"Ukraine talks open without separatist presence" by David M. Herszenhorn | New York Times May 15, 2014
KIEV — Senior Ukrainian officials opened talks here Wednesday that they portrayed as an effort to end the country’s six-month-old political crisis, but their initial remarks suggested little compromise by the provisional Ukrainian government, casting doubt that pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine would pay any heed.
Among the first to speak was the acting prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, who reiterated a promise to fight graft and urged unity, but made no particular outreach to the besieged eastern regions where separatist leaders held ballot referendums Sunday that they said showed broad public support for seceding from Ukraine and perhaps joining Russia.
What, the military aggression not enough reaching out?
“To fight corruption and provide people with jobs is our main task,” Yatsenyuk said. “And that will unite our country.”
While some officials from the east attended the so-called round-table talks, the provisional government in Kiev had vowed not to negotiate with the leaders of the masked gunmen whom they refer to as “terrorists” and “killers.” As a result, there were no representatives of the separatist factions, who seem crucial to reaching an accord that might resolve the crisis.
He sounds like Assad, except he wouldn't win an election (unless the US rigged it, of course).
Oleksandr Yefremov, a member of Parliament and former governor of the Luhansk region, one of the separatist strongholds in the east, said in opening remarks that he expected more of a presence from his region, and he complained that the talks had opened with sharp words by a leader of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Filaret, blaming Russia for the crisis.
“I am surprised that nobody is here from Luhansk,” Yefremov said, “and I also don’t understand why we start our dialogue with morality.” He added, “We have people who think differently, who have a different culture, and we have a responsibility to create a state that corresponds to the needs of our people.”
Sergei Taruta, the governor of Donetsk, another embattled eastern region, also attended the talks, which were held in Parliament. But the overwhelming number of officials seemed strongly aligned with the central government in Kiev. They included the former prime minister and now presidential candidate, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, as well as the ambassadors to Ukraine from the United States and the European Union.
Nothing but conference of US tools talking to themselves in an attempt at legitimacy.
The Kiev government has been working to develop a “decentralization” plan that would empower local officials by giving them additional budget authority. It is an effort to answer demands in the east, supported by Russia, for a new “federalization” program that would substantially weaken the central government in favor of stronger regional governors.
One official who does hold credibility in the east, the mayor of Donetsk, Alexander A. Lukyanchenko, urged officials at the talks to pay attention to the results of Sunday’s referendum.
They have already been dismissed.
While he acknowledged the referendum may not be regarded as legitimate, he said it nonetheless demonstrated lack of faith in the Kiev government.
Already?
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"Steelworkers take back the streets in key Ukraine cities; Pro-Russian militants retreat with no resistance" by Andrew E. Kramer | New York Times May 16, 2014
MARIUPOL, Ukraine — In what could represent a decisive turning point in the Ukrainian conflict and a setback for Russia, thousands of steelworkers fanned out Thursday over the city of Mariupol, establishing control over the streets and routing the pro-Kremlin militants who seized control several weeks ago.
By late Thursday, miners and steelworkers had deployed in at least five cities, including the regional capital, Donetsk, though they had not yet become the dominant force there that they are in Mariupol, the region’s second-largest city and the site just last week of bloody confrontations between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian militants.
The workers are employees of Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man and a recent convert to the side of Ukrainian unity, who on Wednesday issued a statement rejecting the separatist cause of the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic but endorsing greater local autonomy. His decision to throw his weight fully behind the interim government in Kiev could inflict a body blow to the separatists, already reeling from the withdrawal of full-throated support last week of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Wow. The top Ukrainian oligarch is backing the U.S. puppet regime and is using his workers as soldiers (under threat of termination, I'm sure).
Wearing only their protective clothing and hard-hats, the workers said they were “outside politics” and just trying to establish order.
Faced with waves of steelworkers joined by the police, the pro-Russian protesters have melted away, as has any sign of the Donetsk People’s Republic or its representatives.
Backhoes and dump trucks from the steelworkers’ factory dismantled all the barricades, without resistance from either demonstrators or pro-Russian militants.
Metinvest and DTEK, the two subsidiaries in metals and mining of Akhmetov’s company, System Capital Management, together employ 280,000 people in eastern Ukraine, forming an important and possibly decisive force in the region. They have a history of political activism stretching back to miner strikes that helped bring down the Soviet Union. In this conflict, they had not previously signaled their allegiance to one side or the other.
