “The party was virtually the hostage of one corrupt family.”
While Parliament has dismissed a number of senior officials, the defense minister, Pavlo Lebedev told Ukraine’s Channel 24 that he intended to remain in his post, and the military issued statements that seemed to offer assurance that no steps would be taken to interfere with the provisional government.
Ukrainian white flag.
It is not yet clear whether Ukrainians in the southern and eastern regions of the country, which host the bulk of the country’s industrial infrastructure as well as the heaviest concentration of pro-Russian sentiment, would resist the change of government in Kiev. In several cities, including Donetsk and Kharkiv, pro-Russian demonstrators took to the streets Sunday, and there have been scattered reports of clashes between pro-Russian Ukrainians and supporters of the protests in Kiev.
For some reason the calls for secession by the Crimea was cut.
Several lawmakers expressed rising alarm over Ukraine’s perilous economic situation. The Russian government in December had come to Yanukovych’s rescue with a $15 billion bailout and an offer of cheaper prices on natural gas.
A $2 billion installment of that aid was canceled as part of a deal reached Friday between Yanukovych and opposition leaders. Western officials have said they hope to offer assistance, but it is unclear how quickly that help might arrive.
Better be soon.
Among the reasons Yanukovych turned away from signing political and trade accords with Europe in November was his unwillingness to carry out painful austerity measures and other reforms that had been demanded by the International Monetary Fund in exchange for a large assistance package.
Ukranians going to get what they want then. F*** em!
On Sunday, the Fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, said that there was concern about the political instability in Ukraine and that the fund could only provide assistance in response to a formal request.
In a series of votes Sunday, Parliament dismissed the foreign minister, Leonid Kozhara; the education minister, Dmytro Tabachnyk, and the health minister, Raisa Bogatyrova.
Parliament, led by Turchynov, has been moving swiftly to rebuild the government.
Arsen Avakov, who was installed by Parliament Saturday as interior minister, told reporters Sunday that an investigation had been opened into 30 or more officials who may have been responsible for the violence last week in which more than 70 people were killed on the streets of Kiev.
Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, said Sunday that the U.S. was prepared to work with the EU and the IMF, as well as Russia, to shore up Ukraine’s nascent government. Speaking on the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” Rice said that the United States hoped to see constitutional change and democratic elections in Ukraine “in very short order,” and she added that it “would be a grave mistake” for Russia to interfere militarily.
The arrogance and hypocrisy is astonishing.
“It’s not in the interests of Ukraine or of Russia or of Europe or of the United States to see the country split,” she said. “It’s in nobody’s interest to see violence return.”
That's what will happen.
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Let the $mear campaign begin:
"Ukraine leader’s documents detail extravagant spending; Public enthralled, appalled as tours of estate offered" by Maria Danilova | Associated Presss, February 24, 2014
KIEV — Cash: $12 million. Decoration of a dining hall and tea room: $2.3 million. Statue of a wild boar: $115,000. “A bribe”: $4,000.
These are some of the expenses detailed in financial documents found in President Viktor Yanukovych’s abandoned residence, which was occupied by protesters after the leader fled the capital.
As thousands of Ukrainians continued to tour Yanukovych’s opulent estate outside of Kiev on Sunday, evidence was uncovered of lavish spending in an economy that is teetering on the verge of default.
So when does the Ukrainian Spring come to AmeriKa?
Yanukovych left Kiev on Friday night after opposition protesters took control of the capital and the national Parliament following deadly clashes with police last week. More than 70 people were killed and hundreds were injured.
While visitors gawked in awe and outrage at Yanukovych’s luxurious mansions, ponds, and exotic animals, journalists combed through heaps of documents that appeared to show a leader who basked in extravagant wealth while his country sought bailouts from the West and Russia.
They sound like Wall Street bank directors, don't they?
Many of the financial and other documents were burned, while others were dumped in a lake before Yanukovych fled his closely guarded residence, flying to the eastern city of Kharkiv, where his support base is strongest. Divers retrieved many of the documents, and activists laid them out to dry.
For phonying up later?
Photos of the documents were posted online by Mustafa Nayem, a top Ukrainian investigative journalist for the Ukrainska Pravda website and Hromadske.tv online news channel. Other respected Ukrainian news outlets also reported on the documents.
