Ukraine's European Revolution?

[Syt]

http://rt.com/news/155320-kharkov-mayor-shot-ukraine/

Mayor of Kharkov, Ukraine shot in back, hospitalized - press service

The mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov, Gennady Kernes, has been shot in the back by unidentified gunmen, the city council's press service reports.

According to local media reports, Kerness was shot while jogging in the morning. At about 11:30 am (8:30 GMT) local time Kernes was taken to the local hospital. The City Hall's website says that doctors are fighting to save his life.

Th e shooting comes a day after ultranationalists clashed with anti-government protesters in the city, leaving 14 people injured.

[Brazen]

Freed VICE reporter Simon Ostrovsky's final report before he was kidnapped, confirming Russians are working with separatists in eastern Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QP6sM5VnUQ&list=PLw613M86o5o5zqF6WJR8zuC7Uwyv76h7R

[Syt]

Gerhard Schröder celebrated his 70th birthday in St. Petersburg yesterday. Special guest: Vladimir Putin.

As I said elsewhere: Schröder is so deep in Putin's pocket he can play basketball with his testicles.

[Admiral Yi]

What a stooge.

What a Quisling.

[DGuller]

Seriously.  At what point do you start toying with treason?

[Syt]

Well, the Ukrainian government as acquiesced and will hold a referendum about the territorial unity on May 25th. Meanwhile, the Donetsk region continues preparations for a May 11th referendum.

[jimmy olsen]

Pretty pathetic showing by Ukraine. Perhaps the state will be a bit more effective once it's reduced to a homogenous rump? I doubt it though.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/world/europe/ukraine.html?_r=0

KIEV, Ukraine — It is by now a well-established pattern. Armed, masked men in their 20s to 40s storm a public building of high symbolic value in a city somewhere in eastern Ukraine, evict anyone still there, seize weapons and ammunition, throw up barricades and proclaim themselves the rulers of a "people's republic." It is not clear who is in charge or how the militias are organized.

Through such tactics, a few thousand pro-Russian militants have seized buildings in about a dozen cities, effectively establishing control over much of an industrial region of about 6.5 million nestled against the Russian border.

Day by day, in the areas surrounding the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, pro-Russian forces have defied all efforts by the central government to re-establish its authority, and on Wednesday, Ukraine's acting president conceded what had long been obvious: The government's police and security officials had lost control.

"Inactivity, helplessness and even criminal betrayal" plague the security forces, the acting leader, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, told a meeting of regional governors in Kiev. "It is hard to accept but it's the truth. The majority of law enforcers in the east are incapable of performing their duties."

With Mr. Turchynov's acknowledgment that a significant chunk 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. Whether that amounts to the lasting dismemberment of Ukraine or hands control of the east to Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, were among the many questions left unanswered after Mr. Turchynov delivered his stark assessment.

Whatever the long-term effects, the militants' seizure of symbolic buildings in cities throughout the country's southeast is serving what analysts in Russia and the West say is Mr. Putin's short-term goal of so disrupting normal life there that the pro-Russian separatists' plans for a May 11 vote on autonomy from Kiev could trump Ukraine's plans to hold a presidential election two weeks later.

While Russia denies any role in stirring the unrest, Secretary of State John Kerry and others have flatly accused the Kremlin of sending operatives to the region to organize, equip and direct the Ukrainians who make up the pro-Russian militias.

The presence of 40,000 Russian troops just over the border is also contributing to the instability, particularly as Russia has warned repeatedly that it will intervene in Ukraine if the safety of the ethnic Russians there is threatened, a sweeping claim that could justify an incursion at almost any time.

But so far that has not been necessary. Through stealth and misdirection, and in defiance of Western sanctions, Russia has managed to achieve its immediate goal of what Western and Ukrainian officials believe is rendering Ukraine so chaotic that it cannot guarantee order, mend its teetering economy or elect new leaders to replace Mr. Turchynov and the acting government installed after the pro-Russian president, Victor F. Yanukovych, fled in February.

"Until May 25," when the presidential vote is scheduled, "is unfortunately still a lot of time," said Olga Aivazovska, a co-founder of Opora, an independent election monitoring and polling group. Whether a vote will take place — and how valid it could be if parts of the east do not take part — "is a big puzzle," she said.

Days after imposing new sanctions on Russia, President Obama announced that he would travel to Poland in June to reassure Eastern Europeans nervous about Moscow's aggression. The Poland stop will be added to a previously scheduled trip to Normandy to mark the anniversary of D-Day and to Brussels to meet with other members of the Group of 8, reconstituting it as the Group of 7 now that Russia has been suspended.

