I am not opposed to self determination for the people of Crimea; I am opposed to this referendum. Nobody can seriously argue there has been a chance for a campaign in which different viewpoints can be freely argued, with some equality of media access and freedom from fear and intimidation.
Hitler invaded Austria on 12 March 1938. The Anschluss was confirmed in a plebiscite on 10 April, just 28 days later, by a majority of 99.7%. Putin has done it in less than half of the time, and I have no doubt will produce a similar result in the vote. The point is not whether or not the vote reflects the will of the people – the point is whether the will of the people has been affected by military demonstration, fear, hysterically induced national psychosis and above all an absence of space for debate or alternative viewpoints.
There is no reasonable claim that Putin’s swift plebiscite is necessary because of an imminent threat of violence against Russians in Crimea. There is absolutely no reason that a referendum could not have been held at the end of this year, in a calm and peaceful atmosphere, after everybody had a chance to campaign and express their position. Putin has proved that force majeure is powerful in international politics, and there is every reason to believe that he could have finessed international acceptance of such a referendum in due course. Germany, in particular, is much more interested in its own energy supplies than in the rights of Ukraine. In twenty years in diplomacy, I never saw a single instance of Germany having any interest in rights other than its own national self-interest. It is very likely such a genuine referendum would have gone in Russia’s favour. But the disadvantages of open debate about the merits and demerits of Putin’s Russia, and his own self-image as the man of military prowess, led Putin to take the more violent course.
The vote yesterday in the Security Council should give every Putinista pause. Not even China voted with Russia. The Africans and South Americans voted solidly against. That is not because they are prisoners or puppets of the United States – they are not. Neither did they take the easy road of abstention. The truth is that what Putin is doing in Crimea is outrageous.
What happens now is going to be interesting. I greatly fear that Putin is looking to stir up as much disorder in Ukraine’s Eastern provinces as possible, perhaps with the aim of promoting civil war in which Russia can covertly intervene, rather than open invasion, but I do not put the latter past him. Against that, I am quite sure Russia did not expect the extreme diplomatic isolation, in fact humiliation, it suffered at the UN yesterday. I am hopeful Russia may step back from the brink.
The EU I expect to do nothing. Sanctions will target a few individuals who are not too close to Putin and don’t keep too many of their interests in the West. I don’t think Alisher Usmanov and Roman Abramovic need lose too much sleep, that Harrods need worry or that we will see any flats seized at One Hyde Park. (It is among my dearest wishes one day to see One Hyde Park given out for council housing.) Neither do I expect to see the United States do anything effective; its levers are limited. I doubt we have seen the last of Mr Putin’s adventurism.
Human society is not perfectible, which does not mean we should not try. I believe western democracy, particularly in its social democratic European manifestation from approximately 1945 to 2000, achieved a high level of happiness for its ordinary people and an encouraging level of equality. For approximately 20 years unfortunately we have witnessed a capitalism more raw and unabated than ever before, and massively growing levels of wealth inequality, a reduction in state provision for the needy, a distortion of state activity further to line the pockets of the rich, ever increasing corruption among the elite and growing levels of social immobility and exclusion, a narrowing of the options presented by major political parties until there is not a cigarette paper between them and their neo-conservative agendas, and a related narrowing by the mainstream media of the accepted bounds of public debate, with orchestrated ridicule of opinions outside those bounds. Democracy, as a system offering real choice to informed electors, has ceased to function in the West leading to enormous political alienation. On the international scene the West has retreated from the concept of international law and, heady with the temporary unipolar US military dominance, adopted aggressive might is right polices and a return of the practices of both formal and informal imperialism.
But every single one of those things is true of Putin’s Russia, and in fact it is much worse. Wealth inequality is even more extreme. Toleration of dissent and of different lifestyles even less evident, the space for debate even more constricted, the contempt for international law still more pronounced. Putin’s own desire for imperialist sphere of influence politics leads him into conflict with aggressive designs of the west, as for example in Syria and Iran. The consequence can be an accidental good, in that Putin has thwarted western military plans. But that is not in any sense from a desire for public good, and if Putin can himself get away with military force he does. His conflicts of interest with the west have deluded a surprising number of people here into believing that Putin in some ways represents an ideological alternative. He does not. He represents a capitalism still more raw, an oligarchy still more corrupt, a wealth gap still greater and growing still quicker, a debate still more circumscribed. It speaks to the extreme political failure of the western political system, and the degree of the alienation of which I spoke, that so many strive to see something beautiful in the ugly features of Putinism.