What do you do when a disrespected news outlets cites the respectability of other news outlets?
One was a receipt for $12 million in cash. Another invoice was for a payment of $10 million. Some $110,000 went for curtains in a room called the “knight’s hall.” Another $1.5 million was spent on plants. Wooden decor for a handful of rooms cost $2.3 million.
Notably, $115,000 was spent for a statue of a “running boar,” possibly intended for Yanukovych, who is an avid hunter.
One page listed expenditures, and next to item number 47 on the sheet was a payment of nearly $4,000 for what was described as a “bribe” used in a bidding process. The documents were sure to fuel more anger among protesters.
Yanukovych’s whereabouts were unknown Sunday. An aide said she last spoke to him Saturday night and he considered himself the legitimate president of Ukraine and did not intend to leave the country.
His residence in the Mezhygirya Park, about 345 acres of forested hills along the Dnipro River, had become for many Ukrainians a symbol of a corrupt administration.
We got our own problems over here.
The president refused to answer questions about the estate, saying he lived in a modest house on a small plot of land on the grounds. Journalists’ investigations traced the property and buildings around it to Yanukovych’s allies.
After Yanukovych’s departure from Kiev, the estate was taken over by the opposition’s self-defense units, which opened it to visitors and deployed activists to maintain order and prevent any looting or property damage.
Good kids! Armed, too!
Ukrainians, many bringing their children, rushed to tour the parks. They reacted with wonder and revulsion at the opulence, including Yanukovych’s private golf courses, pig farm, and a small zoo with ostriches and peacocks.
Some have called for turning the site into a hospital, sanatorium, or even a “museum of corruption.”
Ours is Washington D.C.
The Verkhovna Rada — Ukraine’s Parliament, which is now controlled by the opposition — voted Sunday to turn over control of the estate to the government.
Yanukovych’s lifestyle was on the minds of some in the crowd who flocked Sunday to the epicenter of the protests in Kiev’s central square, known as the Maidan. The people paid their respects to those demonstrators who died in the unrest.
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"Ukraine’s ex-president accused of mass murder; Yanukovych still evades capture, new leaders say" by David M. Herszenhorn | New York Times, February 25, 2014
KIEV — Ukraine’s acting interior minister, Arsen Avakov, who was appointed by Parliament on Saturday, wrote on his Facebook page that ousted president, Viktor Yanukovych, who was believed to be in Crimea in the south of the country, had fled in an unknown direction, traveling by car with a diminished security detail, [and] that he was personally involved in the manhunt [and] Yanukovych would be arrested on charges of mass murder in the killings of dozens of antigovernment protesters last week.
Then a whole crop of world leaders needs to be charged.
Related: A look at Yanukovych’s movements since Friday
Then they know where he is, don't they?
The pursuit of Yanukovych, a man now widely despised even by many of his former supporters, gripped the nation Monday as Parliament continued its efforts to rebuild the government, with hopes of appointing an acting prime minister and having the rest of a provisional government Tuesday.
With speculation on the premiership focused on former prime minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko's ally, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, who has been a leader of the anti-Yanukovych protests since they began in late November, Western officials on Monday continued to praise the developments in Ukraine, saying that Parliament had successfully filled a power vacuum and that democratic institutions had functioned successfully.
OMG, this is gross distortion.
The Obama administration signaled Monday that it no longer recognizes Yanukovych as Ukraine’s president.
That was FAST!
However, US officials sought to assure Russia that it does not have to be shut out of a future relationship with a new Ukrainian government.
Well, I would hope not, being a next-door neighbor and all.
Yanukovych was widely seen as a puppet of Moscow against Ukraine protesters who demanded stronger ties with the European Union to boost the faltering economy of the onetime Soviet state.
This is sickening $hit.
US officials said the International Monetary Fund is considering an aid package as high as $15 billion to help stabilize a new, transitional government in Kiev, the Associated Press reported.
Should have taken the Russian deal.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the United States will provide additional aid to complement the IMF, aimed at fostering Ukrainian economic stability, but it was not immediately clear how much money it would provide.
Anyone tell these a$$holes the empire is bankrupt?
Russia on Monday stepped up its criticism after recalling its ambassador from Kiev, the capital, a day before.
