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

Violence flares in Ukraine, deepening 'Iron Curtain' crisis

Lugansk (Ukraine) (AFP) - Fresh violence erupted in eastern Ukraine Tuesday as thousands of pro-Russian protesters stormed key buildings, escalating the crisis after Moscow hit back at "Iron Curtain"-style Western sanctions.

A mob spearheaded by around 30 men carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenade-launchers attacked the regional police headquarters in Lugansk, raising the heat in the worst East-West confrontation since the Cold War.

They had earlier seized the regional prosecutors' office, tearing down the Ukrainian flag and replacing it with that of Russia, which the West blames for stoking the violence in the ex-Soviet Republic.

More than a dozen towns and cities in the east have now fallen to pro-Russian rebels, who see the Western-backed leaders in Kiev as illegitimate "fascists" and want either independence or outright accession to Russia.

"It's good what the young people are doing. We don't want this Nazi junta that has seized power in Kiev. We don't recognise them. I want my children and grand-children to grow up in Russia," one retired engineer told AFP as he surveyed the violence in Lugansk.

As police failed to quell the violence and in some cases stood by, interim president Oleksandr Turchynov lashed out at what he called "inaction" and in some case "treachery" by law enforcement bodies on the ground.

He urged "Ukrainian patriots" in the region to sign up for police duty to counter the pro-Moscow insurgency that threatens to tear his country apart.

The latest unrest in Lugansk followed Monday's terrifying scenes in nearby Donetsk, where pro-Russian thugs armed with baseball bats, knives and fireworks attacked a pro-Ukrainian demonstration, wounding several in what Washington's ambassador to Ukraine called "terrorism, pure and simple".

- Boomerang -

As the situation on the ground descended further into chaos, the war of words between Moscow and the West continued, with Russia saying the United States was resorting to "Iron Curtain" policies with its new sanctions unveiled on Monday.

"Sanctions are always a boomerang which come back and painfully hit those who launch them," said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, according to the Interfax news agency on a visit to Crimea, which Russia annexed in March.

On a visit to Russia's Cold War ally Cuba, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the sanctions lacked "all common sense".

US moves to restrict high-tech exports to Russia appeared to cause particular fury, with Rogozin warning Washington was "exposing their astronauts on the ISS".

The International Space Station is operated jointly by Russia, the United States, Europe, Japan and Canada.

Astronauts and cosmonauts depend on Russian Soyuz rockets to ferry them between it and Earth, ever since NASA scrapped its space shuttles in 2011.

View galleryA woman holds a Christian Orthodox icon of the Virgin …
A woman holds a Christian Orthodox icon of the Virgin Mary as pro-Russian activists break into the r …
A Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said in an interview with online newspaper Gazeta.ru that the US curb on high-tech exports was a "blow".

"This is a revival of a system created in 1949 when Western countries essentially lowered an 'Iron Curtain', cutting off supplies of high-tech goods to the USSR and other countries," he said.

Moscow also lashed out at the European Union for "doing Washington's bidding" as the bloc included General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces and the country's deputy defence minister, on a list of 15 Russians and Ukrainians targeted by an asset freeze and travel ban.

And it vowed that Japan's decision to deny visas for 23 Russian nationals "will not be left without a response".

The EU and Japanese blacklists are part of a G7 sanctions assault started by Washington on Monday with measures announced against seven Russian officials and 17 companies close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

- 'Downward spiral of violence' -

As the EU's top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, voiced alarm at "the downward spiral of violence and intimidation" in Ukraine, fears persisted of an imminent Russian invasion.

View galleryA Pro-Russian activist in military fatigues holds a …
A Pro-Russian activist in military fatigues holds a wooden bat as others break into the regional adm …
NATO said there were no indications that the tens of thousands of troops massed on the Ukrainian were pulling back, as announced by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in a telephone conversation with his US counterpart Chuck Hagel.

Shoigu reiterated that Moscow had no plans to invade its neighbour and urged Washington to dial down its rhetoric over the crisis.

But Hagel called for an end to Russia's "destabilising influence inside Ukraine" and warned more pressure would be applied if it continued.

Hagel also asked for Moscow's help in securing the release of the seven OSCE inspectors held by pro-Russian militants in Slavyansk.

The local rebel leader in Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, said "good progress" was being made in negotiations with the OSCE to free the men. But an OSCE negotiator gave a firm "no comment" to reporters.

The secretary general of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Lamberto Zannier, was in Kiev to supervise the tractions.

Kiev's soldiers are surrounding Slavyansk in a bid to prevent reinforcements reaching militants there.

The fresh Western sanctions are a response to Russia's perceived failure to implement an April 17 deal struck in Geneva to defuse the crisis by disarming militias and having them vacate occupied public buildings.

