Posted on 02/22/2014 9:29:04 PM PST by Jeff Head
"Vladimir, they aren't coming back" BACKGROUND:
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, on July 16, 1990, the Ukrainian parliament voted for a Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine. This declaration established self-determination for the Ukrainian nation, its political and economic independence, and the end of Soviet law in the Ukraine. A referendum on the matter of Ukranian independence and the first presidential election took place on December 1, 1991. More than 90 percent of the electorate expressed their support for Independence, and they elected the chairman of the parliament, Leonid Kravchu,k as the first President of the country. The Ukrainian economy stabilized in the late 1990s. The hryvnia, was introduced in 1996 as the new currency. Since 2000, the country has enjoyed steady economic growth and averaged close to 7% annual growth. A new Constitution was adopted under the second President, Leonid Kuchma, in 1996. This constitution established the Ukraine as a republic with seperate branches of political power. This stable political system was mean to lead the Ukraine into the future with continuing economic growth and stability. However, Kuchma was criticized by opponents for corruption, electoral fraud, discouraging free speech and concentrating too much power in his office. In 2004, Viktor Yanukovych, then Prime Minister, was declared the winner of the presidential elections. But the people of Ukraine, and numoerous foreign observers felt the election had been illegally influenced and rigged. The results caused a public outcry in support of the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, who challenged the outcome of the elections. This resulted in the peaceful and well known, "Orange Revolution." The Ukraninan Supreme Court ruled that the elections we fraudulent and annulled them. Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko were elected in the ensuing elections. CONDITIONS LEADING TO THE REVOLT (To November 2013): As a result of failures to resovle this issue, and on promises of working well with the Russians, Viktor Yanukovych, who had been oputsed in the fraaudulent elections of 2004, was elected President in 2010 with a minority of 48% of the vote.
Yanukovych immediately made overtures to the Russian government and Vlademir Putin. Many Ukrainians wanted and were looking forward to closer ties with the European Union, feeling that such ties could alleviate the dependencises and continuing ties to Russia. But, President Yanukovych's government rejected a far-reaching accord with the European Union in November 2013 in favour of continued stronger ties with Russia. Thousands of people, outraged that a long-standing aspiration for integration with Europe had been ditched overnight, poured into central Kiev for peaceful protests. They have occupied Independence Square, known as Maidan.
THE MAIDAN REVOLT BY THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE (February 2014): After the peaceful but very large demonstrations in Maidan square, European leaders expressed support for the Ukrainian protestors, while RUssian leaders continued to support the Ukrainian President. The Amrican President, though distracted by domestic policy issues, did express support for the protests and called for calm, and the Secretary of State also expressed support for the Ukraining oppostion. In his turn, the Russian President, Vlademir Putin, called for the Eurpoean countires to stop meddling in the affairs of the Ukraine.
Emboldened by Russian support, and what was viewed as a weak US response, the Yanukovych administration allowed police attacks on student protesters, enacted severe new anti-protest laws, and abducted opposition activists. This caused the demonstrations to caused intensify and grow larger. Remembering their success in the Orange Revolution, the people appreared to become less concerned about European alignment and more intent on getting rid of Yanukovych again, who they believed was using events to strengthen his power and serve the interests of his own close circle and Moscow.
The European Union has strongly condemned the actions of the Yanukovych gobvernment, and what the obvious attempts by Russia and Putin to take advantage of the situation, and called for negotiations with the protestors untder the threat of sanctions. Ukraining opposition leaders stepped up their support for the protests. Russia denounced the violent protests, also called for negotaiations, but reminded Europe and the United States that Yanukovych was elected in a fair election and should be able to act in his office. President Obama has condemned violence on both sides, but has also had his Secretary of State meet with opposition leders, as have various European leaders, notable Merkel of Germany.
VIOLENCE, BLOODSHED, AND GUNFIRE (2/17-21/2014):
International efforts to quell the violenmce stepped up. European leaders and Russia negotiatied with the Ukrainian government and the opposition and a cease fire was agreed to on February 21st. Some opposition leaders indicated, and the Poland negoatiator himself said that the opposition had to accept this deal under the threat of martial law and the use of Ukraines military. Th deal was accepted by the leaders, voted and for by the Ukrainian parliment. It called for new elections.
But the protestors in the street were not satified, vowed not to bow to threats, and indiacted that they felt their military would not fire upon them. So the confrontations continued the next day, and saw some security forces in the capitol and from other parts of the country changing sides.
PRESIDENT YANUKOVYCH FLEES AND THE UKRAINIAN PARLIMENT IMPEACHES HIM (2/22/2014): President Yanukovych saw his support in the capitol failing. On Friday night and into Saturday morning (Feb 21-22) the heavily armed guard around the presidential offices melted away. At this point, Yanukovych left the Presidential quarters and compound and fled to Kharkiv in the southeaast of Ukraine where he has strong support. From there he gave a TV interview insisting he was still in power. While this was occurring, His arch-rival and opposition leder, Yulia Tymoshenko, who was jailed in 2011, was freed and has flown to Kiev, where on Saturday, February 22, the Ukrainian Parliment voted to impeach and remove President Yanukovych. After the vote, protestors occupied and guarded the residential residence and compound.
SUMMARY (To date, 2/22/2014): You have a weak American President, whose word is doubted, whose will on the international stage is questioned, and who is distracted domestically by his own many scandals and issues. You have an emboldened and re-emergent Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, who has shown himself to be a strong Russian leader and willing to push the west, particularly in the absence of strong leadership in the United States. You have a majority of the Ukrainian people who wish closer ties with the European Union, who are willing to stand a fight for those desires. This event is a clear example of what a dedicated, committed, populace can accomplish when they feel their rights and their constitutional constraints are being violated (perhaps America should remember this...and its own history). But you also have a large minority in the south and east of the country who wish a tighter alignment with Russia. Hopefully, things will settle down and the Ukrainian people can come together without firther interference and decide what they want for their own country and do so in a peaceful and reasoned manner. However, there is already blood on the ground...on both sides...and that makes a peaceful and reasoned settlement all the more difficult.