People power, without violence.
So, Putin told the truth.
The West lied:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZXqftu6alE#t=193
All hail the MOD’s new multimillion pound project on cyberwarfare and the impact of social media.
How ironic that there is no comments facility for this on the site…
i expect my computer will start acting even more strangely after posting this.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/16/mod-secret-cyberwarfare-programme
Nice One, Macky. Gandhi said he was a member of the human race first, and citizen of his country second. Surely he wouldn’t be categorised as “left wing”?
Also, the founding fathers of the United States (e.g. Thomas Jefferson) considered that democracy was based on people not blindly trusting their leaders but making them answerable to the people.
Ah, Res Dis, I see. You don’t even know what I’m talking about. You cite the UN refugee agency when you’re trying to talk about the human rights review process. Perhaps you mean the Human Rights Council or the Human Rights Committee.
That’s the problem with you patriots. Your idea of the law is a puerile nyah-nyah contest between warring enemies. You can’t begin to talk about international law. Ignorant and increasingly irrelevant. You don’t even understand why the US is afraid to go to war. International criminal law, universal jurisdiction law, internationally wrongful acts – it’s all greek to you. I’d sooner waste my time with some drunk in an Elkhart bar.
Michael Robinson 16 Mar, 2014 – 8:47 am
I have been arguing the same point with Craig and others – regarding the ‘golden age of Western democracy’ being an illusion. Yes, regression to the mean is a good description of what’s going on. Democracy is a system, not an outcome. Thank you for the links.
Resident Dissident,
thank you for fighting the politkoms. They are a particularly odious kind.
The two nybooks links (16 Mar, 2014 – 3:58 pm) are excellent and accord extremely well with my experience as a Ukrainian, with family and friends in southern Ukraine (Odessa and Dnipropetrovs’k oblast’).
There are several here on this blog who have jumped to conclusions about what is going on in the Ukraine and in Russia based on zero understanding of Ukrainian, Polish and Russian history and guided by their political leanings. They appear to think that Western intrigue can change the course of a struggle that has been going on for centuries. It is strange that the alleged $5BN over 23 years of Ukrainian independence has left no mark in the consciousness of my friends and family members. These propagandists are smooth operators indeed, or perhaps the $5BN claim is dubious as is typical of all of US foreign ‘aid’.
Политком Goss 16 Mar, 2014 – 4:47 pm
The video you keep banging on about is a propaganda masterpiece, inviting us to jump to lots of conclusions based on a few isolated factoids taken out of current and historical context. Ignorami like you make the perfect target audience. Your argument in support of this video boils down to this – MSM lied to us about Iraq, ergo MSM always lie. A classic non-sequiture.
Uzbek,
take heart and don’t let them get to you. I believe in democracy despite what I see in the comment threads on this blog. For every mad leftie politkom there is a mad neocon, they just cancel each other out.
karel 16 Mar, 2014 – 11:21 pm
“Craig, the picture of Hitler is a nice hoax but Bandera was a prominent sycophant of Hitler and a war criminal.”
An ignorant statement. The Soviets must have missed a trick then by not inviting Bandera, a sworn enemy, to Nuremberg. Let us know your source(s) for this accusation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera
No-one here has shown any interest in Wilheim Reich, which is a shame if we are about to see fascism rise again. How’s this for irony… Reich’s book “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” was banned by the early 1930s German communist party, and he was kicked out of the party. If they had taken a different (more enlightened) view of what he was try to warn about, perhaps they wouldn’t have so easily become the fascists first scapegoats.
Mackey. 10 41pm
Thanks for the Chomsky link.
“My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one’s actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.”
All Governments and dictators are dangerous and should be abolished and then we may get some peace. Anyway when people wake up they may come to realisation its just a hologram.
So here is a nice little number hot of the press.
The Citizen’s Arrest of Tony Blair:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vevw36LcUm4&feature=youtu.be
Resident Dissident 16 Mar, 2014 – 5:35 pm
“Clear Perspex ballot boxes in the Crimea – now why would that be??”
