2014 Ukrainian Maidan Revolt: News, Views, Photos & Videos

TerraN_EmpirE said:

I am reminded of a Story of a force of European Peacekeepers in Africa who were literally stripped of there gear arms and vehicles. They even took the Uniforms.

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Three dead in east Ukraine, Putin warns of 'abyss'
Photo
4:52pm BST
By Aleksandar Vasovic and Alexei Anishchuk
MARIUPOL, Ukraine/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Separatists attacked a Ukrainian national guard base overnight and Kiev said three of them were killed, the worst bloodshed yet in a 10-day pro-Russian uprising, accompanied by tough words from Vladimir Putin that overshadowed crisis talks.
Ukrainian, Russian and Western diplomats arrived for the emergency meeting in Geneva, but there was little hope of any progress in resolving a confrontation that has seen armed pro-Russian fighters seize whole swathes of Ukraine while Moscow masses tens of thousands of troops on the frontier.
The Russian president, who overturned decades of post-Cold War diplomacy last month by declaring Russia had a right to intervene in neighbouring countries and annexing Ukraine's Crimea region, accused the authorities in Kiev of plunging the country into an "abyss".
Kiev fears he will use any violence as a pretext to launch an invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.
"Instead of realising that there is something wrong with the Ukrainian government and attempting dialogue, they made more threats of force ... This is another very grave crime by Kiev's current leaders," Putin said in a televised question-and-answer session with the Russian public that has become an annual event.
"I hope that they are able to realise what a pit, what an abyss the current authorities are in and dragging the country into," said Putin, who stressed what he called his right to use military force while still saying he preferred dialogue.
At the Ukrainian national guard headquarters in Mariupol there was clear evidence the building had come under attack.
A grey police jeep was inside the compound on Thursday morning with broken windows, flat tyres and bent doors. The gates of the compound had been flattened. There were shell casings outside the gates and several unused petrol bombs.
"They came here around 8:15 p.m., demanding that we surrender our weapons and join the people. There were some women with them, but then they left," said police Major Oleksandr Kolesnichenko, deputy commander of the base.
"Then they used a truck to break through the gate. There was some incoming fire. I could not see who was shooting - it was dark," he said. "We fired first in the air. We fired warning shots after they entered the compound. We had no casualties. We are safe."
A separatist representative, who gave his name only as Sergei, said there had been a peaceful rally at the base.
"We had a peaceful rally to urge the police to join the people. The commander of the compound warned he would order troops to shoot to kill."
"Then there was shooting. Some people came with Molotov cocktails. We have verified that one person is dead and more than 10 wounded."
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said an armed group of about 300 separatists attacked the base with guns and petrol bombs. Three separatists were killed and 13 wounded, he said. No guardsmen were hurt.
The new deadly clash took place hours after a modest Ukrainian military operation to recapture territory elsewhere from armed pro-Russian rebels ended in disarray on Wednesday, with troops surrendering rather than open fire.
THE RIGHT TO USE FORCE
Putin's televised chat, in a talk show format with satellite link-ups with applauding audiences across Russia, lasted for several hours. His words were clearly directed both at a domestic audience and at a world still grappling with the implications of his new doctrine, which the West says dispenses with customary limits on the use of armed force.
The first questions were patched through from newly annexed Crimea, where hundreds of sailors, veterans and members of the public were lined up on the sea front in Sevastopol, headquarters of Russia's Black Sea fleet.
A self-confident Putin pointed to authorisation he secured in March from the mostly appointed upper house of parliament to use force in Ukraine, though he said he preferred negotiations.
"The Federation Council granted the president the right to use military force in Ukraine. I really hope that I do not have to exercise this right and that we are able to solve all today's pressing issues via political and diplomatic means," Putin said.
"We must do everything to help these people (in eastern Ukraine) defend their rights and independently determine their own destiny."
He also hinted at wider territorial ambitions, saying the people of Transdniestria, a pro-Russian separatist enclave in another ex-Soviet Republic, Moldova, should also be permitted to "determine their own destiny".
Transdniestria's separatists have been guarded by Russian troops since the early 1990s but Moscow has previously ignored their declaration of independence from Moldova. NATO has expressed concern about Russia's possible designs on the enclave since the Crimea crisis began.
Putin cast the Crimea annexation in explicitly geo-political terms, saying it was a response to the prospect that NATO could one day incorporate Ukraine and cut off Russia's access to its Black Sea Fleet. Previously the operation had been justified solely as reflecting the will of Crimea's residents.
He also acknowledged for the first time that Russian troops had played a direct role in Crimea, assisting local militia.
Putin's chat even featured a cameo appearance from Edward Snowden, the former U.S. security contractor given asylum in Russia after leaking information about surveillance by U.S. and British spy agencies. Snowden, patched in by video link, asked a question about Russian surveillance. Putin denied that Moscow carried out mass collection of citizens' data.
Pro-Russian militants control buildings in about 10 towns in eastern Ukraine after launching their uprising on April 6. In the biggest province in the region they have declared an independent "People's Republic of Donetsk".
In Kiev, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said he had little hope from the Geneva meeting.
"I don't have excessive expectations for the simple reason that I don't trust the Russian side," he told reporters. "Nothing they say corresponds to reality."
On Wednesday, an armoured column of Ukrainian paratroopers was humiliated in an attempt to retake some towns. Pro-Moscow separatists took control of some of their armoured vehicles and crowds surrounded another column, forcing the troops to hand over parts of their rifles and retreat.
Acting President Oleksander Turchinov said on Thursday the entire paratrooper brigade would now be disbanded and those who surrendered would be punished.
OBAMA WARNS OF CONSEQUENCES
So far, diplomacy has failed to keep up with events on the ground, with Russia's supporters seizing control of territory before Western countries can formulate a response.
Bloodshed has been limited so far, with two people killed on Sunday, including a member of the Ukrainian state security forces. Kiev says it is doing all it can to avoid any shooting.
The United States and European Union have so far imposed visa bans and asset freezes on a small number of Russian individuals, a response that Moscow has openly mocked. However, the Western states say they are now contemplating measures that could hurt Russia's economy more broadly.
Kiev and the West believe Russian agents are directing the insurgency, an accusation Putin dismissed as "rubbish".
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, repeating longstanding denials Moscow's agents were operating in Ukraine, nevertheless implied they might be there after all.
"As for allegations of the use of Russian special forces in Ukraine, all I can say is: it's hard to look for a black cat in a dark room. Especially if it's not there. It's especially silly if the cat is clever, brave and polite."
A U.S. official said Washington was looking for evidence in Geneva that Russia would stop supporting the militants.
"The idea here is that they would stop aiding and abetting and supporting these separatists and that they would pull their troops back from the borders," the official told reporters as Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Geneva.
(Additional reporting by Richard Balmforth in Kiev, Stephanie Nebehay, Arshad Mohammed and Catherine Koppel in Geneva, Christian Lowe and Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow and Jeff Mason in Washington; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Will Waterman and Giles Elgood)

