Putin’s Warlords vs. Ukraine’s Presidential Ballot Vladimir Putin appears determined to disrupt the May 25th presidential elections in Ukraine. The dictator and his warlords have already gone on a rampage in eastern Ukraine’s Putinstans: they control two cities, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and occupy administrative buildings in several others. Their efforts to destabilize Ukraine will continue, but Putin’s warlords will likely share the fate of terrorists the world over and fail to stifle the people’s voice. In the absence of a full-scale war, the elections will take place, they will be fair and free, the international community will recognize them as such, and they will move Ukraine along the road to democracy. After all, Ukrainians want to vote and Kyiv wants them to vote. According to a recent poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, “Despite the fact that 64 percent of respondents believe Russia will try to disrupt or discredit the May 25 presidential election, an overwhelming 84 percent said they either will or are likely to vote. Although enthusiasm for the presidential election is highest in the west (91 percent) and center (92 percent), a majority in all regions say they either will or are likely to vote, 79 percent in the east and 62 percent in the south.” As Russia tries to stop a genuinely democratic, internationally recognized, fair and free ballot, it risks what little reputation it has left. No one, anywhere, will be able to hang on to the illusion that Putin’s fascistoid regime is a constructive force—for peace, for democracy, or, indeed, for anything that normal, decent human beings could support. Even German business may have to agree that Putin’s Russia is a nasty piece of work. Putin and his warlords must resort to terrorism precisely because they have so little support among the people they claim to be liberating from the “fascists” in Kyiv. According to the IRI poll: Despite Russian propaganda and the claims of pro-Russia militants that Russian-speaking citizens need protection from Moscow, an overwhelming majority of respondents (85 percent) oppose Moscow sending troops to protect Russian-speaking citizens. This overwhelming majority opposed to Russian intervention extends to every region (97 percent, west; 94 percent, center; 69 percent, east; 75 percent, south), to all age groups (18–29 year olds, 85 percent; 30–49 year olds, 85 percent; 50 and older, 85 percent), and to men and women (men, 84 percent; women, 86 percent). In addition, 68 percent of Russian-speaking citizens oppose military intervention by Moscow…. When asked if it was necessary for the Russian military to come into eastern and/or southern Ukraine to protect Russian speakers and ethnic Russians, an overwhelming majority (88 percent) said no. That majority was seen across all regions of the country, 98 percent in the west, 95 percent in the center, 73 percent in the east, and 86 percent in the south. Lacking popular support in Ukraine, Putin’s warlords will do what terrorists do: seize buildings, promote anti-Semitism, imprison and kill opposition leaders, attack Roma and other minorities, take neutral observers and journalists hostage, and abuse the population of whichever cities or towns they terrorize. One especially brutal terrorist, the warlord of the Sloviansk Putinstan, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, recently told a female journalist the following: “We’ll adopt all necessary measures to prevent elections in the southeast from taking place. We’ll take someone prisoner and hang him by his balls. Got it?” It was Ponomaryov’s terrorist pals who, under the leadership of the Russian intelligence officer Igor Strelkov, took hostage a group of OSCE military inspectors on April 25th. Although Putin and his slippery foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will tell the world that the warlords have the support of the people, no one will believe them. Just as no one believes that al-Qaeda or the Taliban represent the people. Indeed, as Putin’s terror bands operate in Ukraine ahead of the elections, expect policymakers, journalists, and, most important, residents of the terrorized regions to reach the obvious conclusion: that Putin and his warlords are depriving the people of their voice, their livelihoods, and their lives. Once that connection is made, watch eastern Ukrainian sentiment turn decisively against Putin. Ukrainians will be determined to vote precisely because Putin and his warlords want them not to vote. Watch Putin’s supporters in Russia scratch their heads and wonder why they voted for a loose cannon. Putin doesn’t know it yet, but his criminal decision to set up Putinstans could herald his own demise. Is it possible that Putin’s terror will disrupt or shut down the elections? Why should it? Elections take place in extreme circumstances all the time. