Truce Breaks Down
Well, it looks like Captain Impotent Line-In-The-Sand will get to emasculate us yet again, as the ‘truce’ announced in the Ukraine yesterday has collapsed spectacularly and at least 20 are dead
At least 17 protesters have been killed in renewed clashes with police in central Kiev after a truce agreed on Wednesday broke down, eyewitnesses say.
Witnesses reported live rounds, petrol bombs and water cannon at the main protest site, Independence Square.
A meeting between EU foreign ministers and President Viktor Yanukovych is now under way, officials say, contradicting earlier reports that the ministers had flown out without seeing him.
The EU will discuss sanctions later.
Well, I’m sure that’s comforting.
UPDATE: Oh god, they’re saying over 100 dead now.
Update The Second: A video from Syd in the comments that is horrific
note the sniper shot hitting the tree behind them in the very last second of the video.
Some More Kiev pictures:
The last one, showing a series of tweets in Ukrainian, was from a girl who tweeted her own death. Last tweet: “I’m dying”.
I’m told this 21 year old young lady was a medic who was shot by a sniper today. She has died.
And now that Capt. Genius has committed us again to a “Line” being crossed, just what exactly does he propose?
HAPPY UPDATE: I’m not sure how to say “Mark Twain” in Ukrainian, but rumors of her demise were exaggerated…barely
Miracle in Kiev: Shot Medic Survives After Tweeting ‘I Am Dying’
By Alexander Smith and Maria StromovaLosing blood from a gunshot wound to her throat, Olesya Zhukovska sent what she must have thought was her final tweet.
“I am dying,” the 21-year-old wrote in Ukrainian on Thursday after being struck by a bullet. She was working as a volunteer medic amid fierce clashes between police and anti-government protesters in Kiev.
Moments later she lost consciousness.
…But Zhukovska received emergency surgery and survived.
Her next tweet came Friday: “I am alive! Thanks to everyone who supports and prays for me! I am in a hospital, my condition is stable so far!”
Zhukovska was visited at Kiev’s No. 17 hospital by Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Iryna Herashchenko.
“Olesya was shot in the throat and yesterday she was in danger,” Herashchenko told NBC News through a translator on Friday. “Initially [before getting to the hospital] we thought she was dead. But thankfully they were able to operate on her and she made it through. She was in intensive care but now she has been moved to another ward where she is now with her family.”
(thanks to Julie for the good news)
Makes Ya Barf, Morality, Nanny State, People, Politics | Mr. Bingley | 
February 20, 2014 7:28 am
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Bing, what’s your opinion on the Ukrainian skier who has withdrawn from the Olympics in “solidarity with the fighters”?
The opening of Sochi, and the closing of Maidan – both brought to you by Putin!
I have a friend who is a reporter and is in Kiev. He sends me pics daily and they are disturbing, to say the least. The resolve and bravery of the Ukrainian protesters has earned my deepest respect.
Watch this clip and pay attention to the very last second. You’ll notice a tree behind the protesters takes a bullet from behind. Definitely seems like a sniper’s shot. Snipers shooting at protesters.
http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforums/redirect-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D0DxkDiAcSF8
What a worthless bastard. I weep for them…and us.
Oh, Syd. God.
I hadn’t heard about that, Julie, but I would say that any such expression of support for those folks when Putin is controlling your passport shows some stones.
There’s a punch-up going on in Parliament right now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbQC7_TNQPw#t=2675304
Obama’s “red line” in the sand == Putin’s “Go” code.
As bad as this is and it is very bad, there is not much the U.S. can do. The EU needs to step up, as silly as that sounds, but they have to. We can’t exactly send in the military, this is the EU and Russia’s backyard, not ours.
EXACTLY, md, which is why Obama’s ‘line’ comments show yet again his complete lack of comprehension of anything beyond his mirror.
MLKJr. & Ghandi were effective because they were using nonviolence against people who couldn’t conscience shooting them. I think a good, hard look at Eastern Europe’s history of non-violent revolutions is in order before you start faffing around with cardboard shields & dressing up in camo fatigues. I dare say that if the fellows at Lexington & Concord had showed up with chants & placards, history would have been recorded a bit differently.
I would be far more concerned with what is going on in our backyard down in Venezuela and maybe over in the South China Sea.
Obama cares more about having movie night with George Clooney than people being murdered by their fascist government. As for the EU stepping up Putin has them over a barrel with Russian energy.
This is horrible, but I’m with Major Dad — this is Europe’s problem, Prezident Jug Ears ridiculous comments specifically ignored. We have our problems far closer to home.
Although Stark is spot on as a lesson learned, especially here in the States — anyone wearing camo to a protest needs to be someone trying to not be seen.
I’m not convinced that Putin’s efforts to resurrect the Soviet Union is “not our problem”. Poland could be next and others to follow. If it can be stopped, now is the time to make the effort, not later. I agree, however, that maybe nothing is better than an Obama led initiative. He has failed at virtually everything he’s done as POTUS. The stakes are huge here.
Syd, let me point out that in order for Putin’s obvious dreams of re-asserting a Russian hegemony over Europe to be “our problem”, we have to have the wherewithal to do more than flap our lips during photo ops staged between golf games and movie viewing.
For all intents and purposes, NATO is dead. The current American presence in Europe is a pale ghost of what it was at the end of the Cold War … … and that is likely to be reduced even more, probably down to a single brigade combat team, some sort of air and naval presence, and probably intelligence sharing operations. The military capabilities of other NATO countries is equally pitiful, even if they didn’t downsize much.
Now, while Putin is building up the Russian military, he is nowhere near what the thankfully former Soviet Union used to have, even if one ignores the hollow units kept up as a deception against the West.
However, speaking as someone who served in West Germany at the height of the Cold War, and looked across the International German Border at the Soviet and East German forces arrayed against us, the current ratio of forces does not favor the West. I do not include nuclear weapons in that assessment.
And this is ignoring the highly likely scenario that President Jug Ears wouldn’t dream of standing up to Putin in a slugfest. Witness what happened in Syria … … and who looks like a clown.
Now, if you mean that Putin’s efforts to rebuild the USSR will CAUSE us problems, and hence BECOME our problem, I wholeheartedly agree.
But there’s damned little to be done about it, save hoping that the Russian war machine isn’t as robust as Putin wants us to think. Even if the GOP wins in 2016. So it’s not a problem that we can deal with.
Unfortunately.