Free Republic

Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh has said that representatives of his organization will contribute to ensuring security at voting stations in eastern Ukraine. ...

In an interview with Bloomberg News [URL at link], Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland had meetings with the Ukrainian neofascist group Right Sector in Washington DC. The Right Sector has been involved in numerous killings including the burning of pro-Russian supporters in Odessa. ... Whether Nuland met with Artyomenko or any other representative of the Right Sector to help with fundraising and support is unknown. What is known is that the US is supporting the gang in Kiev's "interim government" which includes Svoboda an openly neofascist party...

Twitter blocked the account of Ukraine's ultranationalist Right Sector group in Russia. ...

That might very well be the best position to take: Don't support Putin, but realize that Obama has the fecal touch on foreign policy issues. Libya (Benghazi). Syria (he thought about arming Syrian "rebels"). Egypt (the Muslim Brotherhood came to power and before that the WH said they were "largely secular"). Ergo - no interventionism of any kind in Ukraine, be it NGO's, mercs, etc. Don't support the Commies in Ukraine, but don't support Right Sector, or Svoboda, either. Angela Merkel and Hollande have both said that unlawful acts were carried out against those who were burned up in Odessa,...

Two leaked tapes have emerged on the internet where Kiev-appointed governor allegedly threatens an ex-presidential candidate who called for a referendum. The official may also be behind the Odessa massacre and Mariupol shootings, the leak adds. On the first tape, which appeared on May 14, an oligarch and governor of the city of Dnepropetrovsk in southeastern Ukraine, Igor Kolomoisky, allegedly called ex-presidential candidate Oleg Tsarev and started threatening him. He told Tsarev to leave Ukraine immediately, saying it was in connection with the killing of Bogdan Shlemkevich, a soldier from Ukraine’s National Guard on May 9 in Mariupol, southeastern Ukraine....

Members of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist group Pravy Sektor took part in a commando-style raid against the Donbass referendum last Sunday, killing two unarmed civilians in the town of Krasnoarmeysk, an investigation by Paris Match has found. Rumours had spread among separatists for several weeks about radical Pravy Sektor militants hiding amid government forces loyal to Kiev to perpetrate actions targeting pro-Russian groups in eastern Ukraine. Though a small political force, Pravy Sektor played a significant part in the street fights the lead to the downfall of president Viktor Yanukovitch during the Maidan Revolution in Kiev last February. Formed as an...

Kiev’s forces are using heavy weaponry and tanks in the eastern city of Mariupol to storm the local Interior Ministry building, where police have barricaded inside. After residents began flocking to the scene, Kiev fighters opened fire on civilians. There are conflicting reports about the killed and injured. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said that about 20 anti-Kiev activists were killed and four more were taken captive, according to a statement posted on Interior Minister Arsen Avakov’s Facebook page. However, according to Donetsk authorities, three people have been killed and 25 injured, RIA Novosti cited the Donetsk region council's press service...

Israeli rabbi Michael Finkel says the Jewish community is on high alert because of the influence of the neo-Nazi's within Kiev's temporary government. "This is Right Sector. This is the peole who are marching in Nazi uniforms with SF on their arms and on their military uniforms," Finkel says. According to the rabbi, it is possible that Ukraine could turn into a country similar to Lebanon. "In Lebanon, there's an official government and there is Hezbollah, which is a terrrorist organization linked to the government. They're members of the parliament, and there's a Hezbollah militia over thre, a separate army,...

In the absence of effective military forces or law enforcement, Ukrainians are taking the defense of the nation in their own hands through loosely organized militias. One of them popped up in a YouTube video on May 2. Although the group was unidentified, the clip was posted by a pro-Ukrainian group of former military and law enforcement officers, calling themselves the Donbass Volunteer Battalion. The video shows men armed with Kalashnikov rifles and clad in black ninja outfits dismantling a Kremlin-backed roadblock near Krasnoarmiysk in western Donetsk Oblast. The national warriors also claim that 15 pro-Russian rebels were handed over...

Latvian MEP Tatjana Zdanoka urged her colleagues to support her motion to put the Ukranian radical group Right Sector on the terrorist organizations list, reports ITAR-TASS. ...

Fox News reported yesterday that Kiev is sending an "elite National Guard" to Odessa, and today the International Business Times reported that Kiev is sending an "elite National Guard" to Slavyansk. Who makes up the ranks of this elite National Guard when Vice News reported on March 19, 2014 - in their article "A look Inside Ukraine's Volunteer National Guard" - and in it said then that Ukraine had - by its own admission - only 6,000 combat-ready troops? Looks like Kiev didn't/doesn't have a pot to even... much less an "elite National Guard." BTW, Vice News was the news...

