|
Ukraine: OSCE – Right Sector Fascists Deploy To Donetsk
There was some conflict in Mariupol with three Ukrainians ending up dead after protesters went to a military base. There are some videos but it is unclear what actually happened. There is a chance that provocateurs were involved.
The OSCE has an observer mission in Ukraine. From their latest (April 15) report:
The Lviv Team was told by Right Sector activists that they had begun recruiting for their paramilitary structure on 14 April. They said that approximately 100 paramilitaries had already been deployed to Donetsk region and were being trained in the eastern part of the country. One of the paramilitaries seen in Lviv was wearing a new military uniform, including a flak jacket, but carried no weapons.
There was a demonstration in Kyiv in support of Ukraine’s unity, attended by approximately 400people, about two thirds of whom were members of the Self-Defence force. The Team observed around 50 people armed with iron bars, baseball bats or makeshift clubs. Some protesters demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Avakov and more decisive action by the Kyiv authorities in Eastern Ukraine.
Lviv is in west Ukraine and the center of the Ukrainian fascists. That these deploy to Donetsk is a real concern that could lead to serious escalations.
(I am traveling and will have not much Internet time. Please behave in the comments and don’t feed the trolls.)
There are two general aspects to what appears to be an agreement on Ukraine.
The first is that, diplomatically, this is a Russian victory. In all manner of ways Russia is better off than it was in December last or March. You may not like the agreement, which is very likely to be honoured mostly in the breach anyway, but it achieves two major goals. Firstly it secures the Crimea, which is returned to Russia after fifty years. Strategically this is a great advance on the thirty year lease agreement and the “on sufferance” garrison . Secondly it confirms the continued importance, in New Russia, of the Russian oriented, Russian speaking, in the final analysis dependent on Moscow for protection, minority, which, in a country as split as Ukraine is, is actually close to being a plurality, the equivalent of the Pashtu in Afghanistan.
The Galicians would have greatly preferred to see this thorn in their scrawny side, removed. Instead it is there permanently. This means that the days of Right Sector/Svoboda power are numbered if not over.
There is much more to it than that but, as I see it, those howling calamity just don’t understand diplomacy which is a very ugly, incremental business one of whose primary purposes is to keep Diplomats in employment by ensuring that their work is never done.
But the most important aspect of this sudden discovery of unanimity among the parties-and recollect that success was not expected , indeed it was generally anticipated that the talks would end quickly and dissolve into mutual recriminations and sabre rattling- is that, as I suggested yesterday, a real revolution was beginning in Donbas and New Russia. It was no accident that the rebellion in Odessa christened its creation a Peoples Republic. And the events throughout the region, of people stepping forward to grasp at power, crushing Kiev’s invasion, rallying the troops to the People’s side, not only frightened the scum in Kiev and rattled Putin, Lavrov and the conservative, neo-liberal ruling class they front for, they were equally shocking-and I suspect this will be seen in the way that some of the European reporters broke ranks when confronted with the reality of a real revolution, albeit in the earliest term of development- to the western governments.
The EU governments know that they are dancing on a thin crust over a volcano of seething anger and profound discontent. Does anyone imagine that Merkel and Hollande, Cameron et al, are not constantly fielding calls from their Spanish, Greek, Potuguese, Italian and even, God Help Us, Irish colleagues warning them that, with youth unemployment rates in the 25-45% ranges and unemployment, in terms of full time jobs, rising, with living standards crumbling and pensions vapourising, Trouble is far closer than the horizon?
The last thing these people wanted was an actual revolutionary exercise, with power passing down into the streets and demands shooting up from them like rockets on New Year’s Eve, or Queen Victoria’s Birthday, here in Ontario. My guess is that it will be a while before the State Department sponsors another Revolution of the Maidan kind in Europe. It now realises that fires can spread quickly and easily. It may take just another botched drug arrest/killing or a ham handed Federal Bureau of Lands action. The grass is ready to catch light, the slightest spark will set it off.
And that is what Messrs Lavrov and Putin and their EU sparring partners and even the US government, where idiocy reigns supreme and insensitivity is a way of life, have twigged. New Russia in 2014 was beginning to look very much like Old Russia in 1905.
And, faced with that vision of horror, the differences between them suddenly dissolved. It is a reminder to all of us how scared the ruling class, in every nation, is of the power of the awakening masses. Even when the people turns over in its sleep and yawns the statesmen and the oligarchs shiver with fear and drop all their differences.
Posted by: bevin | Apr 17 2014 23:12 utc | 68
|