“Today, I see no legitimate Ukrainian partners for dialogue,” the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, said in Sochi, Russia, a day after the close of the Winter Olympics, according to the Interfax news service. “If people crossing Kiev in black masks with Kalashnikov rifles are considered a government, it will be difficult for us to work with such a government.”
But in Kiev, the security situation seemed to improve Monday, with regular law enforcement forces and some antigovernment fighters sharing responsibility for guarding government buildings and directing traffic.
Awwww, isn't that nice?
Here in AmeriKa the kids got cleared from the commons with pepper spray and clubs.
A sense of workaday calm seemed to return to the city, even as barricades still surrounded the main protest sites.
Yeah, EVERYTHING is RETURNING TO NORMAL! What RANK ROT!
As Yanukovych’s public persona shifted from feared strongman to detested fugitive, any last vestiges of support for him seemed to vanish even in the pro-Russia eastern and southern parts of the country, which had historically provided his base of political support.
So says my CIA operation known as a newspaper.
Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, which had supported him until lawmakers began defecting over last week’s mass killings in Kiev, issued a statement Sunday saying the country had been deceived, robbed and betrayed.
Yanukovych and his family were known to have accumulated vast wealth during his time in office, and he was believed to have access to at least one yacht that might ferry him out of Ukraine....
Has he ever sailed with John Kerry?
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"Russia questions legitimacy of Ukraine government; Medvedev calls instability ‘threat to our interests’" by Steven Lee Myers | New York Times, February 25, 2014
MOSCOW — Russia intensified its criticism of the new government in neighboring Ukraine on Monday, questioning the legitimacy of the interim authorities and accusing them of using dictatorial and “sometimes terrorist methods” to usurp power and silence dissent in the country’s Russian-speaking south and east.
Hey, if they are our guys they are disciplined self-defense forces enforcing freedom!
The escalating denunciations from Moscow, from Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the Foreign Ministry, provided the strongest signals yet that Russia may not easily accept the political changes wrought by the political convulsions in Ukraine, where President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed over the weekend after the mass killings of protesters last week.
I didn't think they would, and I must say they are being very restrained.
Also Monday, the top Russian and NATO commanders conferred by phone, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
It quoted the Defense Ministry as saying that General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of general staff, spoke with General Philip Breedlove, the commander of NATO in Europe, and the “two sides expressed concern over the situation in Ukraine.”
That's not good.
Related: Hagel says Europeans should step up NATO support
Shut up, Chuck!
How close is Afghanistan to the Atlantic anyway? They got a shoreline (answer: no. Afghanistan is land-locked)?
Medvedev suggested that economic agreements with Ukraine could be renegotiated and declared that instability there was “a real threat to our interests and to our citizens’ lives and health.”
Russia’s leadership has made its anger over the popular uprising in Ukraine clear from the beginning of the crisis, but Medvedev’s remarks were the most extensive Russian reaction since Yanukovych fled Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, on Saturday. “Strictly speaking, today there is no one to talk to there,” Medvedev said in remarks reported by Interfax. “The legitimacy of a whole host of government bodies is raising huge doubts.”
“If people crossing Kiev in black masks and Kalashnikov rifles are considered a government,” Medvedev said, “it will be difficult for us to work with such a government.”
President Vladimir Putin avoided making public comments on the Ukraine developments during the Sochi Games but might soon have to face a difficult choice: continue to take a diplomatic course, which could hurt him at home, or take the equally risky step of intervening militarily.
Trying to bluff a chess player. Not good.
Putin has declared Ukraine vital to Russia’s interests. It is home to millions of Russian speakers and hosts a major Russian navy base.
Some in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east and south are pressing Moscow to help protect them against what they fear could be violence by the victorious protesters who toppled Yanukovych, a leader backed by the Kremlin.
If Moscow openly backs separatist-minded groups in Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula that serves as the base for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, it could unleash hostilities that Europe hasn’t seen since the Balkan wars.
WWIII
And ignoring pleas for help from pro-Russian groups in Ukraine could shatter Putin’s carefully crafted image of the tough ruler eager to stand up to the West.
Or he cut a deal that gives away half of the Ukraine for a whole Syria. Then it is the Ukrainians that will really be f***ed.
