Uncle Volodya says, “You must remember the most important rule of any successful illusion. First, the people must want to believe in it. “
This article is just a stub, to alleviate the loading problems caused by too many comments – not that I’m complaining, because I love gossip – attached to the previous post. But I thought I should add something in the way of a public service. From Fedia Kriukov (thanks, Fedia!!) we received a fascinating clip, I daresay well before most other viewers since it is only now beginning to break big-time on the intertubes. Anyway, here it is again. I love the title: Marionettkiy Maidana – “Puppets of the Maidan”. Very imaginative, le mot juste. The clip records a conversation between Victoria Nuland (U.S. State Department, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, as well as the wife of Überconservative right-wing nutjob Robert Kagan) and Geoffrey Pyatt, the United States Ambassador to Ukraine.
To forestall any defense that the recording could be any two people of the correct gender from the region that matches their North American accent, I would point out – courtesy of Patrick Armstrong – that the semi-official response was pretty far from a denial. In fact, the White House immediately blamed Russia, and State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called it “a new low” for Russia, in what must be the howler of the decade and suggests she has never heard of the NSA and their 24-7 snooping on everyone and everything.
Anyway, enjoy the entertainment, and against the possibility some might have trouble with the North American accent and the speed of the conversation, I have provided a transcript in English.
Nuland: What do you think?
Pyatt: I think we’re in play. The, uhh…the Klitschko piece is obviously the complicated electron here, uhhh…especially the announcement of him as Deputy Prime Minister..and you’ve seen some of my notes on the troubles in the marriage right now, so we’re trying to get a read really fast on where he is on this stuff. But I think your argument to Ann, which she’ll need to make, I think that’s the next phone call we want to set up, should be exactly the one you made to Ya (??? Yanukovych? Yatsenyuk?) tonight, I’m glad you sort of put him on the spot as to where he fits in this scenario, and I’m very glad he said what he said in response.
Nuland: Good. So..uhh…I don’t think Klitch should go into the government, I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Pyatt: Yeah. I mean, I guess…you think…in terms of him not going into the government, just let him sort of stay out and do his political homework and stuff, I’m just thinking, in terms of sort of the process moving ahead, we want to keep the moderate democrats together; the problem is gonna be Tiahnybok and his guys, and…you know, I’m sure that’s part of what Yanukovych is calculating on all of this…I..
Nuland: I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience, he’s..he’s the guy, you know, what he needs is Klitch and Tiahnybok on the outside, he needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know…I just think Klitch going in, he’s gonna be at that level, working for Yatsenyuk, it’s just not gonna work.
Pyatt: Yeah..no..I think that’s right, OK. Good; well, you want us to try to set up a call with him, as your next step?
Nuland: My understanding from (inaudible, sounds like a name) call that you tell me was that the Big Three were going into their own meeting and that Yats was gonna offer, in that context, a three-way, you know, three-plus-one conversation, or three-plus-two with you. Is that not how you understood it?
Pyatt: No, I think…I mean, that’s what he proposed, but I think, just knowing the dynamic that’s been with them, where..umm.. Klitschko’s been the top dog, he’s gonna take a while to show up to whatever meeting they’ve got, he’s probably talking to his guys at this point, so I think you reaching out directly to him helps with the personality management among the three, and it gives you also a chance to move fast on all this stuff and put us behind it before they all sit down and he..uh..he explains why he doesn’t like it.
Nuland: OK, good, I’m happy; why don’t you reach out to him and see if he wants to talk before or after.
Pyatt: OK, will do; thanks.
Nuland: OK; I’ve now written…oh, one more wrinkle for you, Jeff…
Pyatt: Yeah.
Nuland: Uh…can’t remember if I told you this or if I only told Washington this, that when I talked to Jeff Feltman (Jeffrey Feltman, Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs at the United Nations, working directly for Ban Ki-Moon and appointed by him), this morning, he had a new name, for the UN guy, Robert Serry (a Dutch diplomat who currently serves at the UN as the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process), did I write you that?
Pyatt: Yeah. Yeah, I saw that.
