Forum > Ukrainian Front Discussion
The Fate of The DNR/LNR "Republics"
Boethius:
An article suggesting the LNR/DNR cannot survive as independent "republics".
http://medium.com/@Hromadske/ukraine-separatist-republics-wont-survive-on-their-own-d6c6f10ab741
I tend to agree, but they could become a no man's land for criminals.
AkMike:
--- Quote from: Boethius on November 18, 2014, 12:51:11 PM ---I tend to agree, but they could become a no man's land for criminals.
--- End quote ---
More so than now? :rolleyes:
Even though 'annexed' by Russia about 20% of the population hasn't been paid yet. Times aren't good there and will be worse in the future. Eastern area will follow suit as the 'tit runs dry' .
lordtiberius:
Its like looking for one honest man living in Soddom and Gomorrah
AkMike:
Donbas caught up in protests because of poverty and hunger
2014/11/18 • War in the Donbas EUROMAIDAN PRESS
A wave of social protests caught Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, which are being controlled by illegal armed formations. In Yenakiyevo mothers demanded social support for children, and in Sverdlovsk the popular assembly announced that 64 people had died of hunger. According to local volunteer, there is enough food in stores, however the people have no money to buy it.
Young mothers, pensioners, women who take care of children or disabled parents – these are the main participants of social protests in the cities of Donbas which are being controlled by pro-Russian mercenaries. These protests started throughout the past few days. People call them ‘hungry protests’ or ‘women’s rebellions.’ Women and children came forth, as they are convinced that pro-Russian mercenaries will not shoot at them.
Donetsk volunteer from civil organization Responsible Citizens Enrique Mendez says that while in Donetsk people receive aid from Rinat Akhmetov’s fund and at a small number of distribution points for Russian humanitarian aid, in small towns of Donbas the situation is much worse.
“It seems they managed to solve the problem with food distribution at a mass scale. Akhmetov’s Fund helped a lot. I live next to a distribution point of food packages from the humanitarian headquarters of this fund, I see the gigantic lines there each day, so really, a big number of people get this assistance. But there are small towns like Torez, Shakhtarsk, which this assistance does not reach. This problem is much worse. To be honest, I don’t understand very well how the humanitarian assistance from Russia is distributed,” the volunteer says.
Journalist: in Chervonopartyzansk 64 people dies of hunger
The main reason for social protests is the lack of social support, pensions, salaries the representatives of ‘LNR’ and ‘DNR’ had promised after the Ukrainian side suspended them, and hunger.
According to a Luhansk journalist, the popular assembly in Chervonopartyzansk on November 16 announced that 64 people had died of hunger, the oldest person was 95 years old. According to eyewitnesses, the so-called ‘commissioner’ of the town promised to the citizens that they would sell the humanitarian assistance they received from Russia and the money would be given to the people.
This is not the first time such machinations happen with Russian humanitarian assistance. “Pavel Dremov, the leader of cossacks in Stakhaniv, who are subordinate to Nikolay Kozitsyn, the leader of the ‘Don Army,’ stated at a meeting that Igor Plotnitsky (‘the head of the Council of Ministers of LNR’ – ed.) manipulated humanitarian aid. Something is given out, but it is almost nothing,” said the Luhansk journalist.
The protest wave was supported in neighboring Sverdlovsk. On November 17, a mass protest started in which, according to witnesses, about 2000 people had participated. The people gathered in front of the city executive committee. According to informator.lg.ua correspondent, the separatists in Sverdlovsk, which are there called ‘rebels,’ took the people’s side and started fighting against Russian cossacks, and during the meeting, the banner Sverdlovsk is Ukraine appeared, the people asked the Russian mercenaries to leave the city.
According to informator.lg.ua journalist, deaths of hunger were also documented in Rovenky, there is information that people are hungry in Lutuhine, Bryantsy, Horlivka. The biggest threat is to elderly, sick people who have no opportunity to leave the occupied territories for free Ukraine and re-register for pensions, as the Ukrainian government demands.
The situation in Antratsyt is also difficult. This city is controlled by the so-called ‘Great Don Army.’
Women in Yenakiyevo: “How do we explain to the children that there is nothing to eat?”
On November 17, a ‘female’ social protest happen in Yenakiyevo of Donetsk oblast. The mothers came to demand social support for children to the local ‘government.’ They were indignant that in Donetsk the ‘DNR’ had issued social support, and they have nothing to feed to their children.