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the best efforts of terrorists and warlords, Iraqis and Afghanis regularly go to the polls, thereby rebuffing warmongers and violence peddlers. Ukraine need only make sure its elections are fair and free—and with the good-faith effort of the democratic government in Kyiv and the technical assistance of the United States, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the May 25th ballot will be fair and free and the people’s choice will be legitimate. Putin will insist that the poll was illegitimate. But he’s been saying that all along, so why would anyone expect him to change his tune—especially after he’s been exposed as a sponsor of terrorism? Besides, who cares what he says? How many people heed the pronouncements of Kim Jong-un and Bashar al-Assad on human rights and democracy? So why listen to a fascistoid dictator who supports terrorism and warlordism? Why listen to the Kremlin’s illegitimate ruler rant and rave about the illegitimacy of a democratic process? Remember: It’s not a democratic ballot in Ukraine that Putin fears most. It’s a democratic ballot—period. http://worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/putin%E2%80%99s-warlords-vs-ukraine%E2%80%99s-presidential-ballot
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Donetsk blogger: attack on Ukrainian rally was attack by russian nazis upon Ukrainians for being UkrainianA blogger shares a powerful realization after witnessing the brutal beatings of participants of a peaceful pro-Ukraine rally in Donetsk by pipe wielding pro-Russian/Russian thugs on April 28. The clincher was when he read the story in a major Russian paper, with the headline claiming that it was Ukrainian nationalists who attacked an anti-fascist rally…. THANK YOU FOR THE LESSON At this point I won’t describe what took place today in Donetsk, you can see this in video, photos, and the news. I’ll only say one thing – that after these latest events, I am now convinced that Russia in fact has always wanted to destroy the Ukrainian nation, as claimed by Ukrainian nationalists. I confess, I doubted this before. I didn’t consider the Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people, even though I could understand why Yushchenko insisted on this version. I always held a more moderate view regarding relations with Russia than did the Ukrainian nationalists. But now, thanks to this lesson, I realize that I was mistaken. claimed by Ukrainian nationalists. I confess, I doubted this before. I didn’t consider the Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people, even though I could understand why Yushchenko insisted on this version. I always held a more moderate view regarding relations with Russia than did the Ukrainian nationalists. But now, thanks to this lesson, I realize that I was mistaken. After what I witnessed in the past few days, I no longer doubt that Russia hasn’t always fully intended to destroy us: by starving to death, by extermination, by assimilation – simply because of our Ukrainian origin. Now I have no doubt whatsoever, because I have seen with my own eyes, how they attacked [us] for displaying Ukrainian flags in Ukraine. Now I understand how this happened earlier – in the 30’s, 40‘s, 50’s in the USSR. I couldn’t really imagine this before, but now that I have actually witnessed it myself, I now believe. Now I know that there is not a word of truth about the Banderivtsi in Soviet history. I understand how they were made up to be monsters, how they were slandered, because I can see living evidence of this before my very eyes. I see how Russia lies now, and I understand that it lied always. That everything written about Ukraine in Russian books, portrayed in Russian film are lies and slander. If now they can manage to lie in the age of the internet , when all information is on the web, then what’s to question about the 30’s and 40’s . ITAR-TASS wrote that in Donetsk, Ukrainian nationalists attacked an anti-fascist demonstration. During their Ukrainian rally today in Donetsk, there was no one speaking in Ukrainian . There were no other flags except for the Ukrainian flag. This was not a confrontation on the grounds of fascist vs anti-fascist, even in the distorted use of the terms by Russia. This was an attack by Russian nazis upon Ukrainians for being Ukrainian. Ethnic cleansing. http://euromaidanpr.com/2014/04/30/donetsk-blogger-attack-on-ukrainian-rally-was-attack-by-russian-nazis-upon-ukrainians-for-being-ukrainian-ethnic-cleansing/
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ruϟϟian nazis thugs in Donetsk