At least 38 anti-government activists died in fire at Odessa’s Trade Unions House after suffocating with smoke or jumping out of windows of the burning building, Ukrainian Interior Ministry reported. The building was set ablaze by the pro-Kiev radicals. [WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT INSIDE] Some 50 people, including 10 police officers, were also injured in the incident, the official statement said. It was not immediately clear whether those injured in Friday street clashes in Odessa were included in those numbers. According to the ministry, the Friday standoff on Odessa included “anti-Maidan” activists on one side and “football fans” from Odessa and...

At least 38 people have been killed in a fire in an official building amid clashes in Odessa, in south west Ukraine, local police say. ...

People in eastern Ukraine are not pro-Russian, they want a united and federalized Ukraine, a Finlandized Ukraine that is equally distant from the EU, NATO and Russia, and they are being confronted by guns, investigative journalist Pepe Escobar told RT. RT: We're now seeing Kiev deploying the military against its own people. Do you think the situation requires that? Pepe Escobar: No, of course not. Flashback, it’s very important. A few days ago John Brennan, head of the CIA, goes to Kiev, they launch an anti-terrorist operation. It’s a huge failure. A few days later US Vice-President Joe Biden goes...

<p>The Right Sector played a leading role in January's violent anti-Yanukovych protests in Kiev.</p> <p>The Right Sector is the most radical wing of Ukraine's Maidan protest movement that toppled President Viktor Yanukovych in February.</p> <p>Activists claiming to be Right Sector members were involved in Kiev's Maidan protests [link at URL] from late November but the group did not attract much attention until violent clashes with police in central Kiev on 19 January, in which it played a leading role.</p>

A collection of photographs that Ukraine says shows the presence of Russian forces in the eastern part of the country, and which the United States cited as evidence of Russian involvement, has come under scrutiny. The photographs were submitted by Ukraine last week to the Organization for Security and Cooperation, an organization in Vienna that has been monitoring the situation in Ukraine. Some of the photographs were also provided by American officials to Secretary of State John Kerry so he could show them when he met in Geneva last Thursday with his counterparts from the European Union, Russia, and Ukraine....

Published on Mar 8, 2014 This film is the first attempt to analyze the events of the past three months, which taking place in Ukraine. Famous people who unrelated to politics, tell about the events in the country. Speakers: Oksana Zabuzhko, writer Oleksandr Sydorenko ("Fozzi"), writer, musician Andriy Kurkov, writer Nina Matvienko, singer, Hero of Ukraine Olha Bohomolets, doctor, public activist Andriy Kuzmenko ("Skryabin"), writer, musician Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Head of Ukrainian Greco-Сatholic Church Filaret, Head of Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchy) Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, musician, public activist Myron Markevych, Football coach Oleksiy Mochanov, racer "Революція гідності", оригінальна версія українською мовою: http://youtu.be/qukYAlUHX6k...

In an interesting interview [link at URL] to the New York Review of Books, George Soros shared his ideas on many topics including Europe, Russia and the Ukranian crisis. He also presented his new book [link at URL] The tragedy of the European Union: Disintegration or Revival? Whether one agrees or disagrees with Soro's interpretations and arguments, it is hard to deny that the interview is extremely insightful and gives a lot of food for thought. I offer a discussion of the part of the interview devoted to Ukraine. George Soros emphasized the necessity of a large-scale technical and financial...

Obama waited too long to help the Syrian FSA against the monstrous Assad regime. When some sort of intervention was talked about: (bombing, indirect support, arms, etc) it was TOO late to help, and it would most likely have helped (either directly or indirectly) terroristic elements and possibly Al Qaeda elements which had taken the lead in Syria against Assad. NO WAY ON DOING THAT. PERIOD. And, once again, it is too late to help the Ukrainians against the thug Putin. (strike one against helping them). And as long as the Ukrainian gov't hasn't ran Svoboda and Right Sector and...

With tensions rising ever faster in eastern Ukraine, the anti-government (pro-Russia) movement in Donetsk has taken dramatic steps to bolster itself by creating a "people's army," or National Army of Donetsk. As RT reports, masked men, who are mostly civil volunteers, but also police and army defectors, say they “defend their motherland from the fascist army that’s going to kill them.” They also demand “a referendum to be independent from Kiev” and are in favor of “being with Russia.” The Ukraine forces are moving in on Donetsk...