It was still too early to ascertain whether the separatists would regroup to resist the industrial workers, though none were to be found in and around Mariupol on Thursday, not even in the public administration building they had been occupying.
“We have to bring order to the city,” Alexei Gorlov, a steelworker, said of his motivation for joining one of the unpaid and voluntary patrols that were organized at the Ilych Steel Works.
Groups of six or so steelworkers accompany two policemen on the patrols. “People organize themselves,” he said. “In times of troubles, that is how it works.”
Workers from another mill, Azov Steel, took one side of the city, while the Ilych factory took the other. Both groups were trying to convince longshoremen to patrol the port, Gorlov said.
The two steel mills fly Ukrainian flags outside their headquarters, though, like so much else in Ukraine, the lines of loyalty were muddled. At least a portion of the police in the city had mutinied last Friday, leading to a shootout with the Ukrainian national guard, which left at least seven dead.
The chief executive of Ilych Steel, Yuri Zinchenko, is leading the steelworker patrols in the city. He said a separatist victory would close export markets in Europe, devastating the factory and the town.
So it's a $elf-$erving intere$t then.
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"Lawlessness threatens to take hold in eastern Ukraine" by Yuras Karmanau | Associated Press May 17, 2014
MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Steelworkers from plants owned by Ukraine’s richest man retook government buildings from pro-Moscow insurgents, reversing the tide of rebellion and lawlessness that has gripped this port and dealing a setback to anti-Kiev forces aspiring to merge with Russia.
Now they are anti-Kiev.
Wearing overalls and hard hats, dozens of workers cleared barricades of debris and tires outside the Mariupol city hall on Friday, scoring early successes against the pro-Russian forces, but threatening to open a new and dangerously unpredictable cycle of confrontation.
‘‘People are tired of war and chaos. Burglaries and marauding have to stop,’’ said Viktor Gusak, a steelworker who joined in the effort to banish the pro-Russia militants from Mariupol, the Donetsk region’s second-largest city and the site of bloody clashes last week between Ukrainian troops and the insurgents.
That's a truism!
About 75 miles to the north, armed backers of Ukrainian unity patrolled in black just inside the troubled Donetsk region, vowing to expel separatists through force if needed.
The patrols, which began Thursday in Mariupol and the village of Velyka Novosilka, were a blow to the separatists who have seized control of government offices in this city and a dozen others in the east.
Other similar and apparently unaccountable groups look to be emerging elsewhere in the chaotic east. Should they make substantial incursions, it is unclear whether they will be perceived as liberators or attackers acting on behalf of a little-liked government in Kiev. The latter could precipitate civil conflict.
Related: U.S. Mercenary Killers in Eastern Ukraine
And the paragraph itself is amazing, what with incursions and liberators and little-liked governments and all.
In Geneva on Friday, the United Nations presented a report stating that armed groups are undermining the rights and basic freedoms of people in eastern Ukraine, expressing concern at the rising number of killings, abductions, beatings, and detentions of journalists, politicians, and local activists.
Well, then the US and EU shouldn't have started all this.
“Primarily as a result of the actions of organized armed groups, the continuation of the rhetoric of hatred and propaganda fuels the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine, with a potential of spiraling out of control,” said the report, the second on the issue in a month.
It's called freedom of the pre$$.
The actions and impunity enjoyed by armed groups remain the major factor in causing a worsening situation for the protection of individual rights, it said.
Ivan Simonovic, UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, said at a press conference in Kiev that at least 127 people had been killed “during violent clashes and the security and law enforcement operations in the east and south.”
Government forces in Kiev have achieved only limited results in quashing the self-styled Donetsk and Luhansk ‘‘people’s republics’’ — armed groups that this week declared independence for their regions following contentious referendums.
Polls have shown that a majority of eastern Ukrainians support unity, though most are too fearful of the pro-Russian militias to say so publicly.
Poll by of of who? Consider the source here.
That has handed the initiative to expel the insurgents to forces acting independently of authorities in the capital.
In other words, hired mercenaries and other thuggish squads contracted for such purposes.
In Mariupol, billionaire Rinat Akhmetov’s Metinvest holding group has organized citizen patrols of steelworkers working alongside police to help improve security and get insurgents to vacate the buildings they had seized.
I mean, really. The double standard in this stuff is disgusting.
Yup, EUSraeli thugs are citizen patrols, and are good, good. People who want to be independent and left free of intimidation? Bad, bad!
