Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

Yuppie, Get your Gun

Ukrainian neo-guerrillas:

“In Europe the people are able to separate themselves from the state. We don’t have that luxury. There are no effective structures to protect the country here—either government or military. There is only us.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/ukraine-young-partisans-106411_Page2.html#ixzz323tOHK2J

The militia. This needs to be made a permanent condition for people who want to be free.

Russian Counter-Revolution

In the space of a few months, Putin has managed to change the conversation. The Kremlin no longer looks like it is out of ideas and running out of time. Putin’s approval rating is at 83 percent. . . . And if you believe the polls, the public—including that vaunted “creative class” that not long ago was clamoring for more pluralism and for a “Russia Without Putin”—appears to be on board. . . .

And what longtime Kremlin-watcher Mark Galeotti calls the “consensual hallucination” that has sustained Putin’s undisputed rule appears to be restored. But as Walter Russell Mead argued in a recent piece in The American Interest, the patriotic wave Putin is riding is similar to a drug dependency. “He needs triumphs abroad to vindicate and justify his rule and his repression at home, and foreign-policy victories are like cocaine when it comes to their impact on public opinion: the buzz of each hit soon wears off, leaving only the craving for another and larger dose,” Mead wrote.

And cocaine is expensive.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/russias-counterrevolution-is-gaining-strength-for-now/370948/

Crimean Tatars are facing a harsh new reality under Moscow’s rule.

On March 15, a day before the so-called referendum on the status of Crimea, a 39-year-old Tatar named Reshat Ametov was found dead after missing for several days. His body carried clear signs of torture: His head was wrapped with Scotch tape, and his legs were shackled.

His family said he had participated in protests against the seizure of the regional parliament by an unknown armed group, which Russian President Vladimir Putin later admitted was a Russian special forces unit. Police loyal to Moscow registered his cause of death as a traffic accident, but almost all Crimean Tatars heard the signal: Disloyalty to Russia would come at a price.

On March 31, a 14-year-old Tatar boy was beaten up by two Russian passers-by for speaking on the phone in the Tatar language. The incident occurred in the wake of calls by some Russians to discourage the use of the Tatar language and deport them again.

On May 6, a member of the Crimean Tatars’ self-governing body was beaten by Russian “samooborona” militants in Simferopol after they stopped his car and demanded to see his documents. He refused to follow their orders, arguing that they were an illegal armed group, acting on behalf of Crimea’s new rulers and using intimidation tactics to frighten and subdue their opponents.

More recently, veteran Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzemilev, a Soviet-era dissident who spent 15 years in prison and survived several hunger strikes, was twice denied entry to Crimea. Again, Russian “self-defence groups” prevented him from returning home.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/05/crimean-tatars-embrace-russia-20145135423720401.html#.U3iG9k933SM.facebook

How Much Propaganda Can You Get Into 15 Minutes of News?

The main “news stories” on Russia’s “First Channel” tonight:

– Germany is a nation occupied by the United States of America. Germany cannot even promote someone to colonel without American approval.

– The United States has spent $ 5 billion for the putsch in Ukraine.

– The goal of the United States is to force Ukraine into NATO and install a missile defense system in Ukraine.

– America dreams about destroying Russia with a nuclear first strike, but to do so America needs a missile defense system in Ukraine.

– Most importantly for America are the areas along the Ukrainian-Russian border, but the people there are against the USA. Therefore the Ukrainian Army is currently exterminating these people with American consent.

http://euromaidanpr.com/2014/05/18/how-much-propaganda-can-you-get-into-15-minutes-of-news/

Curt on NATO’s re-focus

FEEDING THE DEEP STATE ITS FAVORITE FOOD

—“In light of the new security situation created by Russia’s illegal and illegitimate aggression against Ukraine, we have taken immediate measures to enhance collective security in the air, at sea and on the ground. … The Ukraine crisis has compelled the alliance to refocus on its core mission of defending its members after years in which its main effort has been far away in Afghanistan.”—

So stupid. Russia could have led the western world. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

The white people who failed.

Russian journalist Dmitry Steshyn has German Colleague Kidnapped for improper coverage in #Donetsk

Russian journalist Dmitry Steshyn, a reporter for “Komsomolskaya Pravda” asked the terrorists in Slovyansk to find and kidnap his German colleague Paul Ronzheimer. Ronzheimer is writing for Bild news magazine. According to Steshyn, Ronzheimer’s capture was necessary, because Ronzheimer wrote about the illegal referendum on the creation of Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) in a “wrong” way. Internet media “20 minutes” learned about this incident from russian journalist Pavel Kanygin, who works for “Novaya Gazeta”.

Pavel Kanygin was captured by separatist militants in Donetsk region. He was able to regain his freedom after another journalist, Stefan Scholl of German Sudwest Presse, ransomed him.

http://euromaidanpr.com/2014/05/18/russian-journalist-sells-out-a-colleague-to-slovyansk-terrorists-for-wrong-portrayal-of-the-referendum/#more-9338