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Putin admits Russian forces were deployed to Crimea
9:51am BST
MOSCOW, April 17 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said Russian forces had been active in Crimea in order to support local defence forces, the first time he has admitted deployment of Russian troops on the Black Sea peninsula.
"We had to take unavoidable steps so that events did not develop as they are currently developing in southeast Ukraine," Putin said in a televised call-in with the nation. "Of course our troops stood behind Crimea's self-defence forces."
(Reporting by Alexei Anischchuk; Additional repoting by Polina Devitt, Andrey Kuzmin; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Lidia Kelly)

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17 April 2014 Last updated at 13:17 ET
Ukraine crisis: Deal to 'de-escalate' agreed in Geneva
Russia, the US and the European Union have said that all sides have agreed to steps to "de-escalate" the crisis in Ukraine.
Their foreign ministers were speaking at the end of talks between Russia, Ukraine, the EU and US in the Swiss city of Geneva.
Analysts say the outline agreement could stay economic sanctions the West was preparing to impose on Russia.
Ukraine has been in crisis since the toppling of its pro-Moscow president.
Russia then annexed the Crimean peninsula - part of Ukraine but with a Russian-speaking majority population - in a move that provoked international outrage.
This was followed by the seizing of government buildings in eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian separatists opposed to the new order in the capital Kiev.
'Concrete steps'
Following the Geneva talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said there was agreement that all illegal military formations in Ukraine must be dissolved, and that everyone occupying buildings must be disarmed and leave them.
They added that there would be an amnesty for all anti-government protesters under the agreement.
These steps will be overseen by monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Mr Lavrov said the crisis must be settled by Ukrainians themselves and there must be long-term constitutional reforms.
Mr Kerry said the extent of the crisis had been highlighted in recent days by the "grotesque" sending of notices to Jews in eastern Ukraine, demanding that they register themselves as Jewish.
He praised the Ukrainian government for the restraint it had shown in the face of what he said was provocation from pro-Moscow elements.
Baroness Ashton said the agreement contained "concrete steps that can be implemented immediately".