What RANK ROT SHIT PROPAGANDA!!!!!!!!!
Until now, Akhmetov, 47, had been notable for his noncommittal stance during the turbulence that has for more than a month gripped the region that is home to his most lucrative industrial assets.
US said they would smash if not join!
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NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Ukrainians in east fault Kiev in talks; Say legitimate grievances have been ignored" by Nataliya Vasilyeva | Associated Press May 18, 2014
KIEV — Lawmakers and officials from eastern Ukraine on Saturday poured criticism on the fledging central government, accusing it of ignoring legitimate grievances of the regions which have been overrun by pro-Russia militia fighting for independence.
One eastern leader said last weekend’s unofficial referendum in favor of independence ‘‘expressed the will of the people.’’
The criticism came in the second round of European-brokered talks intended to resolve the country’s worst crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The talks ended without a settlement and are expected to resume Wednesday in the central city of Cherkasy.
Ukraine’s caretaker government came to power in February after the ouster of Kremlin-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych after months of protests in Kiev.
Moscow and many in Ukraine’s east have accused the new government of intending to trample the rights of eastern Ukraine’s Russian-speakers.
On Saturday, politicians from the east implored the government to believe that — apart from the pro-Russia gunmen — a large sector of the population had lost hope in the interim administration in Kiev.
The second round of talks followed hours of sustained gunfire throughout the night near the eastern city of Slovyansk, the stronghold of pro-Russia fighters, after forces loyal to the Kiev government moved in to protect a television tower.
Separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions held hastily arranged referenda last weekend and declared independence following the vote, which went in favor of sovereignty.
The round-table talks in the eastern city of Kharkiv did not include any of the insurgents, whom Kiev describes as terrorists. The insurgents say they are willing to discuss only the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops and the recognition of the independence of the regions.
‘‘The referendum doesn’t have any legal consequences,’’ said Valery Holenko, chairman of the Luhansk regional government. ‘‘But it has expressed the will of the people, which cannot be discounted.’’
Holenko said the devolution of powers that the government is offering was no longer enough and that as a first step in appeasing eastern Ukrainians the government has to stop its ‘‘antiterrorist operation’’ in the east.
Acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called on the eastern leaders to resist the armed men and support the government’s efforts to devolve powers to the regions.
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What a shitty breakfast.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Ukrainians in east fault Kiev in talks; Say legitimate grievances have been ignored" by Nataliya Vasilyeva | Associated Press May 18, 2014
KIEV — Lawmakers and officials from eastern Ukraine on Saturday poured criticism on the fledging central government, accusing it of ignoring legitimate grievances of the regions which have been overrun by pro-Russia militia fighting for independence.
One eastern leader said last weekend’s unofficial referendum in favor of independence ‘‘expressed the will of the people.’’
The criticism came in the second round of European-brokered talks intended to resolve the country’s worst crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The talks ended without a settlement and are expected to resume Wednesday in the central city of Cherkasy.
Ukraine’s caretaker government came to power in February after the ouster of Kremlin-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych after months of protests in Kiev.
Moscow and many in Ukraine’s east have accused the new government of intending to trample the rights of eastern Ukraine’s Russian-speakers.
On Saturday, politicians from the east implored the government to believe that — apart from the pro-Russia gunmen — a large sector of the population had lost hope in the interim administration in Kiev.
The second round of talks followed hours of sustained gunfire throughout the night near the eastern city of Slovyansk, the stronghold of pro-Russia fighters, after forces loyal to the Kiev government moved in to protect a television tower.
Separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions held hastily arranged referenda last weekend and declared independence following the vote, which went in favor of sovereignty.
The round-table talks in the eastern city of Kharkiv did not include any of the insurgents, whom Kiev describes as terrorists. The insurgents say they are willing to discuss only the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops and the recognition of the independence of the regions.
‘‘The referendum doesn’t have any legal consequences,’’ said Valery Holenko, chairman of the Luhansk regional government. ‘‘But it has expressed the will of the people, which cannot be discounted.’’
Holenko said the devolution of powers that the government is offering was no longer enough and that as a first step in appeasing eastern Ukrainians the government has to stop its ‘‘antiterrorist operation’’ in the east.
Acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called on the eastern leaders to resist the armed men and support the government’s efforts to devolve powers to the regions.
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What a shitty breakfast.