Putin’s best hope for striking a peaceful compromise on the issue could be Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister who was freed Saturday after more than 2½ years behind bars. Tymoshenko, who narrowly lost the 2010 presidential vote to Yanukovych and was imprisoned on abuse of office charges, flew to the capital after her release to speak to tens of thousands of demonstrators at Kiev’s Independence Square.
I would not be counting on her.
She is considered a favorite to win the Ukrainian presidency in early elections set for May, should she decide to run.
Really?
Putin, who had good ties with the former prime minister in the past, could hope to strike a deal with her that would safeguard Russian interests without the need to resort to force.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday on its website that an agreement announced Friday aimed at easing the crisis, brokered by the European Union, had been used “only as a cover to promote a scenario of forced change of power in Ukraine.”
Yeah, EVERYONE KNOWS this was a coup engineered by the EU and US!
That agreement, which would have kept Yanukovych in power until later this year, quickly unraveled as street protesters in Kiev demanded that he resign immediately.
“A course has been set to use dictatorial and sometimes terrorist methods to suppress dissenters in various regions,” the Foreign Ministry statement said, alluding to areas in Ukraine’s east and south where pro-Russian sentiment is stronger.
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This article must be hiding away with Yanukovych because I never saw it in print:
"On Ukraine, a wary stance from Obama" by Peter Baker | New York Times, February 25, 2014
WASHINGTON — Televisions around the White House were aglow with pictures of Ukrainians in the streets, demanding to be heard and toppling a government aligned with Russia. It was an invigorating moment, and it spurred the president and his staff to rethink their approach to the world.
That was a different decade and a different president. While George W. Bush was inspired by the Orange Revolution of 2004 and weeks later vowed in his second inaugural address to promote democracy, Barack Obama has approached the revolution of 2014 with a more clinical detachment aimed at avoiding instability.
Rather than an opportunity to spread freedom in a part of the world plagued by corruption and oppression, the crisis is seen by Obama as a problem to be managed, ideally with a minimum of violence or geopolitical upheaval.
While certainly sympathetic to the pro-Western protesters who pushed out President Viktor F. Yanukovych and hopeful that they can establish a representatively elected government, Obama has not made global aspirations of democracy the animating force of his presidency....
This is gross!
Obama’s handling of Ukraine reflects a broader “policy of restraint,” as John Lewis Gaddis, a Yale University historian who advised the Bush White House as speechwriters worked on the former president’s January 2005 inaugural address promising to combat tyranny abroad, termed it, keeping the United States out of crises like Syria, minimizing its involvement in places like Libya and getting out of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All he means is our role is more covert.
It reflects, he said, not only fundamental differences between the presidents but an underlying weariness on the part of the US public after more than a dozen years of war.
It's not weariness, it is hatred of it now.
Turned off by what he saw as Bush’s crusading streak and seared by the dashed hopes of the Arab Spring, Obama was wary of being proactive in trying to change other societies, convinced that being too public would make the United States the issue and risk provoking a backlash, according to aides.
So be covert and overthrow them instead!
“These democratic movements will be more sustainable if they are seen as not an extension of America or any other country, but coming from within these societies,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. “For the longer term, it is better to let the people within the country be the strongest voice while also ensuring that at the appropriate times you are weighing in publicly and privately.”
What a statement.
So you like all the illusion and imagery? You don't want to look behind the curtain.
To some critics, though, that justifies a policy of passivity that undercuts core US values.
“The administration’s Ukraine policy is emblematic of a broader problem with today’s foreign policy — absence of a strategic vision, disinterest in democracy promotion, and an unwillingness to lead,” said Paula J. Dobriansky, an under secretary of state for Bush.
Obama’s commitment to democracy promotion has long been debated. Advocates said he has increased spending on projects that encourage democratic reform in places such as Africa and Asia while directing money to support changes in the Arab world. At the same time, they said, he has cut back on democracy promotion in Iraq, Pakistan, and Central Asia.
One of the strongest advocates for democracy promotion in Obama’s circle has been Michael A. McFaul, first the president’s Russia adviser and then ambassador to Moscow. But McFaul is stepping down. Obama’s nominee for the assistant secretary of state who oversees democracy programs, Tom Malinowski, has been languishing since July waiting for Senate confirmation.
