Ukraine Crisis News Thread

chicagotribune.com said:

Andrew Osborne
SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine (Reuters) - Outside the squat Soviet-era building that houses Sevastopol's authorities, pro-Russian activists have covered the wall with a blizzard of flyers aimed at persuading residents of Crimea to vote to leave Ukraine and become part of Russia on Sunday.

Patriotic extracts from the Russian national anthem jostle for space with emotional condemnations of the new Ukrainian government in Kiev, the capital, highlighting what many ethnic Russians here say are its fascist tendencies.

But look carefully and you'll find more practical appeals for people's votes. One, entitled "Ten demands from the International Monetary Fund that will put Ukraine on its knees", says the IMF will cause Ukrainian living standards, already lower than Russia's, to plummet.

Next to it, another sheet of A4, entitled "Our home is Russia", reprints what it says is glowing praise from the IMF of Russia's key economic indicators, telling voters how much higher average wages and pensions in Russia are than in Ukraine.

As Crimea's pro-Russian authorities seek to ensure what they say will be a landslide victory for those who want this strategic peninsula to become part of Russia, they are making a simple pitch for voters: Your standard of living will rocket if you become part of Russia.

Not all of the information being given to voters is accurate. The "Our Home is Russia" flyer tells voters Russia is the fifth largest economy in the world. It is in fact the eighth.

But the gap between the two countries' economies is nonetheless yawning. Ukraine's economy, according to the IMF, is only the world's 54th biggest, and with a size of $176 billion is dwarfed by Russia's, which is over $2 trillion....

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Russia and the US have "no common vision" on the crisis in Ukraine, Russia's foreign minister has said, after talks with his US counterpart.

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After six hours of talks between the two men, Mr Lavrov told reporters that Russia had no plans to invade south-eastern Ukraine.

Russia would "respect the will of the people of Crimea", he said.

Crimeans are to vote on whether to leave Ukraine and become part of the Russian Federation.

Mr Kerry, who described the talks as "direct and candid", said the US acknowledged Russia's "legitimate interests" in Ukraine.

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The Ukraine crisis has entered a new and more dangerous phase after 11th-hour talks in London between the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, broke up without resolution.

The diplomatic failure sets Russia on a collision course with the west, with Moscow ordering further military deployments on Friday and a contentious referendum in Russian-dominated Crimea set to go ahead as planned on Sunday.

The referendum, which will almost certainly result in a vote in favour of breaking away from Ukraine and union with Russia, will trigger the imposition of sanctions by the west on Monday.

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WARSAW — Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense has announced plans to hold joint drills of the Ukrainian and Polish air forces. Under the plan, Ukraine’s Mikoyan MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-27 jet fighters will participate in the military exercises along with Poland’s F-16s and Mikoyan MiG-29s, the ministry said in a statement.

The Safe Sky 2014 drills are scheduled from May to July, the statement said. The drills will be focused on the tactical aspects of intercepting air targets.

The latest move comes as Russia-backed troops are concentrating in Ukraine’s Crimea. The pro-Russian forces have taken over a number of Ukrainian military facilities there to tighten their grip on the Black Sea peninsula.

Ukraine’s defense minister and former Navy chief, Igor Tenyukh, said in a television interview March 9 that during the past weeks, Russia’s Black Sea fleet has expanded its military presence in Crimea from 12,500 troops to an estimated 18,768 troops.

Among European Union member states, Poland has been one of the most vocal critics of the Russian intervention in Ukraine. The Polish government was also one of the first to recognize the new Ukrainian government formed by Prime Minister Areniy Yatsenuk in late February. ■

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Russia has imposed sanctions against Lithuania and embargoed the port of Klaipeda in response to its foreign policy with Ukraine

On Thursday morning the Lithuanian parliament condemned the military aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine and its occupation of the territory of a sovereign country. The parliament said that it strongly supports the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of Ukraine and expressed political solidarity with the new Ukrainian authorities; they also supported sanctions against Russia, while favoring visa liberalization and the early signing of the European Union Association Agreement with Ukraine slated for next week.

In response, Russia has temporarily suspended the import of food products into the Customs Union. If a Western (specifically, American) company wants to deliver goods through Lithuania to Russia or a Customs Union state, Russian officials will order it to go “through other ports which do not belong to Lithuania [or] to certain other countries,” according to Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius. Russian media calls Lithuania’s pro-Ukrainian policy “anti-Russian.”

Lithuania’s exports to Russia amount for a fifth of its total exports and remain an integral part of its economy.

“This is a way for Russia to show that having political positions which do not meet their interests are punished in some way,” said Robertas Dargis, president of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists. “In Lithuania’s case, punishment is usually through economic means, which we saw many times previously.”