But none of that is expected to deter the militants. Since April 6, they have been smashing their way into local offices and hastily erecting barricades outside, wearing uniforms without insignias. The latest to fall was Horlivka, where on Wednesday armed men appeared at the City Council building and began checking the documents of anyone entering.

In Donetsk, a tough mining city, the militants say they will conduct a referendum on May 11, and other cities under separatist control are expected to follow suit. Gunmen in Luhansk seized control of that city's administration on Tuesday and declared their intent to join in.

To date, however, there are no voting offices, nor have any ballots been distributed. They have not even decided what question they want to put before voters.

Nevertheless, the buildings now seized could serve the effort. A sample ballot reported in the Russian news media suggested voters would be asked whether they support a declaration of independence for the "people's republic." There was no mention of joining Russia.

Although Russian is widely spoken in the east, which abuts Russia, credible opinion polls suggest that at most 20 percent of citizens want to join their giant neighbor, Ms. Aivazovska said.

For Mr. Putin, the disruption ensures that Ukraine cannot firmly join the West by becoming a member of NATO or the European Union. That would comport with his strategy in Georgia and Moldova, where Russian troops occupy small sections of the country, with Moscow leaving the status of the enclaves up in the air, neither leaving nor claiming them as Russian territory.

After five months of violence and revolution, Ms. Aivazovska said, nerves are jangled. "You go to bed at night not knowing whether you will wake up in a different country," she added, echoing almost word for word a leading writer, Oksana Zabuzhko, interviewed two days earlier.

In some ways, the situation seems no more certain for Mr. Putin. As leaders in Serbia and Croatia discovered during the Balkan wars in the 1990s, once guns, money and a little importance are doled out to locals charged with unsettling their territory, the militants can slip from their supporters' grasp.

In Slovyansk, the eastern Ukrainian town where the armed men are most firmly in control, local militia leaders say they now hold about 40 people, including seven Europeans in a German-led military observer mission captured last Friday. They were paraded before cameras Sunday, much as scores of United Nations peacekeepers captured by Bosnian Serbs in 1995 were filmed chained to bridges.

Mr. Putin, who values relations with Germany, where he was once a K.G.B. officer, hinted early Wednesday that the observers could be freed. The self-appointed mayor of Slovyansk responded via the website of Bild, Germany's top-selling newspaper: "We have had no contact with Moscow yet, and here we don't obey Putin but the People's Republic of Donetsk."

On top of nerves, Ukraine's economy is worryingly frail. The board of the International Monetary Fund voted Wednesday to approve $17 billion in loans for Ukraine, with conditions that will undoubtedly be felt as hardships by ordinary Ukrainians. Igor Burakovsky, head of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting, said on Wednesday that Ukraine's foreign debt amounts to $73.2 billion.

This includes several billion dollars — the exact amount is fiercely disputed — owed for deliveries of Russian natural gas on which Ukraine depends each winter, and which passes through its territory to European clients of the Russian gas concern Gazprom.

Unlike some of the militants now strutting Ukraine's east, or other friends of Mr. Putin, the head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, was not sanctioned this week by the United States or the 28-nation European Union, where at least 10 former Soviet bloc countries depend wholly or largely on Russian gas for heat and power.

Much is being rethought in Europe after Mr. Putin's annexation of Crimea and continuing intervention in Ukraine. This week, Slovakia undertook to supply Ukraine with some natural gas.

For writers, said Ms. Zabuzhko, the events of the last five months have pushed on her and fellow authors the duty of serving as a secular moral authority in the absence of credible politicians. "I have a new profession," she said, "for which I was not applying." Ukrainians, she added, "are searching for stability and hope — they want a glimpse of hope."

[derspiess]

So Putin is telling Ukraine to pull its troops out of Ukraine.  Maybe it sounds less odd in Russian.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_UKRAINE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-01-13-10-00

[DGuller]

So Putin is telling Ukraine to pull its troops out of Ukraine.  Maybe it sounds less odd in Russian.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_UKRAINE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-01-13-10-00

What sounds odd about that (other than the usual Putin chutzpah)?

[derspiess]

So Putin is telling Ukraine to pull its troops out of Ukraine.  Maybe it sounds less odd in Russian.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_UKRAINE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-01-13-10-00

What sounds odd about that (other than the usual Putin chutzpah)?

Just seems a bit odd even for him.

[Norgy]

Gerhard Schröder celebrated his 70th birthday in St. Petersburg yesterday. Special guest: Vladimir Putin.

As I said elsewhere: Schröder is so deep in Putin's pocket he can play basketball with his testicles.

He looks like my dead uncle, who was shadier than most. Of course he's invited Putin and celebrates in St. Petersburg. It's a gas.

[Ed Anger]

I was sorta amused by a conscription call up by Ukraine. Yeah, that'll help.

