I'm going to keep moving on this story.
"For Kiev militiaman, battle for his country has just begun" by David Filipov | Globe Staff March 22, 2014
Watch where you step....
KIEV — Kiev’s central square still looks like a military encampment. Independence Square, known as the Maidan, has grand flower-and-candle memorials, guided tours, and selfie-snapping tourists. But the continued patrols of paramilitary militias controvert any notion that normal life has returned to the capital....
The militia is called Right Sector, and the name has become synonymous with the ultranationalist presence in Ukraine’s new government that President Vladimir Putin has cited as justification for Russia annexing Crimea and tipping off a Cold War-style confrontation with Europe and the United States.
What's wrong is this version and narrative.
But though Right Sector helped put the new, Western-leaning government in power, its members express trust neither for the government nor for Western Europe. “We don’t need Europe, we need to build Ukraine,” said Alexander Kononko, 39, a wiry and prematurely wizened fighter whose red-and-black insignia identifies him as a member of a militia that become a flashpoint in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. As for the new government, “they are mostly the same, corrupt people as the last government.”
They had an AmeriKan election?
Kononko’s stance reflects how simplistic it is to characterize Ukraine as split between the pro-Europe West and the pro-Russian East and how difficult it is to define the militia that is at the center of the complex struggle within Ukraine.
What, after months of that narrative in my jew$paper here?
Unlike other nationalist groups with deep roots in western Ukraine, it formed only last year around the protests in Kiev.
Oh, so this is a CIA-$upported outfit!
The red and black they wear were the colors of Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which allied itself with Nazi Germany when it invaded the Soviet Union during World War II.
Yeah, but these are "our" guys now, so....
For Moscow, that association alone makes anyone who venerates Bandera a fascist; Putin has tarred the entire government a rabble of crooks run by fascists, anti-Semites and Russophobes. “Banderovtsy” is a name that stirs fear in the hearts of many in predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.
Isn't that the pot hollering kettle!
Kononko is but one man in Right Sector, but he offers a view into the historical forces in play in Ukraine, and how they may shape the outcome of the latest US foreign policy challenge.
Like many Ukrainians, Kononko sees Bandera’s alliance with the Nazis as a necessary evil to fight Soviet communists who wiped out millions of Ukrainians in the man-made famine of the 1930s. “Nationality doesn’t mean anything to us,” Kononko said....
Wow, how quickly he breezed over the Jewish Holocaust initiated by Kaganovich and Yagoda.
There are swastikas in the Maidan, but they are imprinted on Russian flags: people here equate Putin’s annexation of Crimea with Hitler’s actions in Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938. It’s clear who Kononko thinks is the fascist criminal: His T-shirt depicts Putin with a Hitler mustache wearing prison stripes.
Yeah, yeah, we know all about the man.
Kononko says he supports one of the nationalists’ rallying cries — that Ukrainian should be the sole official state language — but he and his men speak to each other in Russian.
Kononko said he has no animosity for the pro-Russian population in the east, though he did call some pro-Russian activists “scum whose heads I’d like to bash in.”
“I have friends in Donestk and Kharkiv,” he said. “Those people have been frightened and zombified by Putin propaganda.”
I've got my own to deal with.
So if he is not a complete Ukrainian-speaking Russophobe, who is Kononko?
Like a lot of his men, he is a former soldier. He served in UN peacekeeping troops in former Yugoslavia and eventually worked his way up to the Russian equivalent of chief warrant officer. In Right Sector, he oversees “training exercises” of his men. “I am their mama, their papa, and their psychologist,” he says of his role.
He had a construction business that, he said, earned him between $2,000 and $3,000 a month — good money in Ukraine — until President Viktor Yanukovych was elected in 2010. “I stopped winning contracts, I had to pay bribes to get anything done, and ultimately went bankrupt,” Kononko said.
Kononko does admire Western Europe for one thing. “Corruption would be harder, because there would be rules,” he said. “In Ukraine, they raise taxes to build roads, the roads don’t get built, and the rulers all get richer.”
Same thing here in AmeriKa!
He has a wife and a daughter, and was still making a decent living as a contractor when he walked away to join Right Sector. “I have a lot of friends who think I’m a fool,” he said.
Right Sector, he said, was the only way to fix Ukraine. “It’s a new force, a force for honesty.”
