EU - Ukraine Protests

[TS]

Lived in Urkaine.  When they had real protests were all over Ukraine.
I know for fact several of my wifes relatives are protesting in Kiev as their paid to protest.  Very cheap to pay, feed, and provide lodging for 100,000 protestors to protect your interests - less then 100 million usd per month.  But when you see protests all over the country then you know the people care.
 
 

[Muzh]

Lived in Urkaine.  When they had real protests were all over Ukraine.
I know for fact several of my wifes relatives are protesting in Kiev as their paid to protest.  Very cheap to pay, feed, and provide lodging for 100,000 protestors to protect your interests - less then 100 million usd per month.  But when you see protests all over the country then you know the people care.

Understood where you are coming from.

[Muzh]

Yesterday
 

[lordtiberius]

Tweets coming in reporting Berkut seize Fatherland HQ.  Carl Bilt condemns

[Muzh]

About 30 special unit police soldiers destroyed technical rooms of Batkivshina party. Servers stolen. Now office is free.

[mendeleyev]

I enjoyed the professors lecture however despite acknowledging his contributions to revival of Ukrainian culture I take an opposite view of Kuchma. He was just smart enough to have others do his dirty work. I had a lucrative offer during his administration to move to Kyiv. Ukraine was not a safe place for journalists and media types during his era so turned down the offer.

[mendeleyev]

Police open case charging coup attempt after Lenin toppled.

http://en.ria.ru/world/20131209/185387968/Ukrainian-Security-Services-Open-Coup-Attempt-Investigation.html

[Muzh]

Police open case charging coup attempt after Lenin toppled.

http://en.ria.ru/world/20131209/185387968/Ukrainian-Security-Services-Open-Coup-Attempt-Investigation.html

Heh
 
Just like the reported 'stolen' server at the Batkivschyna headquarters that they had to 'retrieve' in the middle of the night.
 
Let's see what else. Ah, yes. Suspect detained with a dozen eggs. Alleged hit man stalking the Prez.

[mendeleyev]

Suspect detained with a dozen eggs

Likely paid by us state department to carry the eggs. 

[mendeleyev]

From Sunday's Kyiv rally:

[Muzh]

Statement from the Office of Vice President Joe Biden:

In a phone call today with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Vice President Biden expressed his deep concern about the situation in Ukraine and the growing potential for violence.  The Vice President underscored the need to immediately de-escalate the situation and begin a dialogue with opposition leaders on developing a consensus way forward for Ukraine.  He noted that violence has no place in a democratic society and is incompatible with our strategic relationship.  The Vice President reaffirmed the strong support of the United States for Ukraine’s European aspirations and welcomed President Yanukovych’s commitment to maintaining this path.  He underscored the close alignment of the United States and the European Union, and welcomed the upcoming visits of EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and State Department Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland to Kyiv.

[LAman]

Yesterday
 

Looks like everyone was trying to catch the Metro at the same time........... 

[lordtiberius]

I enjoyed the professors lecture however despite acknowledging his contributions to revival of Ukrainian culture I take an opposite view of Kuchma. He was just smart enough to have others do his dirty work. I had a lucrative offer during his administration to move to Kyiv. Ukraine was not a safe place for journalists and media types during his era so turned down the offer.

I wonder why you would think that. 



With the passage of time comes progress.





Thank you for the feedback M.  Anyone want togo to Belarus?

[tfcrew]

Statement from the Office of Vice President Joe Biden:

  The Vice President underscored the need to immediately de-escalate the situation... 

Didn't work out on all that today...

Ukraine riot police enter central Kiev amid rumours of attack on square

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/09/ukraine-riot-police-kiev-square-klitschko

[Photo Guy]

From what I've read there are a lot of people traveling to Kyiv as we speak, from outlying areas. There are protests all over the country with at least one other statue of Lenin toppled. If this revolution fails, I believe Ukraine will sink deeper into a Putin-like regime. ...But, the Ukrainian people are very strong. We'll see.

[calmissile]

From what I've read there are a lot of people traveling to Kyiv as we speak, from outlying areas. There are protests all over the country with at least one other statue of Lenin toppled. If this revolution fails, I believe Ukraine will sink deeper into a Putin-like regime. ...But, the Ukrainian people are very strong. We'll see.

It will be intersting to see in person.  Leaving for Kiev tomorrow.   
I don't buy that this is just a bunch of paid protesters.  The same thing was said a couple years ago when I was in Kiev and I witnessed the protests over Yulia getting imprisoned.  This has to be a grass roots movement in my opinion.

