Kiev Is Burning

[Ivanhoe]

That in my view is capitalism that is state manipulated. That is a considerable way down the road from what the Americans accuse Obama of trying to do, introducing Socialism into pure market capitalism.

Sadly, we don't have pure market capitalism in the US. We have a complex casserole of free market capitalism, heavily regulated capitalism, socialism, and in some areas rather naked fascism (look at the 1930s style integration of federal government and private business in the TV and radio broadcasting game). The accusations made at Obama are that he has and will continue to move the needle further towards socialism. The overarching example of course is Obamacare, which was designed from the get-go to socialize the private segment of the health care sector, and drive towards a governmental monopoly on both medical insurance and medical care.

[JasonJ]

 

 

 

They won't make any serious attempt on the islands if Japan and the US wont let them walk on it, not until another 5 or so years when the question needs to be looked at again. A shooting war will hurt them and their economy worse than it would hurt Japan and the US.

 

 

I think what the US is saying in Ukraine is that if the Chinese take stuff by force, they will cut them out of the US global financial system. That will either cause China to conclude using force not appropriate, or to conclude it must create its own global financial system.

 

I know which of those two I would bet China will chose, but I don't know when it will do it.

 

 

I see what your saying, but I still think it is just the cherry on top in regards to China and that what the US is doing in regards to the Ukraine and Russia is separate policy. It may augment policy in the Pacific, but that was not its intended goal. The US and allies have already demonstrated that they won't tolerate BS from China. Otherwise, China would have already taking the islands. Much of the noise the CPC made over the islands is likely just for public consumption for nationalistic rally around the flag effect to get passed the times of widespread anti-government demos. Seems to have worked for them too. Haven't seen anti-government demos by Han people in China for a while now.

[Roman Alymov]

 

So, what you're saying then is that the police have chosen sides and chosen to go with the separatists in this case?

 

It is not me but many Ukrainian analytics say – but not actually “siding with separatists” (Odessa police chief was only recently moved into the city from Western Ukraine road police and was supposed to be hardline nationalist) but obeying political orders from competing oligarch-ruled parties. Seems like it is internal political game went wrong – the armed people who angered the crowd were safely moved out by police, while those who died in the building have not participated in any street actions that day, just taking cover inside the camp and later the building.

Still lower ranks of the police were at least tolerant to pro-Russians, and after this events probably even pro-pro-Russian, as we see here - when yesterday Odessa Bercut openly moved out from protecting police HQ from crowd demanding pro-Russian activists to be released

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k18w4dI8cxY

[Roman Alymov]

Do we have an armored train section? There are reports that separatists tried to build one it seems but unfortunately it was destroyed.

Here is this "armored train" (railway cars used to block road crossing)

[Gregory]

 

So, what you're saying then is that the police have chosen sides and chosen to go with the separatists in this case?

It is not me but many Ukrainian analytics say – but not actually “siding with separatists” (Odessa police chief was only recently moved into the city from Western Ukraine road police and was supposed to be hardline nationalist) but obeying political orders from competing oligarch-ruled parties. Seems like it is internal political game went wrong – the armed people who angered the crowd were safely moved out by police, while those who died in the building have not participated in any street actions that day, just taking cover inside the camp and later the building.

Still lower ranks of the police were at least tolerant to pro-Russians, and after this events probably even pro-pro-Russian, as we see here - when yesterday Odessa Bercut openly moved out from protecting police HQ from crowd demanding pro-Russian activists to be released

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k18w4dI8cxY

 

I guess they heard they are getting replaced by Ministry of Interior battalion "Kiev-1".

[Gregory]

It is the same as “we will allow you to enjoy benefits of your capital until you obey our orders”. They can’t just “support Putin” but disobey orders.

I'm not sure what is the distinction you're trying to draw here.

[Roman Alymov]

I'm not sure what is the distinction you're trying to draw here.

 

Distinction is it is not all about Putin’s personality, but more about correcting economic and political mistakes of 1990th. May be not in the best way possible.

[Gregory]

 

I'm not sure what is the distinction you're trying to draw here.

Distinction is it is not all about Putin’s personality, but more about correcting economic and political mistakes of 1990th. May be not in the best way possible.