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Kerry: Taped phone calls show Russia directing Ukraine unrestposted at 8:41 am on April 29, 2014 by Ed Morrissey Alternate headline: Second look at the NSA? In a closed-door meeting last Friday, John Kerry claimed that Western intel had captured telephone conversations that prove Russia has directed the separatist groups in eastern Ukraine in their campaign to destabilize the country. Some of the handlers are the same as in Crimea, Kerry claimed in the meeting, which Josh Rogin and Eli Lake exclusively report for The Daily Beast: “Intel is producing taped conversations of intelligence operatives taking their orders from Moscow and everybody can tell the difference in the accents, in the idioms, in the language. We know exactly who’s giving those orders, we know where they are coming from,” Kerry said at a private meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Washington. A recording of Kerry’s remarks was obtained by The Daily Beast. Kerry didn’t name specific Russian officials implicated in the recordings. But he claimed that the intercepts provided proof of the Russians deliberately fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine—and lying about it to U.S. officials and the public. “It’s not an accident that you have some of the same people identified who were in Crimea and in Georgia and who are now in east Ukraine,” said Kerry. “This is insulting to everybody’s intelligence, let alone to our notions about how we ought to be behaving in the 21st century. It’s thuggism, it’s rogue state-ism. It’s the worst order of behavior.” … Kerry has asserted publicly before that Russian intelligence officers were the “catalyst” behind the riots and government building takeovers in eastern Ukraine. But on Friday he told the private audience why he—and the U.S. intelligence community—were so sure of this assessment. If so, then American intel has caught up after missing in its analysis of Crimea and Russia. Perhaps the Obama administration has also caught up with reality. After scolding the EU for its part in exacerbating the Ukraine crisis with its support for the Euromaidan protests, Kerry blasted Sergei Lavrov for being a big, fat, un-reset-button liar. If that paraphrase sounds undiplomatic, Kerry’s actual language wasn’t much less plain: “Right now there is not a negotiation; there is a confrontation. I’m sad to report I’ve never seen such a complete, miserable, unaccountable, disgraceful walk away from a set of promises and understandings than what has taken place,” Kerry said. ““I’ve had six conversations with Lavrov in the last weeks. The last one was kafta-esque, it was other planet, it was just bizarre. Nobody is better at telling you that red is blue and black is white… That’s what we are dealing with.” Well … yes. That’s what Obama administration critics have said since the Reset Button fiasco five years ago. That’s what we said when Obama unilaterally canceled the missile shield program in eastern Europe, too, and pretty much what we’ve said about Russia all along. For those five years, Obama’s critics were called a bunch of revanchists and Cold War obsessives. Talk about Kafka-esque. Welcome to the non-Metamorphosis of Moscow, Obama administration Russophiles! What does Russia have to say for itself? A Lavrov deputy waggled the finger of shame at Europe for its “Iron Curtain” sanctions. No, seriously: Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said “Iron Curtain”-style US sanctions could harm its hi-tech sector. Moscow also said the EU should be ashamed of extending its sanctions and was “under Washington’s thumb”. … He added: “This is a revival of a system created in 1949 when Western countries essentially lowered an ‘Iron Curtain’, cutting off supplies of hi-tech goods to the USSR and other countries.” A Russian foreign ministry statement said the EU was “doing Washington’s bidding with new unfriendly gestures towards Russia”. It added: “If that is how someone in Brussels is hoping to stabilise the situation in Ukraine, then it is a clear indication of a complete lack of understanding of the interior political situation in the country… Are you not ashamed?” Russian forces seized Crimea, staged a phony plebiscite, and Russian-directed forces are doing the same thing in eastern Ukraine … and it’s Europe that should be ashamed. I’d mention Kafka again here, but this is less shocking for those who didn’t think that centuries of Russian imperialism and Soviet-style propaganda ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, especially with a former KGB lieutenant colonel setting himself up as tsar. http://hotair.com/archives/2014/04/29/kerry-taped-phone-calls-show-russia-directing-ukraine-unrest/
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ruϟϟian nazis thugs return shields to Donetsk police - "as we promised while borrowing them" 
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Maxim Eristavi @MaximEristavi
Multiply reports on the ground that Donetsk police stood by as pro-ruϟϟia separatists attacked pro-Ukraine demo w baseball bats, iron rots
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A pro-Ukraine rally in Donetsk. 