[Syt]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/02/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSBREA400LI20140502

Pro-Russian rebels say Ukraine launches operation to retake eastern town

(Reuters) - Ukrainian forces launched a "large-scale operation" to retake the eastern town of Slaviansk, pro-Russian separatists holding the town said on Friday, as security deteriorated in a crisis that has provoked the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

A Reuters photographer said he saw a military helicopter open fire on the outskirts of the town and a reporter heard gunfire. Separatists said they were under attack and that at least one helicopter had been shot down.

Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, the self-declared mayor or the town, was quoted by Russia's Interfax news agency as saying two helicopters had been shot down and one pilot had been detained. Another had been killed.

Armed groups seeking union with Russia have seized a number of government buildings in towns in eastern Ukraine. The action in Slaviansk, if confirmed, would mark the first significant military response by Kiev.

In Kiev, an aide to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said he could not comment. "Until it's over, no one will say anything," the aide said.

The apparent assault to retake Slaviansk came only hours after Russia staged a huge May Day parade on Moscow's Red Square on Thursday - its first since the Soviet era - with workers holding banners proclaiming support for President Vladimir Putin after the seizure of territory from neighboring Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Ukraine's leaders - who came to power in February when the previous Moscow-backed president was toppled after months of protests - conceded they were "helpless" to counter the fall of government buildings and police stations in the Donbass coal and steel belt. Donbass is the source of around a third of Ukraine's industrial output.

Separatists had also stormed the prosecutor's office in the city of Donetsk, throwing rocks, firecrackers and teargas at riot police defending officials they accused of working for the Western-backed government in Kiev.

Rebels in the city, capital of a province of about 4 million people, have declared a "People's Republic of Donetsk" and called a referendum on secession for May 11, undercutting a planned presidential election in Ukraine two weeks later.

Having seized buildings in the capital of the easternmost province, Luhansk, on Tuesday, gunmen took control at dawn on Wednesday in the nearby towns of Horlivka and Alchevsk.

The International Monetary Fund warned that if Ukraine lost territory in the east it would have to redesign a $17 billion bailout of the country, probably requiring additional financing.

DIPLOMAT EXPELLED

Citing the situation in the east, acting Ukrainian President Oleksander Turchinov has signed a decree reinstating compulsory military service for men aged between 18 and 25.

The Kiev government, along with its Western allies, accuses Moscow of orchestrating the uprising. The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea and involvement in eastern Ukraine.

Russia denies having any part in the rebellion, but has warned it reserves the right to intervene to protect ethnic Russians and has massed tens of thousands of troops on its western frontier with Ukraine.

Putin has described the break-up of the Soviet Union as a tragedy and overturned years of post-Cold War diplomacy in March by declaring Moscow's right to intervene in former Soviet republics to protect Russian speakers.

The U.S. and EU sanctions, while not hitting Russian industry directly, have hurt the economy by scaring investors into pulling out capital. The IMF cut its outlook for Russian economic growth this year to just 0.2 percent on Wednesday and said Russia was already "experiencing recession".

U.S. aluminum producer Alcoa said its Chief Executive Klaus Kleinfeld had canceled plans to attend Putin's St. Petersburg International Economic Forum later this month.

Kiev ordered the expulsion of Russia's military attaché on Thursday, saying it had caught him "red-handed" receiving classified information from a colonel in Ukraine's armed forces on the country's cooperation with NATO.

A spokeswoman for Ukraine's security service, the SBU, said the attaché had been handed over to the Russian embassy and ordered to leave, although she was not sure if he had left yet.

NATO said on Thursday it was looking at ways to bring former Soviet state Georgia, which Russia invaded in 2008, "even closer" to the military alliance. Russian forces defend two breakaway Georgian regions, comprising a fifth of its territory.

Moscow strongly opposes Georgia joining NATO.

Last week, France and Germany assured Georgia that a deal bringing it closer to the EU would be sealed soon.

Romania, a formerly part of the Soviet bloc but now a NATO member, called on Thursday for the United States and the Western alliance to boost their military presence there.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin told Rossiya 24 TV that more than 100,000 people had marched through Red Square on Thursday, saying there was a "patriotic uplift" in Russia. Russian television also showed footage of a May Day parade in Crimea's capital, Simferopol.

The intervention in Ukraine has been enormously popular in Russia. One opinion poll on Wednesday showed 82 percent support for Putin, his highest rating since 2010.

Radio news says situation is unclear, no official confirmation from the Ukrainian government.

[mongers]

The shooting may have started in earnest; Ukrainian forces have moved on Sloviansk , two of their helicopters have been shot down.

[Caliga]

When will Tsar Putin step and and guide the warring parties to peace with his kind fatherly hand?