 

Ah, there we will have to disagree. I see it as the system being set up to primarily benefit Putin & Co. If the "better way" does not benefit him and his coterie (multi-party democracy, for example), he can be relied on squelching it.

[X-Files]

Interview of Mi-24 commander (shot down today). He say their task was to find and destroy BMP stolen from Ukrainian troops. Hit (probably by HMG fire), suffered hydraulic system failure resulting in graduall loss of control, landed helicopter into swamp, left it and called rescue helicopter by his cellular phone.

 

 

This Mi-24 was working/flying alone, yes?

 

Kind of points out the Soviet-era benefit of working in two-pairs (high & low), along with that "fishing with live bait" technique used during the Chechen Wars.

[savantu]

Yanukovitch and his close friends had accounts worth 140mil Euro blocked today in Switzerland.

[Roman Alymov]

This Mi-24 was working/flying alone, yes?

 

Kind of points out the Soviet-era benefit of working in two-pairs (high & low), along with that "fishing with live bait" technique used during the Chechen Wars.

 

I doubt they have enough flying helicopters\crews for such tactics, and terrain is very complicated by lots of buildings, power lines etc.

[Roman Alymov]

Yanukovitch and his close friends had accounts worth 140mil Euro blocked today in Switzerland.

Almost nothing for 45-mil country, and quite modest if compared to personal capital of other Ukrainian oligarchs.

[Roman Alymov]

 

Ah, there we will have to disagree. I see it as the system being set up to primarily benefit Putin & Co. If the "better way" does not benefit him and his coterie (multi-party democracy, for example), he can be relied on squelching it.

 

Ukraine is excellent example of post-Soviet “multi-party democracy” in action.

[X-Files]

 

This Mi-24 was working/flying alone, yes?

 

Kind of points out the Soviet-era benefit of working in two-pairs (high & low), along with that "fishing with live bait" technique used during the Chechen Wars.

 

I doubt they have enough flying helicopters\crews for such tactics, and terrain is very complicated by lots of buildings, power lines etc.

 

 

That's what the pair flying high are supposed to compensate for - even if it's mixed Hip and Hind foursomes.

[Gregory]

 

Ah, there we will have to disagree. I see it as the system being set up to primarily benefit Putin & Co. If the "better way" does not benefit him and his coterie (multi-party democracy, for example), he can be relied on squelching it.

Ukraine is excellent example of post-Soviet “multi-party democracy” in action.

 

And Russia is an excellent example of post-Soviet "single-party democracy". Personally,I'd much rather live in Ukraine, with all it's faults.

[X-Files]

Ukraine sent an elite national guard unit to re-establish control Monday over the southern port of Odessa and government troops fought pitched gunbattles with a pro-Russia militia around an eastern city.

 

 

'elite', huh?

 

The West has offered billions of dollars in loans to help the Kiev government stave off economic collapse. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Ukraine expects to receive more than $5 billion in May, according to a statement Monday. This includes $3 billion from the International Monetary Fund, $1 billion from the United States and up to 1 billion euros ($1.38 billion) from the European Union.

 

 

Awesome.

 

With tears and red roses, pro-Russia activists mourned Monday in Odessa at the funeral of a regional member of parliament, Vyacheslav Markin, who died two days after the fire from his burns. Markin was known for speaking out against the central government in Kiev.

 

 

So which crisped corpse was his, in the translated link back a few posts?

 

http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-sends-elite-force-key-port-odessa-154741988.html

[Gregory]

Tag: Unintentional comedy

 

Putin awarded medals to 300 Russian journalists for "Truthful and accurate depiction events in Crimea". Presumably that's the same people that reported that "little green men" were members of spontaneously organized Crimean Self-Defense Forces.

Edited May 5, 2014 by Gregory

[JasonJ]

 

The West has offered billions of dollars in loans to help the Kiev government stave off economic collapse. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Ukraine expects to receive more than $5 billion in May, according to a statement Monday. This includes $3 billion from the International Monetary Fund, $1 billion from the United States and up to 1 billion euros ($1.38 billion) from the European Union.

 

 

Awesome.

 

 

There should be another 1.5 billion from Japan in there somewhere. edit: Not in May I guess.

 

Japan is to give up to $1.5 billion in financial aid to Ukraine, the government in Tokyo confirmed Tuesday, as the club of rich nations booted Russia off the membership list.

