Ukraine separatists hunker down and hope Putin will come to their aid

[bemildred]

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — At the epicenter of the pro-Russia rebellion in eastern Ukraine, masked men on Friday raced around in commandeered police cars, blowing through stop lights and flying over speed bumps. Although it was a warm spring day, the streets were nearly empty.

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The Ukrainian government declared Friday that it planned to surround and blockade this town, which is completely controlled by the separatists. Officials on both sides said a Ukrainian military helicopter, which had been used to drop leaflets criticizing the separatists, had been destroyed by hostile fire, apparently shot down. The separatists also detained a 13-member delegation from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which included five Ukrainian army officers.

Separatists said they were hunkering down and hoping that Russian President Vladimir Putin would come to their aid.

"We will stay to fight and face two options: Either we'll be wiped out by superior regular forces or be saved by the Russian army," said Yevgeny Yermakov, 25, an economist dressed in camouflage and wearing a black woolen mask.

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-ukraine-slovyansk-20140426,0,4804922.story

[The Magistrate]

1. In Other Words, Sir: They Have Little Popular Support, And It Is Less Fun Than Before

Pinning hope for success on Russian forces is a frank confession they are mere tools of Russian ambition and not an expression of popular will.

[bemildred]

2. Pawns in a game of chicken, is how I'd put it.

To butcher a couple of metaphors. But I appreciated the less hysterical tone of the reporting. The LA Times has greatly improved in the last few years.

[The Magistrate]

3. i Have Little Sympathy For Volunteers, Sir

Particularly not volunteers in a shabby cause.

[bemildred]

4. I normally think in terms of staying far away from arguments, Sir.

That's served me very well, and I recommend it to anyone.

[sabrina 1]

5. It appears they have a lot of support, which is why the unelected government in Kiev

is, shamefully, sending in the MILITARY to 'crush' to use their words, their protests.

Best way to resolve all of this is to hold an election for the entire country and let the people decide.

I am not going to be surprised if all of this will be used to CANCEL the election in May.

If they have no support, then let them rant, no need to bring helicopters and tanks to 'crush' an unpopular, small group of people.

[The Magistrate]

6. If You Threw A Straight Election In The East, Ma'am

Secession would lose by two to one at least. Part of the purpose of the armed gangs working for Putin's ambition is to create a situation in which an actual vote would not be possible.

Any government, and despite the chants of 'un-elected' and 'coup' from certain quarters, the government of Ukraine is the government in Kiev, is not only entitled to act against armed gangs setting its authority to naught, but has some affirmative duty to do so. A government which does not, which cannot suppress rebellion, is no government. A government engaged in suppressing rebellion may behave with excessive force, may even behave in a criminal fashion, and so find its use of force disapproved of, perhaps even so widely disapproved of as to encompass its collapse, but that does not alter the fact that it had a right to try. It is very possible to do something you have a right to do very poorly, and so fail at it, just as even people or institutions one does not support or approve of still have the same rights to act in their own interests and defense as those one does approve of or support.

The fact is that the government in Kiev has shown extraordinary forbearance in its use of force, and whether this owes to good nature ( unlikely ), good strategy ( certainly possible ), or mere skittishness about the reliability of its military and police implements ( quite possible ), makes no difference to that fact. Any use of force it does attempt, at present or in near future, will be judged by most against that established record.

[sabrina 1]

7. Any government installed after a coup especially when there was democratic structure already

in place, to anyone who supports democracy, is illegitimate. Even to those who opposed the previous corrupt government, such a method of changing governments is frightening.

There was no reason not to wait a few months for an election, none.

We had a corrupt, lying government here for eight years but I doubt even those of us who opposed it vehemently would ever have participated in any attempt to overthrow it. Mainly because violent uprisings undermine democracy and the long term 'health' of any democracy depends on using the democratic process for 'regime change'.

They could not wait for that in Ukraine because they could NOT count on getting the government they wanted, contrary to your opinion.

And if they are not afraid of the results, then they would have held an election as quickly as possible..

