Posted on 11/23/2015 7:01:47 AM PST by Trumpinator
Pro-Ukraine activists block repair of sabotaged power lines to Crimea
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Reuters By Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets 1 hour ago
KIEV (Reuters) - Pro-Ukrainian activists prevented repairs to sabotaged power lines leading to Crimea on Monday, keeping the Russian-annexed peninsula starved of electricity for a second day and tensions between Moscow and Kiev high.
Ethnic Tatars and members of Ukrainian nationalist battalions largely blocked access for engineers to four pylons in Kherson, a region of the Ukrainian mainland controlled by Kiev, which unknown attackers blew up over the weekend
"Teams are ready to fix the consequences of the blasts in the course of four days," said Igor Boska, the regional head of state power supplier Ukrenergo.
"When this can happen depends on the results of talks, which the instigators of the blockade are carrying out with authorities," he said in a statement posted on the Kherson administration's website.
...snip...
One Russian senator described the blasts as an "act of terrorism". But Mustafa Dzhemilev, a senior Crimean Tatar politician, said talks to restore power to Crimea could start only after "political prisoners" on the peninsula were released, according to an interview he gave to Ukrainian news agency Liga.
The annexation was opposed by many Tatars, a Turkic-speaking Muslim community with a long history in Crimea, and they have since held numerous protests to complain of discrimination and intimidation which they say is meant to silence dissent.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
MOSCOW (Reuters) - International monitors say they have spotted a new kind of Russian weapons system in rebel-held Ukraine this week, possible evidence of Moscow's continued interest in Ukraine even as it focuses on Syria.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is monitoring a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, reported that its monitors had seen a mobile TOS-1 'Buratino' weapons system for the first time.
The Buratino is equipped with thermobaric warheads which spread a flammable liquid around a target and then ignite it. It can destroy several city blocks in one strike and cause indiscriminate damage.
Only Russia produces the system and it was not exported to Ukraine before the conflict broke out, according to IHS Jane's Group and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which track arms exports.
The OSCE's findings are embarrassing for the Kremlin, which has turned down its rhetoric on Ukraine and shifted attention to Syria, where it has begun air strikes. The report comes before President Vladimir Putin holds talks in Paris on Friday with the leaders of Germany, France and Ukraine on the peace process.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
All 240,000 Crimean Tatars were deported en masse, in a form of collective punishment, on 17–18 May 1944 as "special settlers" to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and other distant parts of the Soviet Union[38] This event is called Sürgün in the Crimean Tatar language; the few who escaped were shot on sight or drowned in scuttled barges, and within months half their number had died of cold, hunger, exhaustion and disease.[23] Many of them were re-located to toil as indentured workers in the Soviet GULAG system.[39]
Although a 1967 Soviet decree removed the charges against Crimean Tatars, the Soviet government did nothing to facilitate their resettlement in Crimea and to make reparations for lost lives and confiscated property. Crimean Tatars, having a definite tradition of non-communist political dissent, succeeded in creating a truly independent network of activists, values and political experience.[40] Crimean Tatars, led by the Crimean Tatar National Movement Organization,[41] were not allowed to return to Crimea from exile until the beginning of the Perestroika in the mid-1980s.
Methinks Poroshenko has his hands full at Shirokino, Donetsk, and points in between to engage in something like this.
Nice people those Ukrainians. But stupid.
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarter's Expenses?
A normal part of the logistics side of warfare.
In discussing what civil war would be like in the United States, military people who have spent more than one term and advanced in theoretical education on war will almost universally point out that telecommunications, power, food, and water distribution systems will be fought over and mostly need local replacements for the duration.
The Russians are doing a workaround to bring in power over the Kerch strait but have said it may take a month
Cold dark times in the Crimea
Headline should be “Tatars” not “Tartars.”
Methinks he saw the bigger picture long before anyone in the West.
He was eliminating another possible front in the war against the mooslime hordes.
Just guessing.
:-)
Nice people you Putinistas. But stupid, and evil.
Sadly, I misspelled their name or my fingers can’t work a smart phone.
After Syria I would think Ukraine would think twice about ticking off the Russian bear. And right next store. Putin’s pilots could be home in time for cocktails.
I have the same problem trying to type on my Kindle pad. The virtual keys are too tiny for my male fingers. And then the wretched spell-correcter sometimes turns my precise prose into illiterate garbage.
I think these smart devise keyboards were invented to children’s fingers in mind and not human adults.
It’s the last thing Ukraine needs.
Putin is on the upswing internationally, and they need exercise more caution or be more aware of whom may be acting on their behalf, but not under their control.
It seems the govt in Kiev is hostage to their own extremist groups who may not like peace breaking out with them seemingly losing?
Nothings changed in Kiev.....same oligarchs...same powers that be until the next time they revolt. “Wash and repeat” suites the climate in Ukraine.
Putin didn't drive the Tatars out of Crimea. They are still there.
Putin wanted direct control of his military base there.
The Russian troopers that were NOT Russian troopers would put a cross on the homes of the Tartars’ removed from said location.
There may very well be older Tartars’ living around the area..but not too many of fighting age like the “refugees” invading Europe and soon the U.S.
I saw it on the BBC at the time it was happening shortly after the non-invasion invasion.
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