[Bacchus]

(04-21-2014 08:20 AM)Icarus Wrote:  

Latest VICE News dispatch:

I thought dude was pushing the limits in the last one. Well, turns out he's been taken as a hostage now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/22...92590.html

Quote:

NEW YORK -- Vice News reporter Simon Ostrovsky, who has been aggressively covering the conflict in Crimea and Ukraine over the past month, is currently being held by a militia in Eastern Ukraine, according to a Russian news outlet.

Gazeta.Ru reported that Ostrovsky was taken "hostage" by a militia. The Russian outlet attributed the information to Vyacheslav Ponomarev, the "People's Mayor" of the Slovyansk, a Ukrainian town now under the control of pro-Russia separatists.

Douglas Herbert, international affairs editor at France 24, tweeted Tuesday that the mayor confirmed "Ostrovsky is being held by Ukrainian security forces under his control."

Vice News did not confirm specifics of reports, but acknowledged that the news organization is trying to ensure Ostrovsky's safety.

[Mekorig]

I tried to stay out of this thread, but things are going by the drainhole in the zone. First hostages, now they are killing politicians...

Link

[jimukr104]

^^^that's bad?
Many would say its the politicians who should be killed and NOT the innocent good people.TBH war would be much better if it was among the politicians...instead today most politicians are draft dodgers,etc.

[RexImperator]

I just heard on NPR that Simon was released. I'm glad and looking forward to his next dispatch.

Meanwhile...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/ap...yansk-army

Quote:

Vyacheslav Ponomarev – the self-appointed mayor of Slavyansk...said that he would turn the town into a second Stalingrad. But Ukrainian forces seemed reluctant to play the role of aggressors.

Hmmm. He sounds just like Jim...

[Icarus]

Here's Simon's last dispatch before being taken hostage:

[jimukr104]

(04-24-2014 02:22 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  

I just heard on NPR that Simon was released. I'm glad and looking forward to his next dispatch.

Meanwhile...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/ap...yansk-army

Quote:

Vyacheslav Ponomarev – the self-appointed mayor of Slavyansk...said that he would turn the town into a second Stalingrad. But Ukrainian forces seemed reluctant to play the role of aggressors.

Hmmm. He sounds just like Jim...

LOL."IF HE DIES,HE DIES"

[Big Nilla]

Wonder how he'll react to his little warning.

https://news.vice.com/articles/i-had-it-...-sloviansk

Quote:

‘I Had It Pretty Easy, Because I Was Let Go’: Simon Ostrovsky On His Detention in Sloviansk

On Thursday, armed gunmen who held me prisoner for three nights and three days released me into the streets of Sloviansk, in eastern Ukraine. My release was as unexplained as my capture.

On Monday night I was pulled out of a car at a checkpoint, then blindfolded, beaten, and tied up with tape. After spending hours alone on the floor of a damp cell with my hands tied behind my back and a hat pulled over my eyes, I was led into a room where I was accused of working for the CIA, FBI, and Right Sector, the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist group.

When I refused to give the password to my laptop, I was smacked in the arm with a truncheon. When I was asleep on the floor, masked men came to wake me up and tell me how no one would miss me if I died, and then kicked me in the ribs as they left.

But as it turns out, I had it pretty easy, because I was let go.

In the four nights that I was held captive, a dozen other nameless detainees were ferried in and out of the cellar of the Ukraine state security (SBU) building by the pro-Russia militants who had taken it over. Some were journalists, some were drunks, and others were Ukrainian activists stupid or brave enough to visit what’s become a stronghold for Russian nationalists within Ukraine.

I only got to know a few of them. Most had been in that cellar far longer than I had. They had been there for up to two weeks, and are most likely still there now.

Their names are Artyom Deyneha, a local computer programmer who was caught setting up a webcam opposite the building where we were being held; Serhiy Lefter, a freelance journalist who was abducted on the main square in Sloviansk in broad daylight; Vadim Sukhonos, a deputy in the Sloviansk city council; and Vitaly Kovalchuk, a former member of the Euromaidan self-defense corps, who by his own admission came to Sloviansk with a group of Right Sector radicals who tried and failed to capture guns from pro-Russia militants.

After I was released, I found out that the leader of the pro-Russia forces in Sloviansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, told journalists that we were being held as “bargaining chips” in negotiations with the interim authorities in Kiev. I don’t yet know what he got for my release, but I hope it wasn’t very much, because no one should be allowed to take hostages no matter what their political demands are.

Everyone being illegally held in that damp cellar, or any of the other buildings controlled by the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” should be released or handed over to the police immediately.

[jimukr104]

^^^Vitaly Kovalchuk, a former member of the Euromaidan self-defense corps, who by his own admission came to Sloviansk with a group of Right Sector radicals who tried and failed to capture guns from pro-Russia militants."

Yeah and they did that peacefully?

