Roots and consequences of Ukraine's violence

[Dino Velvet]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/21/world/...aine-protests/

In Ukraine, signs of progress, and questions, after deal to end fighting

By Phil Black. Nick Paton Walsh and Michael Pearson, CNN
updated 1:27 PM EST, Fri February 21, 2014

Are you in Ukraine? Send us your photos and experiences but please stay safe.
Kiev, Ukraine (CNN) -- Hours after government and opposition leaders signed an agreement ending days of deadly fighting, Ukraine's parliament moved quickly to cut the president's powers, sack the interior minister and pass a bill that could free jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.
The changes, passed by a constitutional majority that can't be vetoed, mark a stunning shift from just a day ago, when President Viktor Yanukovych sent security forces into the streets to battle protesters angry over his pivot toward Russia and other issues.
Tymoshenko, a former prime minister who earlier was a hero of the country's 2004 revolution, is a powerful symbol to the opposition. She was imprisoned in 2011 after what international observers saw as a politically motivated sham trial.
She went on a hunger strike the following year after allegedly being beaten unconscious by guards.
The parliamentary action comes after Yanukovych, opposition leaders and representatives of the European Union signed a deal Friday afternoon meant to end the country's political crisis and bloody fighting that has left parts of Kiev a war zone.
"Good compromise for Ukraine. Gives peace a chance. Opens the way to reform and to Europe," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said via Twitter before the signing was completed.
Earlier, an ITN/ITV camera captured Sikorski telling a protest leader to accept the deal.
"If you don't support this, you'll have martial law, you'll have the army. You will all be dead," he can be overheard as saying.
The agreement -- hashed out overnight and into the afternoon among Ukrainian leaders, opposition figures and European Union representatives -- calls for cuts in the president's power by rolling back the constitution to an earlier version.
It calls for further constitutional reform to be completed by September, according to a draft posted on the German Foreign Office's website.
It also requires presidential elections "as soon as the new Constitution is adopted but no later than December 2014."
Protesters are to withdraw from streets and public buildings they've occupied during the crisis and turn in illegal weapons, according to the deal. Security forces are to "step back from confrontational posture" and use force only to protect public buildings, the agreement says.
A joint investigation into the recent violence will follow. Authorities, opposition representatives and the European Council will be included, according to the deal.
A cheer went up from the crowd in Kiev's Independence Square when the agreement was announced. Protesters waved Ukrainian flags under clear skies free of the choking smoke from burning barricades that has characterized recent days.
It remained to be seen if the deal would be enough to overcome the nation's deep divisions and mistrust on both sides inflamed by the recent violence.
The Ukrainian parliament, the Rada,moved quickly to fulfill the first requirement of the agreement -- passing a law to roll back the country's constitution to an earlier version that limits the President's powers.
It later passed legislation sacking Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko, citing "abuse of power" in the crackdown on protesters, agreed to compensate injured or slain protesters and their families and voted to decriminalize the charge on which Tymoshenko was sent to prison.

A powerful symbol
Tymoshenko's freedom was not expected to be immediate: A court must now act to free her, and other charges pending against her remain in place.
A year after Tymoshenko lost the 2010 presidential election to Yanukovych and became his fiercest opponent, Ukrainian prosecutors charged her with signing overpriced gas deals with Russian state-owned energy provider Gazprom.
She was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison at a trial she repeatedly called a farce overseen by a judge she called Yanukovych's "stooge."
Amnesty International and other groups took up her cause, calling the case politically motivated and demanding her release.

Reactions to the deal
While reaction to the signing from opposition leaders wasn't immediately available, opposition leader and former boxer Vitali Klitschko earlier said protesters must keep the pressure on the government.
"We must do everything to stop the confrontation, and the people who gave illegal orders will be brought to justice," he said.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the United States welcomed the agreement but said it would closely watch to make sure it is implemented.
European Union officials also expressed relief at the agreement.
"This is an important step towards avoiding violence and further bloodshed, achieving peace and stability in the country and resuming a political process," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a statement.
While developments appeared encouraging, an earlier fragile truce crumbled just a day before amid renewed fighting. Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, called the result Thursday "the most tragic day in the history of Ukraine."

