What is happening with Russia and Ukraine now?

Komodo Saurian · Sep 1, 2015

2 dead, 141 injured at the time of this post:

[YOUTUBE]ol6G6YMOaIo[/YOUTUBE]

Ukrainian government calls protesters terrorists, apparently forgetting the fact that they were brought to power by the same people in "a glorious righteous revolution" last year. How tables have turned.

You can tell that this is a proper civilian riot and not a paid protest by the lack of free hot food, water, toilets and a stage with celebrities and music, all of which were present on the Euromaidan in 2013-2014.

Komodo Saurian · Sep 8, 2015

UK ministry of defence released a written statement that there was no secret Russian submarine near Ireland in April 2015, it was their own Royal Navy sub that nearly drowned a trawler by accident.

Komodo Saurian · Sep 8, 2015

Ukrainian and Polish media report that Poland will lend Ukraine 100 million Euros on the condition that Ukraine will spend 60% of the loan on purchasing goods and services from Poland itself.

Nice, Poland raises it's GDP and increases the border security between itself and a dangerous neighbour, Poroshenko and Co. get to stash more money into their own pockets and Ukrainian civilians will have to shoulder paying this loan back on top of all the other loans they already have to pay.

Komodo Saurian · Sep 9, 2015

Right Sector leader Yarosh has ordered Ukrainian citizens, as well as his fighters and activists to get ready for anti-government "protests" after several figures of the RS were detained by the police earlier.

Komodo Saurian · Sep 16, 2015

A journalist and a video blogger from Ukraine who was digging up dirty secrets of the Ukrainian governments and media for the past decade, that received a refugee status in the European Union because he was wrongly framed for terrorism and other activities in UA, is still being hunted by the new Ukrainian government. Most recent development is Lithuanian politicians meeting up with Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs and discussing his "extradition" in secret. When confronted directly, they claimed it was a fake. When contacted under a guise, they revealed they indeed did discuss his extradition in secrecy.

Enemy of the state #1? More important than the riots in Kiev and people throwing live grenades at cops? Looks like it, he keeps posting every day with no shortage of fakes to bust in sight and has almost six hundred thousand subscribers on his channel.

English subtitles:

[YOUTUBE]sC9koTX6uT8[/YOUTUBE]

Komodo Saurian · Sep 20, 2015

Mustafa Dzhemilev's, a leader of Crimean tatars in exile, and Right Sector goons as well as Ukrainian police forces are blocking trade between Ukraine and Crimea effective today. They are stopping any and all trucks with goods going to Crimea from the mainland. They say that they will set up outposts where traders can drop off their goods and will be re-selling goods to Crimean traders. Didn't work out in Mukachevo, so now they are trying to start their protection racket on the Russian border.

[YOUTUBE]fvyQ9D2N6jI[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]1TfLYYNEsUU[/YOUTUBE]

The hilarious part is that Ukraine is shooting itself in the leg here, Russia is already supplying a large portion of goods to Crimea and this will only cause Ukrainian traders to lose their share of the market.

RF traders after today:

Komodo Saurian · Sep 27, 2015

Well, turns out that US satellites are actually capable of taking high resolution pictures of things when there are things to take pictures of. Within a day of reports of the Federation sending several transport planes and ships to Syria we get these awesome detailed satellite images:

Meanwhile the best imagery we got from Ukraine in two years of an invasion reportedly involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of tanks and other vehicles looks like this:

Komodo Saurian · Sep 27, 2015

Remember how an innocent upstanding Estonian citizen was ubducted by the evil Russkies last year and sentenced to prison for spying? He was recently traded for another spy. Looks like neither (Or both of them) were actual spies.

Komodo Saurian · Oct 6, 2015

Recently a peace summit about Minsk II between Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France has taken place. They have discussed ceasefire, withdrawal of weapons, elections and special status for DPR and LPR. Judging by how there is little to no fighting in Ukraine in the past few days, this summit was relatively successful.