A precedent has now been set, if you don't like the Government, topple it.

The actions of the interim Government has pushed Crimea and now much of the rest of the Eastern part of Ukraine into the hands of Russia. No one there wanted to be a part of either the EU/IMF OR of Russia. But the stupidity of the thugs now sending in the military to 'crush' protests, not to mention their other actions, banning the language of a large section of the population as the 'official' language, a long fought for issue, demonstrates how fearful they are of holding on to the power they took by force.

Most of all, why are WE there interfering once again spending Tax Dollars to create yet another 'democracy'. All anyone has to do is look at the ones we've spent over a decade creating to know, we have failed miserably, cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and need to stay out of other people's business and start fixing our own major problems right here.

[The Magistrate]

8. Nonesense, Ma'am

People have the right to try and overthrow a government. They do not have a right to succeed, mind, but they certainly have the right to try, and when they do succeed, the result is as legitimate as any other government. One may approve or disapprove of revolution in specific instances, but it is nonesense to maintain revolution is wrong in and of itself, particularly for a leftist.

The present secondary insurrection in the east of Ukraine is, as was its precursor in the Crimea, the result of direct action by Russia, and would have been procured whatever was done by the new government in Kiev. It is an object of some amusement that people dogmatically certain everything which was done in opposition to Yanukovyk was contrived by U.S. agency are just as dogmatically certain that what is occurring in the Donets is a pure spontaneous reaction of the people expressing their will.

An election has been declare for late May. It ought to be held, but so long as armed men in service to Russia hold government buildings in the east, holding a nationwide election will be difficult. And creating that difficulty is one of the reasons Russia is procuring disturbances in the portion of Ukraine it has marked out for annexation.

[sabrina 1]

9. Why did we not topple the illegitimate Bush government? We have the right to do anything we please

so your statement makes no sense.. Most of us who care about a civilized society refrain from instant gratification via toppling any government we don't like because we understand that while we may have the right to act against the law, there ARE generally consequences.

Those who have no self restraint or the ability to foresee those consequences, will do what the 'protesters' in Kiev did and predictably, considering their lack of restraint and foresight, immediately began acting according to their authoritarian instincts.

There are few who deny that their first act to ban the language of millions of Ukrainians as an official language did instigated the fear of their 'interim leaders' and therefor the reaction to it, that led to the people of Crimea taking action to protect themselves from those who had demonstrated their intentions, which certainly could not be described as 'democratic'.

Now they continue to frighten the people by sending in tanks and planes and armed military personnel against their own people. Those people ALSO HAVE THE RIGHT to detach themselves from such a government. It does go both ways, no?

Call facts nonsense if you will, I will continue to look at the facts, continue to oppose brutal coup d'etats, no matter how much of a right we have, here or in any other Democracy where there IS a solution in place to peacefully transfer power from those who have abused it.

The election in May is only for the President. And I am willing to bet that excuses will be made NOT to have that election, in fact you just did that, using the unrest caused by the Coup as that excuse.

[The Magistrate]

10. Lacked The Ability, Ma'am

Toppling governments is hardly an example of 'instant gratification'....

"Revolution is not a tea party."

[sabrina 1]

11. No actually, we understand that toppling our own government no matter how bad or how

illegitimate would simply lead to the destruction of this democracy, get a lot of people killed, and would have little chance even if it succeeded, of resolving the issues that might have led to such an illegal act.

Tea Partiers have little support for their fantasies of revolution. Unless they received 'outside help' of course, which has been the case with most of the coups over the past 60 years or so. See the Bush backed attempted coup in Venezuela eg. That one failed, due the Venezuelan people, but others, Haiti eg, which did succeed did so only because of the outside help they received.

[The Magistrate]

12. If You Say So, Ma'am

"I'm going home. Someone get me some frogs and some bourbon."

[sabrina 1]

13. I do say so.

And facts remain facts no matter what. And coup d'etats are not for countries claiming to be democracies.

I hope you find some frogs somewhere