Ukraine's European Revolution?

[Viking]

"Eurasia" always makes me think someone's been watching too much "Gundam".

And I'm dubious that even a "United Europe" could come up with a usable policy for energy independence with nuclear France and anti-nuclear Germany at its core.

Coal and Nuclear in Europe have specific local factors related to their use for power production. A European Policy on either would not work. The varying power of Miners Unions and Anti-Nuclear NIMBYism in each country means that different policies will prevail regardless of what the EU might try to do collectively or centrally. What the EU does have a collective policy on is Gas.

http://gala.gre.ac.uk/3629/1/PSIRU_9600_-_2005-10-E-EUDirective.pdf

The european union does have a common policy on gas supply, it's sourcing, the security and reliability of supply and the maintenance of a balance between the security of supply and the benefits from a free market in energy. This is actually a pretty big deal, it is also the reason why europe can pump gas to ukraine right now, why the north stream gas pipeline was built and why angola, brazil and mauritanea are actively being explored to provide gas to the european market rather than going to the simple one stop shop at Gazprom headquarters.

[Valmy]

Far, far more people in Ukraine were killed by the Germans than collaborated with them, something which is not true of any occupied country in continental Western Europe

There may be a correlation there.

[Syt]

Don't make me feel dubious about Schmidt

He said in a recent interview that the crisis in Ukraine is partially the EU's fault and that the EU was suffering from delusions of grandeur if they think that their officials and bureaucrats are qualified at playing global politics, stretching into Ukraine and Georgia.

[Syt]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27438422

Ukraine crisis: UN sounds alarm on human rights in east

The UN has warned of an "alarming deterioration" in human rights in eastern Ukraine, where separatists are fighting security forces.

It also found "serious problems" of harassment and persecution of ethnic Tatars in Crimea, the mainly ethnic Russian region Moscow annexed in March.

The conclusions are contained in the UN's monthly report on the crisis.

Deadly violence between separatists and pro-Ukrainian forces has left dozens dead in the east and south this month.

"Those with influence on the armed groups responsible for much of the violence in eastern Ukraine [must] do their utmost to rein in these men who seem bent on tearing the country apart," UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said in Geneva, as the 37-page monitoring report was released.

The UN's report reveals a growing lawlessness in eastern and southern Ukraine:

-    Peaceful demonstrations, primarily by supporters of Ukraine's unity, deteriorate into violence

-    Protesters are attacked and beaten

-    Local police do nothing to prevent the violence and sometimes openly co-operate with the attackers

UN monitors have also documented cases of targeted killings, torture and abduction, primarily carried out by anti-government forces in eastern Ukraine.

Journalists and international observers have been threatened, some have been abducted or attacked.

[The Larch]

Yesterday the NY Times reported that workers from the steelyards in the Donbass (employees of Rinat Akhmetov, the local pro-Kiev oligarch and Ukraine's wealthiest man) formed patrol groups together with the police and kicked out the separatists.

Workers Seize City in Eastern Ukraine From Separatists

MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Thousands of steelworkers fanned out on Thursday through the city of Mariupol, establishing control over the streets and banishing the pro-Kremlin militants who until recently had seemed to be consolidating their grip on power, dealing a setback to Russia and possibly reversing the momentum in eastern Ukraine.

By late Thursday, miners and steelworkers had deployed in at least five cities, including the regional capital, Donetsk. They had not, however, become the dominant force there that they were in Mariupol, the region's second-largest city and the site last week of a bloody confrontation between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian militants.

While it was still far too early to say the tide had turned in eastern Ukraine, the day's events were a blow to separatists who recently seized control here and in a dozen or so other cities and who held a referendum on independence on Sunday. Backed by the Russian propaganda machine and by 40,000 Russian troops just over the border, their grip on power seemed to be tightening every day.

But polls had indicated that a strong majority of eastern Ukrainians supported unity, though few were prepared to say so publicly in the face of armed pro-Russian militants. When President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia withdrew support for the separatists last week, calling for a delay in the referendum and for dialogue on Ukraine's future, the political winds shifted, providing an opening that the country's canny oligarchs could exploit.

The workers who took to the streets on Thursday were among the hundreds of thousands in the east who are employed in metals and mining by Ukraine's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, who only recently went beyond paying lip service to Ukrainian unity and on Wednesday issued a statement rejecting separatism.