[TS]

About every 6 months I lived in Kiev there was mass protests and tents setup but only once were protests in the major cities outside of Kiev when I lived there.  Right now less than 1% of the population is protesting.
If the people really cared, you would see more than 1% of the population involved.
Klitscho is part of an investment group by the way who owns more than several blocks of buildings and businesses where their protesting.  These businesses are bars, restaurants, shops, etc. There making a lot of money when its protesting season.  He owns a huge part of that square area their protesting in. 
If you really understand how Ukraine works, no one really cares about the people.  Political parties use the people to benefit the rich elite.  Ukraine is run by rich businessmen.  These rich businessmen use the people for their benefit. 
Ukraine has never had a high level politician who cares about the country and its people. 
Most people on this board think that Pro West is better then Pro East.  I saw what happened under Pro West rule and it was bad.  West Europe has always put Ukraine down.  Ukraine  can do better than that.  I just want Ukraine to be part of a group that wants them.  Right now Russia and China treat Ukraine with more respect then West Europe.
 

[Muzh]

TS, where are you from, ORIGINALLY?

[lordtiberius]

Live coverage:


Debate within the EU:
http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/ebs/live.cfm?page=2&sitelang=en

[pokerintherear]

Normal yearly protests don't knock down Lenin statues in the center of Kiev.

[Muzh]

Normal yearly protests don't knock down Lenin statues in the center of Kiev.

I guess they needed the metal and stone for building purposes.
 
Or, do you know how much for Lenin's pinky in the black market?

[Hammer2722]

I would also add that the protests have been getting violent as well. Paid protestors would not relish getting their heads bashed in for any amount of money....

[Muzh]

Great analysis
 
Comment: Goodbye Lenin? Ukraine has been wondering for 20 years
A toppled statue does not make a revolution, writes James Rodgers.     
 
By James Rodgers, City University London
 
That late summer day, the crowds were joyful. They cheered as the flag they had come to loathe was lowered. In its place, the blue and yellow colours of Ukraine rose above parliament. As the demonstrators sang in celebration, some showed mouths filled with gold teeth, the masterpieces of Soviet dentistry.
 
It was August 1991. Earlier that month, an attempt by a “State Emergency Committee” to depose the leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, had backfired. Their coup d'etat lasted only three days, and, rather than preserving the Soviet system, as the plotters had hoped, arguably hastened its collapse.
 
Waiting, uncertainty, and being slightly on edge all the while, is the lot of the journalist covering a developing political crisis. The removal of the flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic suggested the country had decided to go forward alone: severing political, and historical, ties with Moscow. In terms of TV journalism (I was then a producer for Reuters Television), the next question was whether the statue of Lenin in central Kiev would share the fate of the Soviet flag. I stayed a day or two in case it was about to be hauled down too.
 
It would have been a long wait if I’d stuck around. The statue only came down last weekend.
 
Giving a lecture earlier this year on the reporting of the Russian Revolution of 1917, I showed part of Sergei Eistenstein’s film October. Watching the pulling down of the statue of the tsar again, I thought of the countless pictures of Lenin with a noose around his neck as the Soviet bloc crumbled, and of Saddam Hussein’s statue suffering that fate. I wondered whether Eistenstein’s sequence, predating TV news by decades, had actually invented one of the moments protesters and editors alike now need for a televised revolution. At the weekend, the protesters in Kiev seemed to be addressing that.
 
Yet, as Ukraine’s experience has shown, revolutions require more than a changing of symbols. I did not return to Kiev until 2007, when the country was in the midst of another political confrontation. Still, the hotel where I stayed had plenty of international guests, most of whom seemed to be there to do business. The streets were full of shoppers. In other words, it was not that much of a crisis.
 
This time it seems more serious. Today, as then in 2007, Ukraine’s choice is broadly seen as between closer ties with Russia, or with the European Union.
 
Two events from 2008 have shaped those choices: Russia’s war with Georgia, and the financial crisis.
 
Although the former was ostensibly over the status of Georgia’s separatist territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, its consequence was to end Georgia’s – and Ukraine’s – hopes of joining NATO. Presumably, this was Russia’s aim all along: to send very forcefully the message that being with NATO – or any western institution – is being against us.
 