There is actually very little coverage in the western news about this as Syria is hogging up the spotlight.

[YOUTUBE]TFFVMwTsnis[/YOUTUBE]

Komodo Saurian · Oct 13, 2015

More info on the MH-17 investigation:

Dutch Safety Board, issuing long-awaited findings on Tuesday of its investigation into the crash of a Malaysian passenger plane over eastern Ukraine, is expected to say it was downed by a Russian-made Buk missile but not say who was responsible for firing it.
Click to expand...

It was never the question though. If it was downed by the missile, then it was downed by a USSR/RF made missile. The problem is that everyone there have had access to Buks. By saying they are "russian made" they are being inaccurate on purpose and try to give the impression this is some missile Russia made day before MH17 was shot down.

Komodo Saurian · Oct 26, 2015

Chewbacca was arrested by the police and Darth Vader, who is running in the local elections, is mad at them. Just a normal day in Ukraine:

[YOUTUBE]TlM9gvXR-yE[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]5Q4liOzlm9A[/YOUTUBE]

Komodo Saurian · Oct 31, 2015

Ukraine keeps getting rid of the most radical politicians. Hennadiy Korban, a leader of the UKROP party, is now detained and is being transported to Chernigov court on the charges of organized crime.

UKROP party has ties to Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoisky, who butted heads with the government in Kiev on more than one occasion. Several of these conflicts were covered earlier in this thread.

Komodo Saurian · Nov 7, 2015

The most effective thing Russian President Vladimir Putin did to destabilize Ukraine was the one thing the West was demanding: He leaned on pro-Russian separatists in the country's east to cease fire. Left without the much-used cover of a war, the internal divisions and dysfunctional core of the Ukrainian political elite didn't take long to reveal itself. Rather than the democratic hope it might have become after last year's "Revolution of Dignity," Ukraine now looks like just another incompetent and corrupt post-Soviet regime. It's no wonder cracks are appearing in Kiev's all-important relationship with the West.

The government is in turmoil: Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk is in danger of being fired as soon as that becomes legally possible in December, threatening the fragile ruling coalition, in which Yatsenyuk's party is the second strongest force. If the coalition falls apart -- a likely outcome if Yatsenyuk is forced to resign -- there will be an early parliamentary election. Pro-European Ukrainians might actually be relieved at that. Populists dominate the legislature, which would have made it difficult to push through meaningful reform -- if anyone were trying. On Thursday, the parliament rejected a bill specifically banning workplace discrimination against homosexuals.

Despite attempts at change by a new generation of bureaucrats, Ukraine's economy remains unreformed. Taxes are oppressive but widely evaded, the shadow economy is growing and the regulatory climate for business has barely improved. The International Monetary Fund, the country's biggest source of hard currency after a steep drop in exports, is optimistic about next year's economic growth prospects, forecasting a 2 percent expansion, but last month it revised this year's projection to an 11 percent decline. Ukraine's most popular politician -- not a Ukrainian but Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, appointed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to run the Odessa region -- has proposed a libertarian reform package, but Poroshenko hasn't given it his official backing and the current parliament is not likely to adopt it.

Equally unreformed is Ukraine's incredibly corrupt justice system. In September, Christof Heyns, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said after visiting Ukraine that the country lived in an "accountability vacuum." Heyns bemoaned the failure of the Ukrainian authorities to investigate the deaths of more than 100 people on the streets of Kiev in the final days of the revolution and of 48 pro-Russian protesters in a burning building in Odessa in May, 2014. Those investigations are stalled, and attempts by the victims' lawyers to speed them up have been stonewalled by authorities as some of the suspects in the Kiev shootings are still employed by the Interior Ministry.

Heyns also said Ukraine's Security Service "seems to be above the law." Apart from raiding a number of tech companies in an apparent scare campaign in recent weeks, last weekend the service arrested Gennady Korban, a top lieutenant of oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, who has been resisting the consolidation of power by Poroshenko. The arrest gave rise to accusations of selective justice in the Ukrainian press. Other oligarchs, after all, face no reprisals -- perhaps because they've accepted Poroshenko's dominance.

