Posted on 02/20/2014 8:58:56 AM PST by mandaladon
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Fearing that a call for a truce was a ruse, protesters tossed firebombs and advanced upon police lines Thursday in Ukraine's embattled capital. Government snipers shot back and the almost-medieval melee that ensued left at least 70 people dead and hundreds injured. Video footage on Ukrainian television showed shocking scenes Thursday of protesters being cut down by gunfire, lying on the pavement as comrades rushed to their aid. Trying to protect themselves with shields, teams of protesters carried bodies away on sheets of plastic or on planks of wood.
Protesters were also seen leading policemen with their hands held high around the sprawling protest camp in central Kiev. Ukraine's Interior ministry says 67 police were captured in all. It was not clear how they were taken. An opposition lawmaker said they were being held in Kiev's occupied city hall.
President Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition protesters who demand his resignation are locked in an epic battle over the identity of Ukraine, a nation of 46 million that has divided loyalties between Russia and the West. Parts of the country — mostly in its western cities — are in open revolt against Yanukovych's central government, while many in eastern Ukraine favor strong ties with Russia, their former Soviet ruler.
At least 99 people have died this week in the clashes in Kiev, a sharp reversal in three months of mostly peaceful protests. Now neither side appears willing to compromise, with the opposition insisting on Yanukovych's resignation and an early election and the president apparently prepared to fight until the end.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Perhaps they need to talk to the Czechs and Slovaks about how to go through a “Velvet Divorce.”
The violent rioters are backed by Soros, Juan McCain, Obama, and the Soviet EU. I unquestioningly support anyone that opposes them.
Absolutely! If you want to go full Soviet, why go halfway.
Yep. This has not been a protest for a few days. This is a war. The opposition are treating it as such. The government knows it but doesn’t know what to do yet.
That includes a majority in the Western 1/2.
They know if they take the gloves off that the US/EU will do to Ukraine what they did to Serbia, Libya, and Syria. If the Ukrainian government doesn't lay down and die the US/EU will probably do it anyway.
They’re going to have to take off the gloves or perish.
It all makes a great distraction for our dictator.
What concrete steps do you think the U.S. should take, other than talk?
That could not happen, since the Ukraine is in the Russian sphere of influence, starting with simple geography.
There's nothing the U.S. can do, other than talk. And hopefully remember that there are people in this part of the world who don't like Russians.
I’ll be much more interested when this kind of thing begins in DC.
The way things are going...it won’t be long.
Yeah... Because free trade with the West and self determination isn’t worth it. Putin’s promises of a New Soviet, with a shiny new label, are so much better.
/sarc
The way things are going...it won’t be long.This "100% peaceful" event is formed and gaining traction: http://www.operationamericanspring.org/forum/forum.php
Familiar sales pitch. But then came the Famine in 1932
The West is majority Catholic. Atheist??? That’s mostly in the East, where many still hold to old Communist traditions.
Indeed, and I fear that is what it is going to take to wrest DC from the Uniparty.
The longer we wait on that, the harder that toilet is going to be to flush...
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