The ultimate end response by the West to the Russian ‘invasion’ of Ukraine is to encourage Putin and Poroshenko to shake hands at Normandy.
Crimea is happily in Russia and the east will get devolution from central control meaning more autonony through federalization. The Oligarch Akhmetov keeps paying taxes in London for his $125 Apartment. He keeps paying low wages to his steelworkers to produce steel for Russian tanks.
Perhaps Ukraine’s right dissaproves the Piutin Poroshenko handshake leading to a ceasefire and they return to Maidan once again fomenting revolution.
Not when the police themselves are being shot and killed by rioters. The protestors ceased to have the privileges of peaceful protesters when police are killed and specifically when the police are trying to defend the elected government and the buildings it operates in from a violent mob trying to take it over.
The Maidan protests ceased legitimacy as a protest on December 1 in my view when 100 police were injured while legitimately defending the President’s HQ and in this instance stopping a commandeered bulldozer.
From that point forward about a week into the protest was plagued by provacateurs increasingly ratcheting up the violence against police until February 18 when all hell broke loose.
I don’t have much sympathy if any at all for the protesters who had to know that provacateurs were commiting acts of violence against those police.
The police with all the injuries over four months of on again off again rioting were running low on manpower. On the 18th two of three water canons were burned by rioters. Forty police were captured and taken back to protest central on the 18th and later released. Police lines were broken at the Parliament on the 18th blocking some Members from getting through.
Have you ever stood in a police line trying to protect something like a parliament and having five pound bricks coming at your head and petrol bombs exploding at your feet?
Yet you come back with some ‘rule’ requiring these police have to take the attacks on their lives or I guess surrender to the rioters and run home.
Your ‘rule’ doesn’t apply here. It can’t. Those riots were completely out of control.
What line in your book of rules are ‘protesters’ not allowed to cross before losing their legitimacy and being nothing other than rioters and violent minded criminals?
Nope. Nothing of what you wrote justifies a state using deadly force against its own population. Nothing can justify such a thing, in this European guy’s point of view.
You know, this is an interesting point. Can you tell me if, in your opinion, Donetsk and Slavyansk and other Eastern Ukraine’s “rebels” have crossed that line, lost their legitimacy and are nothing other than rioters and violent minded criminals? After all, the atrocities they visited on police and other officialdom are several orders of magnitude higher than what you’re accusing the Maidan protesters of.
Oh, it’s your point of view that carries no weight whatsoever when an elected government is about to be overthrown when the use of non-lethal force cannot sustain a defense of government officials and property and basic rule of law.
That’s keen. If one political/ideological organization could mass enough angry citizens that are willing to attack and kill security forces they can rest assured that they can attack all they want because lethal force cannot be used against them in Batistuta’s ideal world.
I don’t know of any elected government that would not use lethal force to repel a very serious attempt to overthrow it.
I call them what you call them - rebels. Their legitimacy comes in whether the succeed or not. They are not attempting to overthrow the government of Kiev. They are rebelling to have very little to do with Kiev.
They may be violent minded criminals but that would be in the sense but I have seen reports that when the rebellion began in the wake of the Maidan fiasco ttat 17,000 police in the eastern regions joined the rebel movement. There wasn’t any local police to throw rocks at in the beginning. And I’ve seen no indication that Donetsk and Slavyansk police and rebels fighting amongst themselves. The fight has been against Ukraine national guard coming in from western areas of Ukraine.
I dont call the armed anti-Maidan separatists protesters they are rebels.
I call the rioters that threw firebombs and bricks at police rioters.
In the protests in Madrid led by coal miners there were ten arrests and three were taken to jail for throwing bricks at police. That ended that.
And there is the issue that the separatists had no reason to be ruled by the government in Kiev which came to power by violent coup.
We are waiting to see if a ceasefire comes about. But It seems to me if Kiev wants to call them criminals they need to be consistent and arrest the leaders of the coup that toppled Yanukovich.
But yeah in my view the rebels that tried to take the airport in Donetsk were acting criminally and even the interim government was justified in using lethal force to drive them out and kill them.
