Breaking News: Russian Troops Intervening in Ukraine Elections

Private Email from Election Observer in Ukraine | 11/23/2004 | Bob Schaffer

[ModelBreaker]

From: Bob Schaffer

Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 12:10 PM

Friends: some of you know I am in Ukraine as an election monitor. The presidential election was Sunday. There was rampant cheating and falsification reported throughout the country. I can't go into all details of election. I'm using a blackberry to communicate with lots of USA people, news agencies and Ukrainians. Please check news sources on the Ukrainian election background if you're not familiar. Also, I'll be regularly updating the Denver Post. They're setting their web site to post my updates.

Here's the latest:

Russian special forces dressed in Ukrainian Special forces uniforms are in Kyiv. Ukrainian militia have been instructed by the mayor to protect the people from the Russian troops. Ukrainian militia have established a hotline for Ukrainians to report any incidents with the Russians and pledged to protect Ukrainians. These Russians flew into Ukraine this morning. They're now surrounding the administration buildings they say "to protect Kuchma (the outgoing president and his PM Yanukovich). Following is a chain of email messages I've been sending by blackberry. Please pass along to others. Bob Schaffer

-------

PETER: PLEASE SEE UPDATES BELOW. GETTING QUITE SERIOUS NOW. OUR EMBASSY'S PHONES ARE DOWN AND WE'RE NOT SURE THEY'RE AWARE OF THE NEWS OF RUSSIANS (SEE BELOW). YES, PLEASE SEND INFO TO ANYONE YOU CAN, ESPECIALLY PRESS. BOB

---------- Dan: is there anything you can do to alert someone in the Denver media to look at news coming out of Ukraine? I know this isn't our normal "beat," but this seems quite serious here. I'll paste below a message I just sent to a ukrainian group. I've been updating several people by blackerrying them events from the street and from the local news. Bob

---------- Yes. I'm safe for now. Demonstrators are reassembling in Kyiv. They're coming back stronger than yesterday coming in from the rest of the country. The authorities are trying to stop them. Cars and busses are being stopped by police at the outskirts of the city. The authorities have scattered road spikes on inbound lanes to stop traffic/protesters. People are walking down the highways to protest. Trains into the city have been stopped.

The parliament is meeting now but without the president's supporters or the Communists. After several speeches, they called Yushchenko to the podium to swear him in as the new president (escorted to the podium with guards). The Rada Speaker Litvin walked out. Then the TV station (only one station covers anything about the election and it only covers 30% of the country) went off then cut to news and footage from earlier in the day. This is similar to the revolution in Georgia.

It seems the opposition has now claimed control of the parliament and most likely named Yushchenko as the president. He walked to the podium with a Bible and a copy of the oath in his hand. 300,000 pro-Yushchenko supporters are in the city square and watched what I described above on a jumbo TV. They're celebrating what they believe is their new president. Provocateurs are infiltrating the crowd. Special forces are said to be moving in to disband the crowd. This is now a clearly declared revolutionary effort. A confrontation seems unavoidable now.

It's very tense here. School has been cancled (again) for tomorrow. I'll report more as I learn it.

Now we hear Yushchenko is headed to the city center to address the masses. His lieutenants will be giving instructions to the people outside the Rada building on "what to do."

Telephones in the outlying towns have been shut off.

Now we hear there are Russians in Ukrainian special forces uniforms.

I'll report more as I learn it. May God bless and protect Ukraine and her people.

A representative of the Greek Catholic Church (a man who appeared to be a priest -- dressed as one) announced at the demonstration that he was speaking on behalf of the Greek Catholic Churchn the Kyiv Patriarchiat and several Protestant denominations (Lutheran was the only specific one I heard but there were several others). He said this coalition of churches recognizes Yushchenko as president.

Yuschenko is now leading 1 million people from the square and surrounding streets to the administration headquarters of the Ukrainian government. He is in front of the column and many fear he is vulnerable to getting shot. They should be at the steps in 15 mins. Keep in mind, this is where the Russian special forces are stationed, dresses in Ukrainian garb.

If violence comes to define this revolution it will likely be within minutes.

The Georgian President (surrounded by Orthodox priests) just appeared on Ukrainian TV congratulating and encouraging the opposition supporters and "President" Victor Yushchenko. He spoke in Ukrainian which is very significant.

The Russian special forces just stopped the crowd approaching the administration headquarters.

Bob

Sent via BlackBerry

[Agog]

My post made it quite clear that I voted for Bush. Also, please explain how and why radar jamming devices would be used to blow up 400,000 tons of other explosives. As for accusing me of accusing our President of being a liar, I really don't follow how that follows. Your reply to me, as are the rest of your posts, consist almost entirely of non sequiturs and reflect an absence of logic which I find appalling. Did you sign up for Free Republic solely to inject Russian communist propaganda on this forum?