 

 

http://digitaljournal.com/business/business/japan-to-offer-1-5-billion-aid-to-ukraine/article/378175

 

 

 

And this one..

 

The International Monetary Fund has approved a two-year, $17 billion aid program for cash-strapped Ukraine, as the Kyiv government struggles to maintain political stability in eastern regions near the Russian border.

 

The IMF's executive board approval, announced Wednesday, clears the way for the immediate disbursement of $3.2 billion needed to prevent Kyiv from debt default as it teeters on the brink of bankruptcy.

 

The loan package also paves the way for Ukraine to receive an additional $15 billion pledged by the World Bank, the European Union, Japan, Canada and the United States.

 

 

http://www.voanews.com/content/imf-approves-17-billion-loan-package-for-ukraine/1904943.html

Edited May 5, 2014 by JasonJ

[savantu]

 

Yanukovitch and his close friends had accounts worth 140mil Euro blocked today in Switzerland.

Almost nothing for 45-mil country, and quite modest if compared to personal capital of other Ukrainian oligarchs.

 

That's what we know so far for sure and in only one country.

Edited May 5, 2014 by savantu

[Blunt Eversmoke]

I haven't followed the developments from the beginning thinking it will just go away. It hasn't, of course.

 

So I wonder if anyone can be kind enough to make a very short summary of what's happened? Who's fighting who, why, and who's winning? Thanks in advance.

Actually, ]the article quoted by Glenn, for all the political engagedness of its autor, gives quite a good overview once you filter out some of the more radical interpretations by him, should this be your choice. Sadly, it has no timeline for our convenience, but you cannot have everything, I guess.

 

Sometimes I wonder what life would of been like with the internet during the events of the 20th century. This thread provides good insight into that question.

Hopefully, it will not be ALL events of the 20th century we can think of

 

 

Another NYT Sort of Retraction on Ukraine

The New York Times, which has asserted for weeks that the Russian government is behind the unrest in Ukraines east, finally sent some reporters to the region to dig up the proof, but all they found were eastern Ukrainians upset by the coup regime in Kiev that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych.

 

The Times, which has been an unapologetic promoter of the pro-democracy uprising that ousted the democratically elected president through violent extra-constitutional means, has recently been promoting the theme that Ukrainians would be happy with their new unelected government if only the Russians werent destabilizing eastern Ukraine.

 

(...)

So apparently after NYT bothered to actually send the reporters to the field, they "suddenly" found there are no Russian agents there. How surprising!

 

P.S. For the sake of my sanity, I no longer engage in arguments with members who see people burned alive and the resulting applause - and condemn not the criminals, but the victims.

 

 

 

Yes, that fire was genuinely appalling and I share your disgust with it. But Im equally appalled that the condemnation is only one way, ie when its pro Ukrainians doing the murdering, thats indefensible, and of course it is. The problem is I dont remember the Russian Government showing as much sympathy when peaceful protesters at Maidan were getting murdered in droves. Even now they maintain the fiction they were all armed and in the pay of the west, as that article Roman pointed about seemingly implies. The implication presumably being, when you protest against Moscow leaning rule, you deserve all you get.

1) PUH-lease. When did MaiDowns get murdered in droves? Sources?..

2) I'd really like to see Maidan happen in London. Oh, and while we're at it, in NYC or Washington, DC. Just to see how quick the riot police there, once the first Mollie is lobbed at the officers, will be replaced by Army units with machine guns and mortars - day two or day three? A round of good Czech Brezhnak black beer sez, more like hour one and a half if that long.

Guess what, has not happened in Kiev. Is happening in Slov'yansk, right as we speak.

 

 

 

Oh, so they had relatives, so what, almost everybody has ones, but it still doesn't change the fact that by attacking the march they shouldn't have expected not to be attacked in retaliation. Really, what kind of an argument is it in the first place? Savages that attacked Western forces in Iraq while utilizing human shields, or the same ones attacking the Israelis from Gaza Strip have relatives too, should we be sorry for them? Well, fuck them, I am not.

The unrest of the Arab Spring has jumped the Med into Europe. From Ukraine, it could spread east, so before saying 'fuck the Russian savages', you should think long and hard whether you want Russia to help quell the unrest, or to help spread it.