[RexImperator]

The BBC has a decent page showing some maps of the situation:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26387353

But besides all the separatist activity that has been going on in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, note the source of water for Crimean agriculture:



Russia fears Crimea water shortage as supply drops

Moscow Times: Water War With Ukraine to Devastate Crimean Harvest

Ukraine spurns Russia’s accusations that it shut off water tap to Crimea

[Big Nilla]

Things are starting to heat up with the shooting down of a helicopter and new sanctions about to happen. Cool that pretty much everyone that opposes US govt policy is a terrorist these days. Just like the round up the Jews propaganda last week, this is again targeted not to Ukrainians but to an international audience. Obvious the US is feeding these talking points.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/natio...6384.story

Quote:

Ukraine chopper crashes; pro-Russian separatists claim responsibility

Shortly after a Ukrainian military helicopter was struck and crashed near a contested eastern Ukrainian town Friday, the Ukrainian government said it would lay siege to the community, Slovyansk, which is now in the hands of armed pro-Russian separatists.

“What we have in Slovyansk has nothing to do with politics," Sergei Pashinsky, chief of the presidential administration, said at a briefing in Kiev on Friday. "It is classical terrorism.”

Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, a separatist leader who has proclaimed himself the mayor of Slovyansk, took responsibility for the helicopter crash, which left the pilot seriously injured.

“They kept flying across our airspace and we decided to teach them a lesson and so to say cut down their wings,” said Ponomaryov, with a laugh.

Ponomaryov said it was the same helicopter that had flown over the town Friday morning dropping “government propaganda” leaflets. Most of the leaflets were carried away by the wind and landed in the fields outside the town, but some were picked up and read by local residents.

The leaflet featured a black-and-white picture of a masked man taking aim with a handgun and read: “Peaceful residents of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk. In your native towns Russian saboteurs and terrorists and local criminals under their leadership are preparing grounds to totally destabilize the situation and destroy peaceful life.”

The aircraft crashed over the local airport halfway between Slovyansk and the neighboring town of Kramatorsk, an airport official said.

“A Mi-8 helicopter crashed shortly after taking off, supposedly resulting from a subversive act by Russian special services,” airport chief Dmitry Podushkin told the Los Angeles Times. An AN-2 passenger on the ground was destroyed in the explosion caused by the falling helicopter, Podushkin said.

The announcement that the Ukrainian government would use troops to surround and isolate Slovyansk, in the north of the Donetsk region, comes almost two weeks after pro-Russian gunmen in masks and unmarked uniforms seized the town's administration building, police and security service stations and built barricades and checkpoints in its center and outskirts.

The aim, Pashinsky said, is to block “the town of Slovyansk to prevent a possibility for reinforcements and to localize the problem.”

[RexImperator]

Ukraine's restive east slipping from government's grasp

Quote:

(Reuters) - Pro-Moscow separatists seized government offices in more Ukrainian towns on Wednesday, in a further sign that authorities in Kiev are losing control of the country's eastern industrial heartland bordering Russia.
...

Many Russian-speaking business "oligarchs" from the Donbass backed Yanukovich and exercise great influence over the region.

On Wednesday, the most powerful of these, Ukraine's richest man Rinat Akhmetov issued a formal statement saying he remained committed to his investments in the Donbass and to keeping the region as part of Ukraine.

Oleksander Turchynov, Ukraine's acting president until after an election on May 25, reiterated on Wednesday that police were incapable of reasserting control in the region.

NY Times: Ukrainian President Says Security Forces ‘Helpless’ Against Militias in East

Quote:

DONETSK, Ukraine — As pro-Russian gunmen seized another city in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, the country’s acting president said the government’s police and security officials were “helpless” to control events in large swaths of the region, where at least a dozen cities are now in the hands of separatists.

With the admission by the country’s acting leader, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, that major chunks of the country had slipped from the government’s grasp, the long-simmering conflict in Ukraine seemed to enter a new and more dangerous phase. It was also the latest in a string of successes for what the West has called Russia’s covert strategy to destabilize Ukraine and discredit the interim government ahead of presidential elections scheduled for May.

Speaking at a conference of regional leaders in Kiev, the capital, Mr. Turchynov said the “overwhelming majority of security forces in the east are not able to carry out their duty to defend our citizens” in the industrial and coal-mining regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

[jimukr104]

(04-30-2014 03:09 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  

Ukraine's restive east slipping from government's grasp

Quote:

(Reuters) - Pro-Moscow separatists seized government offices in more Ukrainian towns on Wednesday, in a further sign that authorities in Kiev are losing control of the country's eastern industrial heartland bordering Russia.
...

Many Russian-speaking business "oligarchs" from the Donbass backed Yanukovich and exercise great influence over the region.

On Wednesday, the most powerful of these, Ukraine's richest man Rinat Akhmetov issued a formal statement saying he remained committed to his investments in the Donbass and to keeping the region as part of Ukraine.

Oleksander Turchynov, Ukraine's acting president until after an election on May 25, reiterated on Wednesday that police were incapable of reasserting control in the region.

