#Donetsk #Ukraine - #Putin When fists are flying, most press agencies play safe with words suggesting joint responsibility like “clashes” and “scuffles”. Video footage and reports in the Ukrainian media and social networks suggest a different slant on Thursday’s violence which has left at least one person dead, though probably more. Between 500 and 1, 000 people gathered for a demonstration in support for Ukraine’s unity and against war. They were heavily outnumbered by around 2, 000 pro-Russian demonstrators. The trouble began when the demonstrations ended. Video footage, for example, here seems to confirm the account provided by Donbas News that the aggression came from the pro-Russian side: youtube Some of the anti-war demonstrators managed to get away, flanked by the Donetsk self-defence unit. Those 40 people were, however, defenceless against a crowd of nearly a thousand aggressive pro-Russian demonstrators, many of whom were armed with at least sticks. The one person known to have died received fatal knife wounds. Dmitry (Dima) Chernyavsky was 22 and, according to an acquaintance, Denis, writing on Facebook, “a harmless, slightly shy young guy, no fighter, no radical. His mother was expecting him home today, but he didn’t come.” He seems to have been a member of the rightwing VO Svoboda party – “the enemy”, according to Russian propaganda. Claims that these are the fascist hordes whom Russia has to protect its nationals, as well as right-thinking (pro-Russian) Ukrainians from have been dismissed by western countries and do not stand up to scrutiny. Unfortunately, however, the mass audience in Russia, and Ukraine’s eastern oblasts long fed such lies would not even think to probe. They don’t ask why Pavel Gubarev, the self-proclaimed pro-Russian “people’s governor” whom Russian propaganda is treating like a persecuted hero, and others supporting him and Russian separatists in the Crimea are themselves neo-Nazis. Thursday’s bloody confrontations will doubtless inspire a new round of reports in the western media about the supposed great divide between East and West. It’s easier than probing, though you don’t have to look very far. As well as the untrammelled propaganda on pro-Russian media sources, there have also been rumours deliberately circulated to heighten fear of and antagonism towards the new administration in Kyiv and EuroMaidan. The latest is that miners and others in the Donetsk oblast will have to pay up to 10% of their wages “for the restoration of Maidan”. Russia’s leaders have received too many unpleasant surprises from Ukraine of late, and are not relying on propaganda alone. Coachloads of supposed “Russian tourists” – of a specific age, athletic build and general thuggish appearance – have been pouring into the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. They have doubtless found support from home-grown louts. Titushki or government hired thugs were used very actively by the Yanukovych regime against the EuroMaidan movement. These titushki haven’t gone away and are unlikely to worry who it is who pays for their “services”. On Thursday the European Court of Human Rights applied Rule 39 against Russia to prevent it from taking military action, and other “measures which might threaten the life and health of the civilian population on the territory of Ukraine.”. Although Russia’s Vladimir Putin has now admitted that Russian troops are present in the Crimea, he is denying plans for direct military intervention. The use of indirect methods is all too obvious. The puppet government under Sergei Aksenov has been justifiably treated with scepticism by the West. Wary scrutiny is just as vital of the dirty war underway in certain eastern oblasts. It seems no accident that the first death has come just days before the Crimea’s pseudo-referendum and as the inevitable, perhaps intended, result of numerous illicit methods to provoke violence and conflict in these regions.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 04:39:22 +0000