Roots of the crisis
The crisis began in November with anger about Yanukovych's decision to scrap a European Union-oriented trade deal and turn toward Russia.
It escalated this week with fierce fighting that the government says has claimed 77 lives and drew swift rebuke from the West. Protesters put the death toll at about 128.
The country has long been divided between historic allegiances to Russia in the east and Europe in the west.
But the disagreement quickly escalated into anger about Yanukovych's rule, including a sweeping, if short-lived, anti-protest law enacted in January.
Russia, which has offered to lend money to cash-strapped Ukraine in a deal worth billions of dollars and lower its gas prices, has put pressure on Yanukovych to crack down on demonstrators.
Western leaders, who have offered Ukraine a more long-term aid package requiring economic modernization, have urged the President to show restraint, allow the opposition more access to government and let the democratic process work out amid deep political differences.

Violence erupts
The crisis boiled over Tuesday when security forces waded into the crowd with water cannons, stun grenades, nightsticks and armored personnel carriers. That fighting brought swift condemnation from Western leaders, who accused Ukrainian leaders of a bloody crackdown.
Ukrainian officials, however, blamed protesters for attacking police, invading government buildings and looting hundreds of guns and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Government officials declared a truce Wednesday, but that cease-fire failed early the next day when fighting broke out again. In Thursday's round of fighting, some protesters appeared to be armed. Men in what appeared to be government uniforms seemed to fight back with automatic weapons and at least one sniper rifle.
In one incident captured by a CNN camera crew, gunfire felled a protest medic trying to treat a man lying on the ground.
One doctor treating protesters said several people had died of targeted wounds that she said appeared to be from sniper shots.
CNN was not able to immediately confirm the claims.
The government acknowledged Thursday that its forces had used firearms, saying it had done so to protect unarmed police officers who were in danger.
The European Union and United States responded to this week's violence with sanctions against Ukrainians deemed responsible for the violence.
Explainer: What and who are behind Ukraine's political crisis?
iReport: Protester describes bloodied people being rushed to medics
U.S. talks tough, but options limited in Ukraine
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, Phil Black, Andrew Carey, Alla Eshchenko and Todd Baxter reported from Kiev, and CNN's Michael Pearson reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Ben Brumfield, Jessica King, Zahra Ulah, Mark Thompson and Greg Botelho also contributed to this report.

