'Nobody Wants a War' But Ukraine Confronts Another Split

[newthinking]

'Nobody Wants a War' But Ukraine Confronts Another Split
by Zack Baddorf



Excerpts below: Full story at https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/03/23

"People don’t accept the new government that is now in Kiev,” said Alex Yoktov, a Donetsk native who attends the rallies. “It’s like one oligarch switched to another oligarch in the government.”

Yoktov said the Euromaidan movement in the capital Kiev used violence and “extremists to get to power.” The Euromaidan protests in Kiev were held over the past several months to demand closer integration with the EU.

“I fear that Nazis like Svoboda [a Ukrainian political party] and stuff, and such parties will be the main power of the country,” he told IPS. “So they can do whatever they want. It will be almost the same situation … in Germany when fascists come to power.”"

SNIP--

In early March, the city council of Donetsk called for a referendum on the future of the region to “protect the citizens from possible violent actions on the behalf of radicalized nationalistic forces.”

MORE: https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/03/23

[hrmjustin]

1. Ukrainian politics is a mess. I just hope Russia does nit make it worse and invade.

[Igel]

2. They might.

Or they might be perceived to make it worse.

Some Right Sektor guy, Oleksandr Muzichko (aka "White Sashka&quot , was kidnapped and killed today in W Ukraine, in or near Rivne (in Volhynia) and they blame imported Russian provocateurs for it. So the Right Sector is up in arms.

There was the nifty power outage in Crimea last night. Aksenov et al. said, basically, it was intentional and didn't mention even the possibility of any kind of equipment failure. The energy company says it was because of unexpected equipment failure. Reporters are flocking to figure out the "real" reason. I'd expect the Russian side to have already found all the "real" reason they need; nothing will subvert the truth of their pronouncements.

Russian TV continues its spectacle of equating anything Ukrainian with fascists out to kill Russians for speaking the wrong language. While some oblrada guy in Donechchyna bothered to say that perhaps in 20 years the "language question" could be broached, for now the only solution is to make Russian co-official with Ukrainian in every respect (which would be giving Russian more social territory than it had four months ago--at least then Ukr had to be taught to some extent in schools).

Meanwhile Ukr is again outraged. There were exhibits on loan from Crimean museums abroad. Russia's claimed them and in addition demanded be returned to Russia so that they be moved with selected other exhibits from Crimean museums directly to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The Ukr cultural ministry, of course, claimed them 24 hours beforehand--which is why Russia decided it had to act. Until then the issue wasn't an issue.

Then there's the sinking of an additional ship in the channel that leads from where some Ukr naval vessels are to the Black Sea. They've scuttled a couple of other clunkers there to block them, thereby saying they're in Russian waters and nationalized by Russia.

Meh.

[hrmjustin]

3. Well if they declared their independence from Ukraine than Ukraine has no obligation to

give them power.