Escalation in Ukraine

January 23, 2014 | Various

[annalex]

Escalation in Ukraine

Digest by Annalex

Two significant recent developments are:

1. First fatalities, apparently from live ammunition, among the demonstrators.

Injuries, including serious injuries are in the hundreds if not in the thousands. The rubber bullet can gouge an eye and therefore, at a right angle can be itself fatal. The sun grenades reportedly rip through flesh if the explosion is next to it. Ironically, neither of the two confirmed fatalities are Ukrainian: one is an Armenian from Eastern Ukraine; the other is a Belorussian resident of Ukraine.

One fatality (linked content here and below is rather graphic);

I suspect injuries among the military police. Watch, for example, how stoically they take Molotov cocktails; this has to leave marks.

Molotov cocktails

This is a long series of photos showing the combat technology.

Different bullets


The blogger describes this as “traumatic and strike ball” weaponry


Stun grenade


“Rumor has it, Bertkut (militarized police) tape bolts and nuts to stun and gas grenades”



Molotov cocktails. These are, someone explains, not properly done: straight kerosene or gasoline, rather than something more gooey; they invariably hurt the thrower as well.


Catapult 1 (it broke, they built another, of simple construction)


Archer


People got much better building the barricades.


Priests and monks often stand separating the combatants.

Much more on this topic, and in full resolution available, is in Zyalt’s blog

This Israeli blogger believes the fatalities were on order form the Kremlin. Yanukovich was ready to compromise with the protesters, so Putin made sure that, with mass shedding of blood, Yanukovich has no game left but toe the Kremlin’s line.

2. Other regions, naturally, in the West, are rising as well.

The country is divided, fuzzily, in two parts: ethnically Ukrainian West and mixed Russian-Ukrainian East. This blogger, Basmanov, writes in Russian and for Russians:

If you are a TV watcher, and think that the Russian Federation is your state and that the power structure of Putin pederasts [common swear in Russian] is for you, or if you are simply a fool, quit reading now. This is the material for them who understand that the Russians are an oppressed nation in the RF, its land is long since occupied and it is still to be re-conquered in the future. There is no other road for us: against the background of the Russians dying off, the mass foreign colonization policy conducted by the RF government is death to our people. So the question is stark: either the Russians throw out the power that be or the power that be slowly destroys out people. It is not important if you support Yanukovich or not. The technology is important. Learn carefully. When it is time to give a fight to the anti-Russian regime that seized power in RF and is oppressing our nation, you will approximately know what to do.

The map of provincial governments taken (red) or blocked (pink)

A news roundup follows with links:

• Citizens of Sumi took to the streets
  Video
• City Council and District parliament of Khmelnitzky recognized the power of People’s Rada (People’s Council, or Parliament, a rebel organization)
  Link
• It is confirmed that Ternopol administration is taken
  Link
• Rovno Militia (police) resigned
  Link
• In Zhitomir the demonstrators blocked the central street and demand resignation of the mayor and the governor
  Link
• Ternopol district administration is taken by the protesters
  Link
• In Khmelnitzky the Maidan forces began action
  Link
• In Cherkassy the demonstrators storm the district Administration – militia barricaded themselves inside
  Video
• In Cherkassy the protesters storm the district administration
  Link
• March on Rovno administration. They chant: Rise, Rovno!
  Link
• The assault on Lvov administration
  Video
• In Khmelnitzky near the administration barricades were erected
  Link
• How they seized the Administration in Rovno
  Video
• Protestaers took over the administration in Lvov and in Rovno
  Link

We live in interesting times, folks.

[Navy Patriot]

...toppled Serbia’s bloodstained strongman Slobodan Milosevic,...

Most of the human rights charges against the Serbs proved false, while most of the human rights charges against the Kosovar Albanians proved true, and Milosevic consistently won in court during his trial, cut short by his death in prison while he was denied medical treatment.

... the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia.

The resulting government of which, then comitted numerous human rights crimes against citizens of South Ossetia.

Yeah, Soros is a peach.

[Irenic]

When he croaks...well, I’ll just leave it at that. Nasty man.

[Revolting cat!]

One of the characteristic of a parochial view is the belief that your parish is the center of the universe. And so, such low influence characters like John McCain, George Soros, and Sean Penn, all of them unknown and insignificant outside the borders of this parish, become to the believers in their own parish’s powers the movers and shakers on the international scene. It’s little more than a fantasy of the ignorant wearing the horse blinders. History happens without Charlize Theron, sorry to inform you.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Sycophantic supporters of the genocidal mass-murderer Vladimir Putin will tell any lie to support the Kremlin’s Neo-Soviet aggression against the freedom and independence of the Ukrainian people. They don’t care who they smear and they will never present any evidence of their false allegations.

[Revolting cat!]

I read an interesting observation last night reflecting realities in three countries of the region: Putin is motivated by imperial dreams, Lukashenko by power, and Yanukovych by greed.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Putin is selling out his own country just as much as Lukashenko and Yanukovych. If Putin succeeds in building his “Eurasian Union” it will be the EVIL EMPIRE reborn and it will be the end of Russia as a free and independent nation. Putin is destroying the freedom his own Russian people as well as the people of Ukraine. Putin is a traitor to Russia.

[meatloaf]

Neither the EU or Russia have the best interests of Ukrainians in mind.

