Time is Running Out to Keep Ukraine Together

As predicted, western governments lost no time in proclaiming billionaire Petro Poroshenko’s first-round election win as cementing his “legitimacy” as president of all of Ukraine. Buoyed with what was touted as a national “mandate,” the president-elect of some Ukrainians stated his determination to move forward on what already appears to be a contradictory and unobtainable set of priorities.

Poroshenko’s pre-election promises that he would be ready to negotiate with Ukraine’s east and south to stabilize the country under a decentralized structure appear to be rapidly abandoned after the vote. No step has been taken to broaden “roundtable” discussion by the interim Kiev administration by including representatives of the autonomous republics declared in Donetsk and Lugansk, while Poroshenko’s earlier conciliatory line has been replaced with condemnation of “terrorists,” “bandits,” and “pirates.” Indeed, he endorsed the offensive still being waged against the east by the interim administration, and called for it to be successfully concluded not in months but in hours.

While Poroshenko doesn’t take office until June 7, military actions in the east are consistent with his militant words. On Monday, May 26, the day after the presidential vote, forces controlled by Kiev used fighter jets and helicopter gunships to kill dozens of pro-autonomy fighters at Donetsk Sergey Prokofiev International Airport. Shelling has taken place in civilian areas of Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, and other towns with an unknown number of casualties. (Western governments that had threatened ousted president Viktor Yanukovych with sanctions for sending in riot police against armed and violent demonstrators on the streets of Kiev have raised no concerns about the use of air power and artillery in eastern Ukraine.)

The local Donetsk militia struck back fast and hard. On Thursday, May 29, militia used a portable air defense missile – presumably supplied by Russia – to shoot down a Mi-8 helicopter on the outskirts of Slavyansk. More than a dozen pro-Kiev servicemen were killed, including Serhiy Kulchytskiy, in charge of training the National Guard – a new force recruited largely from Praviy Sektor and other radical nationalist groups in light of Kiev’s inability to rely on the country’s regular armed forces in suppressing their eastern countrymen. (An interesting detail: pro-Kiev media report that six of those killed – almost half of the total number on the helicopter – were from Ivano-Frankivsk. This strongly suggests they were National Guard, not regular military. It also raises the question of whether they might have been members of Praviy Sektor or a similar group being integrated into the National Guard and sent out to subdue the easterners.)

“These criminal acts of the enemies of the Ukrainian people will not go unpunished,” Poroshenko was quoted as saying after the downing of the helicopter. “We are Russians, and we will take revenge for everything the Ukrainians have done to us. We will be here until the very end,” said “Chrome,” a 29-year-old native of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, referring to the deaths of his comrades at the airport.

Funerals and vows of revenge on both sides – we have seen this before. In Yugoslavia. In Syria. This is how civil wars start, and once started prove very difficult to stop as more and more people on both sides are pulled into the vortex of violence and vengeance.

Perhaps there is still time and opportunity to pull back from the brink and to put Ukraine back together. But some believe it already has gone too far, and that a “point of no return” has been reached:

Many here see no way for Ukraine to remain united. Only seven of 22 voting districts in the Donetsk region were active for Sunday’s polling, according to Ukraine’s central election commission.

“The point of no return has been crossed. We can’t live with them any longer,” said Pavel Petruk, a 56-year-old pensioner with a graying horseshoe mustache who stood by a statue of Lenin outside a polling site in Dobropolye but did not vote. “The only peaceful solution is for Ukraine to get out of the Donbas.”

The Donbas, which includes Donetsk and the neighboring Luhansk region, is a landscape by turns bucolic and distressed. Along the same roads, cows graze by riverbanks and chimneys spit black smoke from decaying factories. Since the revolution in Kiev drove President Viktor Yanukovych from power in February, the Donbas has also become a patchwork of conflicted loyalties.

“Many people are against the Kiev government, and they provoked that reaction against themselves with their actions, their laws and their military operations,” said Vladimir, a senior officer from the Ukrainian Interior Ministry who watched over a polling site in Krasnoarmeysk , one of the few eastern cities where voting occurred. He explained that a sense of duty kept him at his post, not allegiance to the country’s current leaders.

“If we don’t find a common language now, there will be a long partisan war,” he added.

It can only be guessed how much farther down this road Ukraine will have traveled by the time Poroshenko formally takes office. If he wants to keep the country together, there may be still be time to “find a common language” with the east. But if he hopes to do so, the violent offensive must stop immediately and real negotiations must begin.

Ths most complete info I found about this author in a quick search was actually in an article slamming Robert Spencer (a portion of which I quote below). The author of said article obviously can't stand Robert Spencer. Or maybe it's just anti-Islamists & pro-Eastern Orthodox folks he doesn't like? I don't really know, I just couldn't find anything else fairly detailed about the author when I'm in a hurry.

