Posted on 04/06/2014 1:44:29 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Pro-Russian protesters have stormed government buildings in three eastern Ukrainian cities.
In Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv they clashed with police, hung Russian flags from the buildings and called for a referendum on independence.
Ukraine's acting president called an emergency security meeting in response.
The unrest comes amid tensions between Russia and Ukraine over the removal of pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych and Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has the right to protect the Russian-speaking population there. Ukraine's leaders deny the country's Russian speakers are under threat and have said they will resist any intervention in their country.
Ukrainian Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov cancelled a planned visit to Lithuania and called a meeting of the country's security chiefs to deal with the unrest.
In Donetsk, in what was reportedly the day's most violent protest, a large group of activists broke away from a crowd rallying in the main city square to attack and occupy the regional government seat.
After clashing with riot police and breaking through their lines to enter the building, they raised the Russian flag and hung a banner from the building. Protesters outside cheered and chanted: "Russia, Russia."
Ihor Dyomin, a spokesman for Donetsk local police, said about 1,000 people had taken part in the storming of the building.
"Around 100 people are now inside the building and are barricading the building," he added.
In Luhansk, police fired tear gas at dozens of protesters who broke into the local security service building in an attempt to force the release of 15 pro-Russian activists who were arrested earlier in the week and accused of plotting violent unrest.
Local news reports said at least two people had been injured in clashes, and TV pictures from the scene showed a riot policeman being taken away on a stretcher.
And in Kharkiv, several dozen people also entered the regional government building after breaking through police lines.
They waved Russian flags out of windows as a crowd outside cheered and chanted. Police officers reportedly refused to use force against the crowd and moved away from the government building after the pro-Russian supporters broke in.
Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov accused President Putin and Mr Yanukovych - who was forced from office in February following months of street protests and is now living in exile in Russia - of "ordering and paying for another wave of separatist turmoil in the country's east".
In a message posted on his Facebook account, he said: "The people who have gathered are not many but they are very aggressive. "The situation will be brought under control without bloodshed. But at the same time, a firm approach will be used against all who attack government buildings, law enforcement officers and other citizens."
Tensions are running high between Ukraine and Russia, with thousands of Russian soldiers still said to be deployed along the border.
The new administration in Ukraine has faced continuing opposition from Ukraine's Russian-speaking regions.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's far-right Svoboda party has reported that the body of one its activists was found on Saturday after it was dumped in the woods with signs of torture, a day after his abduction in the central village of Vygrayev.
Svoboda was one of the participants in the protests that toppled Mr Yanukovych's administration.
Kiev is facing Ukraine’s disintegration. Events seem to be taking on a life of their own without any prompting from Russia.
If this spreads, Kiev will find itself ruling over a shrunken country of less than 20 million or so centered on the West.
What can it do about it? Force is out of the question. Ukraine will have to become a federal state with both Ukrainian and Russian enjoying official status, with full autonomy for all its regions.
There is no alternative. Unless Kiev wants to see large chunks of the country lost to Russia.
No one is going to stop Putin. This is step 4 of many. Georgia, Chechnya, and Crimea came first. Putin fits the text book definition of a fascist yet he gets support here and anywhere a “strong leader” is admired. Mussolini and Hitler had a great many American admirers in the 1930s.
It appears Czar Putin is ready for a second helping of Ukrainian pie. These “spontaneous” bully boys who storm government buildings and hang Russian flags are Russian military Spetsnaz units infiltrated across the Ukrainian borders. Putin will use these demonstrations to send in the regular army to protect Russians as he did in the Crimea.
Meanwhile, our fearless boy-president will jaunt off to a campaign raiser and later, Japan.
I agree with every ‘reply’ post. The truth of each reply is breaking my heart. God did a miracle in Maida. Please let us join together and with a loved one to pray for God to intervene to keep Ukraine a united nation..
As predicted.
Dude when this happened
Borders have shifted in that part of the world for thousands of years.
What makes today’s borders so sacrosanct compared to the previous ones?
Are humans today so much more enlightened than before? Doubtful.
“God did a miracle in Maida.”
God’s miracles stick.
I assume Obama is golfing today.
Seems like the ethnic Russians are more Urban than the Ukrainians, I see the problem. Sort of like Philadelphia.
“It came to power on violence.’
Man, its a good thing that this nation never needed a revolutionary war of any kind and that those British louses just decided one day to up and leave.
Ukraine was not an occupied country...
The will of the total population of the Ukraine was expressed at the ballot box. The current occupants of Kiev disregarded that with a violent coup. They then attempt to act as if they are legitimate representatives of the electorate.
But mainly they show they cannot control or govern and just like to whine as they preside over the collapse of the Ukraine many of whom seem to prefer Russia to the clowns in Kiev.
I think you confuse grudging respect for “Support”.
Putin doesn’t give a damn about “Rules for Radicals. He doesn’t give a damn what some gay wonk in the US Media, or a lesbian late-night comedian joke writer thinks about him.
But, if you have read, (and more importantly, UNDERSTAND) Machiavelli, then Putin’s actions become predictable, given the world situation as it is right now. (and yes, Putin is/was a student of Machiavelli.)
This puts the Chomsky/Zinn-trained people currently running the US Government at a serious disadvantage, especially when they try to apply that theology to foreign policy.
Putin is a student of Machevelli. Putin is also a study of the use of hard power Marxism, and knows how Alinskitism was designed and how to defeat it.
The OSCE said that the 2012 election of Yakunivich was a sham, just like it was in 2004.
Please send proof of your Spetsnaz hypothesis, or is that only your opinion?
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