[Dino Velvet]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A1G0OU20140221

Ukraine peace deal signed, opens way for early election

By Natalia Zinets and Sabine Siebold
KIEV Fri Feb 21, 2014 2:15pm EST




(Reuters) - Ukraine's opposition leaders signed an EU-mediated peace deal with President Viktor Yanukovich on Friday, aiming to resolve a political crisis in which scores have been killed and opening the way for an early presidential election this year.
Under pressure to quit from mass demonstrations in Kiev, Russian-backed Yanukovich made a series of concessions to pro-European opponents, including a national unity government and constitutional change to reduce his powers, as well as bringing forward the poll.
"There are no steps that we should not take to restore peace in Ukraine," the president said in announcing his concessions before the agreement was signed. "I announce that I am initiating early elections."
Within hours, parliament voted to revert to a previous constitution slashing Yanukovich's prerogatives, sacked his interior minister blamed for this week's bloodshed, and amended the criminal code to pave the way to release his arch-rival, jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.
With Ukraine caught in a geopolitical tug-of-war between Russia and the West, at least 77 people have been killed this week in the worst violence since the independent country emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It was not clear whether the concessions would be enough to persuade protesters demanding Yanukovich's immediate removal to lift their occupation of Kiev's central square.
EU leaders and the White House praised what European Council President Herman Van Rompuy called a "necessary compromise", but there was no explicit endorsement of the accord in grudging comments from Moscow.
For now, the deal, mediated by the foreign ministers of Germany, Poland and France, appears to have been a victory for Europe in its competition with Moscow for influence.
The European envoys signed the document as witnesses, but a Russian envoy did not. The Russian envoy, Vladimir Lukin, acknowledged that Moscow had fallen behind the EU in the latest diplomacy: "The EU representatives were in their own way trying to be useful, they started the talks.
"We joined the talks later, which wasn't very right. One should have agreed on the format of the talks right from the start," Lukin was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Nevertheless, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton acknowledged that implementing the accord would be "very challenging". Ukraine is bitterly divided and near bankruptcy.
A Reuters correspondent at the signing in the presidential headquarters said Yanukovich, 63, a towering former Soviet regional transport official with two convictions for assault, did not smile during a ceremony lasting several minutes.
Opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko, a retired world boxing champion, switched his nameplate to avoid sitting next to the president.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski described the agreement as a "good compromise for Ukraine". In a post on Twitter, he said it "gives peace a chance. Opens the way for reform and to Europe". It fell to Sikorski to sell the deal to the skeptical opposition.
ITN Video filmed outside a meeting room during a break in the talks signed showed Sikorski pleading with opposition delegates to accept it: "If you don't support this, you'll have martial law, you'll have the army, you'll all be dead."
PROTESTERS STAND THEIR GROUND
Anti-government protesters remained encamped in Kiev's central Independence Square, known as the Maidan or "Euro-Maidan", and scene of the bloodshed this week.
Shortly after the signing ceremony, an open coffin carrying one of the dead from Thursday's violence, was borne across the square as a bare-chested drummer beat out a funeral tattoo with people chanting "Heroes don't die! Bandits out!"
Some car horns hooted and fireworks were lit to celebrate the accord, but many activists were suspicious, noting that Yanukovich had cut deals before and was still in office.
"He has to go today. We won't accept elections. He gave the order to kill, so how can we live with him now until December?" said Vasily Zakharo, 40, from the western Lviv region.
"That's our opinion and that's the decision of the Maidan."
Zakharo came to Kiev four days ago to join the uprising. He shaved, packed a bag, took a baseball bat and left a note for his wife. "I called her when I got here. She cried, of course."
Earlier in the day, armed police briefly entered the parliament building while lawmakers were in emergency session but were quickly ejected. Members traded punches when speaker Volodymyr Rybak tried to adjourn proceedings.
If fully implemented, the deal would be a severe setback for Putin, who had made tying Ukraine into a Moscow-led Eurasian Union a cornerstone of his efforts to reunite as much as possible of the former Soviet Union.
Alexei Pushkov, head of Russia's State Duma foreign affairs committee and a member of Putin's United Russia party, told Reuters the accord was positive if it ended the violence.
"But I don't think it resolves any of the core problems that Ukraine is facing: economics, ethnic relations and governability. The opposition is rather dissimilar, and now the opposition will start to squabble among themselves," he said.
Washington took a back seat in the final phase of negotiations after a senior U.S. official was recorded using an expletive to disparage EU diplomacy on an unsecure telephone line last month. A White House spokesman said the United States remained ready to impose further sanctions as necessary if the deal was not implemented.
The future of Ukraine's economy, heavily indebted and dependent on Moscow for energy imports, remains unclear. Putin promised $15 billion in aid after Yanukovich turned his back on a far-reaching economic deal with the EU in November, but Russia has not made clear whether it will still pay.
Ukraine cancelled a planned issue of 5-year Eurobonds worth $2 billion, it told the Irish Stock Exchange where the debt would have been listed. Kiev had hoped Russia would buy the bonds to help it stave off bankruptcy.
Ratings agency Standard & Poor's cut Ukraine's credit rating for the second time in three weeks on Friday, citing the increased risk of default. S&P said latest developments made it less likely that Ukraine would receive desperately needed Russian aid.
Russia's economy minister said Moscow was still undecided on the next $2 billion instalment and was awaiting clarity on the government in Ukraine.
On financial markets, Ukraine's dollar bonds and the hryvnia currency firmed against the dollar from record lows hit this week on hopes for a deal.
However, RBS analyst Tatyana Orlova noted the country was still in dire financial straits. "This is not the end of the story. What I am reading is there is a deal but the devil is in the detail ... The urgent need is for a technocratic cabinet that could take steps to avert default," Orlova said.
The health ministry said 77 people had been killed since Tuesday afternoon, which meant at least 47 died in Thursday's clashes.
On Thursday, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels agreed in principle to impose targeted sanctions on Ukrainian officials responsible for the violence and threatened more if the authorities failed to restore calm.
After the Kiev accord, Ashton said a decision on the future of sanctions would depend on what the EU foreign ministers on the ground in Ukraine reported.
(Additional reporting by Richard Balmforth, Alessandra Prentice, Vasily Fedosenko and Pavel Polityuk in Kiev, Sujata Rao in London, Alexei Anishuk in Moscow, Leigh Thomas in Paris, Marcin Goettig and Adrian Krajewski in Warsaw, Alexandra Hudson in Berlin; Writing by Paul Taylor and David Stamp; Editing by Peter Graff)