Critics say Mr. Akhmetov could have prevented much of the bloodshed in the east if he had taken a strong stance sooner. But his lieutenants say he decided to confront the separatists out of a deep belief that independence, or even quasi-autonomy, would be disastrous for eastern Ukraine. Mr. Akhmetov urged his employees, whose jobs were at risk, to take over the city.

The workers, who were wearing only their protective clothing and hard hats, said they were "outside politics" and were just trying to establish order. Faced with waves of steelworkers joined by the police, the pro-Russian protesters melted away, along with signs of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic and its representatives. Backhoes and dump trucks from the steelworkers' factory dismantled the barricades that separatists had erected.

Metinvest and DTEK, the metals and mining subsidiaries of Mr. Akhmetov's company, System Capital Management, together employ 280,000 people in eastern Ukraine, forming an important and possibly decisive force in the region. They have a history of political activism stretching back to miner strikes that helped bring down the Soviet Union. In this conflict, they had not previously signaled their allegiance to one side or the other.

It remains possible that the separatists could regroup and challenge the industrial workers, though few were to be found in and around Mariupol on Thursday, even in the public administration building they had been occupying.

"We have to bring order to the city," Aleksei Gorlov, a steelworker, said of his motivation for joining one of the unpaid and voluntary patrols that were organized at Ilyich Iron and Steel Works. Groups of about six steelworkers accompanied two police officers on the patrols.

"People organize themselves," he said. "In times of troubles, that is how it works."

Workers from another mill, Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, took one side of the city, while the Ilyich factory took the other. Both groups were trying to persuade longshoremen to patrol the port, Mr. Gorlov said.

The two steel mills fly Ukrainian flags outside their headquarters, though like so much else in Ukraine, the lines of loyalty are muddled. At least a portion of the police in the city mutinied last Friday, leading to a shootout with the Ukrainian National Guard that killed at least seven people.

The chief executive of Ilyich Steel Works, Yuri Zinchenko, is leading the steelworker patrols in the city. He said the company had remained on the sidelines as long as possible, while tacitly supporting unity with Ukraine by conveying to workers that a separatist victory would close export markets in Europe, devastating the factory and the town.

Though the workers had differing views of the new government in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, on the whole they supported the patrols to restore order, employees and managers said. "Everybody can have their own opinion, but not at work," Sergei Istratov, a shift boss at the factory, said. "At work, you have to do what the factory demands."

Yuri Ryzhenkov, the chief executive of Metinvest, which is ranked among the top five steel producers globally, said managers had been conveying to workers: "The most important thing you have is the steel mill. If you have the steel mill, you have jobs, salaries and stability for your families."

Once patrols began, he said, representatives of the Donetsk People's Republic visited the Ilyich factory, demanding to know what was happening. "They were not very friendly at first," Mr. Ryzhenkov said. But the patrols were welcomed in town, he said, and militants had little option but to acquiesce, at least in Mariupol.

"The Donetsk People's Republic understands if they attack unarmed local people, they will lose all support here," he said.

The effort is more than ad hoc. The coal and steel workers will soon have uniforms for the street patrols, Metinvest executives said, with patches identifying them as members of the "Volunteer People's Patrol."

If the patrols are successful, they said, they will try the tactic in most major cities in the Donetsk region, though not in Slovyansk, a stronghold of pro-Russian militants where Metinvest and DTEK have no factories or mines.

Ilyich Iron and Steel, a grimy scene of mid-20th-century industrial sprawl, is one of Ukraine's most important factories, producing five million tons of slab steel a year. About 50,000 people work in the steel industry in Mariupol, a city of 460,000. So far, 18,000 steelworkers have signed up for the patrols, Metinvest executives say.

"There's no family in Mariupol that's not connected to the steel industry," Mr. Zinchenko said in an interview at his desk, which was decorated with a miniature Ukrainian flag. He said he had negotiated a truce with local representatives of the Donetsk People's Republic, but not with the group's leaders.

Mr. Akhmetov's statement detailed the daunting problems facing the regional economy — and his assets — if the Donetsk People's Republic were to win its struggle with Kiev.