Nuland: He’s now gotten both Serry and Ban Ki-Moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday.
Pyatt: OK.
Nuland: So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing, and have the UN help glue it, and, you know…fuck the EU.
Pyatt: Oh, exactly, and I think that we’ve gotta do something to make it stick together, because you can be pretty sure that if it does, if it does start to gain altitude, the Russians’ll be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it, and again, the fact that this is out there right now, I’m still trying to figure out in my mind why Yanukovych did that. But in the meantime, there’s a Party of Regions faction meeting going on right now, and, you know, I’m sure there’s a lively argument going on in that group at this point. But..uh..anyway, we could lend Joey setup on this one if we move fast. So let me work on..let me work on Klitschko, and if you can just keep..I think we want to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing..and the other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych, but we can probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.
Nuland: So on that piece, Jeff, when I wrote the note, Sullivan’s (probably Jake Sullivan, the Vice-President’s National Security Advisor) come back to me VFR, saying you need Biden, and I said probably tomorrow for an attaboy (a gratuitous pat on the back to a subordinate) and to get the deets (details) to stick. If Biden’s willing.
Pyatt: OK, great, thanks.
I love how they refer to them as “Yats” and “Klitch”, as if they were house cats or something, just the ticket when you are trying to groom new leaders to serve you in a regime-change operation. I’ll bet Yats’s and Klitch’s followers are blown away by the respect in which they are held by those who are pulling their strings. Blown away, too, doubtless, is Angela Merkel, who is not only a big part of the EU that was just told to go fuck itself, but is also the patron of “Klitch” and who was pressing ahead with plans to get him installed as the Ukrainian President, only to find the U.S. State Department is doing an end-run around her and intends that her button-man shall not even have a seat in the government, never mind run it. No, he’s to do his political homework, and report to “Yats” four times a week. Nice work, if you can get it – does that come with a car and driver?
Marx spoke too soon; it is not history, but revolution in Ukraine that repeats itself – first as tragedy, the second time as farce. If Yanukovych cannot parlay this gift into firm reassertion of control over public order in Kiev, he deserves to be overthrown.
The Kremlin Stooge 
Ukraine asks Poland for $1 billion, but Poland demurs.
New Ukrainian government announced to the world that they need $35 billion to get through the fiscal year 2014-2015.
In order to raise the money, Ukraine will have a donathon.
They are hoping to get bucks from America and Poland.
Donors will get a tote-bag and a coffee mug! Yay!
Unfortunately, Donald Tusk says he is not willing to open his wallet. Not just yet.
Yes, Yanukovich did a great job running Ukraine into the ground while building his 70 million dollar palace (assuming this is how much it cost).
Photos of what government officials in the Yanukovich era were building as the country went bankrupt:
http://www.businessinsider.com/homes-of-ukrainian-government-officials-2014-2
I am not defending Yanukovych. I stipulate that he and his pet oligarchs looted the country. They took a mostly bankrupt country from Yushchenko’s oligarchs and then pounded in the final nails.
I wouldn’t have minded seeing them all swept away by forces who would expropriate the oligarchical loot and create a fair, socialistic society. People such as, er… Lenin?
Instead, we get anti-Leninists who will now proceed to loot the country for a different set of oligarchs.
Like Marx used to say, it’s all about which class is in power, baby.
Now the fascists are in power, and fascists, as we know, are even more hierarchical and capitalist than the other side. Expect the new rulers to move into the fancy palaces.
Anyone expecting personal integrity from ultranationalists should remember how many sticky-fingered vermin Hitler had in his entourage. Not least the delightful Erich Koch, who was as corrupt as Gauleiter of East Prussia as he would be as Reichskommissar of Ukraine.
Really lovely fellow, Herr Koch. Once said that if he ever met an Ukrainian worthy of sitting at his table, he would have him shot. Used to carry a whip to deal with the Ukrainian “n***ers”. Just the man to carry through Hitler’s Generalplan Ost. One might think that even a Banderite would allow that the Soviet army deserved some credit for driving this modern-day Verres from Ukraine, but apparently one would be wrong.