[dderek123]

[Ben]

Kiev's Independence Square Before And After:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...fore-and-after

[Dino Velvet]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...unity-22645214

AP Interview: Gorbachev Calls for Ukraine Unity

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates February 24, 2014 (AP)
By ADAM SCHRECK Associated Press





The political turmoil in Ukraine looks like "a real mess," but it is important that the country hold together in the battle for influence between Russia and the West, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Monday.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the 82-year-old Gorbachev emphasized the need for outside mediation to ease tensions in Ukraine, which became an independent country following the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union that he once led.
Ukraine today is deeply divided between largely pro-Russian eastern regions and western areas that long for closer ties with the European Union.
"No one wants it to come apart. I think that today it's important not to tear it apart," Gorbachev said of Ukraine. "I recently appealed to the leaders of the United States and Russia to act perhaps as mediators. And that would also include the European Union."
The mediators, he continued, could play a role in ensuring "that the crisis we see in Ukraine does not result in this kind of dramatic breakup. Let us give the people a chance to agree on something."
Gorbachev made the comments during a visit to the United Arab Emirates city of Sharjah, which sits along the Persian Gulf coast just north of Dubai. He was in the country to address the International Government Communication Forum, an annual gathering of policymakers, former political leaders and communications professionals.
Gorbachev became the Soviet leader in March 1985 and soon began promoting the policies of using "glasnost," or openness, and "perestroika," or restructuring.
His aim had been to reform the stagnant Soviet system, but the policies he put in place brought about democratic changes that eventually led to the breakup of the Soviet Union.
He won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in helping to end the Cold War.
In his speech to the conference Sunday, he said the political tumult in Ukraine was ultimately the result of the Ukrainian government's failure to act democratically, engage in dialogue and fight corruption.
Demonstrators first began protesting late last year after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned an agreement that would have strengthened the country's ties with the European Union in favor of seeking closer cooperation with Moscow.
"It looks like there is a real mess there and that the leaders of Ukraine proved unable to reach a kind of consensus in the country, in Ukrainian society. And that's why those issues became so acute," Gorbachev said. "There's a new Ukraine and it should find its own niche."
Ukraine's acting government is seeking the arrest of Yanukovych, whose whereabouts are uncertain, over accusations of mass crimes against protesters. Snipers fired on demonstrators last week during the bloodiest violence in Ukraine's post-Soviet history.
Gorbachev suggested Monday that no single outside power could dominate Ukraine's future.
"If the European Union wants to have things its own way, the United States wants to have things their own way, and Russia wants to have things its own way, I think that would be wrong," he said. "No one should claim domination over Ukraine."
Gorbachev, whose poor health has led him to miss a number of events in recent months, had assistance walking after delivering his speech Sunday.
"There is not enough stability in the world, and there is not enough stability in my health," he quipped Monday when asked about how he is feeling.
———
Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at www.twitter.com/adamschreck

[Dino Velvet]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia...170039537.html