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_17/Crimean-referendum-in-line-with-intl-standards-laws-Austrian-observer-8550/
CM
“Human society is not perfectible, which does not mean we should not try. I believe western democracy, particularly in its social democratic European manifestation from approximately 1945 to 2000, achieved a high level of happiness for its ordinary people and an encouraging level of equality. For approximately 20 years unfortunately we have witnessed a capitalism more raw and unabated than ever before, and massively growing levels of wealth inequality, a reduction in state provision for the needy, a distortion of state activity further to line the pockets of the rich, ever increasing corruption among the elite and growing levels of social immobility and exclusion, a narrowing of the options presented by major political parties until there is not a cigarette paper between them and their neo-conservative agendas, and a related narrowing by the mainstream media of the accepted bounds of public debate, with orchestrated ridicule of opinions outside those bounds. ”
The claim of the Gospels and the Qur’an is that ” ye are to be perfect “, and that perfection of faith allowed the early Muslims to defeat the surrounding Empires of Rome and Persia within a few years.
But when the Muslims disobey the Qur’an and engage in a 40 year love affair with the neo-cons, or rather the neo-colonials against the express commands of Allah not to work in partnership with them, what do you get?
In a Muslim country where the government is trying to fulfil its Islamic duty to provide law and order for society, an ally of the neo-colonial powers, Al Qaida, makes a fatwa that it is lawful to murder the soldiers, bus drivers, shoppers in the bazaar, in order to make a strategic political gain.
In a non-Muslim country, where the government has ensured the provision of disabled parking spaces next to the entry to the major supermarkets, I see 75 year old widows hobbling to park their trolleys in the trolley bays while young Muslims, male and female, park their 63 reg Audis Rolls or BMWs in the disabled bays, and hop into the shop for half an hour with their children.
There is something deeply repellant to those who have fought for centuries against colonialism abroad and capitalism at home, under the inspiration of people like Bob Crow and Tony Benn, that the creed of the Christian and Muslim alike is now ‘me first’, my own right to life and my own right to safety exceeds the rights of all my fellow beings.
The Neo-con/neo-colonial mindset uses the label of ‘the ends justifies the means’: viz when I take power from the corrupt people who are sitting in the seats of priveledge now, by any illegal means, I will establish the rule of Islamic/Christian justice.
Utter and complete and total irredeemable gonads. The justice of Islam whether from Christian or Muslim provenance can only be established by the obedience to Allah. Chalas/towow/ end of story/ no need to say any more.
In relation to the right of Russia to oppose US ambition I respect them for their intellectual power in confronting illegal US interference in world affairs. As with Tony Benn, I admire his intellectual power in opposing neo-con and neo-colonial ambition.
But I personally believe that the route to success is not through socialism but through faith. The UK became great on its base of Protestant faith and the good book being digested by UK citizens.
Al Qaida is the enemy of Islam, and selfish exhibition of material wealth and defiance of human law is the work of Shaytan. Allah forgive the Muslims who should be an example of godd behaviour, not world famous for violence and abuse of power.
Evgenii
As for Nuremberg trials, Bendera was a fish too small to be fried. Anyway, the KGB got him at the end and not without a reason. If you want to believe in his innocent nature, then just stick to Wikipedia. It is written for people like you. Otherwise you can try links like http://www.infoseite-polen.de/newslog/?p=2410 to learn a bit more.
Craig, I do realise that you think, this thing is not going to happen, and maybe it will, or maybe it won’t, but if The Prosecution of ANTHONY CHARLES LYNTON BLIAR goes ahead with my Ex Girlfriends Kid’s in The Prosecution Team (They are Both Highly Successful Lawyers) – With My Own Daughter as a Witness – For When His Thugs (Local Police) Arrested Her Twice When She Was 15, Merely To Collect Her DNA (walking home from our local park two minutes away..can we call on you as a witness (if necessary) to give Evidence for The Prosecution?
She refused to give her Real Name. She Didn’t Run Away – Because She Hadn’t Done Anything Wrong. I phoned up the Police Station, and They Said We Haven’t Got Anyone Of That Name Here…But My Wife and I Had Already Had Witness Statements Over The Phone From All Of Her Friends…
They Said She Didn’t Run…
I said Can I have My Daughter Back Please…
At 3:00am at The Ploice Station, I signed all the Papers Put In Front of Me without looking at them..and My Daughter Flew Into My Arms
She was only 15, She hadn’t done anything wrong.
and I Got Her Out Of Jail.
What courage is that?
Tony
Wise thinking By – Finian Cunningham –
” Crimea Self-Determination Amid Western Law of the Jungle
The crisis stems from the Western allies engaging in a tug-o-war to incorporate Ukraine into the European Union, allegedly so that the former Soviet Republic would benefit from EU standards of economics, law and culture. This supposedly high-minded objective has been pursued by Washington, London, Paris and Berlin by destroying the sovereignty and constitution of Ukraine in their illicit support for putschists who overthrew the elected authorities in Kiev last month – after nearly four months of Western-backed street violence conducted by neo-Nazi paramilitaries.