A few more details have emerged about the possible financial package on offer to Ukraine and it’s not looking that good. Against the $35 billion identified by Yatsenyuk as needed to get through the 2014-2015 fiscal year, the figure mentioned as the likely EU offer is $20 billion – so, quite a big gap. Unfortunately, it gets worse because the $20 billion is being offered over 7 years and includes profits from joint Ukraine/EU investments stipulated in the EU Association Agreement. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fec6c296-9c4b-11e3-b535-00144feab7de.html#axzz2uIk5IWXQ
Other reports I’ve looked suggest that at least one-third of government employees in Ukraine will be laid off, wages and pensions will be, at best frozen and, at worst, cut, and all energy subsidies will be abolished. Hard to see how this can end well.
in other news, Francois Hollande has joined the long line of European leaders on the ‘phone a friend in Moscow’ gig and has been trying to persuade Putin to recognise the new crowd in Kiev as its legitimate government. He’s also encouraged Russia to cough up funding – a new definition of chutzpah, perhaps.
On the ‘ever so small you’d hardly see it’ support for Svoboda front, not all Chechens are Wahabis and not all Kosovar Albanians supported the KLA but that didn’t stop those groups from exercising significant influence over events in their respective spheres. Stephen Cohen put this very well in a interview he gave the other day:-
“What percent are the quasi-fascists of the opposition? Let’s say they’re 5 percent. I think they’re more, but let’s give them the break, 5 percent. But we know from history that when the moderates lose control of the situation, they don’t know what to do. The country descends in chaos. Five percent of a population that’s tough, resolute, ruthless, armed, well funded, and knows what it wants, can make history. We’ve seen it through Europe. We’ve seen it through Asia. This is reality. And where Washington and Brussels are on this issue, they won’t step up and take the responsibility.”
But the analogy does not quite work. The Nazis took over on the wave of ideology and had broad support in Germany. Half of Germany was not hostile to them. So far the new regime has taken over Kiev and is acting like it owns all of Ukraine. We still have to see how it will impose its will on eastern and southern Ukraine. At some stage it will need to send in troops to force regime elements into local administrations (on assorted pretexts).
Financial Times is behind a paywall, so you have to use that Google-hover method to read the article. It starts with a quote from Olli Rein, “Europe’s top economic officer”. Colour him skeptical:
Olli Rehn, Europe’s top economic officer, said the EU is prepared to offer a financial aid package worth billions of euros to Ukraine and extend the longer-term prospect of EU membership to help stabilise the country.
“The EU will be ready to provide substantial financial assistance for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people once a political solution, on the basis of democratic principles, a commitment to reform and a legitimate government, is in place,” said Mr Rehn.
Note the “longer-term prospect of EU membership”…
Also goes on to say that EU help/possible membership is absolutely tied at the hip to IMF austerity programs.
If this is the best that Europe has to offer, then Ukraine is truly screwed. Oranges took the big gamble, they bet everything on one throw of the dice, and they lost.
Rehn is saying that only if Ukraine has a stable government committed to economic reform on principles judged by the EU to be “democratic” and “legitimate” will the EU – or Germany rather – decide to offer financial aid.
Question is how far does Ukraine have to go before its government can be considered “stable”, “reformist” and “democratic”? These terms can be construed any way the EU likes. Plus the conditions in the trade deal that Yanukovych rejected can always be subject to change by the EU. Ukraine could end up forced into the position of always playing catch-up with no assurance in sight that it will have jumped through enough hoops of fire and into the Promised Land of Full-EU-Membership Milk and Visa-Free-Travel-for-All-Ukrainians Honey because the powers that be in Brussels keep on changing the rules.
With the so-called “moderate” opposition having to include Svoboda in government, Svoboda capturing the portfolios they always wanted, laws discriminating against non-Ukrainians being enacted and Pravy Sektor vigilantes starting to roam the country, the necessary conditions for stable, reformist and democratic government won’t exist for a long time.
