Miners hold pro-Russia rally in Donetsk

[newthinking]

Miners hold pro-Russia rally in Donetsk
Around 300 coalminers march through city centre in show of support for self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic

Luke Harding and agencies in Donetsk
theguardian.com, Wednesday 28 May 2014 11.57 EDT


Miners rally in Donetsk. Photograph: Ivan Sekretarev/AP

Around 300 coalminers rallied in support of pro-Russia separatists in Donetsk on Wednesdayyesterday as rebel fighters fortified their positions in the city in anticipation of a possible attack by Ukrainian forces.

The miners marched through the city centre to show support for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, waving Russian flags and banners that read: "We will revive the power of Donbass."

"I want peace and to be able to work and make money. I want the occupying soldiers to leave and return to their Kiev junta," one protester, Valery, who works at the state-owned Abakumova mine, told Reuters.

Continued: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/28/miners-russia-rally-donetsk

[pampango]

1. "We did not organise this action," said the head of the Independent Miners' Trade Union ...

Alexander Borodai, the rebels' unelected prime minister, admitted that Chechen and Ossetian fighters had arrived in Donetsk. But he described them as "volunteers" who were protecting ethnic Russians. On Tuesday Chechen fighters told the Financial Times that Chechnya's president, Ramzan Kadyrov, had ordered them to eastern Ukraine. The fighters said they were from the "dikaya diviziya", or savage division. Kadyrov has denied the claim.

On Wednesday, Denis Pushilin, the self-appointed head of the Donetsk People's Republic, suggested the armed fighters from Russia were joining the battle against Kiev. He said more and more volunteers were crossing Ukraine's long eastern border from Russia to support the rebel cause.

The Union of Mine Workers, to which most of Wednesday's protesters belong, has close links to the Party of the Regions, which ousted president Viktor Yanukovych once led.

Other miners' unions distanced themselves from the rally. "We did not organise this action," said Mykola Volynko, head of the Independent Miners' Trade Union of the Donbass, on Ukrainian television. "The protesters and the Party of the Regions continue to do everything to break up the country."

[Comrade Grumpy]

3. No, the Union of Miners did. n/t

[FSogol]

2. Sun-tanned coal-miners hold a pro-Russia rally!

[newthinking]

4. I would not really call that sun tanned. But coal mining in this age is often above ground...

[davidpdx]

5. Let me guess

They were chanting "RUSSSIAA".