Talk Elections

and it's good to see Georgia and now the Ukrainians standing up to them.

The thing is in Eastern Ukraine there is a Russian preponderance with road signs in Russian, ect. so it's not going to be as clear cut.

I have always held that in the medium-term Russia is America's number one geo-political foe ( know, I know, I hate to sound like John Bolton) and think we should try to expand NATO membership to Georgia and work harder to undermine the regime in Belarus. I was quite disappointed when Democrats attacked Romney in 2012 for saying as much to be honest.

The men, Hennadiy Korban and his partner Borys Filatov, decided to remove advertising videos featuring glamorous models from a large outdoor screen at an upscale shopping mall called Passage and replace them with a live broadcast of raucous antigovernment protests at Independence Square in Kiev.

They also ordered their local properties to hoist the flags of the European Union and Ukraine, a gesture of open revolt in a Russian-speaking region where economic and political power have traditionally been united in looking more to Moscow than to Europe for guidance.

From the moment of its spontaneous combustion on Nov. 21 and for weeks thereafter, the mass pro-European Union encampment in the center of Kiev appeared to represent the epitome of 21st-century European values.
The activities of the vast, multi-ethnic crowd in Maidan Square quickly came to be called Euromaidan and celebrated themes of democracy, pluralism and an end to government corruption. But the uplifting mood began to change in early December when Ukraine’s three main opposition parties – Fatherland, UDAR and Svoboda – began to take control of Euromaidan.
Activists of the ultranationalist, anti-Semitic and grotesquely misnamed Svoboda (Freedom) soon came to the fore, giving the protests a progressively darker and more violent edge. A turning point came during a mass march through the center of Kiev on Dec. 10, when a group of Svoboda activists, led by members of parliament, toppled a statue of Lenin while chanting an ominous warning to the president: “Yanukovych, you’ll be next!”
Ever since the breakthrough success of Svoboda in the 2010 elections, leaders of Fatherland and UDAR repeatedly have declined entreaties from myself and many other supporters of democracy inUkraine to break their electoral alliance with Svoboda, apparently seeing the party and its leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, as essential partners in the coalition to topple President Viktor Yanukovych.
Yet during the last days of December, as momentum slipped from the demonstrators with news that Yanukovych had buttressed his position by accepting a $15 billion loan package from Russian President Vladmir Putin, Fatherland leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk and UDAR chief Vitali Klitschko must have become acutely aware that Svoboda’s growing profile was tarnishing the protesters’ claim to membership in the camp of modern-day Europe and not the fascist Europe of 70 years ago.
This became crystal clear during a cringe-inducing vertep, a comedic skit based on Ukrainian folk tradition, performed on the main stage at Euromaidan on New Year’s Eve. Based equally on the birth of Jesus and contemporary Ukrainian politics, the lead role was played by a Svoboda parliamentarian named Bogdan Benyuk, who donned black garb and sidelocks to play a stereotypical Orthodox Jewish wheeler-dealer character called Zhyd (Kike). Explaining to the crowd that he is involved in various occupations – including banking, stock market speculation, loan sharking and hosting a talk show – the Jewish oligarch character sings gleefully, “East and West belong to me; our people are everywhere.”
Zhyd creates problems for the newborn Jesus and contemplates taking a bribe from a character evoking both Yanukovych and King Herod to help him crush the protesters. Fascinatingly, the Jew switches sides and joins the opposition when he learns that on orders from the king, the regime’s forces are preparing to kill Jewish firstborns. The audience is given to understand that the shift in loyalty is due not to a belated outburst of conscience, but rather because Zhyd is worried the regime may turn on his own people.
The bottom line of the supposedly all-in-good-fun skit – it was followed by a solemn singing of theUkrainian national anthem and congratulatory speeches by Yatsenyuk, Klitschko and Tyahnybok – appeared to be that while perfidious Jewish oligarchs care only for the welfare of Jews, given their supposed power and influence it’s preferable for the opposition coalition to have them inside the tent pissing out rather than the other way around.
Even more jarring imagery came to the fore the following day when 15,000 opposition members greeted the new year by marching in a Svoboda-sponsored torchlight parade down Central Kiev’s Kreshatik Boulevard in commemoration of the 105th anniversary of the birth of Stepan Bandera, an ally of Nazi Germany whose followers participated in massacres of Ukrainian Jews. Marchers carried red and black nationalist banners and shouted nationalist slogans as they cheered Tyahnybok and expressed their undying love for Bandera.
On Jan. 7, the U.S. Senate unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the Ukrainian authorities to refrain from the use of force and maintain a national reconciliation dialogue with the opposition, while calling on all parties to refrain from hate speech and anti-Semitic actions. Clearly, while still sympathetic with the declared democratic aspirations of the opposition, neither the United States nor the European Union will long tolerate the growing ascendancy of Svoboda.
To salvage their remaining credibility, Yatsenyuk and Klitschko must immediately denounce the neo-fascist drift of recent weeks and break off their alliance with Svoboda. Then they should sit and negotiate with the Ukrainian government and leaders of the country’s vibrant civil society, including all the religious communities, to find a solution to the protracted standoff in Kiev that gives hope for a democratic future for Ukraine based on rule of law.