Related: Final Call For McFaul
Russia doesn't want the other guy, either.
Obama waited until last week, three months into the crisis, to make his first statement in front of cameras.
Aides said he wanted to wait until the critical moment, and it came when Americans saw indications that Yanukovych might turn loose the military on the protesters. Obama followed with an hourlong phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Critics saw that as too little, too late. Others said caution might be justified.
“Given how fluid things are in Kiev, I’m not sure it would be wise to jump in there with advice, and I’m not sure the advice would be welcome,’’ said Steven Pifer, a former ambassador to Ukraine. “This may be a time where a little restraint on our part is a good thing.”
It's too late for that now! The horse is out of the barn!
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Related: Cold War passions in Ukraine
I've lost mine for Globe war-mongers, sorry.
"Ukraine’s leaders slow formation of new Cabinet; Protesters want more input on choices" by Will Englund | Washington Post, February 26, 2014
KIEV — The interim leaders of Ukraine stepped on the brakes Tuesday as they faced resistance from street protesters and some members of Parliament, who objected that they were moving too fast in forming a new Cabinet just three days after the old regime collapsed.
So much for a unity government.
New ministers for every department were supposed to be in place by the end of the day. But strenuous protests from the Maidan — the city’s main square that is still thickly populated with demonstrators — about a lack of input forced the leaders of Parliament to wait at least until Thursday, despite European worries that Ukraine needs to move quickly to get its financial house in order.
The new government is already falling apart!
And members of the Parliament, or Verkhovna Rada, complained that the speaker, Oleksandr Turchynov, was pushing bills through with little regard for debate or transparency — much as his predecessor had railroaded a package of harshly repressive laws through the Parliament in January, in an act that set off violent clashes between aggressive hard-line protesters and police.
But the slowdown also comes as Ukraine remains deeply unsettled by the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych.
I was told they were all happy.
In Kharkiv, a large eastern city where hostility to the Maidan was strong, tensions ran high as rival crowds faced off, with no one seemingly in charge. In the Crimea, with a strong pro-Russian population, a Russian flag was raised on a major government building and four Russian legislators met with local officials.
Officials in Moscow continued Tuesday to express displeasure with events in Ukraine, if not as harshly as the day before. One bill that flew through the Rada on Monday downgraded the status of Russian as an official language, which struck critics as an unnecessary and incendiary move, and which opened Ukraine’s new authorities to stinging criticism from their larger neighbor.
They are our guys all right!
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, tweeted Tuesday, ‘‘We want to curtail the influence of radicals and nationalists who are trying to play first fiddle in Ukraine.’’
The turn of events in Ukraine has been a major setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who wants to draw Ukraine into a new Eurasian Economic Union. But protesters on the Maidan worry that Russia still hopes to recoup its losses.
‘‘There are an awful lot of bandits here,’’ said Viktoria Ignatova, ‘‘and Putin wants to get them back into power.’’
Moscow argues that the Ukrainian protests have been taken over by extremists. But on the Maidan, there were strong fears that the revolution was being sold out.
Activists were unhappy with the roster of veteran politicians being mentioned for top posts in a new government. And one very familiar face was missing Tuesday — the giant poster with a portrait of Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister and arch-foe of Yanukovych, had been taken down.
Her release from prison Saturday had turned her into a player again instead of a cause, and she is no longer a uniting factor among what until a few days ago was the opposition. Her party, in any case, said she will go to Germany for medical treatment.
‘‘We need totally new people,’’ said Yaroslav Kazmyrchuk, 70, who described himself as a pensioner and a revolutionary. Meaning
A Maidan council has been established by a group of prominent activists to consult on ministerial choices. It wants to veto any candidate who is rich, who worked for Yanukovych, or who was involved in human rights abuses.
It's okay for the Ukraine, but not Thailand.
The Maidan had a full crowd Tuesday as people laid flowers at shrines to the dead built from stacked paving stones, and snapped photos of the barricades of rubble that had held back the police. Kazmyrchuk said the camp protest there would continue until it was clear that all the ‘‘bandits’’ would be removed from power.