"Russia has so far failed to implement any part of the Geneva agreement," said British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who plans to visit Ukraine as well as Moldova and Georgia next week.

Among those targeted by the US sanctions is the president of Rosneft, Russia's top petroleum company and one of the world's largest publicly traded oil companies.

The EU said talks with Russia and Ukraine will take place in Warsaw Friday to try to resolve a $3.5-billion gas bill Gazprom calculates Kiev owes. Putin has threatened to cut off the gas flow to Ukraine if it is not quickly paid.

Ukraine and EU countries dependent on Russian gas, meanwhile, were worried Moscow's reprisals could hit the vital energy supply.

The crisis has accelerated since February, when Ukraine's Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych was forced to flee after months of increasingly bloody mass street protests by pro-Western demonstrators.

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"Sanctions are always a boomerang which come back and painfully hit those who launch them,"... "exposing their astronauts on the ISS".

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texx1 said:

View attachment 9561

This is the current NATO Air force deployment in response to developments in Ukraine .

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Moscow Closes Okhotsk Sea to Outsiders

In a move that both exacerbates international conflicts in the Western Pacific and suggests how Moscow plans to proceed in the Arctic, Russian President Vladimir Putin has closed to all outside shipping and fishing the entire Sea of Okhotsk — some 52,000 square kilometers of water that had been open to other countries for fishing and deep-water exploration.

Putin took this step after Russia secured international recognition of Moscow’s claim that the Russian continental shelf extends under the entire seabed of that body of water under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Putin told the Russian Security Council that “ our experts — based on scientific data — found weighty arguments that testified about the incontestable right of Russia to this area. Consequently, the Plenum of [the UN commission] agreed with our conclusions and formulated the corresponding recommendations” (ng.ru/nvoevents/2014-04-25/2_news.html).

Moscow has long been seeking this decision, and its victory means that Russia will now be able to invoke international law to block all other countries from fishing or engaging in any other activities, including seabed prospecting and mining. Despite the fact that it has attracted only minimal attention in the West — although it has been the focus of much concern in Japan and China — this new decision is extremely important for at least five critical reasons.

First, it closes a major fishing area to Japan and China, depriving them of an important harvest and forcing them to compete even more intensively elsewhere in the Western Pacific where tensions between the two Asian powers have been growing. Indeed, those tensions are now so great that US Secretary of State John Kerry felt compelled to tell Japan that the United States will ensure the security of its land territory (RT, February 7). But Kerry’s statement did not address an even more critical issue in Japan: China’s and now Russia’s imposition of economic exclusion zones in the oceans. To counter that, Tokyo presently feels compelled to build a larger navy (japanfocus.org, April 28), and some in Japan may even feel the need to develop a nuclear capacity.

Second, the expansive Russian claim on the Sea of Okhotsk will only further embolden China to make claims in the oil-rich South China Sea, claims that are already sparking conflict between Beijing, on the one hand, and Tokyo and Washington, on the other. China will certainly invoke the Okhotsk decision in order to secure its own Law of the Sea (LOS) sanctions.

Third, Putin’s announcement that Russia will close the Sea of Okhotsk raises the stakes over Moscow’s even more expansive claims in the Arctic Ocean. Moscow argues much of the Arctic seabed is part of Russia’s continental shelf, including regions hundreds of miles from the shoreline of the Russian Federation, and thus should be recognized as a Russian exclusion zone (RIA Novosti, April 29). Putin’s comments on Moscow’s plans for the Sea of Okhotsk suggest that the Kremlin leader would be prepared to do just that.

Given global warming, which is opening up the High Arctic to transit and exploration, the near certainty that the seabed there contains significant deposits of oil, gas and other minerals, as well as rapidly improving technology for extracting this natural wealth, such a Russian move would trigger new conflicts between Russia and the other Arctic powers, potentially including the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and even China — which sees itself as a member of that group even though it has no Arctic coastline.

The likelihood of that was only increased by Putin’s comments at the time of his announcement of the Okhotsk decision. He said that Russian exploration for and exploitation of wealth below the surface of the Arctic Sea must be “ reliably defended from terrorists and other potential threats ” and that the country’s security agencies, including the Ministry of Defense and the Federal Security Service (FSB), among others, must develop a joint program to that end. Putin specifically called for the creation of “ a single system of basing of [Russian] submarines and surface ships ” there to do the job (kremlin.ru, April 22).

Fourth, Putin’s plans to give military content to Russia’s claims over enormous areas of adjoining oceans not only sets the stage for conflicts with other powers now but will require Moscow to dramatically increase its naval ship-building effort. Given the length of time between the design of a ship, the laying of the keel, and launch, the Sea of Okhotsk comments are an indication of just how far-reaching Putin’s plans now are — even more aggressive and expansionist than many analysts currently focused on Ukraine have thought.

