I thought they were all commies in Venezuela?

Good, we should be able to start formulating an equation here:

(oil reserves/communism)x proximity to UK = newsworthiness

(oil reserves/communism)x proximity to UK = newsworthiness

Obviously from a UK point of view, in Spain Venezuela gets a fair amount of coverage.

So:

(oil reserves/communism)x proximity to UK x (language + shared history) = newsworthiness

not just western ukraine

15:52: In Rivne, north-eastern Ukraine, the regional council has voted to strip the government-appointed regional administration of all its powers. “We have assumed responsibility for running Rivne Region,” council chairman Mykhaylo Kyrylov says – UNIAN news agency via BBC Monitoring.

Yanukovych is starting to look like the guy who’s farted in a lift

16:05:

More on the decision of Kiev’s acting mayor, Volodymyr Makeyenko, to leave President Yanukovych’s Party of Regions: “I’m ready to do everything possible to stop fratricide and bloodshed in the heart of Ukraine, in Independence Square. Human life should have the highest value in our country and nothing can stand in the way of this principle,” he said.

From Matt Frei (of channel 4 news) on twitter:
https://mobile.twitter.com/mattfrei

According to protest sources 100 killed today #Kiev. We personally counted 13 dead. But I can easily imagine more

We filmed protesters capturing a dozen riot police, frog marching them to the police HQ and the releasing them after a civics lecture

By cracking down on protests but failing to end occupation of #Maidan @janukovich has shot himself in both feet. Big backlash. The end?

Reports of government closing bridges to Kiev to stem flow of new arrivals. Meanwhile defecting governor of capital has opened Metro

bowglie – Member

Yeah, once one knows about the er…’troubled history’ between the Ukraine and other parts of the former USSR, it seems like it has all the potential to really kick off (i.e. Russia going in). I think it helps understand the current situation if one has some historical perspective on what’s going on. IMO, a lot of the trouble in these former Soviet states and Balkans countries (and much of the Middle East) has roots in what happened during WW2. I think in the West, we have shorter memories than in other parts of the World.

I’m not sure how many people in the West are aware, but a lot of Ukrainians sided with the Nazis in WW2, and the atrocities carried out by Ukrainians on other Soviets and ‘undesirables’ was so extreme that it even shocked the SS soldiers (not too shocked to stop the s**ts filming it though!!) – I’ve seen some of the footage shot by the Nazis and it’s so bad, I had to switch it off. Apparently, the Ukrainians who volunteered for the SS were so extreme that they were formed into ‘special units’ to eradicate any potential opposition to Nazi rule.

I don’t know what Russians think of the Ukrainians now, but given their past record, I can’t think there’d be much opposition to military intervention.

I feel very sorry for the ordinary folk who are inevitably going
to end up getting caught up in the fall-out from this trouble. Just goes to show how unresolved political issues can grow into ugly situations.

Thank you for caring enough to provide this ‘history’ of Ukraine, but I think either that you are Russian, or that you have simply taken this from ‘The Kindly Ones’.

First of all, it is ‘Ukraine’, NOT ‘The Ukraine’. To say ‘the’ is tantamount to calling Wales, ‘The Welshy rump that belongs to England’. Plus, it has no legal significance, so is plain wrong on more than one level.

Next, the Ukrainian nationalists did indeed fight alongside the Germans when they invaded, as their hatred for the Soviets was greater. Frankly, Stalin’s accomplishments in Ukraine alone – never mind the purges – make Hitler look cuddly. So Ukrainians had good reason to hate. There can be no question that they also succumbed to the horrific anti-semitism of the period, but again, this is closely linked with their (mistaken) belief that the Jews sided with the Bolsheviks.

Then again, Russia already is in. The Russians know no bounds to their imperialistic designs, and they see Ukraine as key to their status as an empire. Putin has been pulling Yanukovych’s strings since before he was elected.

Finally, the East/West divide is hugely over-exaggerated. Even the people on Yanukovych’s own ‘turf’, Dnipropetrovsk, have joined in by stopping the troop-carrying trains.

I will try to post some links later that give a more accurate picture of Ukraine and the issues involved here. In the meantime,

????? ???????!

Re the C4 tweets, I hope it is the end and not the beginning.

Guardian reporting tweets of parliament pulling troops back.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/blog/2014/feb/20/ukraine-crisis-new-clashes-strain-truce-live-updates

Thank you for caring enough to provide this ‘history’ of Ukraine, but I think either that you are Russian, or that you have simply taken this from ‘The Kindly Ones’.

