Yanukovych is Courting Disaster in Ukraine

[Valin]

The American Interest :

Ukraine’s Victor Yanukovich is stuck between a rock and a hard place. How he responds to the latest violence could fatally deepen rifts in an already divided country.

Hannah Thoburn

1/19/14

 

Pitched battles continue to rage in central Kiev after clashes erupted today between police and protestors. Gutted police vehicles burn and dozens have been injured after a huge protest against new government abuses and overreach turned violent.

 

The spark for this new wave of popular anger against the government was the Ukrainian parliament’s unceremonious adoption of a set of laws whose goal is to smother the anti-government protests that first emerged in November. Their effect may be the complete disintegration of the last 23 years worth of hard-fought democratic progress. As the Kyiv Post’s Katya Gorshchinskaya put it, “Welcome to the new police state. We call it Little Russia.”

 

And it is growing Russian influence—and the Ukrainian government’s attendant turn away from Western values—that triggered the start of protests in late November. When President Viktor Yanukovych declined to sign a long-planned Association Agreement with the European Union and opted instead for Russian money and suzerainty, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians took to streets around the country and pleaded for him to reconsider. Instead of engaging in a dialogue with the protesters, Mr. Yanukovych has entrenched himself and chosen Putin’s methods for dispersing pesky disturbances.

 

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[SrWoodchuck]

@Valin

 

"Help" from Mother Russia next? It is the "bread-basket" of the region.

[Valin]

@Valin

 

"Help" from Mother Russia next? It is the "bread-basket" of the region.

Legal Insurrection Has a good short history.

[Valin]

BBC In Pictures: Ukraine protesters clash with police in Kiev

[Valin]

Ukraine president warns Kiev protesters amid clashes
1/20/14

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has warned that the country's stability is threatened by continuing clashes between police and anti-government protesters in the capital Kiev.

 

A burnt-out line of buses and trucks in central Kiev marks the boundary between protesters and police.

 

Clashes erupted on Sunday, after many more demonstrators rallied peacefully against President Viktor Yanukovych.

 

(Snip)

 

In a statement on Monday evening, President Yanukovych said that "now, when peaceful actions are turning into mass unrest, accompanied by riots and arson attacks, the use of violence, I am convinced that such phenomena are a threat not only to Kiev but to the whole of Ukraine".

 

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Vid at Link

[Valin]

Riots roil Kiev as anti-protest laws take effect

1/21/14

 

KIEV Controversial anti-protest laws which sparked unprecedented riots in Ukraine entered force on Tuesday as the latest standoff between thousands of protesters and anti-riot police in Kiev moved into a third day.

 

The new laws, which ban nearly all forms of protest in the ex-Soviet country, were officially published in the newspaper of the Ukranian parliament after a warning from President Viktor Yanukovych that the violence threatened the entire country.

 

They allow for jail terms of up to five years for those who blockade public buildings and the arrest of protesters wearing masks or helmets.

 

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http://youtu.be/ZnWW2lDlBqQ

 

 

 

 

 

More Photos Here Conservative Underground

[Valin]

Unrest Deepens in Ukraine as Protests Turn Deadly

DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

JAN. 22, 2014

 

KIEV, Ukraine A deepening civil uprising in Ukraine turned deadly on Wednesday, and this embattled capital veered toward chaos, after at least three demonstrators died during clashes with the police and the first direct negotiations between President Viktor F. Yanukovich and opposition leaders yielded only threats and ultimatums.

 

As Mr. Yanukovich met the three principal opposition leaders at the presidential headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, protesters and the police battled on a main street near the Dynamo soccer stadium. Flames from burning tires leapt into the air, beneath billows of black smoke, and there were sporadic explosions and gunfire, as the standoff entered its third day.

 

Two protesters were shot and killed early Wednesday during the violence, the general prosecutors office said in a statement that promised a full investigation but generally put the blame on protesters, calling them members of extremist-minded groups. At least 300 were injured.

 

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[Valin]

Ukrainian Protesters Reject Deal with Yanukovych
Alec Torres
January 24, 2014 12:57 PM

 

By a mass show of hands, thousands of protesters in Kiev’s Independence Square rejected the tepid compromise offered by President Yanukovych on Friday, the Los Angeles Times reports.

 

After five hours of talks with protest leaders, Yanukovych agreed to release about 100 prisoners detained since violence began escalating last weekend and to call an urgent session of parliament to discuss repealing the laws limiting freedom of speech and assembly passed on January 16. The passage of these laws led to clashes between protesters and riot police in Kiev the past week.

 

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Opposition leaders have promised to continue negotiating with Yanukovych, and the Associated Press reports that Yanukovych has promised a larger government reshuffle and amnesty for imprisoned activists. The protesters have not yet responded to the new offer.