That violence also included acts of mass-murder, most probably, the evidence shows, carried out by covert snipers working for the Western-backed agitators, in which up to 100 people, protesters and police, were shot dead and hundreds more wounded.
Now the Western sponsors of the coup d’état in Kiev turn around and accuse Russia of violating Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity because Moscow has welcomed the decision by the Crimean republic to hold a legally constituted referendum.
More from this piece @
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/crimea-self-determination-amid-western-law-of-the-jungle/
“There is no reasonable claim that Putin’s swift plebiscite is necessary because of an imminent threat of violence against Russians in Crimea. There is absolutely no reason that a referendum could not have been held at the end of this year, in a calm and peaceful atmosphere, after everybody had a chance to campaign and express their position.”
I’m sure Putin would then have won the “reasonableness” war, but, sadly, most major powers don’t seem to see the need for cool, considered, non rushed actions. It looks like no one is coming out of this affair with any moral high ground – certainly not “the West”, which seems determined to push Russia into a corner….
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I want to begin by thanking the Russian Orthodox Palestinian Society for inviting us to attend this important meeting.
We have just arrived from Syria. Syria, where there is evidence of death, destruction and outright murder, in all cities, villages and regions of the country.
No one wants this absurd war to be ended.
Everyone is crying and mourning to see the daily suffering of the Syrian people.
But what do they do? Nothing!
Quite frankly I say, that the approach of the United Nations, in particular that of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva regarding the Syrian crisis, contributes to deepening the disaster in which we live.
The wars inside Syria are portrayed as a conflict between the forces of the state and the opposition forces.
This is not true.
Full piece @
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-destruction-and-murder-funded-by-foreign-forces-mother-agnes-mariam/5373684
She was just a little 15 year old girl, and God, she can run, if she wants to run..she was her older brother’s diving mate when they both qualified for their Full Diving Certificates…
You Know Going Really Deep Down…looking above at The Whales and The Sharks
She had already done that Before The Massive Burly Policeman Threw Her To The Ground…He Put His Knee in Her Back – Cuffed Her From Behind…with these plastic things you use to tie up cables..He then picked up my daughter and threw her into the back of The Meat Wagon…
Got Another One For You Sir…
This One Told Me To FXCK OFF
My Daughter
I love Her So
She is Really Shy Like Me.
Tony
Hopeless sophistry from the “Ethnic Scot” Murray.
Re above. I did Say My Daughter Got Arrested Twice when She Was 15 years old…
The police didn’t realise this time…
They already had her DNA from the first time…
This time none of her friends ran away – the police gave them all a lift home..
But still, she wouldn’t give her name…so Her Older Brother’s Girlfriend Saw Her In The Police Bus (They Had Upgraded The Meat Wagon) and said to her – come on – You Really Do Not Want To Be Arrested AGAIN…
Just Tell Them Your Name
The Meat Wagon was Parked Right Outside Our Home
Still We Had To Go Through The Disciplinary Interview
First Time At The Police Station…
Second Time We Invited All The Coppers Round To Our House…
I thought if they want to give me a lesson they can all come round to my home.
The Third Time 3 Years Later She skipped school – dressed herself as a Press Photographer with her camera…
And She Spun Between The Riot Police With All There Heavy Metal Gear and Helmets…
And The Peaceful Protestors…and they looked at each other – wanting to have a bit of a ruck…
And they saw my daughter between them taking all the photographs…
Look at her – She is Really Embarrassing Us..We can’t fight now – she might get hurt…
The next day she went again with all her school friends..and the Police escorted them right to The Front..So that she could take photographs of Obama’s Cavalcade when he arrived in London
My Daughter is Something Else
“Someone or something that cannot be described in words. It’s not a good thing, but a great one.”
Tony
here’s how to do it – when the right Saviours are on your side:
Haaretz – Report: Syrian opposition willing to trade Golan claims for Israeli military support
Top opposition official tells Al Arab newspaper militant groups want Israel to enforce a no-fly zone.
“Why shouldn’t we be able to sell the Golan Heights because it is better than losing Syria and Golan at once,” Kamal al-Labwani, a prominent member of the Syrian opposition, told the Arab newspaper, according Al Alam, an Arabic language Iran state-owned media outlet.