NY Times: Ukrainian President Says Security Forces ‘Helpless’ Against Militias in East

Quote:

DONETSK, Ukraine — As pro-Russian gunmen seized another city in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, the country’s acting president said the government’s police and security officials were “helpless” to control events in large swaths of the region, where at least a dozen cities are now in the hands of separatists.

With the admission by the country’s acting leader, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, that major chunks of the country had slipped from the government’s grasp, the long-simmering conflict in Ukraine seemed to enter a new and more dangerous phase. It was also the latest in a string of successes for what the West has called Russia’s covert strategy to destabilize Ukraine and discredit the interim government ahead of presidential elections scheduled for May.

Speaking at a conference of regional leaders in Kiev, the capital, Mr. Turchynov said the “overwhelming majority of security forces in the east are not able to carry out their duty to defend our citizens” in the industrial and coal-mining regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Weak! That is pathetic for a leader to say. I guess they now regret disbanding the Berkut units?
Ukraine needs to conscript every able bodied male between 20-25 and march them to the border.(leaves more single young ladies alone in the cities)
Than take the thousands of troops they have and put them in police uniforms and have them storm the buildings.

[Pizdetz]

Brother will not fight brother.

[Big Nilla]

jim, put aside the Ukrainians are brothers of Russians stuff... you really think the average Ukrainians would fight for this BS interim western puppet government?

[jimukr104]

(04-30-2014 05:20 PM)Big Nilla Wrote:  

jim, put aside the Ukrainians are brothers of Russians stuff... you really think the average Ukrainians would fight for this BS interim western puppet government?

That gov't was meant to be temp. They will fight if they don't want to have their own cities become like those occupied ones. Life isn't fun for the average person there and their is a breakdown of ordered society there(ems,police,fire). In Crimea it was smooth in comparison.

[rastignac]

(04-19-2014 05:40 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 02:18 PM)rastignac Wrote:  

Odessa: Putin does not speak for Odessa.

Apparently everyone now must be cautious about speaking in Russian at all or else he might come to "rescue" you.

правда!

A tourist noticed this last month that people have stopped speaking Russian in Odessa. He asked: "Are you speaking Ukrainian because you are afraid the Ukrainian nationalists will come beat you?" Answer: "No. We are afraid Putin will come protect us."

[jimukr104]

(04-30-2014 08:36 PM)rastignac Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 05:40 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 02:18 PM)rastignac Wrote:  

Odessa: Putin does not speak for Odessa.

Apparently everyone now must be cautious about speaking in Russian at all or else he might come to "rescue" you.

правда!

A tourist noticed this last month that people have stopped speaking Russian in Odessa. He asked: "Are you speaking Ukrainian because you are afraid the Ukrainian nationalists will come beat you?" Answer: "No. We are afraid Putin will come protect us."

BLAH BLAH BLAH..that is a joke. That's all. They have the same here in Brooklyn.They are afraid Putin will invade Brighton beach,Sheepshead bay,midwood, Grave-send, and Kings-highway.

Other joke"US paid 5 billion to give Crimea to Putin"
Now you can add eastern UA.
"Nuland gave cookies to protesters and Crimea to Russians."
"Mc Cain"we are ALL Ukrainians","Putin we are all Russians"

[Brian Boru]

The logical thing would be for allow Donbas to be independent and then turn the remaining Ukraine into a Finland-style buffer state. The Ukrainian nationalists would have a country that is truly Ukrainian, and to which Russia would have no claims. Ethnic Russians would no longer have to fear being burned alive or sniped at by Banderists. The new Ukrainian state would then join neither NATO nor the Eurasian Union but receive economic assistance from both.

[Blunt]

(05-27-2014 03:29 PM)Brian Boru Wrote:  

The logical thing would be for allow Donbas to be independent and then turn the remaining Ukraine into a Finland-style buffer state. The Ukrainian nationalists would have a country that is truly Ukrainian, and to which Russia would have no claims. Ethnic Russians would no longer have to fear being burned alive or sniped at by Banderists. The new Ukrainian state would then join neither NATO nor the Eurasian Union but receive economic assistance from both.

If you're looking at the situation like Solomon and have to choose a solution while treating the situation as if it were in a vacuum...then maybe.

Splitting off East Ukraine though is actually a lose-lose. Russia doesn't need or want another region to subsidize, and the machines and steel goods which Russian industry currently purchases from Ukraine at a competitive price will rise to more expensive Russian norms. There are a lot of people in the Donbass who now feel like they would benefit from living in Russia, but there is a large enough population that would cause problems, problems that would dwarf the protests by Crimean Tatars.

Even if the Ukrainian armed services did not respond militarily to an annexation, the Right Sector would certainly do their best to given Russia a Chechnya Part 3. The Right Sector fought on the side of Chechens in the last war, when they had no interest in the conflict, so a splitting of Ukraine would be a much more significant cause for them.

Ukraine would have to renegotiate their IMF loan which would mean even further delaying the possibility of EU membership, which would also be less attractive without the gas and coal assets in the Donbass.

I think a compromise somewhere between Ukraine's mild offer of decentralization and Russia's demand of "federalization" will probably be the end result.