There was still no conclusive word Tuesday on the whereabouts of Yanukovych, a day after the authorities announced a nationwide manhunt for him on murder charges.
But a top aide, Andriy Kluyev, who was thought to have been with Yanukovych, was reported by his press secretary to have been shot and wounded — where and when were not clear.
While the Rada was putting off a vote on a new government, Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s top foreign policy official, met with the interim leaders and asked for a financial reform plan, which would open the way to EU loans.
Not wa$ting any time, are they?
Ukraine’s economy is in dire shape, and the new authorities said they have found the government’s coffers almost bare.
In Kharkiv, where nationalists seized the local government building over the weekend, an opposing crowd had gathered around a huge statue of Lenin across the main square to protect it from assault.
Don't worry so much about those "other" protesters.
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"Ukraine lawmakers name interim leaders" by David M. Herszenhorn and Steven Lee Myers | New York Times, February 27, 2014
KIEV — Standing before a crowd of tens of thousands in Independence Square, the epicenter of the three-month civic uprising that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, the lawmakers temporarily controlling Ukraine announced an interim government Wednesday night to be led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a veteran public official who has served as speaker of Parliament, foreign minister, economics minister, and acting head of the central bank.
Why not? Why not rid it all of pretense?
The public presentation of Yatsenyuk, who will serve as acting prime minister, and more than 20 other proposed Cabinet members was a frenetic effort by establishment politicians to win the backing of the street protesters, whose persistence in the face of the deaths of more than 80 people last week in clashes with the police ultimately dislodged Yanukovych from power.
As the names of the proposed ministers were read from the stage — with flowers and candles blanketing the square in memory of the dead — it became clear just how completely the ordinary people on the street had seized control of the direction of Ukraine. Desperate for the crowd’s legitimacy, officials felt compelled to present the slate on stage in the square before putting it up for a vote by Parliament.
Too bad you Occupy people couldn't pull that off.
The reaction from the crowd was mixed.
Jeers and whistles greeted some established politicians and cheers for some figures with no government experience chosen because of their role in the uprising.
Translation: the Ukrainian people already don't like their EU and US-appointed government, the old crowd of rejects from before!
But with Ukraine hurtling toward an economic catastrophe, and no time for protracted negotiations, the gesture of deference to the crowd seemed sufficient to move the process forward....
And that is what is important! Advance that agenda!
Among those eliciting loud boos was Oleksandr Turchynov, who was elected by colleagues Saturday as the new speaker of Parliament and who has been authorized to carry out the duties of president, effectively putting him in charge of the country. Turchynov was not part of the slate announced Wednesday night and will continue in his position even after the interim government is approved.
They don't like our newly-installed man?
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a surprise military exercise of ground and air forces on Ukraine’s doorstep Wednesday, intending to demonstrate the country’s military preparedness at a time of heightened tensions with Europe and the United States over the turmoil gripping Russia’s western neighbor.
US does 'em all the time, so what is the big deal?
Russia’s military put tens of thousands of troops in western Russia on alert at 2 p.m. for an exercise scheduled to last until March 3. The minister of defense, Sergei K. Shoigu, also announced unspecified measures to tighten security at the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.
At least Sochi wasn't bombed by black widows.
The orders came as thousands of ethnic Russians gathered outside the regional Parliament in Crimea’s capital, Simferopol, to protest the political upheaval in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, that turned Yanukovych into a fugitive. Crimea was a part of Russian territory until the Soviet Union ceded it to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine in 1954, and Russians there have already pleaded for the Kremlin’s intervention to protect the region and its population from Ukraine’s new leadership.
Yanukovych, the object of a nationwide manhunt in Ukraine, had been believed to be in hiding in Crimea after he bolted from Kiev on Saturday. His present whereabouts are unknown.
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Related:
"VENEZUELAN FACE-OFF -- A demonstrator held a placard while another took a picture of National Guardsmen during a protest near Cuba's embassy in Caracas on Tuesday. Demonstrators put up barricades in Caracas on Monday despite calls to rein in protests that have led to 13 deaths in Venezuela's worst unrest in a decade (Boston Globe February 26 2014)."
Just thought I would throw that printed photograph that you won't see on the website in there. Strange how the last unrest was caused by a CIA coup against Chavez.
Also see: The Week in Brief