[SrWoodchuck]

Tentative Kiev Truce Falls Apart And Unrest Continues In Ukraine

http://weaselzippers.us/tentative-kiev-truce-falls-apart-and-unrest-continues-in-ukraine/

 

Amazing shot of Orthodox priests standing between protesters and police in Kiev yesterday.

 

KIEV, Ukraine — With President Viktor F. Yanukovych and antigovernment demonstrators at an impasse here, a cease-fire disintegrated on Friday night as the Ukrainian capital convulsed in renewed violence and fire bombs lit up the night sky.

 

Civil unrest spread across the country earlier on Friday as protesters laid siege to government buildings in at least nine other cities — occupying some and thronging outside others.

 

Ukranian Catholic Church Accuses Government Of Soviet-Style Repression http://weaselzippers.us/ukranian-catholic-church-accuses-government-of-soviet-style-repression/

 

KIEV, Ukraine (CNS) — The Ukrainian Catholic Church has accused the government of Soviet-style repression after it was threatened with new restrictions for backing demonstrators protesting the country’s withdrawal from a deal with the European Union.

 

“Our church has always been true and will remain so for the future mission that Christ the Savior entrusted, despite all the threats,” said Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kiev-Halych, major archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

 

“For the first time (since) Ukraine’s independence, we are hearing threats that the church could be banned in a court action. … We thought the time of repression had passed,” he said.

 

The 43-year-old church leader spoke at a Jan. 13 Kiev news conference after receiving a letter from the Ukrainian Culture Ministry complaining of a “systematic disregard for the law by some priests” with “alleged support from the church authorities.”

 

Culture Minister Leonid Novokhatko said the letter, signed by his deputy, Tymophy Kokhan, “contained no requirements or threats,” but only cited Ukraine’s Law on Freedom of Conscience. Article 21 restricts religious services, unless otherwise authorized, to religious buildings, places of pilgrimage, private homes and cemeteries and, despite that, Ukrainian Catholics and other Christians have erected “prayer tents” at the demonstration sites.

 

Ukraine President Offers Government Jobs To Protest Leaders http://weaselzippers.us/ukraine-president-offers-government-jobs-to-protest-leaders/

 

 

Ukraine’s embattled president, Viktor Yanukovych, is offering the position of prime minister to one of the leaders of the political opposition, which has waged two months of anti-government protests.

 

News of the offer appeared Saturday on the president’s website, a day after he agreed to re-shuffle his government and amend controversial new anti-protest laws.

 

It is unclear whether the opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has responded.

 

The opposition has demanded that both President Yanukovych and Ukraine’s number two leader, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, step down. Protesters have also been calling for early elections.

 

The crisis was spawned by Mr. Yanukovych’s November 21 decision to back out of a trade agreement with the European Union in favor of closer economic ties with Russia.

 

 

Roman "Turtle" formation in Kiev:

[SrWoodchuck]

Take a good look at the pictures of civil unrest & police state tactics......and think about how OBarky is pushing for this confrontation...

 

Video: Protester Stripped Naked And Tortured By Ukranian Police http://weaselzippers.us/video-protester-stripped-naked-and-tortured-by-ukranian-police/

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd0b2clZ9s8&feature=player_embedded

 

 

Just a bit of background. Protests started in Kiev in November after the President reversed course and signed a trade deal with Russia rather than the EU. For two months the protests have been peaceful, but the government was not for listening. Then in the past week, the government imposed draconian anti-protest laws, which drew thousands out into the street. Three protesters were killed and the clashes with police turned violent this week. Protesters have been reported to have been “disappeared” from hospitals. Journalists have been attacked, and media have had their offices broken into by police. The protests have spread to several cities beyond Kiev.

 

This man was at a protest and went to help a protester who had been beaten, and then had this unpleasant encounter with the police.

 

Via Kyiv Post:

 

When a thin man dressed in a grey sweater and black pants came into the room Kyiv’s Trade Union house on Jan. 24, everyone fell silent.

 

All attention was focused on Mykhailo Gavryliuk, a 34-year-old construction worker from Chernivtsi and a EuroMaidan activist. He vaulted to international attention after a leaked video of him being tortured by Ukraine’s riot-control police officers went viral, with two million hits already for the YouTube video.

 

Officers detained Gavryliuk Jan. 22 on Hrushevskoho Street. After the video surfaced the day, police released him. He returned to EuroMaidan, where he resumted his post as part of a military unit formed by protesters to protect Independence Square from police assault.

 

His face still covered in bruises, Gavryliuk is nonetheless happy that he didn’t suffer more severe injuries at the hands of the gang of police officers. While in good spirits, his hand still trembles when he recounts how they punished him. “You could see bruises on my body on that video. Now I’d say my body is mostly blue from bruises,” he said.

 

Gavryliuk says he was trying to take another protester away to safety when several riot police officers circled him and dragged with them. “They were beating me all the time, since the moment they got me,” he said.