AMERICA AT THE CROSSROADS OF HISTORY IF I WERE PRESIDENT, HERE'S WHAT I WOULD DO
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You are right. There are still Ukrainians who were alive during the “Holodomor” Stalins famine. Russians are not all that popular in Ukraine
Things may not go thermo-nuclear, but it is all up to Putin and our clown in DC between now and March 25.
What happens on March 25?
To see the danger, up close and in extreme detail. View the following video. The second half is taken from a safe spot and records the advance of the protesters on an unknown and unseen objective. There is the sound of constant rifle fire. The fire is effective because many are hit. Most of those hit apparently die.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSvj8F_Br4M
And yet they continue to press forward and then die some more. They abandon one route of attack and set up a larger front behind moveable barricades and then die some more.
They are advancing armed with shields, some captured from the police and others home made from street signs or plywood. Some have made shin armor from cardboard and duct tape. They press on and then die.
I have viewed a lot of war footage but this is the best. It details a long engagement and records the perhaps foolhardy bravery of those seeking to oust the government.
Barack Obama should quiver in his boots when he sees what could happen to him. Perhaps we should take notes
The weapons are barricades, gas bombs and tires. The gas bombs prevent the police movement. Once stopped the burning tires provide a smoke screen and cover. Then the barricades of what ever is at hand stop the police advance .
When these simple tactics are followed the crowd can then gradually advance on the police. The beginning footage shows how they advanced on the yellow building in gradual steps until they were there and the police fled.
That is the least of Obama's worries. For the most part, the American people no longer have the will to be free. The spirit of freedom has been replaced with the spirit of degeneracy and perversion. The spirit of independence has been replaced with the spirit of slavery. The people have traded their freedom for a bowl of Government stew. They have exchanged the worship of Almighty God for the worship of perversion and degeneracy.
This was demonstrated in the election of 2012 when, on national television the members of the Democrat Party booed the mention of God not once but three times in succession. Yet the representatives of that party received the majority of votes cast. The people in power forbid the mention of the name of God, but yet encourage sexual acts between men and men and women. They profane the institution of marriage that was ordained by God by applying it to two men or two women.
No, worries about what is happening in the Ukraine are the least of Obama's thoughts. He looks out of the window of the White House he occupies and smiles at the moral condition of this Nation. And his chest puffs with pride as he realizes the extent to which he is worshiped.
The ongoing attempt by Pooty-Poot to reoccupy Ukraine is crumbling — and as in Syria, the pro-occupation mouthpieces steadily blamed foreign influence for the uprising. The only foreign influences in Ukraine are the Russians. Thanks Jeff Head.
Excellent work, Jeff. Thanks for doing the research and putting it together for us.
I hope you are having an especially good day today.
Thanks Jeff
Thoroughly enjoyed reading “If I were President”.
If you were a mind, I would work on your campaign.
Thank you for that, Jeff!
Empire is the natural condition of mankind.
Wilsonian progressivism has sparked catastrophe upon catastrophe, as people of small and weak nations are misled into rebellion by the false gods of “international norms” and “international law”.
The only international law is that the strong rule the weak. When the strong withdraw, the killing starts. Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Levant, Arabia, North Africa, Subsaharan Africa above all.
I hope the Ukrainian rebels don’t believe that there will be help from West of L’viv when the tanks roll in.
The Russians will NEVER give up control of the Black Sea naval ports. NEVER. That is a real “red line.” Note the % of ethnic Russians in Crimea and especially in Sevastopol.
Only as long as the govt forces are not willing to unleash belt fed weapons.
Which becomes problematic for a regime in the era of 24/7 news coverage.
In Venezuela, gunfire has been accompanied by a media and internet blackout, and since our MSM favors the socialist regime there, and is not covering the situation like the Ukraine, the Madura regime is winning.
In Iran, the regime crushed equally brave street riots.
Ukraine is lucky to have the world’s attention. They are not so lucky in overlooked Venezuela, and they were not so lucky in Iran either.
Thanks Jeff...
Bert, these are brave people...fighting for their freedoms and rights. They keep holding their position and dragging their wounded and dead comrades out of the line of fire even as more of them go down in the attempts. Every God-fearing and liberty loving American should see this video.
God bless these brave Ukrainians!
They desperately need return and suppressing fire on those gunning them down.
Would to God that a whole lot of our 300 million hunting rifles and firearms in these United States were in their hands. The existence of those weapons is the primary reasons the bastard politicians in this country do not try the same here. If they do, they will rue the day and be hanging from lampposts.
Maybe the deal is Russia gets the Crimea and the Donetsk region in exchange for Ukrainian independence.
Did Romney lose because of an ineffective campaign, or because too many people would not vote for him given his liberal record as governor, or because of his religion? Or was the election stolen?
It's not beyond possibility that an honest count of votes would have produced a Romney win in the electoral college. If so, we already know the outcome in 2016 and 2020--either a Hillary win or a win by whatever Democrat is nominated in 2016 (if her health prevents her from running).
I would say that it was a combination of everything you stated. And that your opening paragraph is also true. Obama, like the Clintons is not the problem. He, like the Clintons is the symptom of the problem. The actual problem is the people that would someone of the caliber of a Clinton or Obama to lead them as opposed to a relative honest person.
Excellent map. It shows all that needs to be known of Russia’s interests.
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