The article by Mark Ames raises an issue that has baffled me since the Ukrainian crisis began. Why does there seem to be so little grassroots political activity in the country? Obviously, there’s an understanding of ‘people power’ but there’s nothing like, say, a People’s Progressive Party that’s analysed the root causes of Ukraine’s problems and developed plans and policies to tackle them.
This is very different from countries in, say, Latin or South America where progressive political parties have developed in conditions of far worse violence and repression than Ukraine has ever experienced. AP? Anyone?
Has the possibility of a plebiscite been mooted for the eastern regions? Put separation to a free, supervised vote (although this always runs the peril of simply being deemed as “fraudulent” if the outcome isn’t preferable for the West). By golly, it would be the democratic thing to do, wouldn’t it? Self-determination and all that.
Russia plays nice, forgives extant debt, brings the eastern regions into its direct ambit, and if all else fails, easily destabilizes whatever dog and pony show the West proffers in Kiev.
I’ve also read suggestions that partition of Ukraine is exactly what the west wants, that it is hoping Russia will make a move in that direction and is therefore flooding the net with scared-sounding articles like “Will Russia Seize Crimea?” because they hope Russia will believe they are frightened of that eventuality and become interested. It’s hard to know what to believe any more.
” … In the middle of February US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt told the world that Ukraine would be pulled apart. In a few days US Vice President Joe Biden told Yanukovych in a phone conversation to take police away from the streets of Kiev …”
So among other things the US was fomenting the chaos and orchestrating the Yanukovych / Azarov government’s downfall by telling Yanukovych to rein in the police forces and then encouraging and paying extremist right-wing elements to escalate the fighting in response to Yanukovych’s actions? So much for media assertions that it was Yanukovych’s use of brute force against the “peaceful demonstrators” that was ratcheting up the violence. And now Yanukovich is to be hunted down and thrown to the ICC for doing the polar opposite of what he’s been accused of.
He was never cut out to be a leader, that much is true; Yanukovych should have remained just a regional oblast administrator. But it’s one thing to take your orders from the US, never realising that you’re actually being set up as per the rules of the Gene Sharp playbook, and then another to be condemned for other people’s crimes that result from being told to turn the other cheek?
I sort of feel sorry for Yanukovych that he’s been put in this position and then I don’t in a way because he allowed himself to be led around and Washington subsequently found him very easy to manipulate.
Former Defense Minister Serdyukov seeks amnesty – report
Is this an example of what is sometimes described as “chutzpah”?
By the way, these bloody tweets are really pissing me off.
I watch as my Chrome browser grunts away slowly trying to load them: they are always last to load – not the You Tube links – and when they are at last loaded, the thread jumps up and down.
They seem really to clog up the works and my browser has just crashed whilst the latest tweets were loading and, as usual, deadly slow.
The above two tweets have just loaded (after yet another crash warning), and, as usual, after having loaded them, the browser has scrolled up.
Why should this happen? WordPress says just paste the tweets’ URL and Bob’s your uncle, but something is really wrong here – and it ain’t my PC: it’s just had a complete system re-instalment and otherwise is running like a dream.
That’s by design: last to start, last to finish.
Don’t click “Recent Comments” links on the homepage, load the article page first.
Быдлокод
Russian Ships Arrive On Ukraine’s Crimean Coast As Fears Mount Over Russian Invasion In the Region
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
To their own base, perhaps?
Situated in Sevastopol.
In the Crimea.
I wonder if that Yankee warship is still stuck on a sandbar in a harbour on the facing coast?
In February 1988, USS Caron operating with USS Yorktown, entered 7 miles into Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea off the Crimean Peninsula. Under international law, this act could be permissible if the ship was progressing from one point in international waters to another point in international waters via the shortest course possible, but according to the Soviet Union, it was the right of the USSR to authorize or prohibit travel in selected areas within the 12 mile limit. The United States however did not recognize the Soviet claim in this case. To prevent it from becoming accepted precedent, the US Navy claimed that it had sailed warships through such areas at regular intervals in the past, which it had last done two years previously.
On this occasion, USS Caron had onboard a ships signal exploitation spaces system, operated by a crew of 18 in support of the U.S. National Security Agency. This system was capable of recording data on Soviet defence radars and communications.