Kononko did not reveal much about the specific size of this force (“we have thousands) or its weapons (“we don’t patrol with them but we can get them when we need them”).
Kononko did not say how long Right Sector would occupy Kiev if the threat from Russia diminishes. If Dmytro Yarosh, Right Sector’s leader and a ranking security official in the current government, wins his long-shot bid in the May presidential elections, presumably that could be time to stand down. But it’s clear to this de facto policeman of the streets of Kiev that the battle for a new country has only just begun....
One of the "good" guys.
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Now to the "bad" guy:
"Putin cements control of Crimea, shrugs off fallout; Ukraine leader inks EU agreement" by Steven Lee Myers and Alan Cowell | New York Times March 22, 2014
MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Friday formally completed the annexation of Crimea....
Every time I see that word I think Israel and the U.S. approving annexations of Palestinian land as part of a peace deal.
Hours earlier, Ukraine’s acting prime minister signed a political association agreement with the European Union....
As he cemented Russian control of Crimea, Putin declared a temporary cease-fire in a battle of economic and political sanctions between Moscow and the West....
Putin said he did not see the immediate need for further reprisals, while leaving open the door for more later on.
With evident sarcasm, he also said in televised remarks that he would open an account at a Russian bank targeted by the US measures, even as the first effects on the country’s economy became clear.
Also Friday, Russia accepted the deployment of an international monitoring team to Ukraine that officials said will have free access to regions throughout the country, the Associated Press reported. But a senior Russian envoy said that doesn’t include the newly annexed Crimea.
The development followed more than a week of stonewalling by Russia of a push by all other members of the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to send such a mission, which they hope will prevent an escalation of tensions in Ukraine’s east and south — regions that have large Russian-speaking populations.
They said Ukraine could conduct overflights but that is all lost in the war narrative being pushed every damn day.
Friday’s decision calls for advance teams to be deployed within 24 hours. The mission, which has a six-month mandate, initially will consist of 100 observers. Up to 400 extra monitors could be deployed if necessary.
The OSCE said the civilian observer team will gather information and report on the security situation ‘‘throughout the country,’’ but did not specifically mention Crimea.
Russia’s stock market opened sharply lower Friday as a second rating agency, Fitch, followed Standard & Poor’s in warning that it would downgrade the country’s credit rating following the punitive US response to Russia’s move to annex Crimea.
Visa and MasterCard ceased operations with Bank Rossiya, the only corporation targeted Thursday by the new sanctions because it served as a “personal bank for senior officials of the Russian Federation.”
Putin, meeting with members of his national security council, suggested in televised remarks that the government was still coming to grips with the impact of the sanctions, aimed at 20 people, including senior government officials and businessmen who have grown rich since Putin came to power more than 14 years ago.
Some of those attending the meeting were among those affected, including Putin’s chief of staff, Sergei B. Ivanov. “We should distance ourselves from them,” Putin joked, his face showing no emotion. “They compromise us.”
*************
The formalities of Crimea’s annexation followed a stealthy and audacious campaign by Russian special forces to take over military installations....
I simply can no longer read this pot-hollering kettle crap media.
The European agreement signed in Brussels by interim Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk was part of an earlier deal abandoned by Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s president at the time, in favor of a bailout by Russia.
I'm sure the Ukrainians will love IMF austerity in the service of banks.
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I think I'm reading the wrong media.
UPDATE: Nearly 6,200 People Sign White House Petition for Alaska to Secede and Join
Russia
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
"Russian forces take over Crimea base; Shots fired in air, one Ukrainian soldier wounded" by David M. Herszenhorn and Neil MacFarquhar | New York Times March 23, 2014
BELBEK, Crimea — Russian forces in armored vehicles on Saturday smashed through the gates of one of the last military bases in Crimea still controlled by Ukrainians, firing shots into the air, surrounding the soldiers, and demanding their surrender.
The assault, which wounded at least one Ukrainian soldier, appeared to be an attempt by Russia to solidify its hold on Crimea after its formal annexation of the region....
Are they putting up settlements like Israel?
Also Saturday, there were reports of tension in eastern Ukraine, with demonstrations in at least two cities where pro-Russian protesters demanded a similar referendum to the one held in Crimea on March 16....
Earlier in the day, Moscow appeared to try to assuage international worries that its aggression would not stop in Crimea, endorsing the deployment of 100 international monitors to places in Ukraine outside Crimea.