I have no problem with that.
Apparently occupying government buildings was ok in Kiev to call for an elected government to resign but it is not ok in Donetsk and Skavyansk to occupy government buildings and demand separation or more autonomy for their region. They may get the latter - well see.
You didn’t answer the question, but instead threw up a wall of text.
Did they or did they not “cross the line”? It’s a simple yes or no answer. If you feel your answer need qualification, answer “yes” or “no” first, and then clarify. Wall-of-text is not an answer.
They are overthrowing their local governments. So “their legitimacy comes in whether the succeed or not”? Well Maidan’s “rebels” succeeded - so they are legitimate. Right?
Sure. You haven’t seen reports about the “rebels” executing policemen in cold blood, have you? Or did you close your eyes and hum loudly?
What about the ones that took the local government buildings? Police stations? Border guard stations? Banks? etc. etc. etc.?
Apparently, for you, occupying government buildings was not ok in Kiev but it is ok in Donetsk and Slavyansk?
But that’s not really the issue. The issue is the ones that are taking over provincial government buildings and trying to violently break away from the country. NFBW has made it clear that he doesn’t care if Ukraine falls apart. We’re wondering if he cares HOW it falls apart.
Cross what line? There is no realistic comparison between the anti-Maidan rebels in Donetsk and Slavyansk.
I understand that when you can’t argue against a point here you call it a wall of text. Like I said there is no fighting between the Russian speaking police and Russian-speaking rebels so I am not sure what Terr was referring to when he wrote this:
I read that a Ukraine government official admitted that 17,000 police either joined the rebels or walked away from their post. So Terr’s got a problem that needs to be resolved for his question. I’m not aware of atrocities visited on police by anti-Maidan rebels.
You should check your fellow pro-Maidan poster’s work before glomming onto it. Just a suggestion.
Yes, thanks for pointing that out. When Ahkmetov’s steel workers came out to restore order the rebels and the steel workers didnt fight either. With Putin pulling troops back from the Ukraine border and publically stating that he would respect the vote held last month it should be clear to the rebels that separation is not going to happen. They should put down their weapons except for self/defense and negotiate for the federal system that allows their region to trade with Russia or whoever they want.
That’s the peaceful way out of this. Attacking the airport was criminal and stupid. Not everything they’ve done is criminal or the work of terrorists.
Comparing the separatists to those who threw bricks and Molotov cocktails at police has no basis in reality.
No mob-induced violent coup in Kiev last February - no violently breaking away from the country today. Try to keep in mind the order of the violent events.
And there would be little violence in Slavyansk and Donetsk had the interim pro-Maidan post-coup authorities kept Ukrainuan troops and helicopters out of the rebelling regions. I don’t recall the out if control rioting that happened in Kiev taking place in Donetsk and Slavyansk.
According to Olena Rybak, after some time, the Horlivka police nevertheless began to investigate the murder. As a result, the Russian terrorist Igor Bezler (Lieutenant Colonel in the GRU, Russian military intelligence — Ed.) seized the police officers involved in the case and put them in the basement where there were pools of blood. He warned them that “if they do not close the case, the same thing would happen to them as to Rybak.” she said.
KYIV, April 23 /Ukrinform/. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has established the involvement of a Russian citizen, Lieutenant Colonel of the Russian Main Intelligence Department Igor Bezler, in the murder of Horlivka City Council deputy Volodymyr Rybak (Batkivshchyna Party).
A police officer was killed and two others injured in the attack near the separatist stronghold of Slavyansk by pro-Russian rebels who launched a mortar attack on a checkpoint after taking up position in a church, deputy interior minister Serhiy Yarovy said.
about 60 gunmen attacked the police station and were repulsed in an operation that killed one policeman and about 20 people that he called “terrorists.”
Are you joking? You set the line. It’s your line. As XT has reminded you over an over again, people can read by scrolling up. We don’t forget what you posted. Would you prefer that we did?
Do you recognize and understand the significance of the difference in overthrowing local governments and overthrowing the central government of all of Ukraine?