Russia says won't deal with "mutineers" who took power in Ukraine

43 minutes ago


* Medvedev leads Russian criticism of Ukraine's new leaders


* Putin stays silent on pro-European shift in Ukraine


* $15 billion financial bailout package in question


By Elizabeth Piper


MOSCOW, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Russia said on Monday it would not deal with those it said stole power in "an armed mutiny" in Ukraine, sending the strongest signal yet that Moscow does not want to be drawn into a bidding war with the West in its southern neighbour.
Querying the legitimacy of the new pro-European authorities after the Ukrainian parliament's removal of the Kremlin-backed president following months of unrest, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he saw no one to do business with in Kiev.
He did not declare a $15-billion bailout for Ukraine dead, although its future is in question, but signalled that a deal which cut the price Ukraine pays for Russian gas had an expiry date and that any extension would have to be negotiated.
With President Vladimir Putin still basking in the afterglow of Russia's success at the Sochi Winter Olympics, it has been left to aides to address a crisis that has not turned out as he wanted and reduced Russian clout in Ukraine.
Putin's silence about the fall of Viktor Yanukovich has been filled by allies' accusations of betrayal in Ukraine, of a Western-orchestrated coup and suggestions that there could be a split or civil war in the ex-Soviet republic of 46 million.
"Strictly speaking there is no one to talk to there. There are big doubts about the legitimacy of a whole series of organs of power that are now functioning there," Medvedev told Russian news agencies.
"Some of our foreign partners think differently, they believe they are legitimate ... I don't know which constitution they've read ... But it seems to me it is an aberration to call legitimate what is essentially the result of an armed mutiny."
Ukraine's new authorities issued an arrest warrant on Monday for mass murder against Yanukovich, now on the run after being toppled by bloody street protests in which police snipers killed opposition demonstrators.
The former Soviet republic appealed on Monday for financial assistance to stave off bankruptcy; its debts include more than $1 billion in unpaid gas bills to Russia for 2013.
Prices are negotiated each quarter - one of the last levers Moscow could pull in a battle with the West for influence in Ukraine, which was under Moscow's thumb in the Soviet era.
"The decision in the gas sphere, which was adopted, has concrete time periods for implementation," Medvedev said.
"What will happen after these expire is a question for discussion with the leadership of Ukrainian companies and the Ukrainian government, if one emerges there."

WAITING FOR A SIGN

Officials at state gas company Gazprom made clear they were waiting for a signal from the Kremlin to act.
The Foreign Ministry also took a firm line, portraying the new authorities in Kiev as extremists and accusing the West of making "unilateral, geopolitical calculations".
The strong language is partly intended to sell the new situation to a Russian public which until this weekend had been told Moscow had backed a winner in Yanukovich.
On the air waves and in print, outrage and dismay over Yanukovich's political demise has given way to derision towards a leader who allowed Ukraine to slip from his grasp and open the gates of power to brothers who "in fact, hate us".
As the popular Russian daily Moskovsky Komsomolets summed it up: "Yanukovich falls - Whatever".
While Putin made little effort to hide his distaste in dealing with Yanukovich, a former electrician who vacillated over closer ties with the EU or with Russia, he may now have to argue that both he and his successors are illegitimate rulers.
"Yanukovich is now a wanted man. Just four days ago, everything depended on him and he was needed by everyone. Now he's just needed by those who want to arrest him," said Alexei Pushkov, a Putin loyalist and a senior member of parliament.
"When we talk about 'brotherly' Ukraine, we must take into account that half of the population does not consider us brothers, and the radical part just hates us."
By playing for time, Putin may be banking on Ukraine's complex make-up - Russian-speaking regions to the east and south and Ukrainian-speaking regions in the west - complicating EU and U.S. efforts to unite Ukraine's new leadership.
He may alternatively have decided that the economic cost of winning over Ukraine in December was too high, and that it is better to let the EU foot the bill. Or, as one Ukrainian analyst suggested, it may not have a clear policy yet.
"Russia has no strategy on Ukraine at the moment. Russia is not delighted with what happened, but has already shown that the relations between the two countries have cooled," said Volodymyr Fedosenko of the Penta think tank in Kiev.
"Russia will express doubts about the legitimacy of the new government and indirectly support resistance, but Russia will be forced to recognise the new authorities because there is no alternative."

[Ben]

[runningdownthatdream]

Russia has the right to protect its interests in the region. Especially so when a legally elected president is overthrown via a violent coup backed by the West. Yes, Yanukovych was clearly a thug but the majority of voters put him in power in a clean election. If the minority in the country decided they wanted him out they should be left to their own devices. Yet we see the US, UK, Canada and others - supposedly democratic societies - backing coups against fairly elected governments around the world. Most recently we saw this with Egypt and now again with Ukraine. Realpolitik, anyone?

[dderek123]

Dan Carlin - Poking the Bear

This guy is a great podcaster. I guess you could say he's a moderate liberal. His history podcast is really entertaining as well.

[robertlouis]

Unconfirmed reports of armed Russian troops on the streets in the Crimea. It's getting very ugly over there.