#kiev protests

[misanthropic-environment]

Rioters in Kiev, Ukraine. 

[osint981]

VIDEO: Obama Warns Putin On 'Costs' Of Crimea Occupation

VIDEO: Obama Warns Putin On ‘Costs’ Of Crimea Occupation

After reports of Russian troops on the streets of Crimea, President Obama warned Russia not to violate Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

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[thegossipcode]

VIDEO: Obama Warns Putin On 'Costs' Of Crimea Occupation

VIDEO: Obama Warns Putin On ‘Costs’ Of Crimea Occupation

After reports of Russian troops on the streets of Crimea, President Obama warned Russia not to violate Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

(more…)

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[theportraitgroans]

just encase you missed the ukraine updates in the last few days

police were given live arms and snipers were 'allowed to shoot protestors to free hostages they "were holding"'.... I won't post the video of protestors being shot by snipers... with no hostages in sight. because you don't need to see people's brains hanging out, dragging their dead friends away, and dragging themselves away from the area, along the ground after being hit less critically; to know what being shot by a sniper means....

it is however important to know how the president confirmed his status as a dictator and how he lost the game of pretending to be a politician.

more than 100 people have been killed, bless the fallen for making the ultimate sacrifice. something that cannot be ignored. as there is no fog of war, when a country is in civil war with itself. in a world where people like us, not living in conflict, can observe without bias, prejudice or invested interest.

[bridgetwritesthings-blog]

Timeline of Kiev Protests

The three months of protest started as a peaceful demonstration of Kiev people in favor of joining the European union and shifting away from Russian ties.

(Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

On Tues. Feb. 18 the protests turn violent as 20,000 protesters march from Kiev's Independence Square to parliament to demand former President, Viktor Yanukovych to stand down. Riot police, acting on orders from the government, break through protester's barrier but protesters armed with their own makeshift weapons refuse to leave the square

Wed. Feb 19, military forces stop delivery of food, clothing and other supplies to protesters. Former President Yanukovych fires the army’s chief and security services call the government’s interference with the protest an act of “anti terrorism”. Yanukovych calls for a “truce” with his people but offers no solution to the unrest.

Feb 20 - Riot police open fire on protesters killing 60 according to medical staff at the scene. The mayor of Kiev and more than a dozen of Yanukovych's deputies resign in protest at the "blood bath". Yanukovych meets with foreign ministers from France, Germany and Poland who say they will impose sanctions on Ukrainians responsible for the deaths as a result of the violence erupting throughout Ukraine.  In response, Yanukovych seems willing to hold elections to appease protesters demands.

Feb 21 - Kiev’s Army’s second-in-command stands down in protest of Government's response to protests. President and opposition leaders sign a deal that includes early elections and the formation of a new government. Parliament votes to return Ukraine to 2004 constitution, which will limit the president's powers.

Feb 22 - Yanukovych flees Kiev (his whereabouts are still unknown). Parliament votes to have early elections on May 25. Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukrainian politician and businesswoman and former Prime Minister of Ukraine, along with her partner, Oleksandr Turchynov are released from Ukrainian prison after 2 years. Turchynov is elected as parliament speaker

Feb 23- Turchynov is elected acting president by parliament.

Feb 24- Parliament holds Yanukovych responsible for the massacre that occurred over the week and pending his capture, agrees to charge him with mass murder.

Feb 25- Independence square is covered in debris of protests, some protesters vow to remain in the square until the elections in May. The square in front of the capital is decorated with flowers and memorials for the 83 lives taken in the protest.

New cabinet members were expected to be in place by today but were met with resistance by citizens who thought they were moving too quickly, forming a new government only 3 days after the old regime fell. Protesters most oppose reinstating many veteran member who were prominent figures when Yanukovych was in power. The government agrees to wait until at least Thursday. This decision is met with trepidation by European leaders who hoped a government would be put in place sooner rather than later.

Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov is expected to hold office until elections and is faced with a battle worn country in poor economic state. Aide is promised from the United States and Europe but both nations are worried due to Ukraine’s shaky political state. However, economic collapse of Ukraine is against the interest of both countries. Alternately, the $15 billion loan promised from Russia before the upheaval is no longer on the table and will be discussed after a new government is formed.

