Corruption parts of the protests were completely justified it seems. In recovered documents, Yanukovych is shown to have spent upwards of $42million on the light fixtures in his luxury house $2.36million on fencing for his property $15k in medical costs for his pet fish Link
Ukraine is nearly bankrupt now after having over $70billion moved into offshore accounts from their national treasury over the last 3 years. Oi.
Quote:
Speaking in parliament, Yatsenyuk said that the former government had left the country with $75bn of debts. "Over $20bn of gold reserve were embezzled. They took $37bn of loans that disappeared," Yatsenyuk said. "Around $70bn was moved to offshore accounts from Ukraine's financial system in the last three years," he claimed.
If their local government will not recognize any newly formed pro west/EU Ukrainian government and decide Russia is their overlord, ow does that change anything? I don't think we'll see active Russian troops enter Crimea, as mentioned, it is not required in this situation.
Does anyone know the story with regions outside of Kiev and Crimea? Probably in smaller towns there are not real protests going on, but will they fall in like with the new govt if formed?
Ukraine pleads for U.S., U.K. help after Russian 'invasion'.
Quote:
The new Ukrainian government says it has been invaded by Russia, and has appealed for the United States and United Kingdom to protect it, as they guaranteed under a 1994 agreement.
The move came after pro-Russian gunmen seized both main airports on the Crimean Peninsula early Friday, a day after other militiamen took control of the regional parliament building. With gunmen in the building and the Russian flag flying from the roof, deputies appointed a new government and passed a motion Thursday calling for a referendum on the future as part of Ukraine.
Quote:
The parliament also called for guarantees of the memorandum signed by Ukraine, Britain, Russia and the United States in Budapest in 1994. That agreement guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty and current borders in exchange for surrendering the nuclear weapons that were left after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Yanukovych has made it to Moscow and has issued a statement denouncing the interim government and saying he never issued shoot orders. Moscow apparently is none too happy with him and considers the former president a coward for running away Link Link
BBC/AFP have been able to capture pictures of the soldiers that have seized the airports and are manning the blockades. They really don't look like they are an civilian and aren't wearing any military insignia. Looks awfully well equipped and trained though. Ukraine might have a point of accusing Russia of slipping in naval troops under the guise of Ukrainian Crimean "civilian militias" Source
Analysts insist this is a regular army unit, from who they don't know
Quote:
Nobody yet knows the identities of the armed men who seized control of Simferopol airport.
But their equipment, their vehicles and their behaviour all signal that this is a trained military unit, not a rag-tag group of pro-Russian loyalists.
"These men look like a formed and organised body of troops. They appear to be disciplined, confident and uniformly dressed and equipped," says Brigadier Ben Barry, a land warfare expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
"Irregular militia may obtain bits of official kit but they tend to look like a military jumble sale."
The bottom map is showing one province (oblast) in the northeast and basically shows that the city of Kharkiv is Russian dominated while the surrounding rural areas are Ukrainian. Also note that even in the top map only Crimea and the very far east exceed 50% Russian as the native language. The rest of central and eastern Ukraine remains majority Ukrainian with a significant Russian minority.
Yanukovych has made it to Moscow and has issued a statement denouncing the interim government and saying he never issued shoot orders. Moscow apparently is none too happy with him and considers the former president a coward for running away Link Link
BBC/AFP have been able to capture pictures of the soldiers that have seized the airports and are manning the blockades. They really don't look like they are an civilian and aren't wearing any military insignia. Looks awfully well equipped and trained though. Ukraine might have a point of accusing Russia of slipping in naval troops under the guise of Ukrainian Crimean "civilian militias"
Pretty clear those boys are regulars.
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
"Thirteen Russian aircraft landed at the airport of Gvardeyskoye (near Simferopol) with 150 people in each one," Sergiy Kunitsyn, the Ukrainian president's special representative in Crimea, told the local ATR television channel on Friday.
He also said that the airspace had been closed when the deployment happened.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's acting president accused Russia of open aggression and said Moscow was following a similar scenario to the one before it went to war with Georgia in 2008.
Oleksander Turchinov drew a comparison to Russia's intervention in Georgia over the breakaway Akhazia region which has a large ethnic Russian population, urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop "provocations" in the region of Crimea.
"Russia has sent forces into Crimea ... they are working on scenarios which are fully analogous with Abkhazia, when having initiated a military conflict, they started to annex the territory," he said in televised comments.
I have a friend in Kiev that I haven't heard from. He always spoke Russian too
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Thank you for everything CP. Good memories and thankful for everything that has been done to help me out. I will no longer take part on these boards. Take care, Go Flames Go.