The Western-backed militant groups want Israel to enforce a no-fly zone over parts of southern Syria to protect rebel bases from air strikes by Assad’s forces, according to the report…
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.580169
So is what you’re saying that the people of Crimea and every other region of Ukraine have a right to vote for Union with Russia, just as the Scotch have the right to vote themselves out of the UK or the Venetians to vote themselves out of Italy, but you just think that the vote was not valid?
If so, then had the vote been conducted under absolutely perfect conditions, what do you think the outcome would have been? A strong vote for sticking with the $5-billion-dollar Nazi usurpers in Kiev, or what?
of course, sell off the resources even before you get your jihadi allies to offer you the land:
22 Feb – Global Research: Israel Grants First Golan Heights Oil Drilling License To Dick Cheney-Linked Company
Israel has granted a U.S. company the first license to explore for oil and gas in the occupied Golan Heights, John Reed of the Financial Times reports.
A local subsidiary of the New York-listed company Genie Energy — which is advised by former vice president Dick Cheney and whose shareholders include Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch — will now have exclusive rights to a 153-square mile radius in the southern part of the Golan Heights.
That geographic location will likely prove controversial…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/srael-grants-first-golan-heights-oil-drilling-license-to-dick-cheney-linked-company/5347779
whatever. we’re so enlightened, it’s all good and well.
bbc were breathless with excitement over the following, but i noticed the Beeb guy choking on “tens” when he said “tens of thousands”…
watch the video, only close-ups of what looks in moscow like a few hundred. also has the pic by Alexander Zemlianichenko that is being used to show “tens of thousands”. who knows when it was taken.
Moscow protest draws tens of thousands
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-12-24/russia-opposition-protests/52202792/1
16 March: IANS: Crimea referendum proceeds smoothly with high youth turnout: Observers
Monitoring the referendum are 135 foreign observers from 23 countries and 1,240 local ones. The controversial vote also attracted some 2,500 journalists from around the world…
“We have inspected 1,169 polling stations,” Xinhua quoted Ivan Abazher from the non-governmental Observer Council — Crimean Choice as saying.
“We saw no violations or provocations. Voter activity in Crimea is unprecedented. Many young people have already come to the polls,” he said…
A Russian monitor, Maksim Grigoryev from the Civic Chamber of Russia, said voters were going to polling stations as if it were a matter of life and death.
He noted that even very old men and women and people with disabilities joined Sunday’s plebiscite.
Pavel Chernev, another Bulgarian observer and also a member of parliament, described the ongoing referendum as “100 percent in line with European standards” in terms of the organisation and procedures.
The Bulgarian lawmaker even noticed that a mobile ballot box has been used for people with advanced age…
http://newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2014/03/16/281–Crimea-referendum-proceeds-smoothly-with-high-youth-turnout-Observers-.html
16 March – Global Research: Stephen Lendman: Crimeans Vote on Joining Russia
International observers from America, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, Latvia and other countries came.
So did European parliamentarians, international law experts, and 1,240 Crimean organization representatives. Human rights activists were involved.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was invited. It declined…
European Geopolitical Analysis Centre’s Mateusz Piskorski said observers are experienced in electoral monitoring.
According to international standards, Crimean media, including television, abstained from campaigning for independence or joining Russia.
At the same time, Crimeans were urged to vote. Nothing suggested which way. No pressure was applied. A Simferopol resident likely spoke for most others, saying:
“We made our choice long ago. Ukraine has given us nothing, so we will try to live in Russia.”
A Kerch resident called what’s happening in Ukraine “horrible. They won’t let us live, it’s clear.”
Foreign journalists arrived in droves. A British reporter expressed surprise. Each taxi driver he asked gave “an approving nod when hearing the word ‘Russia.’ ”
Other foreign journalists are surprised at how many cars display Russian flags. Popular sentiment overwhelmingly is pro-Russian…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/crimeans-vote-on-joining-russia/5373673?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=crimeans-vote-on-joining-russia
16 March – VIDEO: BBC: As it happened: Crimea votes in referendum
Election officials say 95.5% of voters have backed joining Russia in the referendum, after half of the ballots were counted…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26599776
another job well done:
16 March – (from The Independent) Patrick Cockburn: Three Years After Gaddafi, Libya Is Imploding Into Chaos and Violence
Its government has no real power; militias are ever more entrenched, and now the state itself is under threat
A striking feature of events in Libya in the past week is how little interest is being shown by leaders and countries which enthusiastically went to war in 2011 in the supposed interests of the Libyan people. President Obama has since spoken proudly of his role in preventing a “massacre” in Benghazi at that time. But when the militiamen, whose victory Nato had assured, opened fire on a demonstration against their presence in Tripoli in November last year, killing at least 42 protesters and firing at children with anti-aircraft machine guns, there was scarcely a squeak of protest from Washington, London or Paris…
But the Nato powers that overthrew him – and by some accounts gave the orders to kill him – did not do so because he was a tyrannical ruler. It was rather because he pursued a quirkily nationalist policy backed by a great deal of money which was at odds with western policies in the Middle East. It is absurd to imagine that if the real objective of the war was to replace Gaddafi with a secular democracy that the West’s regional allies in the conflict should be theocratic absolute monarchies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. This is equally true of Western and Saudi intervention in Syria which has the supposed intention of replacing President Bashar al-Assad with a freely elected government that will establish the rule of law.