The financial crisis made the future direction of the EU itself uncertain. There is little current appetite for further expansion; Eurosceptics in a number of member states seek to leave.
 
While the EU struggles with its own internal difficulties, Russia is not trouble-free either. President Putin may retain his power and popularity, but the unprecedented opposition demonstrations of 2011 and 2012 have raised the question as to whether that power and popularity can last indefinitely.
So if Ukraine is entering a decisive phase of its long revolution, the stakes are high. It would not be the object of a diplomatic game between Moscow and Brussels if it was not important. Neither Russia or the EU, though, seems well placed to rescue the country if the crisis leads to chaos.
 
At the time, the Orange Revolution of 2004 was supposed to have set Ukraine’s future course. Nine years later, that revolution may be over. The one which began with the break up of the Soviet Union, however, is not.
 
At the end of 2011, the late Eric Hobsbawm gave a BBC interview in which he compared the Arab uprisings of that year to the revolutions that rocked Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. He said:
 
Two years after 1848, it looked as if it had all failed. In the long run, it hadn’t failed. A good deal of liberal advances had been made. So it was an immediate failure but a longer term partial success – though no longer in the form of a revolution.

Ukraine has not known the bloodshed of Syria, Libya, or Egypt, but its recent history is a reminder that, as Hobsbawm suggested, the outcomes of revolutions are known only in the long run.
 
Perhaps some of the demonstrators from that day in 1991 were among the crowd that smashed the statue of Lenin at the weekend. If so, they know well what long run means – and how long, in today’s uncertain world, a political crisis can last.
 
SBS News

[mendeleyev]

Voice of Russia Radio reports that:

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has approved a plan of signing an agreement with the in March 2014, former Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk announced on Tuesday.Ukraine will speed up the work on the conditions on which it is ready to sign an association agreement with the EU and is hoping to complete this work before the next Ukraine-EU summit, which is scheduled for March 2014, said Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday at a meeting with his three predecessors, Leonid Kranchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko.

"We have sent the government a task to speed up this work. As soon as we reach an understanding and such a compromise is achieved, it will be signed," Yanukovych said during a meeting with the three previous presidents of Ukraine in Kiev on Tuesday.

Yanukovych claimed that he and his team remain determined to seek closer ties with EU.

"I have said repeatedly that since 1997 the program of the Party of Regions has had the integration of Ukraine into European space as a strategic objective," Yanukovych said during a pan-national roundtable in Kiev on Tuesday.

A Ukrainian delegation will likely leave for Brussels on December 11, Yanukovych said.

"Our group led by First Deputy Prime Minister Arbuzov will most likely leave for Brussels tomorrow and the work of the joint Ukrainian-EU working group will begin," he said while meeting with the previous presidents of Ukraine on Tuesday.

"Our purpose is very simple: we want to get conditions that will satisfy Ukraine, Ukrainian commodity producers, and the people of Ukraine now," Yanukovych said.

"These questions will only be answered when we conduct these negotiations, when we tell each other the truth. If the conditions don't satisfy us, we will demand changes, we will defend our interests: We need to minimize the risks for our economy," Yanukovych said.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will arrange the release of protesters arrested during demonstrations in Kiev, a former Ukrainian president announced on Tuesday.
"The president of Ukraine, without interfering in the work of judges, will arrange the release of the people who are in custody today," but this does not mean criminal proceedings against them will be quashed, Leonid Kravchuk, who was Ukraine's first post-independence president, told a roundtable in Kiev.

The participants in the roundtable, which discussed proposed options for settling the current domestic political crisis, also included parliament chairman Volodymyr Rybak and Communist leader Petro Symonenko.

Other participants in the roundtable were Oleksandr Yefremov, parliamentary leader of the ruling Party of Regions, Maryna Stavniychuk, a presidential adviser and head of the constitutional and legal modernization department of the presidential administration, and lawmaker Volodymyr Lytvyn.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych says Russia agrees to discuss gas prices for Ukraine.

"Russia now agrees to discuss this issue because there are also problems with the loss of the Ukrainian market, the loss of the economy there," Yanukovych said while meeting with the previous presidents of Ukraine on Tuesday.


Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_12_10/Yanukovych-approves-plan-to-sign-Ukraine-EU-agreement-in-March-2014-7260/

[Muzh]

The Voice of Russia reported that all bridges surrounding Moscow are for sale to the Ukrainian population ONLY at a very cheap price.
 
www.bendoverandsayyouloveit.ru