"Nobody in the world will recognize it," he said in a videotaped statement. "The structure of our economy is coal, industry, metallurgy, energy, machine works, chemicals and agriculture, and all the enterprises tied to these sectors. We will come under huge sanctions, we will not sell our products, cannot produce. This means the stopping of factories, this means unemployment, this means poverty."

Russia itself exports steel, so it has never been a significant market for the output of the Donetsk region.

Residents welcomed the steelworker patrols for bringing an end to chaos and insecurity. They said masked men had robbed four grocery stores, a shop selling hunting rifles and a jewelry store, and that they had burned down a bank.

The crowds of pro-Russian protesters who had jeered and cursed Ukrainian soldiers last week were nowhere to be seen. On the city's central square Thursday afternoon, a pro-Russian rally drew a few dozen protesters, who were watched over by a group of steelworkers.

The government in Kiev rebutted reports that the police chief had been found hanging and dead in the town. He had indeed been kidnapped by gunmen and was severely beaten, the Interior Ministry said, but he was eventually rescued.

"There are a lot of idiots with guns in my city," said Aleksey Rybinsev, 38, a computer programmer who added he welcomed the new patrols, though he feared they might develop into another informal militia group. "I haven't seen a policeman all day. I didn't see them, and I didn't want to see them."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/world/europe/ukraine-workers-take-to-streets-to-calm-Mariupol.html?hp

[Syt]

Moscow's response to the UN report:

http://rt.com/news/159388-un-report-ukraine-criticism/

Moscow has accused a UN report on violence in Ukraine's Odessa of being purposefully blind to hard facts and simply "carrying out a political order to whitewash" the actions of the coup-appointed government in Kiev.

The Russian foreign ministry believes that the report presented by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is marked by a systematic and routine ignorance of any Kiev involvement in sparking the Odessa carnage, while placing all the blame unequivocally with the pro-Russian self-defense forces. The ministry statement remarks that not a single word was said about neo-Nazi elements who engaged in setting buildings on fire with people inside, shooting dead anyone who opposed them and finishing off the wounded in plain sight.

This especially concerns the events that took place in the House of the Trade Unions on May 2.

The foreign ministry believes that such "double standards" are a clear indicator of the international organization's mission to pander to a select side in the conflict, without any regard for hard evidence.

The United Nations spoke on Friday of the "alarming deterioration" of the human rights situation in eastern Ukraine. The report by the organization's head for human rights, Navi Pillay, focuses on the findings of the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) in the period since April 2 through to May 6. It speaks of the various rights violations encountered and offers recommendations to the current Ukrainian government, noting also its willingness to cooperate with the monitors. The report tries to underline how Kiev is taking concrete steps to implement the Geneva agreement of April.

Among other things, it also focuses on the problems the Tatar minority currently faces in Crimea - although there's no mention of Kiev blocking the region's freshwater supply – which "violates a whole range of human rights".

Moscow goes on to note that Pillay's monthly report failed to mention certain crucial facts: starting with the arson and the coordinated murders; the inaction by Ukraine's law enforcement, as well as the multiple arrests of individuals rallying for federalization; the multiple kidnappings and instances of torture, as well as lack of any credible evidence to back up those actions. In this interpretation, "the entire story is basically being delivered as Kiev's official line would have been."

The foreign ministry found it peculiar that "in some 30 pages of text, there is not one mention of any manifestation of aggressive nationalism and neo-Nazism in Ukraine."

Russia criticized the authors of the report for violating the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, which clearly dictates that political neutrality must be exhibited whatever the situation. "When the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights pronounced the Crimea referendum as 'illegal' following the suit of Kiev and its Western patrons, it seconded that it accepts a nation's right to self-determination established by international human rights laws only when it is politically favorable," said the statement.

The icing on the cake, in Moscow's view, could be seen in the venue where the UN findings were presented – and by whom: in Kiev, by the UN secretary-general's assistant, Ivan Shimonovich, who has a "reputation for a lack of objectivity, making sweeping judgments" and "unsubstantiated claims."

Shimonovich's role in the presentation is seen as "an unambiguous indication" of the OHCHR's bias and lack of independence and objectivity.

[Syt]

Russia now claims that there was a large number of drug addicts among the Maidan protesters and that there were drugs "like those used by the US military" circulated among them. 