[SeminoleCounty]

So...George Soros and the EU is better?

Why, because Obama is working on a Free Trade deal with the EU?

Putin is not a good person...and may have ulterior motives. But siding w Soros...who will definitely bring in EU Socialism and Statism....is utterly retarded

I notice revolting cat had to drop calling me a Soros Lover....fact is that the Putin Whiners are categorically the most ignorant and gullible fools around.

[Tailgunner Joe]

I side with the Ukrainian people against their corrupt tyrannical government and KGB Putin’s genoicidal anti-American Neo-Soviet regime.

[ctdonath2]

Grabbed this frame from a live feed from Kiev today. Police vs clergy (flag waved in front of a cross just as I grabbed the pic).

[ctdonath2]

Having seen several pictures of cops on fire from protester-thrown firebombs, I’m very surprised they haven’t just opened up live gunfire in return and put this whole thing down already.

The dynamics of this revolution puzzle me, and I can’t quite put a finger on whence my puzzlement.

[ctdonath2]

We’re still comfortable, that’s why. Very little has changed, even as the foundation is being dug out from below us.

[Busko]

Do you understand that it is the Ukranians that will be the ones that suffer all the crap that coems with joining the EU or siding in with the “new” Russian politics.

[Jimmy Valentine]

This is very bad I confess that I never thought things would get this awful

Yanukovich is a convicted criminal and a Russian toady. I am very worried about my friends in Ukraine.

[cunning_fish]

>>>Let the Ukrainians join the EU and within five years they will be bankrupt like most of western Europe. Also, I think Russia should not be calling the shots either. I think this is what is going to happen until all of Europe is over run by the Soro-ist. Nothing but chaos<<<

The problem is EU doesn’t want Ukraine as a member. They are offering a union cutting Russian customs union ties. Another problem is Ukraine has nothing to sell to EU, all their markets are in Russia, Kazakhstan and the rest of CIS.
Russian choice is pragmatic in terms of business but in my opinion Ukraine may opt out Russia if they want and head to bankruptcy.
I’m not sure protesters represent the majority of population though.

[annalex]

preparing for serious fights

Berkut (the militarized police) can go through the protesters easily even without live ammunition, like they did on Grushevskaya St. at least once. It is a complex game where military technology (from catapults to burning tires) and occasional casualty are components of the image on the world scene. It is similar to the Intifadas, and not similar to Libya and Syria where the opposition had machine guns on trucks.

I will be posting an image or two with each post, not necessarily related to the text of the post. Here's one:

Lone Protester.
Note the ice from fire hydrants melting under feet. The hydrants were used to disperse the protesters and to quench fires.

[annalex]

we conservatives and Americans sit watching TV while the socialists/democrats take away our freedom, steal our money, ruin our opportunities to make money, while they steal our country and our birthright

Nations go through periods of apathy and rebirth. What we have is a birth of the Ukrainian nation, which is determined to get itself a national government. Nothing bad cam come from this.

[annalex]

folks in the Ukraine are wanting closer ties with the EU

That was the initial impetus behind the protests. At this point, it is becoming more of a fight against their anti-National government regardless of what compromises it offers. We should understand that for us the EU is nothing much better than the USSR; but what the Ukraine wants, at least its Western part, is a cultural choice for Europe, -- no matter what gang of nincompoops rule Europe today. It is happening at the same time as Russia, their partner of old, is making the opposite choice for Asia. Ukraine does not want to be dragged into eurasianism.

"I will marry a Berkut man if he switches to the side of the people"

[annalex]

This is very true.

Remember, “revolution” refers to any movement that turns AWAY from God. Without doubt or question, the tyrannical Ukrainian oligarchy executed a cold revolution in which it turned away from God and toward Moscow, Putin and their own personal enrichment. The “revolution” is a fait accompli. What the people of Ukraine have been and are now doing is COUNTER-REVOLUTION. They are sick and tired of being used and abused by a cadre of oligarchs who are toadies of Putin. They want to turn back toward justice, honesty in government and the rule of law. Again, Putin is an evil, evil, evil man. You people who are still falling for his garbage need to wise up. He is playing you for a fool. Just because he goes into a church and crosses himself and makes token gestures against sodomites doesn’t make him good. It makes him politically savvy and nothing more. If Obama learns to cross himself (assuming that the action wouldn’t cause him to burst into flames or melt), are you going to fall all over him too? Guys, Putin and Obama are cut from the same cloth.

Ukraine: You Better Pay Attention Because That’s How It’s Eventually Going to Play Out in North America. (your link again)

Possibly, it is a counter-revolution that may sweep the bastions of EU as well. It is surely of greater momentum that choosing between an observer status with the EU and a customs union with Russia and Kazakhstan.

Free lance photographer Marian Gavrilov at the scene

Marian Gavrilov after detention by Berkut.

"21 men were pressed into a police van. People were taken in unknown direction out of the city; stripped to the waist there, beaten by boots and thrown into snow. Gavrilov is in a very serious condition now." (Link).

[annalex]

until John McCain decides what side he wants to bomb

Wisely, Ukraine chose the Intifada model, so that there is nothing to bomb. The protests are in large city centers and have rocks and sticks for weapons. I don't think anyone in Ukraine wants McCain to bomb anything.