In response, the Soviets deployed a destroyer and a Mirka II class light frigate as well as other “spy” ships to intercept the U.S. ships. Several times Soviet vessels obtained radar “lock” on the Caron and Yorktown. Both American ships maintained a constant course and speed throughout the incident. Eventually, the Soviets lightly rammed both ships. No significant damage resulted to any of the ships involved.
“I wonder if that Yankee warship is still stuck on a sandbar in a harbour on the facing coast?”
I think it was a deliberate grounding. Sailors heard drinks were free at the sandbar!
Must stop. I am convinced that every time I make a bad joke (often), a kitten dies somewhere in the world. 😦
I was wondering because it might be a bit of a job getting her of the bar as there’s bugger all of a tide in the Black Sea. Every time I go there I tell Mrs. Exile it’s only a big lake. When I first took her back to the old country, she was amazed with the tides and also with the speed of the tide race. Having only seen the Baltic and Black seas before, she was very impressed with the North Atlantic.
Never been. Not fair! Sticking to a naval theme, my old Moscow landlord used to be a SIGNIT officer in the Pacific Fleet listening and translating yankee capitalist navy traffic. It served him well in his job, translating computer manuals in to Russian, for IBM.
You can kedge yourself off using your own anchor; ideal if you have two (port & starboard) but I imagine CARON, like most modern USN construction, has only one. She wouldn’t have been there all this time; if they couldn’t reverse off on their own they would have whistled up tugs by now.
The NIKOLAI FILCHENKOV is indeed based in Sevastopol, and could carry only about 425 troops anyway – or 20 tanks, which would be a much bigger worry. But I don’t see Russia carrying out a military invasion of the Crimea. Why would it need to?
I continue to deplore the newspapers’ policy of just sticking a photo of a Russian ship in with its article, there, that’s good enough. This beautiful lady is a Kresta II, and there haven’t been any of them since the end of the cold war. Ironically, the original project name was “Berkut”; “Kresta II” was just what NATO called them.
Begins the battle for Crimea:
<a href="http://www.vzgliad.ru/news/2014/2/25/674257.html"Right Sector has announced they will dispatch their forces to Crimea to prevent secession:
«Любые попытки разорвать территориальную целостность Украины будут жестко наказаны. Если власть на это не способна, то «Правый сектор» сформирует «поезд дружбы». Мы, как в 90-м УНСО, поедем в Крым, и тогда публика, подобная этой, как крысы, убегали, когда колонна унсовцев входила в Севастополь… Соборность является одной из наших самых больших ценностей», – заявил Игорь Мосийчук в интервью «Новостям Севастополя».
TRANSLATION
“Any attempts to disrupt the territorial integrity of Ukraine will be firmly punished. If the government is not capable of doing this, then Right Sector will form a ‘Friendship Train’. Just like UNSO in 1990 we will ride into Crimea, and what happened then was the public fled like rats when the column of UNSO entered Sebastopol.”
END OF TRANSLATION
This quote was from some guy named Igor Mosijchuk, a member of Right Sector recently released from jail and apparently in a very grouchy mood.
Meanwhile, Tahnybok accuses Russia of bringing her fleet into Sebastopol in order to rescue Yanukovych, who is supposedly holed up in his spider hole somewhere in Sebastopol. [Jesus, I hope Tahnybok is wrong about that: it would be a total waste of the Russian fleet to rescue that moron.]
Tahnybok goes on to say that this could be the beginning of war with Russia.
In this context, Susan Rice has warned Russia not to intervene in Crimea. Her words are feared and respected all around the world. (Hey, Susie: “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi!” – you bitch..)
And while all this is going on, sources in Simferopol report that people are applying in droves for Russian passports. Russian Duma rep Leonid Slutsky arrived in Simferopol, to help people get the passports, bypassing the usual red tape.
Meanwhile, in Sebastpol, Boris Kolesnikov (formerly Party of Regions, now footloose), tells reporters that the situation is stable. Sebastopol is functioning calmly, under new administration of Chalyj. The new local government, he assures, will NOT fire on the people or obey any other illegal commands that might come from Orange Kiev. Self-defense militias are being formed, to protect the people against fascist marauders who might try to roam in.