 

I would say it would be the best thing since sliced bread for Russia to suffer an "arab spring". It would be the only way for the country to break with its rotten past that still spews its putrid fumes towards Europe.

Care to try and start your own little Maidan on the Red Square, then? A little bit of advice: Bring lots and lots of quality black tea. Tea is a valuable commodity in Russian prisons, especially at the more distant penitentiary detention camps in places with cold climate. Such as in Magadan.

Edited May 5, 2014 by Blunt Eversmoke

[yak_v]

Seeing some of the stupid crap that was posted here as "facts", the only thing that comes mind is this photo

 

Some people on this thread are posting complete and utter nonsense as "proof" of whatever point of view they want to prove. Maybe it's time to use some logical thinking and have some respect for the intelligence of the people who are reading this thread?

Edited May 5, 2014 by yak_v

[Ken Estes]

Of possible interest:

 

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/22758-meet-the-americans-who-put-together-the-coup-in-kiev

 

f the US State Department's Victoria Nuland had not said "Fuck the EU," few outsiders at the time would have heard of Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, the man on the other end of her famously bugged telephone call. But now Washington's man in Kiev is gaining fame as the face of the CIA-style "destabilization campaign" that brought down Ukraine's monumentally corrupt but legitimately elected President Viktor Yanukovych.

"Geoffrey Pyatt is one of these State Department high officials who does what he’s told and fancies himself as a kind of a CIA operator," laughs Ray McGovern, who worked for 27 years as an intelligence analyst for the agency. "It used to be the CIA doing these things," he tells Democracy Now. "I know that for a fact." Now it's the State Department, with its coat-and-tie diplomats, twitter and facebook accounts, and a trick bag of goodies to build support for American policy.

A retired apparatchik, the now repentant McGovern was debating Yale historian Timothy Snyder, a self-described left-winger and the author of two recent essays in The New York Review of Books – "The Haze of Propaganda" and "Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine." Both men speak Russian, but they come from different planets.

On Planet McGovern – or my personal take on it – realpolitik rules. The State Department controls the prime funding sources for non-military intervention, including the controversial National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which Washington created to fund covert and clandestine action after Ramparts magazine and others exposed how the CIA channeled money through private foundations, including the Ford Foundation. State also controls the far-better-funded Agency for International Development (USAID), along with a growing network of front groups, cut-outs, and private contractors. State coordinates with like-minded governments and their parallel institutions, mostly in Canada and Western Europe. State's "democracy bureaucracy" oversees nominally private but largely government funded groups like Freedom House. And through Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, State had Geoff Pyatt coordinate the coup in Kiev.

....

 

[Gregory]

Care to try and start your own little Maidan on the Red Square, then? A little bit of advice: Bring lots and lots of quality black tea. Tea is a valuable commodity in Russian prisons, especially at the more distant penitentiary detention camps in places with cold climate. Such as in Magadan.

Likewise, I'm sure your expertise would be deeply welcome by folks in Slavinsk. Would you need help with a packing list, or will you be coming up with your own?

Edited May 5, 2014 by Gregory

[Colin]

Seeing some of the stupid crap that was posted here as "facts", the only thing that comes mind is this photo

 

Some people on this thread are posting complete and utter nonsense as "proof" of whatever point of view they want to prove. Maybe it's time to use some logical thinking and have some respect for the intelligence of the people who are reading this thread?

A rare Microsoft-Nagant key board, with the bayonet mount! Factory refurbished by any chance?

[Colin]

 

Seeing some of the stupid crap that was posted here as "facts", the only thing that comes mind is this photo

 

Some people on this thread are posting complete and utter nonsense as "proof" of whatever point of view they want to prove. Maybe it's time to use some logical thinking and have some respect for the intelligence of the people who are reading this thread?

A rare Microsoft-Nagant key board, with the bayonet mount! Factory refurbished by any chance?

 

Frankly I would be more surprised if both the Russians and the State department DON'T have a finger or two in the pie. I just expect the Russian to be more competent of the two. I also don't doubt real animosity from the Russian descended side of the country. The Russians have no doubt played upon this expecting to keep Ukraine compliant, not sure if they really want Ukraine to split up or a civil war on their doorstep. sometimes these things are harder to stop, than to start.