Posted on 04/13/2014 3:45:10 AM PDT by wetphoenix
Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine's interior minister said on Sunday that both sides had suffered casualties during a raid launched by Ukrainian special forces on a police station in the eastern city of Slavyansk that was seized by pro-Russian gunmen.
"There are dead and wounded on both sides. On our side -- an SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) officer. The head of the SBU's anti-terrorist centre has been wounded, as have four others," Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on his Facebook page.
"On side of the separatists -- an unidentified number. The separatists have started to protect themselves using human shields."
Avakov added that Ukraine's special forces have begun to "regroup" but he gave no other details.
About 20 pro-Kremlin gunmen on Saturday seized the Slavyansk police station and later occupied the city's SBU security service building.
The raids were accompanied by unconfirmed reports of police stations in other nearby cities in the heavily Russified east of the country also falling under gunmen's control.
Video footage aired on Ukrainian television showed gunmen opening fire on Saturday during a raid on a police station in the nearby town of Kramatorsk.
Ukraine's interior ministry had on Saturday denied that the Kramatorsk police station had also been taken by the armed separatists.
Avakov only said in his Facebook posting that "the people of Kramatorsk are unhappy with the actions of the invaders".
The east of Ukraine has been rocked by protests demanding that the region stage referendums on joining Kremlin rule similar to the one that led to Crimea's annexation by Russia last month.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Now that the interim president of Ukraine has sent in the tanks and artillery, and a full-scale civil war has erupted, it’s unlikely that the Ukrainians will be able to vote in a few months, as scheduled, to choose a democratically elected president.
The interim president will declare martial law as the blood flows in the streets, and no elections will take place. The interim president will then become a permanent dictator until he decides to allow Ukraine’s eastern Russian-speaking provinces to choose through referendums whether they want to join Russia or remain in bloody, war-torn Ukraine under a dictator.
The interim president should allow such referendums to go forward now; he should have done so before he allowed the first tank to enter Ukrainian streets. And while the blood is flowing, the natural gas won’t be, as Russia is likely to cut of Ukraine’s supply through pipes that also supply Europe.
You really don't know what you are talking about.
“Russian destabilization forces where in Kiev a month or two ago”
Really?
US and Open Society Destabilization forces were in Kiev long before that. Problem is, the people they backed can’t govern.
Nobody’s buying any Moscow spin on this any more.
Without the heavily Russian Crimea, an antagonized Western and Central Ukraine will easily go anti-Russian next election. Eastern Ukraine will probably be suffer paid Kremlin agitprop until they start breaking away.
What you said that I said....
Why did you post falsely about what I said?
All I know is that it has become an axiom that whatever Obama and his gang are for, patriotic Americans should be against.
And we all know who Obama is for in this Ukrain mess.
From RT’s Live Blog:
Events in south-eastern Ukraine have taken a very dangerous turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Moscow slammed Sunday’s order, issued by the coup-imposed President Aleksandr Turchinov approving a full-scale security operation in the country’s eastern regions, as “criminal”.
“We demand the Maidan henchmen, who overthrew the legitimate president, to immediately stop the war against their own people, to fulfill all the obligations under the Agreement of 21 February,” the Foreign Ministry said.
It depends on the West now to stop the civil war in Ukraine, the ministry stressed.
“The Russian side calls the UN Security Council and the OSCE to urgently consider the crisis in south-east Ukraine,” Moscow concluded.
16:46 GMT:
Over 1, 000 people have gathered in central Slavyansk to protest for the federalization of Ukraine. They demand holding a referendum and to stop pressure on Donbas from Kiev. Protesters are chanting “Glory to Donbas”.
16:36 GMT:
A car with passengers was fired at and two were killed and one injured, said journalist Maxim Levin as cited by Interfax. An unconfirmed report suggests that a press card was found in the car. The injured person is in a serious condition and needs to be transported to Donetsk, Levin added.
16:35 GMT:
One man has been killed in Slavyansk near the hospital, medical officials told RIA Novosti. The man has not yet been identified. There have been unconfirmed reports in Ukrainian media that the man could be a journalist.
What a dingbat
At least someone has history correct.
These https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=df92b3Aozog are not locals. This means that Russia technically has invaded another country
What's pathetic is that if the thugs in Kiev had just let an election happen without doing anything dumb, they probably would've won. Why? Crimea's pro-Russian population wouldn't be voting in that election.
They've been a bunch of idiots since the first day or so when they banned Russian as an official language.
You are hopelessly uninformed. There is no popular support for uniting with Russia in Eastern Ukraine. 65 percent are opposed to Russia's aggression, even in the East. These "protestors" are pre-invasion forces sent from Russia with around 500 to 600 extremists recruited from across the country. Russia is invading Ukraine.
There would have been an election, but there would not have been a legitimate election, in May, with Yanukovych firmly in control. This was widely understood in most of Ukraine.
Parliament took over when Yanukovych & cronies fled. Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov was voted as interim President by the ELECTED Parliament. Who was unelected?
Note these sections (excerpts) from the statement by Yanukovych own “Party of Regions” (approx. Feb. 23):
“Now Ukraine is living through one of the most difficult and tragic periods in its history,” the faction said in a statement. “The country finds itself deceived and robbed, but even this is nothing in comparison with the grief that dozens of Ukrainian families, who have lost their relatives, are feeling. Ukraine has been betrayed. Viktor Yanukovych and his team are responsible for this.”
“We, the Party of Regions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and our party members, strongly condemn the criminal orders that led to human losses, to the depletion of the state treasury and the drastic debt increase that shamed the government in the eyes of Ukrainians and the rest of the world. As a result, our country found itself on the edge of a precipice, faced the threat of break-up and loss of national sovereignty. The president failed to heed our advise when it was given to him,” the Party of Regions says.
“We condemn the cowardly flight of Viktor Yanukovych. We condemn the betrayal on his part. We condemn the criminal orders, which exposed common people, soldiers and officers to certain risks”
If anything was unelected, it was Yanukovych massive gathering of power and money to himself.
It’s pretty clear just by observing it that this “operation” by Putin has been planned and organized for at least a year, if not more.
I’m sure some areas in the cities in the East are heavily pro-Russian, but you are correct - there is NO data to support the idea that the entire eastern 3rd of Ukraine wants to secede & join Russia.
It’d be VERY interesting to see results on the equivalent of a precinct by precinct breakdown of where the strongest pro-Russian support is. (Forget ethnicity: Go by population density, economic status, crime rates, and so on — everything we would use to determine a blighted city area here.)
I’d be willing to bet the support for joining Russia comes primarily from exactly the same sort of neighborhoods that vote heavily Dem here. One difference though: I’ve seen nothing to indicate that the majority of the intellectual community in Eastern Ukraine wants to join Russia.
um.... because these seperatists are threatening the territorial integrity of Ukraine, are backed by a imperialist Russia, and are threatening violence against those who don’t support them. Completely unlike the Kiev protestors.
actually, im not sure... granted i haven’t listened to anything Obumhole has said recently.
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