James Jatras, a Greek American with a long history of pro-Eastern Orthodox and anti-Muslim activism in the Balkans and formerly senior foreign policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee (1998-2002), signed the agreement between Venable and the Serbian National Council of Kosova and Metohija (SNV) on March 22, 2006. Far from being a neutral observer of Balkan affairs, Jatras is a paid lobbyist for the SNV and an Orthodox extremist with deep connections to the Serbian Unity Congress. Jatras has written numerous articles aimed at warning Americans about the threat of militant Islam in Southeast Europe, several of which appear in a magazine connected to Bosnian Serb groups called Chronicles. (Srdja Trifkovic, Chronicles’ foreign affairs editor, was formerly the official spokesperson for indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic.) Jatras was the keynote speaker at the 9th Serbian Unity Congress (more on that later) and a principal in the Serbian-American-made propaganda film, “Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War” produced and directed by George Bogdanich. And during the Kosova war, it was Jatras, in his capacity as senior foreign policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, who commissioned and circulated Yossef Bodansky’s outrageously spurious report in the House and Senate, entitled “Kosova: The U.S. and Iran’s New Balkan Front,” (more on the Iranian conspiracy theories later) in an effort to block Congressional support for intervention in Serbia’s war against Kosova and to discredit the Kosova Liberation Army.

The article makes sense to me but read about the author and decide for yourself if he's full of it or not.

I thought Poroshenko had ONE chance to keep the country together, after he was elected. That was wrecked after the Donetsk attack, the renewed Slovyansk Offensive, and the massacre of the wounded, I believe. Now, not only Donetsk, but Lugansk is in full revolt, and the insurgency is moving farther north.

It doesn’t matter anymore if it was his own move, a move by the Generals, or anyone else. The hope that the blood would stop flowing is gone now.

The Kiev government has screwed this up at almost every step of the way. And much of that, I believe, was upon the urging of the Obama Administration. (The Obama Midas Touch strikes yet again)

I stopped reading literally at this first paragraph. This guy lost his credibility the moment he uttered something as stupid as "president-elect of some Ukrainians." Anyone actually watching the events in Ukraine without their head up Putin's butt would know these four facts:

1) Poroshenko received a majority of votes from all over Ukraine, including the South and East.

2) Turnout broke records, even without the areas where the Islamics and Communists sent from Moscow disrupted the election.

3) Unlike in Moscow, international observers found no problems.

4) The results were consistent with polls in both the East and South that showed that the separatists are a micro-minority, even despite Moscow's propaganda war. The Citizens of Ukraine want a united country and do not want to be torn apart by Moscow. Here is a map that shows all the precincts that went to Poroshenko. The red went to him. The grey color represents those areas where no vote occurred.

By the way, there are a handful of Putinists on this forum (Rashputin is one of them) who have a pathological hatred towards Ukraine. Literally, test every minor thing they say, even if they tell you that the Earth revolves around the sun.

I finally read a bit more of the article. What is this source for the National Guard being made up of "Right Sector," when Right Sector is estimated to only have about 2,000 members in the first place? (Though Right Sector claims they have 10,000.) Looking closer at the source, I realize another problem. This is the American Institute in Ukraine!

This group is wrapped up in a whole sordid web of "institutes" that primarily advocate against NATO and in favor of Russia's interests across the world. They depict themselves as having even support from the CATO institute, which CATO, apparently, denies. They are likely another front-group for Moscow. Its executive director routinely appears on Russian state controlled media, and its deputy, James George Jatras, is a known extremist and was apparently a favorable witness for Slobodan Milosevic. The Communications Director is also an associate of Jatras who has engaged in anti-NATO politicking, though these facts are not mentioned on the website. Despite their claims of being "neutral" on NATO, and being a non-lobbying group, they engage in both lobbying and anti-NATO propaganda.

Give my disregards to your President Barak Obama.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander which is something you clearly pretend doesn't apply to your own constant bleating and bloviating disagreements with anything and anyone not regurgitating the latest garbage from the Kiev Coup Kiddies spoon feeding sessions.

Obviously the Lord has not yet answered my prayers for your lack of both intellect and intellectual honesty to be cured but I'll keep praying for you.

Have a wonderful day

I remember reading these claims on Russia Today and other state-controlled media. It is propaganda and/or the result of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Only an idiot believes these things when it has been proven, over and over again, that the troubles are being created by Moscow and a small minority of extremists. The "People's Republic of Doneskt" is even using the full language and imagery of the Communist USSR, and their fighters are Islamic Chechens and other freaks who have crossed through the border. Even their self-proclaimed Prime Minister isn't even native to Ukraine.

You Putinists need to stop repeating these things as if they are a fact. This is why I greatly encourage all Freepers to be very careful about what you're reading. Tcrlaf, Caww, and Rashputin make up a triumverate of pathological anti-Ukrainian bigots who believe in a Zionist-Soros-Obama conspiracy to take over Ukraine. Do NOT trust a single word they say. Check every little "fact" they offer, do not sit idly by as they spin and distort the imagery. I have even caught these goons lying straight out, and I can demonstrate their lies if asked. Double check every word. Russian inspired propaganda spill out like the dirty water of a blocked up toilet with these folks.

I don't know what's happened, but some Freepers have simply gone entirely insane over this Ukrainian issue. This is what happens when you spend too much time watching Russia Today or reading Prison Planet, maybe.

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