Kolesnikov points to what happened in Kerch, where a roaming band of Oranges attempted to set up their band and stage, “to teach the people how to live”, and the locals sent them away with bloody noses.
Kolesnikov does warn that the Tatars are playing a dual game here, and could assist the Orange side in case of armed conflict. That is something that needs to be taken into account, during the planning phase of this future civil war.
Based on all of this information, one might expect more “roaming bands” of seemingly unemployed Banderites into Crimea, with Tatars being the wild card; and see how well the locals can resist these incursions.
Sorry, I messed up that first link, here it is again:
http://www.vzgliad.ru/news/2014/2/25/674257.html
Latest news, Ukranian parliament has voted to send Yanukovic to the ICC in the Hague.
Hardly a vote in confidence in themselves.
a) try him at home, risks dividing the Ukraine even further, finding an independent judge & jury or just a quick lynching or maybe find him dead in his cell before it kicks off;
b) try him abroad, won’t have to pay for it and can claim clean hands but only shows how broken the institutions in the Ukraine really are (i.e. as bad as ex-Yu which has actually been through several wars).
Then we have everyone else telling Russia to behave with maturity while the new illegitimate regime does it best to alienate a substantial portion of its own population with a direct attack on basic language rights and the neo-nazis declaring they will whip the south and east in to shape.
But according to some people, it is not their fault, they are forced to do it, they are victims of circumstance. Obviously.
I wonder when the Rada is going to pass a law for re-canonization of Stepan Bandera, who was demoted from the pantheon of Ukrainian national heroes into which he had previously been admitted during the Yushchenko regime, when postage stamps bearing representations of the hero’s visage were issued and monuments to him erected.
Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry has expressed its displeasure over the dismantling the bust of Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov in the West Ukrainian city of Brody.
See:Ukrainian city demolishes monument to Russian general who beat Napoleon
Here’s a Bandera memorial [WARNING! Might easily offend] I suggest be set up in Mosow – out of sight of minors, of course.
You know they’d love to re-deify him, and they probably can’t understand what all the fuss is about, because to them he really is a hero, but I would guess their western handlers have told them such a move would be too divisive right now. However, I’m sure they won’t forget about it.
FYI
NSA and GHCQ Employing Shills To Poison Web Forum Discourse
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/02/25/0359246/nsa-and-ghcq-employing-shills-to-poison-web-forum-discourse
“Advocatus Diaboli writes with this excerpt from an article by Glenn Greenwald on the pervasiveness of shills poisoning web forums:
“One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.. … Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the Internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: ‘false flag operations’ (posting material to the Internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting ‘negative information’ on various forums.”
—
Remember, ‘JTRIG’. I’ve looked at the Greenwald piece briefly and this news is massive. The ability to inject data into a user’s datastream makes the planting and falsification of evidence very, very easy (so it will be done) and adds another possibility of blackmail/extortion by authorities who may not like certain dialogue. Simply, they can put stuff on your computer easily without you knowing it, then bang you up, or at least threaten to drag you through the mud. Stunning.
I like your blog, but 1500 comments crashes every plug-in in every tab I have open on my browser. I have no desire to shut down all of my other computer activities to follow one blog. If you want your blog to be read by others, consider creating a new thread every 3-400 comments. It only takes one minute of your time. You don’t even need to create a new post: Simply write “Same topic, thread 2.” People can still go back and comment on the past thread — most blogs have more than one thread active at a time.
Judging by remarks from long-term commenters here, I think that others have problems with the length of the threads in their browsers. It seems to be to be a matter of basic blogging etiquette.
I hope you consider my recommendation.
Yeah, that’s a good idea. I hoped to have a new post ready by now but there have been so many distractions.
Again, no need for a new post — just a new thread.
That takes the pressure off of you, and you can post your new post when it is ready.
Done, and thanks much for the suggestion!!