Prime Minister Butkevicius said that because of Russia’s actions, all the terminals of the Klaipeda port can neither “export nor re-export or import.”

On Friday, a cooperation and partnership agreement was signed between the Klaipeda State Seaport and the Port of Huston, Texas.

“Although these Russian commentators do not say so, what Moscow is doing in Klaipeda is not only an act of revenge against Lithuania but a test of Western and especially NATO resolve. In the absence of a clear and forceful response, more such testing of the alliance is unfortunately likely in the coming days.” said political analyst Paul Goble.

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Two people have been killed after armed men from the radical Right Sector movement attacked local self-defense activists and barricaded themselves inside their HQ in Ukraine's Kharkov. Two negotiators have been taken hostage, the city mayor said.

The armed group that barricaded itself inside the local headquarters of Right Sector was shooting and throwing flash grenades and Molotov cocktails at Kharkov anti-Maidan activists who gathered outside.

Two people were killed in the shooting and at least four more were wounded, authorities said. The armed group has taken hostage three men – two activists and one policeman –who reportedly went inside to negotiate their surrender.

Police deployed at the scene cordoned off the area and were preparing to storm the building, where some 40 people were believed to be hiding.

However, mayor Gennady Kernes who arrived at the scene, dealt with the situation on his own, and after calling someone, entered the building and spent around ten minutes negotiating with people inside.

“As a result of negotiations we have released one hostage. There are around 40 radicals inside. Militants remain hostage Two men remain hostage, one of whom is a policeman who entered the building for negotiations,” Kernes told journalists, as cited by Itar-Tass.

The incident reportedly began after a Kharkov self-defence group patrolling the city square noticed a suspicious Volkswagen van and tried to stop it. It was the same van involved in a shooting back on March 8, when one of the anti-Maidan activists was wounded.

When the driver refused to stop, LifeNews reports, activists chased the van to the building on Rymarska Street, where the office of Right Sector is located.

The shooting started after the activists tried to enter the building. Gunmen were also throwing flash grenades and Molotov cocktails from the second floor of the building, LifeNews reports.

Activists had to retreat waiting for police and ambulances to arrive. Meanwhile numerous videos of the incident captured by the activists and have been uploaded on YouTube.

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TheLastOne36 said:

Though admittedly the following map showing where in Kherson Oblast they've invaded is kinda a letdown:

Spoiler :

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TheLastOne36 said:

Russian troops invade Kherson Oblast

Though admittedly the following map showing where in Kherson Oblast they've invaded is kinda a letdown:

Spoiler :

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Borachio said:

Has anyone noticed that the pronunciation of Sevastopol has changed?

It used to be, for as long as I can remember, Sevast'opol. Now it seems to be Sevastop'ol.

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Lone Wolf said:

It's Sevastopol (stress on bolded o) in Russian, I never heard any other pronunciation.

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A UN Security Council resolution, calling on countries not to recognize the results of the Crimean referendum, “could currently only lead to confrontation and further aggravate the situation,” according to a statement issued Sunday by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

“This is neither in Ukraine’s interest, nor in the interest of the international community,” the statement said. It warned all sides against taking any steps that would make the Ukrainian crisis worse.

Thirteen out of fifteen members of the UN Security Council voted March 15 in favor of the resolution, saying that the referendum in Crimea is illegitimate. Russia used its right of veto to block the resolution, while China abstained.

Following the vote, Liu Jieyi, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, told the Security Council that China held “an objective and fair position on the Ukraine issue," as cited by Xinhua.

Liu said Beijing vows to "continue to mediate and promote dialogue so as to play a constructive role in bringing about a political solution to the crisis."

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Winner said:

I really hope the Ukrainians are deploying their troops along the real border with Russia (i.e. in the East, on access roads to the big cities), lest Putin gets it in his head that more self-defence troops or other Russian tourists pay a visit.

Also, I'll reiterate that NATO/EU should stop playing a chicken and make it crystal clear that that any invasion of Ukraine proper will lead to serious consequences of the military kind.



Uh? If the apostrophe shows word stress, then I am pretty sure it should be Se'vastopol in English (really guys, the way you handle word stress is absurdly... irregular).

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Borachio said:

The stress used to come on the second syllable, now it comes on the third. Probably as a result of trying to conform to how the people who own the place pronounce it.

I've never heard the stress come on the first syllable. That would be unnatural for a native English speaker, I think. (I don't think I can even say it like that.) Would it make a person sound Italian?

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cybrxkhan said:

I am not too surprised China abstained. Doesn't it often abstain in situations like this anyways? I think they abstained when it came to Syria if I remember correctly.

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