The protests in the Maidan, we are told again and again by Russian propaganda and by the Kremlin’s friends in Ukraine, mean the return of National Socialism to Europe. The Russian foreign minister, in Munich, lectured the Germans about their support of people who salute Hitler. The Russian media continually make the claim that the Ukrainians who protest are Nazis. Naturally, it is important to be attentive to the far right in Ukrainian politics and history. It is still a serious presence today, although less important than the far right in France, Austria, or the Netherlands. Yet it is the Ukrainian regime rather than its opponents that resorts to anti-Semitism, instructing its riot police that the opposition is led by Jews. In other words, the Ukrainian government is telling itself that its opponents are Jews and us that its opponents are Nazis.

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Following the same strategy, Yanukovych’s government claimed, entirely falsely, that the price of closer relations with the European Union was the recognition of gay marriage in Ukraine. Kiselyov is quite open about the Russian media strategy toward the Maidan: to “apply the correct political technology,” then “bring it to the point of overheating” and bring to bear “the magnifying glass of TV and the Internet.”

Why exactly do people with such views think they can call other people fascists? And why does anyone on the Western left take them seriously?

Plus they hate the EU as much as the current government.

Radosław Sikorski ‏@sikorskiradek 6 Min.

Together with F.W.Steinmeier on the way to meet Maidan activists to discuss the draft agreement.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Many of you have been doing business in Ukraine or at least have been in this beautiful country once. Now we face difficult  times. People of Ukraine need  your support and understanding . Please, have a look at below video, which clearly explains the concerns of Ukrainian people.

I’ll appreciate if you could share this video with colleagues and friends for better understanding. Each of us could do some little things for support.

This is really essential if  a global world and global society are not just nice declarations.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP0Lx40WTWs
 
We will overcome “with a little help from our friends” 
Many thanks,

Sasha

Here in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, the most important thing coming out of a congress of pro-Yanukovych politicians is the sentiment that they don't want Ukraine to split but to remain united.

Kharkiv's regional governor, Mikhaylo Dobkin, told the meeting of MPs from predominantly Russian-speaking areas of eastern Ukraine and Crimea : "We're not preparing to break up the country. We want to preserve it."

However, they have refused to recognise developments in the national parliament. They are calling "fascist" those who have taken power in Kiev, and do not want armed fighters to come to their towns.

Dear compatriots

We are experiencing one of the most difficult and tragic periods in the history of our country. Ukraine was deceived and robbed but even that is nothing compared to the grief faced by dozens of Ukrainian families who lost their loved ones on both sides of the confrontation. Ukraine betrayed, and people pushed their foreheads. All responsibility for this lies with Yanukovych and his immediate environment.

We, the Party of Regions faction in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (parliament) and our party members, strongly condemn the criminal orders that led to the loss of human life, an empty treasury, huge debts, shame in the eyes of the Ukrainian people and the world, bringing our country was on the brink, threats split and the loss of national sovereignty. Any attempt to influence the situation, to persuade the president had not been heard.

Party of Regions faction represents the interests of more than ten million voters in Ukraine and more than one million members.

Parties of regions - is the normal, hardworking people who love their land, their people, It includes industrialists, scientists, workers, doctors and teachers.