Fears of an incursion into Ukraine had been rising Friday as Russian troops were massed along the border.
We have SOOO BEEN HERE BEFORE with the WAR-WHOOPING PROPAGANDA and the JYT!
The Russians have said the troops are there for training exercises.
Like the U.S. moving military hardware to the region, something that remains strangely omitted in this piece.
The announcement from the Russian Foreign Ministry about the monitors underlined that Crimea remained outside the mandate of the observer team approved by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The Russian statement said excluding Crimea “reflects the new political-legal realities” because it has “become part of Russia.”
Still, it seems unlikely Russia would agree to an international observer mission if it was planning to pour troops over the border into eastern Ukraine....
With Crimea now effectively under the control of Russian forces, concern is rising that Ukraine’s eastern regions will agitate for a similar move....
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"Dispute with Russia could strain Obama’s ties with EU" by Julie Pace | Associated Press March 23, 2014
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s complex relationship with Europe faces new challenges during a weeklong trip as he tries to persuade allied leaders to hold firm in efforts to punish Russia for its incursion into Ukraine.
The deepening dispute between East and West is expected to dominate his visit, which begins Monday in the Netherlands. The four-country trip was long-planned, but now provides the United States and Europe a well-timed chance to present a united front against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Hmmmm.
But behind the scenes, Obama will be gauging how far the still economically shaky European Union is willing to go in punishing Russia, one of its largest trading partners. He’ll also be confronted with other European frustrations with the United States that are bubbling just below the surface.
Some European officials, chief among them German Chancellor Angela Merkel, are still smarting over revelations of National Security Agency spying on the continent.
That's bull. It's public relations pap as the spying continues.
There is also lingering resentment among EU leaders over what it sees as Obama’s snubbing of the alliance.
‘‘There’s an anger there, there’s a frustration,’’ said Heather Conley, a Europe analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She added that while the Ukraine crisis may ‘‘mute’’ some of Europe’s irritation with Obama, ‘‘it doesn’t solve it.’’
In the Netherlands, Obama will join world leaders at the Nuclear Security Summit and head a hastily arranged meeting of the Group of Seven — the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan.
It's to be held at the Hague, and for some reason that fact remains omitted here.
The latter meeting will focus on boosting financial support for Ukraine’s fledgling government, while also serving as a symbol of the West’s efforts to isolate Moscow.
All thi$ effort when we are having "au$terity" shoved down our throats over here.
Russia often joins the G-7 nations for Group of Eight meetings, including a summit Putin is supposed to host this summer. Those plans are now in doubt.
Russia is participating in the nuclear summit, but Putin will not attend.
Obama’s focus on Ukraine will continue in Brussels, the headquarters for the European Union and NATO. A later stop in Rome will feature a highly anticipated meeting with Pope Francis.
Related: Francis names O’Malley to Vatican antiabuse panel
Francis shows political instincts in naming antiabuse panel
I'm showing some by dumping them.
Then it’s on to Saudi Arabia for a fence-mending visit with the important Gulf ally.
See: Globe Soothes Saudi Concerns
Maybe he has to explain the Happy New Year thing.
Initial punishments from the United States and European Union did little to stop Russia from annexing the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
I've seen that word more in the past week regarding Crimea than I have for decades when it comes to Israel and its annexations in Palestine and Syria.
Western officials are now warily watching Russia build up its troop presence elsewhere along the former Soviet state’s border.
Russian officials say those troops are simply participating in military exercises. But Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, said that given Russia’s ‘‘past practice . . . we are watching it with skepticism.’’
I wrote unreal in my printed paper's margin as a notation regarding the hypocrisy.
I would hope those nations threatened by the U.S. take that advice to heart! We will invade and bomb based on lies!
The United States has warned that further Russian incursions could result in broader penalties targeting the Russian economy.
Of course, "we" are in no position to do anything about it if they do.
I love hollow warnings coming from pos governments, don't you?
But administration officials acknowledge that American sanctions wouldn’t have the same kind of bite as European penalties, given Europe’s deeper economic ties with Russia.
And the reverse would be the collapsing of the European economies with their cities going cold and dark after the cut off of Russian oil and gas.
That puts Obama in the position of seeking cooperation from the sometimes unwieldy European Union, the 28-country bloc that has often bristled at what its leaders see as snubs by the American president.
In other words, we already have a ready-made excuse for another Obummer failure.
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