Tinybok wants to suspend Russian media channels that don’t agree with him:
http://m.lb.ua/news/2014/02/24/256895_tyagnibok_predlagaet_priostanovit.html
Bulgaria Slams Ukraine For Canceling the Status of Bulgarian Language
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=158488
The Bulgarian government is dissatisfied with Ukraine’s decision to cancel the recognition of Bulgarian language as regional language.
Earlier this week Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada canceled the State Language Policy Act, which was granting the status of “regional language” to the language of minority groups who make up more than 10% of the residents in an area.
Nemtsov has written on Twitter: “Russia will be free! See you!”
He has ot sent down for 10 days.
How “unfree” does he think his life really is?
Judging by his permanent sun tan, he certainly seems to do a lot of swanning around to pleasant climes. Or does he spend a lot of time under a solarium?
Does he suffer from grinding poverty and associated health problems?
Does he live in a shit-hole or a cardboard box?
Does he pay more than 13% income tax?
Does he pay tax?
Is he not allowed to express his opinion, or does he feel that he has to be part of a mob to do that?
Oh yeah, and Navalny got 7.
Same as he would have got in the UK for repeatedly and on consecutive days committing breaches of the peace, obstructing the public highway, obstructing police officers and generally acting like juvenile prick.
Tolokonnikova got arrested again today as well.
Well blow me down! Who’d’ve thought it!
This collection of 5th column degenerates is in a state of extacy over the coup in Ukraine. But Russia does not have Banderites to do the job of revolution for NATO and most Russians are clued into the truth about NATO and its endless war on Russia.
He may have a sunbed in his cell. He’s special, after all.
Russia’s response to Ukrainian crisis and coup has been incredibly silent so far. If the new government of Ukraine will crush Crimean I expect that Russia does nothing and just lets it happen.
They may do that. Several analyses suggest Russia does not actually need Ukraine anywhere near as much as the west apparently believes. The Customs Union will never amount to much without it, but that is probably Putin’s fault for talking it up before he had it established. He should have known the west would immediately assign a high priority to wrecking it for him. Maybe the EU actually will get the whole thing, and if they do it will break them because if Ukraine needs $35 Billion just to make it through this year, the EU can’t afford it. $15 Billion into just the Crimea and the Southeast would probably stabilize it nicely, but if it is going to turn into an annual money pit Russia would be better off to cut its losses and let it go. Citizens who truly cannot stand living under an Orange government will move to Russia, and Russia still needs immigration.
Sanatorium Yalta,this evening, 25th February 2014, 5pm:
Two army trucks with soldiers arrive from Sevastopol:
At gate:
Observer’s voice to unseen other person: “What have they got helmets on for?”
A woman’s voice answers barely audibly.
Observer to woman (whilst trying to make a call): “Just a sec…just a sec…just a sec…I’m connecting…”
Gateman asks why they are standing there.
Observer to gateman: “Why have those Russian military arrived?”
Gateman: “I don’t know.”
Observer to gateman: “I’m a newsman…”
FUCK OFF!
СРОЧНО: в Ялту около 17 часов заехали два российских «Урала» с автоматчиками
В Запорожье синагогу закидали коктейлями Молотова
[Molotov cocktails hurled into Zaporozhye synagogue]
Molotov cocktails are the law now. The West says so.
Well, they didn’t actually say that – they said they fell under the classification of “peaceful”. But protesters should feel themselves under no obligation, because we want to do things the democratic way.
Just caught the tail end of a 1on1 on CNN between Cristiane Amanpour & Alexander Nekrassov Kremlin adviosor (1995-1996). Nekrassov was good. That stupid bi8ch kept on cutting him off every time he countered her loaded questions with good arguments or facts. I understand that a good interviewer should pose tough questions and try and throw their interviewee of balance (i.e. actual journalism), but each time Ammanpour cut him off and kept on saying “OK, we should move on..”.
http://www.edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2014/02/25/amanpour-ukraine-russia-alexander-nekrassov.cnn
I know I shouldn’t be shocked (I was on the reporting of the breakup of ex-Yu so many years ago), but at what point did even basic journalism go completely out the window in the US?
This is a rhetorical question.
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