We have come to parliament to serve Ukraine and its people.

Party of Regions said that difference of opinion, and sometimes - differences in ideology are not an obstacle to work together for the benefit of Ukraine. There are different views, but we have one goal - a united, strong and independent Ukraine.

We condemn the cowardly flight of Yanukovych.

We condemn the betrayal.

We condemn the criminal orders , which framed the common people, soldiers and officers.

But attempts at total intimidation and lynching, to destabilize the situation in the regions is not acceptable in a democratic society.

Ukrainian fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych asked Russia on Thursday to protect him from "extremists," as a respected Russian news organization reported that he was seen in a Moscow hotel and was now staying in a Kremlin sanatorium just outside the city.

Yanukovych, who fled from Ukraine's capital Kiev last week, said in the Thursday statement that he still considers himself to be the legitimate leader.

"I have to ask Russia to ensure my personal safety from extremists," he said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.

"I, Viktor Fedorovich Yanukovych appeal to the people of Ukraine. As before I still consider myself to be the lawful head of the Ukrainian state, chosen freely by the will of the Ukrainian people.

Now it is becoming clear that the people in south-eastern Ukraine and in Crimea do not accept the power vacuum and complete lawlessness in the country, when the heads of ministries are appointed by the mob.

On the streets of many cities of our country there is an orgy of extremism ...I have to ask the Russian authorities to provide me with personal safety from the actions of extremists."

    On the road between Sevastopol and Simferopol there was a roadblock but they were letting most people through with Crimean number plates. A sign at the roadblock read “People who live by the sword…” but the second half was missing

    A man at Sevastopol airport, who said he was a captain in the tactical aviation brigade in Sevastopol but declined to give his name, told the Guardian there were about 300 people of unknown identity inside the airport but he said, without elaborating: “We don’t consider it any invasion of our territory.”

    He said the men looked like military, were wearing two different types of uniform, and were armed with sniper rifles and AK-47s. “We don’t know who they are, nor where they’ve come from” he said He also said that there were two Kamaz (a manufacturer of trucks) vehicles inside. “They [the vehicles] looked like they could contain 50 people at a push so how they got 300 people inside, I don’t know,” he said

    Major Fidorenko from the Ukrainian military at the base at the airport said they’d been in touch with the unknown gunmen who said they were there “to prevent unwanted landings of helicopters and planes”.

"The international community must exert the strongest pressure on Russia," Donald Tusk said after meeting with foreign and defense ministers in Warsaw on the rapidly deteriorating situation in Ukraine.

"We must give a very clear signal that Europe and the world will not tolerate acts of aggression or intervention," Tusk said, adding that, "it's time the people of Ukraine were shown who their true friends are".

9.48pm GMT

Presidents Putin and Obama have had a telephone conversation. Putin said that he reserved the right to defend Russian interests in Crimea and east Ukraine. Obama said he was concerned about any plans for Russian intervention in Ukraine.

Putin replied that he was concerned about “provocative criminal” actions by far rightists sanctioned by the Ukrainian authorities.

Reuters

9.07pm GMT

Ukraine has asked NATO to look at all ways to protect its territorial integrity. Foreign Minister Sergei Deshchiritsya said he had held talks with officials from the United States and the European Union and then asked NATO for help after what Ukraine’s prime minister described as Russian aggression.
A request had been made to NATO to “look at using all possibilities for protecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, the Ukrainian people and nuclear facilities on Ukrainian territory,” he said.
Reuters

That narrow strip of land tethering northern Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland, called the Perokop Isthmus, is the peninsula’s lifeline. What’s left out of most Western analyses of Putin’s brazen military intervention is the Crimea’s complete economic dependence on the mainland, which provides nearly all of its electricity and water and about 70 percent of its food.
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Most of the Crimea is basically a desert, with less annual rainfall than Los Angeles. It is impossible to sustain its 2 million people—including agriculture and the substantial tourist industry—without Ukrainian water. Current supplies aren’t even enough. In Sevastopol, home of the Black Sea Fleet, households get water only on certain days. In fact, on Feb. 19, when snipers were shooting protesters on the streets of Kiev, Sevastopol applied for $34 million in Western aid (note the irony) to improve its water and sewer systems.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.