[newstfionline]

Ukraine’s Leader Flees the Capital; Elections Are Called

By Andrew Higgins and Andrew E. Kramer, NY Times, Feb. 22, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine--Abandoned by his own guards and reviled across the Ukrainian capital but still determined to recover his shredded authority, President Viktor F. Yanukovych fled Kiev on Saturday to denounce what he called a violent coup, as his official residence, his vast, colonnaded office complex and other once impregnable centers of power fell without a fight to throngs of joyous citizens stunned by their triumph.

As President Yanukovych’s nemesis, former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, was released from a penitentiary hospital, Parliament found the president unable to fulfill his duties and exercised its constitutional powers to set an election for May 25 to select his replacement. But with both President Yanukovych and his Russian patrons speaking of a “coup” carried out by “bandits” and “hooligans,” it was far from clear that the day’s lightning-quick events were the last act in a struggle that has not just convulsed Ukraine but expanded into an East-West confrontation reminiscent of the Cold War.

In the capital, protesters carrying clubs and some wearing masks were in control of the entryways to the presidential palace Saturday morning, and watched as thousands of citizens strolled through the grounds, gazing in wonder at the mansions, zoo, golf course and enclosure for rare pheasants, set in a birch forest on a bluff soaring above the Dnieper River.

A pugnacious Mr. Yanukovych surfaced on television Saturday afternoon, apparently from the eastern city of Kharkiv, near Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, saying he had been forced to leave the capital because of a “coup,” and that he had not resigned, and had no plans to. He said that his car had been fired upon as he drove away.

“I don’t plan to leave the country. I don’t plan to resign,” he said. “I am a legitimately elected president.” He added: “What is happening today, mostly, it is vandalism, banditism and a coup d’état. This is my assessment and I am deeply convinced of this. I will remain on the territory of Ukraine.”

He said he was traveling to the southeastern part of Ukraine to talk to his supporters--a plan that carried potentially ominous overtones, in that the southeast is the location, among other things, of the Crimea, the historically Russian section of the country that is the site of a Russian naval base.

The president’s departure from Kiev, just a day after a peace deal with the opposition that he had hoped would keep him in office until at least December, climaxed three months of streets protests and a week of frenzied violence in Kiev that left more than 75 protesters dead. It turned what began in November as a street protest driven by pro-Europe chants and nationalist songs into a momentous but still ill-defined revolution.

With nobody clearly in charge, other than the so far remarkably disciplined fighting squads set up to protect a protest encampment in Independence Square, the Ukrainian capital and even the whole country faced a potentially dangerous power vacuum. Adding to the combustible mix was uncertainty over the intentions of Russia, which now faces the loss of a key ally in a former Soviet republic and the prospect of a new government led by people it scorned as terrorists and fascists in what it considers a critical part of its own sphere of influence.

Ms. Tymoshenko, who was jailed by Mr. Yanukovych after losing the presidential election in 2010, was released Saturday evening from the penitentiary hospital in eastern Ukraine where she had been held, her representatives said. Many Ukrainians--and virtually all of the pro-Western protesters--believe her conviction was politically motivated and regard her as something of a martyr to their cause. She is widely expected to run for president in the coming election.

With security officers having disappeared from the streets, protesters claimed to have established control over Kiev. By Saturday morning they had secured key intersections of the city and the government district of the capital, which riot police officers had fled, leaving behind burned military trucks, mattresses and heaps of garbage at the positions they had occupied for months. There was no sign of looting, either in the city or in the presidential compound.

In Parliament, members of the opposition began laying the groundwork for a change in leadership, electing Oleksander Turchynov, an ally of Ms. Tymoshenko, as speaker. Underscoring the volatility of the situation and the potential power vacuum, Oleg Tyagnibok, the leader of the nationalist Svoboda party, asked the country’s interior minister and “forces on the side of the people” to patrol the capital to prevent looting.

With Mr. Yanukovych gone, abandoned by many members of his own ruling Party of Regions, and also apparently the military, one of the president’s oldest and most stalwart allies, the billionaire businessman Rinat Akhmetov, issued a statement stressing the need to keep Ukraine “united,” an apparent rebuff to any schemes to establish a new power center in the east.

“My position remains unchanged: I am for a strong, independent and united Ukraine,” said Mr. Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man. “Today I place a special focus on the word ‘united’ as this has never been more important.” Mr. Akhmetov and most other wealthy businessmen, who are known as oligarchs, have infuriated protesters by declining throughout months of protest to come out clearly against the president. Having amassed huge wealth under a deeply corrupt system headed since his election in 2010 by Mr. Yanukovych, Ukraine’s oligarchs could now face an angry backlash from the street.