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Third corpse found in Sloviansk
Police in Donetsk Oblast found a third dead body in Sloviansk with signs of torture. The body was found on a river bank just outside the city, in the same spot where two other bodies were found on April 19. “In the exact same place a new body has surfaced,” an official of the Donetsk press service told Interfax-Ukraine. On April 19, the bodies of local councilman Volodymyr Rybak and 19-year-old Kyiv Polytechnic Institute student Yuriy Popravko were discovered there, with signs of torture. The men's stomachs were slit open, and police said they were still alive when they were dumped into the river. -- Katya Gorchinskaya http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/live-updates-violence-spreads-to-kyiv-as-kharkiv-mayor-shot-in-critical-condition-345410.html
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ruϟϟian terrorists seized administrative building in Konstantinovka 
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Kharkiv rally today: NO Putin, NO ruϟϟia! Glory to Ukraine!  |
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Security Service of Ukraine releases conversation of terrorists who killed deputy – VIDEO with subs  The Security Service has released an audio recording of conversations concerning the murder of Volodymyr Rybak, Deputy of Horlivka City Council. As reported, it is the group under so-called ‘Shooter’, which operates in Donetsk Oblast, and a citizen of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant Colonel of the National Intelligence Agency (GRU) Igor Bezler. It was established that on 17 April 2014, Bezler (call sign BES – Devil) set the self-proclaimed chief of police the task of neutralizing Rybak, who was trying to raise the national flag on the Horlivka Regional State Administration building. Simultaneously, Bezler gave orders to a member of his group, a military officer of the Russian Federation, to kidnap Rybak, put him in a car, and take him to a specified place, where measures of physical coercion would be applied to him. Bezler planned to personally go to the place where Rybak would be detained. Then, following Shooter’s (Igor Strelkov) orders, Rybak was taken to the headquarters of separatists in Sloviansk, where he personally had to talk to Igor Strelkov. It was also established that on 20 April 2014 Strelkov personally gave instructions to Ponomariov, the self-proclaimed mayor of Sloviansk, to take the body of murdered Rybak away from headquarters; the order was carried out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6zACg4uAjATranscript: Orders to seize Rybak: Bezler: “Alf, listen to me, go inside the city executive committee. There Rybak is on a rampage. There, people are trying to restrain him somehow.” Bezler: “Look, squeeze and press him for a bit, put him in your car, and take him somewhere far away. And then stop the car and tell me where I should come. Understood? Come on!” Bezler: “Do not hang up! Guys, take him, we need to pack him up and take him away.” Bezler: “When packing – tie his hands, tie him so hard that no eyes, so that he can’t see anything.” Order of Russian special operations soldier Strelkov to self-proclaimed mayor of Sloviansk Ponomariov concerning measures to bury the body: Strelkov: “Slava, please, settle the matter with the stiff. So that he is quickly dragged away from us today. Why should he be lying here and stinking … “ Ponomaryov: “With the corpse? Yes, yes, just a moment. I am now finishing with journalists and will do it straight away” Ponomaryov: “There guys caught… they will take … to you with … there to the basement … “ Ponomaryov: “And now I will go quickly and settle the issue of burying this [prison] bitch.” Strelkov: “Come on, good.” At a briefing earlier, Marina Ostapenko, spokeswoman of the Security Service of Ukraine, appealed to the people of Sloviansk, asking them not to support terrorists. Source: Ukrayinska Pravda (includes audio) www.pravda.com.ua/news/2014/04/24/7023486 |
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Second body in Slovyansk identified as Kyiv student  The second tortured and murdered person whose body was found in the waters of Slovyansk has been identified. He was Yuriy Popravko, a student at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, reported KPI Rector Mykhaylo Zhurovskyy on his VKontakte page. “To our great sorrow, our worst fears have been confirmed,” he wrote. “A student at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in the Department of Sociology and Law, Yuriy Popravko, has died tragically. His body with signs of torture was found in the river near Slovyansk, Donetsk Oblast, together with the body of deputy Vitaliy Rybak. We express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Yuriy. May his memory be eternal.” Zhurovsky said. Earlier, Channel 5 reported that the 19-year-old activist of Euromaidan had disappeared and could be held by terrorists in the East. His mother said that Yuriy, together with friends, went to see his girlfriend in Kharkiv on April 16. Afterwards there was no further contact with him. Yuriy’s girlfriend, Dasha, who is studying in Kharkiv confirmed that he came to see her with his friends and the next day left for parts unknown. The mother thought that possibly the boy was being held captive by militants in Slovyansk. She added that when she called her son’s phone, she was told that the boy had died but that his phone was being kept to “locate friends.” As has been reported, two bodies with signs of torture were found in the river Torets near the village Rayhorodok in the Donetsk Oblast. One of those killed turned out to be the deputy of the Horlivka City Council and a member of the Batkivshchyna Party, Volodymyr Rybak. Source: http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2014/04/25/7023646 |
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