Libya is imploding…
http://www.unz.com/pcockburn/three-years-after-gaddafi-libya-is-imploding-into-chaos-and-violence/
[Banned from commenting]
17 March – Reuters – Mike Collett-White/Alastair MacDonald: Moscow wins Crimea vote, West readies sanctions
Crimea’s Moscow-backed leaders declared a 96-percent vote in favour of quitting Ukraine and annexation by Russia in a referendum Western powers said was illegal and will bring immediate sanctions…
With three-quarters of Sunday’s votes counted in Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula that is home to 2 million people, 95.7 percent had supported annexation by Russia, chief electoral official Mikhail Malyshev, was quoted as saying by local media.
Turnout was 83 percent, he added – a high figure given that many who opposed the move had said they would boycott the vote…
The risk of Europe becoming locked in a damaging spiral of economic retaliation with Moscow, from which it buys much of its energy, depended on Russia, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said ahead of the EU meeting in Brussels: “I would do anything possible to avoid sanctions, because I believe everybody will suffer if we get into sanctions,” he said…
There were pro-Russian rallies in several Ukrainian cities on Sunday, including one in Kharkiv where protesters burned books at a Ukrainian cultural centre where two pro-Russian activists were shot dead on Friday in a fight with members of Right Sector, a nationalist group that emerged during battles with riot police amidst the pro-European protests in Kiev.
In Donetsk, heart of the industrial east where a Ukrainian nationalist was killed in a clash last week, some welcomed the outcome in Crimea and hoped they too might vote to join Russia.
“This is a total victory. A 100 percent win,” said one man who gave his name as Roman. “We here in Donetsk support Crimea. We don’t support the Kiev authorities that are ruling today.”…
The Interior Ministry, possibly responding to reported threats by nationalist militants to attack pipelines carrying Russian gas exports to the EU across Ukraine, said its forces had taken control of the country’s vital pipeline network…
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/17/ukraine-crisis-crimea-referendum-idINDEEA2G00620140317?feedType=RSS&feedName=everything&virtualBrandChannel=11709
(Additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Andrew Osborn in Simferopol, Ron Popeski, Richard Balmforth and Natalia Zinets in Kiev, Lina Kushch in Donetsk, Roberta Rampton and Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Adrian Croft and Jan Strupczewski in Brussels and Lidia Kelly and Timothy Heritage in Moscow; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Alastair desperately looking for a more “martial mood”:
17 March – Reuters – Alastair MacDonald: As Russia closes in, Ukrainians fearful, defiant
“Us fascists?” asked Valentin. “They’re the fascists,” he said, likening the “referendum at gunpoint” he expects to annex Crimea to the invasion he was part of as a young conscript, when Soviet leaders claimed to have been invited by Czechoslovakia to lend “fraternal help” against a purported right-wing plot…
As shown by Crimean voters and eastern protesters seeking autonomy, many Ukrainians feel cut off from a Russian homeland by arbitrary post-Soviet borders. But they are in a minority, albeit concentrated in big, industrial cities near Russia…
For old soldier Valentin, Putin’s action could “backfire”: “He’s pushing us into the arms of the EU,” he said, echoing a widespread view in Kiev after two uneasy decades trying to balance relations between the Kremlin and the West.
Svetlana, visiting from Poltava in the east, blamed Putin and corrupt Ukrainian leaders for the situation: “It’s just terrible that people are talking about war. It’s worrying.”…
A poll last week confirmed that few Ukrainians – about 3 percent – want to go to war to defend their territory, including Crimea. But appeals for support for the armed forces, including troops blockaded in bases in Crimea, and last week’s formation of a new National Guard are contributing to a more martial mood…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/17/us-ukraine-crisis-war-idUSBREA2G03220140317
(Editing by Ron Popeski)