[Syt]

Lavrov has said in a Bloomberg TV interview that Russia guarantees Moldova's territorial integrity, if the country maintains its strict neutrality (= doesn't associate itself with the EU) and if it grants special autonomies to Transnistria.

[Syt]

And because it's a dreary, slow and boring day at work ....

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_06/Russia-to-file-genocide-suit-against-Ukraine-with-Hague-Tribunal-1344/

Russia to file genocide suit against Ukraine with Hague Tribunal

The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, will seek a genocide trial for Ukraine's illegitimate rulers in the Hague International War Crimes Tribunal.

Duma lawmakers have started to collect the necessary documents and will appeal to the Foreign Ministry for support.

Earlier, the ministry submitted to President Vladimir Putin its survey of violations of human rights in Ukraine.

The so-called "White Book", which spans a period from November 2013 to the present day, cites appalling cases of ethnic discrimination, justification of Nazism, and other human rights abuses, to say nothing of punitive operations eastern Ukraine and the bloody massacre in Odessa.

The ministry's survey may serve as proof for European judges of the crimes committed by Kiev.

Russian Foreign Ministry hopes that the "White Book" will encourage the world to pressure Kiev

Russian Foreign Ministry prepared the so-called "White Book", which was presented to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which summarizes the facts of human rights violations in Ukraine for the period from the end of November 2013 to the end of March 2014.

Russian Foreign Ministry commissioner for human rights, democracy and the rule of law Konstantin Dolgov expressed hope that prepared by the Ministry "White Book" on the situation in Ukraine will encourage the international community to exert pressure on the existing power authorities in Kiev.

Russian Foreign Ministry prepared the so-called "White Book", which was presented to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which summarizes the facts of human rights violations in Ukraine for the period from the end of November 2013 to the end of March 2014.

The book has informational materials on Russian, Ukrainian and Western media, sayings of the current representatives of the Kiev authorities and their supporters, eyewitness accounts, as well as observations and interviews from the event, collected from Russian NGOs.

Mass anti-government protests began in the south-eastern regions of Ukraine at the end of February 2014. It was a response of local residents on violent change of power in the country and the subsequent attempt to cancel by the Verkhovna Rada the law granting the Russian language the status of regional.

Russian Foreign Ministry presents to Putin generalized facts of major human rights violations in Ukraine

Human rights violations in Ukraine have reached a massive scale, the Russian Foreign Ministry says in its report which was submitted to President Vladimir Putin on Monday, according to the Kremlin's press service. A report on human rights violations in Ukraine, the so-called White Book, has been presented to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin reported on its website. The White Book contains numerous facts of human rights violations in Ukraine in the period between late November 2013 and late March 2014, the report says.

The report, the so-called "White Book", cites numerous cases of human rights abuse in Ukraine in the period from late November 2013 through late March 2014, "based on reports in the Russian and Western media as well as statements by representatives of the current Kiev authorities and their supporters, eyewitness testimony, observations and on-site interviews collected by Russian nongovernmental organizations," the press service said.

It's weird and kinda scary when a country goes so completely bonkers. It's far worse than the 2003 Iraq War discussion IMO.

Meanwhile, the Russian hockey team rides a StuG-III:

[derspiess]

Lavrov has said in a Bloomberg TV interview that Russia guarantees Moldova's territorial integrity, if the country maintains its strict neutrality (= doesn't associate itself with the EU) and if it grants special autonomies to Transnistria.

That's awfully generous of them.

[Valmy]

So long as they completely subjugate both foreign and domestic policy decisions to Russia, Russia will not invade them eh?  I think they should take that deal.

[The Brain]

Russia is the gentlest giant.

[KRonn]

It's especially entertaining, though a bit scary, to see the wild eyed Russian news reports and what the political leaders say. Even beyond propaganda which everyone sees through except for the target audience.

Great to see the workers finally move en mass to oppose the Russian separatists, Putin's soldiers and infiltrators.

[Syt]

It appears the uprising workers all work for the East Ukrainian oligarch Akhmetov.

[Razgovory]

Russia now claims that there was a large number of drug addicts among the Maidan protesters and that there were drugs "like those used by the US military" circulated among them. 

It really is like the Cold War.  They're making all kinds of bizarre statements.