[Rocky Mountain Mama]

A simple explanation of what is going on:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1287167/posts

Read the first post, by Dick Morris analyzing the vote. Ethnic Russians voted for Putin's guy; ethnic Ukrainians, 60% of the pop, voted for Yushchenko, who is trying to break Ukraine away from Moscow's domination.

[AdmSmith]

I do not think that jb6 or eluminate are communists they are just Orthodox Christians and are, as most of them here (Destro and MarMema etc.) supporters of the Russian authorities (read Russian Orthodox Church) whatever the Russians are doing.

[Agog]

Your point is well taken. However, the historical alliance between the Russian Orthodox church and the Communist authorities should also be taken into account.

[Grzegorz 246]

I have already wrote about Russian soldiers yesterday. We have also a Polish "Freeper", who is observer in Ukraine - I don't have any contact with him, so don't now If he is still there.

[AdmSmith]

True, but I don't thnk that the ordinary members of the Orthodox Church should be blamed for that.

I should have added "Lion in Winter" to the list.

[Grzegorz 246]

Exactly.

[Lukasz]

If someone blindly supporting commies, he is one of them. Russian politicians aren’t Orthodox! Those commies are all atheists.

[Agog]

Reports are that Yushchenko's first wife has been assassinated just outside of Bern, Switzerland. Two bullets to the heart.

[Agog]

Please forgive me, she was assassinated in September of this year. I apologize for the error.

[Happy2BMe]

It seems like the world is hopping from crisis - to - crisis at a pace unseen in a generation.

[wildandcrazyrussian]

What an astounding ignorance of history and mean-spirited arrogance! Your supposed historical "alliance" between Communists and Orthodox Church began in 1917 with the beginning of the executions of vast numbers of Orthodox Church hierarhcy, clergy and faithful, numbering in the tens of millions.

All the fine Orthodox Christian FR members you and others have accused of Communist sympathies are victims of your libel and I would suggest you apologize.

They and others were here on FR defending the Serbian people against Clinton's REAL alliance with Islamic terrorists back in 1999.

[AmericanInTokyo]

wow. flame war brewing. settlin' in with the popcorn...

[johnb838]

Did you happen to read the Last Jihad? There were some very exciting parts of that book that had to do with blackberries... people being hunted by intruders emailing to other people their location, calling in air strikes, that sort of thing. I may have to git me one of those. I'm in a buyin' mood. Election's over, I got a great new job, I want to BUY somethin'. Christmas? Bring, it, on!

[Agog]

The Russian Orthodox church had a deal with the communists that allowed them to survive, a deal with the devil. The repression of the Russian Orthodox church continued until they reached an accomodation with the communists. Afterwards, they merely became a tool for the Soviet government, including breaking the sanctity of the confessional and surviving at the expense of other Christian religions. I cannot apologize for what happened, although I do agree with the poster on this or a related thread that there are many Russian Orthodox adherents who are sincere and truly religious.

[bgarid]

>Read the first post, by Dick Morris analyzing the vote. Ethnic Russians voted for Putin's guy; ethnic Ukrainians, 60% of the pop, voted for Yushchenko, who is trying to break Ukraine away from Moscow's domination.

He is oversimplifying things to absurdity.

Fact is, three fourths of Ukrainian population are considered ethnic Ukrainian and ethnic Russians make almost a quarter of population.

However, most of ethnic Ukrainians are primarily Russian speakers. They are ethnic Ukrainian, but Russian speaking Ukrainian. Many of them speak Ukrainian just as well, but many others don't.

And since everybody in the Ukraine understands both languages(which are very similar and mutually intelligible anyway), this is usually no big deal. You can frequently see two people speaking to each other one in Ukrainian, the other in Russian and both understanding each other.

The line of divide in this election is not ethnic, with exception of Crimea, Ukrainains are a majority in every region of Ukraine. It's not even linguistic. The capital city of Kiev is a Russian speaking region, but Kiev supports Yushenko, while almost all other Russian-speaking regions in the east and south support Yanukovich.

The real divide is both geographic and civilizational. The people who voted for Yanukovich are from the more industrially developed and richer regions of Ukraine. They don't want to keep paying taxes which all go to support the dirty poor rural western regions and parasitic bureaucrats in Kiev. They really, really dislike the present government of Ukraine and make exception only for their compatriot Yanukovich (who joined the government only two years ago).

[Lion in Winter]

Oh, here you go.... and Hitler and Napolean
were baptised Roman Catholics. So WHAT?

[Lion in Winter]

It's the Balkans alover again. I knew this was coming!!

[MarMema]

We suspect they hate Russia because of their end times fabrications.

This in spite of the fact that Israel is supporting Russia to the hilt after Beslan.

I was amazed to read this thread and see how popular I have become. I might be more widely read than a lot of bloggers, though of course all those who slammed me here "forgot" to ping me....displaying their level of respect for others and civility in the process.

[MarMema]

Hey. Nice to see you around again.