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Less than a month after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, a further Russian incursion into eastern Ukraine remains a distinct possibility. President Vladimir Putin may be emboldened by the weakness of the central government in Kyiv and a failure so far of Western sanctions to enforce painful to consequences on Russia. Putin has had an invasion force assembled on Ukraine’s eastern border for nearly a month, and he may feel that he has sufficiently set the stage for an invasion with the seizure by armed, pro-Russian demonstrators of government buildings in three Ukrainian provinces. After all, that was the method used only weeks ago in Russia’s successful occupation of Crimea.

What type of an incursion might Russia make? A broad or a more limited invasion? Igor Sutyagin and Michael Clarke, scholars at the Royal United Services Institute, paints four possible scenarios:
• Russian troops on Ukraine’s border may be merely a threatening rattle of the Russian sabre. Russia has gotten Crimea and this military escalation is a way of forcing Ukraine to accept the new reality. This scenario is not very probable, Sutyagin and Clarke write, because Russian Interior Ministry troops have been put on high alert, suggesting that Moscow expects action along the border region.
• Russia may engineer civil unrest throughout southeastern Ukraine and use that as a pretext for opening a “secure land corridor to Crimea” from Russia, through Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces.
• Using separatist turmoil and a subsequent invasion, Russia might split Ukraine in two, seizing the entire country east of the Dnipro (Dnieper) River.
• Russia may seize southwestern Ukraine to create a separate, strategic land corridor between its occupation force in Crimea and its troops in the Moldovan enclave of Transnistria. This would include Kherson, Odessa and Mykolayiv provinces, as well as the seaport, Odessa.

Sutyagin and Clarke say Russia’s choice will rely on how it assesses the value of key resources in the Ukrainian provinces it could target. These include oil and gas fields, rich, food-producing farmlands, and strategically important arms factories.

With the annexation of Crimea, Russia’s state-controlled energy giant, Gazprom, has declared control of Ukraine’s offshore gas and oil fields in the Sea of Azov. If Russia seizes the eastern land corridor to Crimea, it would cut Ukraine off from that coastline, consolidating that claim.

That eastern corridor would help Russia supply Crimea by land, meeting its heavy dependency on basics such as food, 85 percent of which must come from the Ukrainian mainland.

While military imports from Ukraine are not particularly extensive, they are vital for strategic sectors of Russia’s defense complex and cannot immediately be replaced by Russian production. These imports include intercontinental ballistic missiles, missile guidance systems, gas turbine engines and gears, air force missiles and auxiliary systems as well as medium range air-to-air missiles. Ukraine also supplies natural uranium for Russia’s nuclear industry.

This Russian reliance on Ukraine’s defense industry may might increase Russia’s incentive to find a peaceful resolution in the Ukraine-Russia relationship, or, in light of recent events, propel Putin to grab these enterprises as part of a larger land grab.

May will be the critical month for Russia’s decision-making, say Sutyagin and Clarke. Ukrainian presidential elections are to take place on May 25. If they go well, that will diminish Putin’s claims to be acting in the humanitarian interests of Russian speakers living in Ukraine. Furthermore, come May Russian troops, which have been at readiness for nearly a month will be losing their combat effectiveness. Troops must either be deployed or stand down.

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Miragedriver said:

Reported by the Financial Times:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a press conference that he was ready to (officially and reluctantly) send troops to Eastern Ukraine if what he considers as the illegitimate government in Kiev continues its so far fumbling attempts to counter pro-Russian rebels with force. Putin brushes off talks of covert Russian meddling in Ukraine as "nonsense."


If Russia dose make a move it will have to be prior to the May 25th elections. Since, after that date he will not be able to contest the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government.

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