Ukraine Crisis

[Middle-aged Europe]

Maybe they should just get it over with and formally split the country into two. This would solve a heck of a lot of problems:

[Middle-aged Europe]

The foreign ministers of France, Germany, and Poland will be in Kiev tomorrow, so I guess it's unlikely that the Ukrainian government tries to do any bullsh**t while they're there.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Reminds me a bit of Syria, of all places.

Authoritarian government supresses initially peaceful protests, which results in the protests gradually being taken over by extremists and a civil war-like situation. Replace Islamists with neo-Nazis.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The French, German, and Polish foreign ministers have apparently decided to extent their stay in Kiev and remain there till tomorrow at least. Today they met with Yanukovych and leaders of the opposition.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Well, Timothy Snyder writing in the NY Review of Books is unconvinced about this whole "protesters are fascists" idea and wants to turn it back on Putin & co.:

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I don't claim to be particularly well-informed about the situation there, but food for thought perhaps.

To be honest, there's a fair chance that both Nazis and Jews are among the protesters.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Ukrainian parliament has voted to end the so-called anti-terrorist operations in the country.

Now we have to see if Yanukovych and the security forces comply.

[Middle-aged Europe]

According to SPIEGEL ONLINE's Ukraine live ticker, Viktor Yanukovych, the leaders of the opposition, members of the Ukrainian parliament, and the German and Polish foreign ministers are in Yanukovych's office at this hour to hammer out some sort of deal.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yanukovych has apparently agreed to a compromise early this morning, but the opposition doesn't seem to be fully satisfied yet. Another round of Government-Opposition-Germany/Poland talks are scheduled for noon today.

UPDATE: So far, the agreement seems to include a re-instatement of the amendment to the Ukrainian constitution of 2004 which had limited the powers of the president, the formation of a coalition government, and presidential elections in December of this year.

[Middle-aged Europe]

A good source for direct up-to-date information is the Twitter account of the Polish foreign minister:

https://twitter.com/sikorskiradek/

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[Middle-aged Europe]

Yeah, it seems that Yanukovych is unwilling to step down now is the main objection opposition leaders have to the proposed agreement.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The pro-Russian faction is just as awful, yes, but I find it necessary to push back against the western narrative of this and Venezuela being "noble protesters united against pure evil governments!!!11!"

Well, obviously there are always shades of grey.

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King possessed some truly negative traits and the Western Allies did horrible things during WWII.

There no 100% morally pure characters. Perhaps the human need to believe in 100% morally pure characters sometimes has the result that people are made bigger than they are, but then again we won't be able change to that.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Breaking: Maidan Council agrees to sign compromise with Yanukovych.

UPDATE: Full text of the agreement here... http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/671350/publicationFile/190027/140221-UKR_Erklaerung.pdf

[Middle-aged Europe]

The street isn't happy, primarily because Yanukovych remains in office till the election.

The question is how large the share of protestors is who are truly disaffected by this agreement. The coming weeks will show, I guess.

In any case, the Ukrainian Parliament just voted to restore the Constitution of 2004, which was the first demand of the agreement.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Rada has just voted to release Tymoshenko.

The Ukrainian Parliament has also voted to release all protesters who have been arrested the last couple of days. And they voted to remove the Minister of Interior from office.

Mhm, if the Maidan protestors keep pushing now maybe they could get rid of Yanukovych after all. Today's agreement doesn't explicitly exclude an impeachment.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Ministry of Interior and the Ukrainian Police have supposedly switched sides and pledged their support to the protestors now.

It seems that Yanukovych signing the compromise with the opposition was widely intepreted as a de facto surrender of the president. The precise content of the agreement has become more or less irrelevant now, but it certainly helped setting things in motion...

[Middle-aged Europe]

Ukrainian Parliament has just elected Arsen Avakov as the new Minister of Interior.

Avakov is a member of Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna party.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Tymoshenko apparently has been released from prison.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Euromaidan protests have become the Euromaidan Revolution today.

[Middle-aged Europe]

It seems that some of the party of regions members voted for his removal.

36 yes votes came from the Party of Regions. To be precise, 36 yes votes from those who are still formally affiliated with the Party of Regions. The POR has currently 134 deputies left, a drop from 204 since the beginning of this year.

The majority of those who had left the POR in the last eight weeks and who are now "independents" voted for Yanukovych's removal as well.

http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/radan_gs09/ns_golos?g_id=3863

[Middle-aged Europe]

Any news about Yanukovich? It'd be nice if they managed to arrest him before he flees to Russia.

He's either north, west, east, or south of Kharkiv.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Judging from first reactions, Russia seems to be pretty pissed about the recent developments.

But short of launching WWIII, I doubt that they can do much about it.

Rhetorics sound as if they're about to break off diplomatic relations with Ukraine though or something like that.

[Middle-aged Europe]

It seems the Crimean protests are the result of a decision of the Ukrainian Parliament to revoke a law which established Russian as an additional official language in all regions of Ukraine with at least 10% Russian speakers.

The Crimean parliament building as it looks right now:

[Middle-aged Europe]

The new Ukrainian government is basically a coalition of Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna party and the nationalist Svoboda along with a couple of former Maidan activists. Vitali Klitschko's UDAR refused to join the government.

Meanwhile, some ex-Party of Regions MPs have formed a new group in the Ukrainian Parliament called "Economic Development". ED is led by Anatoliy Kinakh, a former prime minister under Leonid Kuchma back in 2001/02.

Current seat distribution in the Rada is apparently as follows (in brackets the change since beginning of this year):

Party of Regions 127 (-77)
Batkivshchyna 88 (-2)
UDAR 42 (+-0)
Svoboda 36 (+-0)
Economic Development 33 (+33)
Communist Party 32 (+-0)
Independents 91 (+53)
[Vacancies 1 (-7)]

[Middle-aged Europe]

Russian Army units are occupying an airport in Sevastopol.

Just checked. It is not Sevastopol. It is Simferopol. It is A LOT worse.

It was both, actually. Although the "occupation" of Simferopol has ended already.

Ukraine claims a Russian invasion, Russia denies the involvement of any of its military units and points to "pro-Russian self-defence forces".

[Middle-aged Europe]

Country invades a foreign nation to protect its fellow countrymen and the rest of the world is just sitting on their asses. Welcome to Munich 38.

Hitler wasn't sitting on 8,000 nuclear warheads though.

So this is more like Afghanistan 1979. Ironically, Putin waited until the Olympics were over.