To be fair to bowglie, my Grandfather was one of the nicest least prejudiced people you could ever meet, but even he described the Ukrainians of the time as utter savages. This coming from a man that spent time in concentration camps in Germany and Siberia and viewed the Germans (the “enemy”) as just doing their job.

Ps. can we have Lvov back?

Opposition MPs celebrate the passing of a resolution urging the authorities to desist from shooting and withdraw police forces and the army from Kiev. Dozens of members of President Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions also backed the resolution.

Some positive news at last at the end of a very grim day

Thank you for that, shermer75. You have genuinely made my night. I had not read that.

To be fair to bowglie, my Grandfather was one of the nicest least prejudiced people you could ever meet, but even he described the Ukrainians of the time as utter savages. This coming from a man that spent time in concentration camps in Germany and Siberia and viewed the Germans (the “enemy”) as just doing their job.

It’s funny how Poles, Latvians, Finns, Czechs, South Georgians, Ukrainians, Manchurian Chinese and Chechens all dislike Russians though isn’t it?

well whod a thunk it Julia Tymoshenkos gonna be freed
and Yanukovich has fled, theyve even over run his private zoo?!!

The Ukraine – where will it all end?

It’s a symptom of faux democracy, giving the population a vote, but actually having a political elite who decide things and follow a party line imposed from above.

Top down politics makes the population subjects of the state, rather than free citizens.

Now where else can I think off that is trying to get out of such an arrangement….? 🙂

yanukovichs disneyland
http://zyalt.livejournal.com/1007568.html

Was watching the news earlier, showed Julia Tymoshenkos in a car, being driven (back to Kiev?), and Yanukovitch posturing on TV, while the whole Ukraine parliament has deposed him as leader, and the public are being given tours around his swanky country mansion! Looks like, hopefully, the country may be able to stabilise, install a more democratic leader who’s popular with the people as a whole, all without Putin sending the tanks in.
Although, I don’t think even he’d be quite so stupid to pull a stunt like that these days.
Fingers crossed things calm down, it was getting very ugly.
And as for an earlier post, I’ve been perfectly aware of what’s been going on in Thailand, I’ve seen and heard the news reports.
Not been aware of the problems in Venezuela, though; I thought their government was generally supported by the people. Maybe that’s why the Argentine government has been fairly quiet recently, they’re nervously watching what goes on in their own neighbourhood.

install a more democratic leader who’s popular with the people as a whole

Is that even possible? As I understood it there is a pretty big internal split between the more EU looking ‘Western’ Ukrainians and the more Russian sympathetic Eastern ones.

I think there’s a real worry that some of the right wing militia types that have been part of the uprising might cause trouble now

And as dodgy as yanukovich was a lot of people voted for him and aren’t happy with tymoshenko and I don’t see that Putin will just walk away

I bet that Assads also been made more nervous by all of this

Saying all that had a Facebook chat with Ukrainian ex colleague today as it’s her birthday and she’s absolutely extatic that yanukovich has gone

Overall Ukraine is better off with Russia than EU. At least huge Russian market is open for their produce plus energy special rates. Granted they have problems etc, but once power changes those very problems will come back. EU will not fix them nor they are interested. Its more like Ukraine open its market to EU, i struggle to see how will they compete with EU countries on markets.
Deffinately they will get tonnes of loans to buy Renault tractors, VAG cars, Danish pork, Spanish tomatoes, Irish beef etc etc … to eventually finish and kill off their own industries. They will get juicy transit gas rates for some time, but one must remember those monies would disappear quickly in corruption circles plus Russia builds direct gas pipes underneath Baltic sea to Germany. Ordinary people property bills would triple if they start to pay EU energy prices instead of *mates rates*.
EU isn’t financially strong to pull whole of Ukraine out of its own mess, nor do they really need. It looks more like they actually could capture more markets for their own benefit than help Ukrainians.
Very murky waters indeed, never mind posturing political stances.

I get the impression some of the locals are keen on independence 😉

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvVUOZkBxnU[/video]

I think what Ukrainians want is an end to rule by corrupt oligarchs

They see that Poland was in a similar post Soviet state to them and they have moved toward the EU and the west as a result their economy and way of life has improved massively

The Ukraine has been stuck in the Russian way- a few very rich oligarchs hoarding the wealth (their cabinet if millionaires makes ours look like paupers and we are a far richer country) I know that their universities and research are hamstrung by post Soviet corruption and nepotism

For all the faults and woes of Europe the Ukrainians have tried the Russian way and it left them poor, crime ridden and oppressed

My only claim to fame my “friend” was once married to Yulia Tymoshenko’s daughter…

Eugenia?

“When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.” – Eric Hoffer, The True Believer.