Posted on 05/04/2014 12:47:44 PM PDT by tcrlaf
The rebel leader spread a topographic map in front of a closed grocery store here as a Ukrainian military helicopter flew past a nearby hill. Ukrainian troops had just seized positions along a river, about a mile and a half away. The commander thought they might advance.
He issued orders with the authority of a man who had seen many battles. “Go down to the bridge and set up the snipers,” the leader, who gave only a first name, Yuri, said to a former Ukrainian paratrooper, who jogged away.
Yuri commands the 12th Company, part of the self-proclaimed People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a previously unknown and often masked rebel force that since early April has seized government buildings in eastern Ukraine and, until Saturday, held prisoner a team of European military observers it accused of being NATO spies.
SNIP-
Yuri, who appears to be in his mid-50s, is in many ways an ordinary eastern Ukrainian of his generation. A military veteran, he survived the Soviet collapse to own a small construction business in Druzhkovka, about 15 miles south of here.
But his rebel stature has a particular root: He is also a former Soviet special forces commander who served in Afghanistan, a background that could make him both authentically local and a capable Kremlin proxy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Since there was not a coup, such a position cannot exist.
"In Ukraine, the prospect of federalization emerged during the 2004 Orange Revolution when former President Viktor Yanukovych proposed a referendum on the matter. He pursued federalization again in 2010, but it was tabled again after Yanukovych's pro-Russia Party of Regions deemed it "too expensive and problematic."
Today, only 14 percent of Ukrainians support federalization, according to a recent poll. As the Washington Post points out, the idea is more popular in the southern and eastern regions, where 22 percent and 26 percent, respectively, support the creation of a federal state, compared to 3 percent in the west."
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117284/federalized-ukraine-could-mean-return-novorossiya
While the EuroMaidan protests called for more independence for the regions, federalization was not the solution they were asking for, nor is there popular support in the East and South for federalization or the actions of the separatists. You are inventing this and pretending as if Kyiv is trying to thwart the will of the people to be become satellite states of Russia.
Good thing the Ukrainians left a major arms stockpile unlocked and unguarded for them then, right?
You’ve convinced me, Putin isn’t involved at all, and these happy go lucky freedom fighters are probably just gentlemen farmers who read Voltaire in their free time.
Seriously, when these men are done, Putin will be the winner. No talk in the article of any organization up from company level. Wonder why that is? Are they really totally autonomous? If so, they’ll be easily flanked. If not, who’s in charge?
Remember, part of the Putinista spiel is that the world is run by an evil NATO/EU/Soros/Illuminati group of bankers and neo-conservatives and other groups who are conspired to take over Ukraine and destroy glorious Russia, the last bastion of conservatism. If you say "the rest of the world," your feedback loop should point you to the response "The West is united against Russia." There's a contradiction here.
It was a coup. To say anything else is just ridiculous spin.
You Putinistas keep repeating this, over and over again, but none of you have ever been able to rationally explain in any way HOW it is a clue, without, of course, retreating to lies from RT about a government take over by Nazis.
What I have said is a fact, and you cannot dispute it. The government in Kyiv is a Ukrainian government of democratically elected members of parliament, whose first order of business was to declare a new election for May, which the Kremlin is actively opposing.
Let’s get straight to the central issue with a question.
Do you deny the Russian Government has invaded the territory of the Ukraine with Russian military forces and are using these Russian military forces to overthrow the Ukrainian local governments with the assistance of pro-Russian separatists from the Ukraine, Russia, and Transnistria?
Look, I’ve found myself arguing about the same facts on this issue and getting nowhere. My conclusion is that there is a large number of elderly freepers whose minds can’t past the Cold War and the Reagan Era. Russia isn’t the USSR and Obamalini and the EU aren’t Reagan and Thatcher. Of course there was a coup, but the codger brigade wasn’t reading about Ukraine in the run-up to Maidan or even after. They have no clue who Victoria Nuland is or what the issue was that set this all in motion. All they know is they hate those Ruskies, and anybody who doesn’t agree must be a secret member of the Commintern.
In the meantime, while they are all spun up over the “Russian threat”, Obama simply proceeds with his perfidious agenda at home.
Neocons: out of touch with reality as ever.
Putinistas: Anti-American conspiracy theorists who can’t defend their stupid assertions.
Not everyone in Ukraine's military is sympathetic to the fascist Junta that seized power. Many of them, particularly in the east voted for Yanukovich and probably turned a blind eye when weapons disappeared from armories they were guarding.
“Good thing the Ukrainians left a major arms stockpile unlocked and unguarded for them then, right?”
Pretty much, that is exactly what happened. Google it, there are many articles about it from March.
Also, don’t forget the the Slavyansk group also got the weapons and APC’s of a Ukrainian Airborne Brigade that surrendered to the Rebels, including a TOW APC, an AA Missile APC, and a Truck-Mounted AA Gun.
Igor Strelkov, enough said
Not a Brigade, a company. OOPS...
“or what the issue was that set this all in motion.”
The aborted Syria attack....
Ok, I'll bite. What form of government does Russia have?
Yawn. Neocons are dangling above the dustbin of history. It’s going to be a long fall into disgrace and irrelevance.
One that was elected though a democratic process, which is more than Ukraine can claim right now.
Remember that the Obama Administration appears to see the Maidan issue as a distraction and embarrassment. Russia conquering Ukraine will make the problem go away, and will also absolve the IMF, World Bank, and EU of having to babysit the Ukraine (which they did not want to do in the first place because their economies are awful to begin with).
That’s hogwash of a new order. When the top opposition is Kremlin controlled, there are no ‘democratic’ elections.
The KPRF... Not a legit opposition group
the Nationalists... Not a legit opposition Group
Our Russia.... Putin’s party (duh)
Has flag
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.