And fifth — and of particular importance for the US — the Sea of Okhotsk decision calls attention to Moscow’s clever use of those international institutions where it has advantages in some cases because the US is not present: While more than 160 countries have signed and ratified the LOS convention, the US has not. As a result, Washington did not have a seat at the table on this decision and could not block or even modify it. The US is now beginning to pay a heavy price for that.

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Franklin said:

The Russians have closed parts of the Okhotsk Sea to foreigners that was previously open to them. This is technically not a Ukranian related issue but in my view does play a part in the much larger geo-political game that Russia is now playing. The Russians are now increasingly active in the far east as well. We have already seen the increase of military activities in the north of Japan from Russia in recent days in the form of Bears fly overs. In my view we should take a interest in what the Russians are doing in the Far East as well. Its getting increasingly interesting there.

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delft said:

This is a pretty daft article and in a way a joy to read. It suggests that Japan might increase its military, including possibly acquiring nuclear weapons, to arm itself against juridical developments. It suggests that by ratifying the Law of the Sea convention the US with its single vote among 160 other members might have prevented Russia winning this Sea of Okhotsk decision. Just two items ....

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delft said:

The Dutch daily "Financiele Dagblad" contains today an article about concern for the economic damage the sanctions against Russia will do to the Dutch economy.

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The «anti-terrorist operation» announced by the Kiev-based regime to quell the protests in the south-eastern parts of Ukraine is unpopular in the army.

The local police units in the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov and other south-eastern cities refused to take action after the administrative buildings were captured by Donbass protesters. In response acting Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov ordered to start the formation of new police units across the whole country.

They should be trained for punitive actions. Billionaire Igor Kolomoisky, a citizen of Israel appointed governor of Dnepropetrovsk region by the Kiev interim regime, promised cash rewards for the capture of protesters.

The army is also involved into the operations in Donbass. Reservists began to dodge their duty and even switch sides from the very beginning. For instance, on April 11 the soldiers of Alfa security service special operations unit refused to assault administrative buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk captured by local people.

One of commanding officers said, «We’ll act in strict accordance with the law. Our unit is created for the mission of liberating hostages and fight against terrorism». On April 24, the unit did not join combat as another attempt to re-capture the building was undertaken.

On April 14 the soldiers of the 25th airborne brigade deployed near Slavyansk switched sides to join the people’s militia. There was internal revolt in the 93th mechanized brigade based in Cherkassy, the Dnepropetrovsk region.

Reservists called for 10-days active duty account for the major part of army personnel used for the mission of putting the protests down. The mobilization plans have failed, so the age limit for people to be called for active duty has been increased to 55 years.

The employees are to hold reservists’ jobs for two weeks, but they are kept on active duty for over a month. Many of them lose employment and have no means to care about their families.

In some unites they are made to sign long-term active duty contracts. Due to lack of money their everyday life conditions are not up to par, many a time they are not even provided food rations.

Many military units taking part in the operation are based in the city of Izium, the Kharkov region. There are cases of plundering committed by servicemen. Often military just take food away from local population.

There was a failed attempt to re-take Slavyansk when Ukrainian servicemen stole away all the food for militia’s block posts. But Kiev turns a blind eye to the needs of its military as well as the people of Donbass.

The authorities said the 25-th brigade servicemen who gave in their weapons to «terrorists» in Slavyansk will face trial. Chairman of the Lustration Committee under the Junta’s Cabinet of Ministers Yegor Sobolev said every commanding officer of Alfa who refused to carry out orders during the Slavyansk operation should face dishonorable discharge from service.

Having failed to make the military shoot at their own people, the Kiev interim rulers and their stooges like Kolomoisky, for instance, use the neo-Nazi Pravy Sector forces of execution for the mission of countering the people’s protests.

They opened fire at the soldiers of the 93th brigade during the revolt. Andrey Kiselev, a young conscript assigned to the 25th airborne brigade, was killed by Pravy Sector militants in the Dnepropetrovsk airport. His murder is a real tragedy.

According to formal version, he was scared after an accidental discharge to the ground. Being afraid to face responsibility for the random shot, he committed a suicide. But before that he had made a call to parents to say he was to be killed for refusal to fire at people. Now the parents want justice but they are haunted by special services, military prosecutors and the military.

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The eight captured men in the Ukrainian city Slaviansk are not OSCE observers, affirmed OSCE official Claus Neukirch. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Monday, to discuss Moscow’s possibilities to intervene on behalf of the 4 German, 1 Danish, 1 Polish, 1 Czech and 1 Swedish soldiers who were arrested in civilian clothing, in a vehicle displaying the OSCE name. The men are being accused of espionage.

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