a reporter wrote: Euromaidan in English Latest summary (January 24) circulating Facebook.. After two days (~8 hours total) of negotiations between the three main opposition leaders (Klitchko, Yatsenyuk, and Tyahnybok) and president Yanukovych, Yanukovych has categorically rejected every demand of the opposition. The only offer is that all of the arrested protesters will be released if the demonstrators release Hrushevsky street (in front of the government offices). This offer was rejected, and there is now a 24-hour cease-fire. Yanukovych is digging in, amassing more riot police, but this is a problem. There is a total of ~4,000 of these elite Berkut troops in the country. He has been calling many from outlying districts in to Kyiv. Some units (from western Ukraine, mostly) have refused. In fact an entire unit has resigned from the Berkut. The Armed Forces have said that they will not raise arms against the people. So Yanukovuch is suspected of having brought in Russian riot police and to be outfitting them as Ukrainian Berkut. He continues to use hired titushky thugs as provocateurs, but even they are becoming unreliable as word of his failure to pay them what they were promised spreads. They continue to target journalists, using snipers to target protesters eyes with their non-lethal rubber bullets, capturing, stripping and beating protesters, leaving them to die in the snow. Snatching injured persons from hospitals and clinics while theyre getting treatment, never to be seen again. Meanwhile, as the discontent grows, people in other cities are increasing their local protests. At least half of the oblasts (provinces) have had their oblast government buildings taken over by protesters, and in several of those they have ousted the governors and installed peoples governments. Yanukovych does not have the manpower to physically control multiple cities. And his support in eastern Ukraine is steadily dwindling. Several of his stronghold oblasts are showing growing discontent. Ardent soccer fans known as ultras from Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and other eastern cities are streaming to Kyiv to counter the titushky. (Using soccer hoodlums as a counter to government hoodlums is a morally and ethically questionable tactic, but the opposition leadership is not requesting this. They are just mobilizing spontaneously). The excesses of the government, the brutal inhuman tactics, are visible to all with internet access, and that is part of the problem, since there is very little internet penetration in eastern Ukraine. And the television stations are all state-controlled, so they have unconstrained capability to paint the protestors as radical right-wing neo-Nazi fascists, but the lie is being steadily exposed. Yet the protesters continue to be peaceful in the face of these conditions and tactics. They pray hourly. They sing the national anthem through the night. They maintain a positive attitude and their dignity despite inhuman conditions, and inhumane treatment. Foreign governments are finally taking notice, and more importantly, action. The US has revoked visas for a number of Ukrainian government officials and legislators. Poland individually is acting as well, and the EU is considering actions. Prime Minister Azarov was locked out of the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland) and millionaire Viktor Pinchuk was confronted by demonstrators during his charity luncheon. The noose is tightening, and Yanukovychs lifeline to Russia cannot save him, as many Russian citizens are praising Ukraines protesters for their courage, wondering when the Russian people will reach this level of discontent and reclaim their own dignity. Russia is consumed with the Sochi Olympics right now, so is unlikely to intervene before those end, and if they do afterward, it will be a Georgia-Chechnya scenario. But Ukraine aint Georgia. Ukraine is the largest country wholly within Europe, and I dont see Russian adventurism getting a pass here as it did in Georgia. I fear there will be more deaths before this ends, but I do not see any scenario in which Yanukovych survives. He has simply gone too far, and the people are mad as hell, and [arent] going to take it any more...
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 23:53:09 +0000
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