Putin exemplifies Chechnya
Russian President Vladimir Putin blames the Ukrainian government for creating conditions for social protests.
“Remember our tragic events in the Caucasus, even on the worst days, months and years, we can say that we never stopped financing the Chechen Republic, we issued regular pensions and social dues, as well as budget subsidies. This looked somewhat foolish at first glance but we did it on account of moral obligations to the people. This played its positive part,” stated Putin.
Donetsk journalist, blogger Denys Kazansky thinks that pro-Russian mercenaries are fully responsible for hunger and lack of social welfare.
“Poland once had Auschwitz, but Poland is not responsible for it. Kyiv had Baby Yar, where Nazis killed thousands of Jews. This is not Ukraine’s fault and the USSR was not responsible for these crimes. The same way there is not an occupied territory where government was taken over by mercenaries. They completely abolished Ukrainian laws, tore down Ukrainian flags and coat-of-arms. Accordingly, they are the only ones responsible for what is happening there,” the journalist thinks.
He is convinced that there is a threat of armed invasion of pro-Russian forces with Russia’s support and encouragement of other Ukrainian territories outside of the ones they control today, it is dangerous for the rest of the country to create a rear for them.
“When you know that you have hungry people in the rear, for which you cannot provide by yourself and you know that if you take another city, the people will be hungry there as well, because all social support will stop there, the terrorist will think: is it worth going to Zaporizhya or Kharkiv or not, because he will understand that he cannot support them either,” notes Denys Kazansky.
As such, for the first time since Holodomor in 1932-1933 and the post-war hunger of 1945-1947, there are instances of mass deaths of hunger in Ukraine.
Donetsk volunteer from civil organization Responsible Citizens Enrique Mendez emphasizes that there is enough food for sale, but the people simply ended up in a situation when the stores have everything they need, but they have no money to buy it.
He is convinced that the Ukrainian government should find an effective mechanism to pay pensions, in particular to disabled elderly people who have no physical opportunity to leave the occupied territories.
http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/11/18/donbas-caught-up-in-protests-because-of-poverty-and-hunger/
Boethius:
This is a good piece by Chrystia Freeland. I don't agree with everything in the article, but ignoramuses I've read online who spout about "Novorossiya" and Russians "coming home" could learn something by reading this -
--- Quote ---While the linguistic factor is real, it is often oversimplified in several respects: Russian-speakers are by no means all pro-Putin or secessionist; Russian- and Ukrainian-speakers are geographically commingled; and virtually everyone in Ukraine has at least a passive understanding of both languages. To make matters more complicated, Russian is the first language of many ethnic Ukrainians, who are 78 percent of the population (but even that category is blurry, because many people in Ukraine have both Ukrainian and Russian roots). President Petro Poroshenko is an example — he always understood Ukrainian, but learned to speak it only in 1996, after being elected to Parliament; and Russian remains the domestic language of the Poroshenko family. The same is true in the home of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's prime minister. The best literary account of the Maidan uprising to date was written in Russian: Ukraine Diaries, by Andrey Kurkov, the Russian-born, ethnic Russian novelist, who lives in Kyiv.
In short, being a Russian-speaker in Ukraine does not automatically imply a yearning for subordination to the Kremlin any more than speaking English in Ireland or Scotland means support for a political union with England. As Kurkov writes in his Diaries: “I am a Russian myself, after all, an ethnically Russian citizen of Ukraine. But I am not 'a Russian,' because I have nothing in common with Russia and its politics. I do not have Russian citizenship and I do not want it.”
That said, it's true that people on both sides of the political divide have tried to declare their allegiances through the vehicle of language. Immediately after the overthrow and self-exile of Yanukovych, radical nationalists in Parliament passed a law making Ukrainian the sole national language — a self-destructive political gesture and a gratuitous insult to a large body of the population.
However, the contentious language bill was never signed into law by the acting president. Many civic-minded citizens also resisted such polarizing moves. As though to make amends for Parliament's action, within 72 hours the people of Lviv, the capital of the Ukrainian-speaking west, held a Russian-speaking day, in which the whole city made a symbolic point of shifting to the country's other language.
--- End quote ---
http://www.brookings.edu/research/essays/2015/myukraine
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version