Two years after the corrupt team of President Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine corruption is still rife and the country's intrepid investigative journalists have been especially busy again. Setting the tone is Poroshenko -- the only of the country's 10 richest people to see his net worth increase in the past year -- who seems to have forgotten his promise to sell off his businesses; his bank has only expanded as many others lost their licenses. Poroshenko's and Yatsenyuk's close allies are routinely named in connection with corrupt schemes involving Ukraine's customs service and state energy companies. Sergei Leschenko, Ukraine's best-known investigative reporter, who last year got elected to parliament on Poroshenko's party ticket, on Thursday published a column in Novoye Vremya that succinctly described the current political layout:

The system of checks and balances that has been sold to the Americans isn't working. Instead of keeping an eye on each other, the Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk teams have made a deal. They have divided up spheres of influence and responsibility so they don't get in each other's way and come into conflict.

Americans are highly visible in the Ukrainian political process. The U.S. embassy in Kiev is a center of power, and Ukrainian politicians openly talk of appointments and dismissals being vetted by U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt and even U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. "Pyatt and the U.S. administration have more influence than ever in the history of independent Ukraine," Leschenko wrote.

Europeans too are involved in shaping the way Ukraine is governed, not just because they are donors -- the U.S. is more important in that respect because of its influence on the IMF -- but because visa-free travel to Europe is one of Poroshenko's major goals. In his eyes, it would validate his efforts at making Ukraine more European and revive his flagging popularity.

Europe's requirements for the visa-free regime center on Ukraine's seriousness in fighting corruption. The European Union recently refused a request for more funding for the anti-corruption prosecutor's office, because of "concerns raised with regard to some people who participate in the selection" of prosecutors for the office. This is a clear reference to the team of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, a Poroshenko appointee and long-time associate, who has been accused of undermining the anti-corruption efforts.

On Thursday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wrote Poroshenko a letter saying that "progress in reforms in the area of the fight against corruption remains a key priority for achieving visa-free travel" and supplying a long list of reforms Ukraine would need to implement.

All told, Ukraine's war on its past has been even less successful than its military efforts against Russia and its proxies. Too much time has passed since the "Revolution of Dignity" to justify the absence of tangible progress. U.S. and European efforts at external management have largely failed, too: The grip of oligarchs and a corrupt bureaucracy on what's left of the Ukrainian economy has proven too strong, the schemes too entrenched.

Ukrainian civil society is stunted by these powerful vested interests. I doubt it can push the country to a more civilized direction with the usual tools of electoral democracy: The local elections have proven that post-Soviet practices of fraud, bribery and intimidation have not been overcome. There's little will for further upheavals so soon after the revolution and the war in the east. But unless the current political elite finds it in itself to clean up -- a highly unlikely turn of events --Ukraine's history of violent regime change is probably not over yet.
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[Bloomberg]

Komodo Saurian · Nov 13, 2015

Dmitro Yarosh, the head of a Right Sector, has resigned.

With how RS has been rallying against the government, I'm assuming he decided to flee before shit hits the fan.

Komodo Saurian · Nov 23, 2015

A big interview for Deutsche Welle with President Petro Poroshenko that the Ukrainian news were told not to broadcast. Lots of uncomfortable questions and lots of uncomfortable answers, Crimea, civil war and so on:

[YOUTUBE]LFU-Qr1Ihlw[/YOUTUBE]

DaDeadlyCheese · Nov 23, 2015

Funniest interview to come out of this whole conflict.

Komodo Saurian · Dec 3, 2015

Recent Crimean blackout caused by Ukrainian activists demolishing the power lines was recently bypassed by the Federation with a bridge over the Kerch strait.

[YOUTUBE]Obv9WrSnmNk[/YOUTUBE]

Komodo Saurian · Dec 9, 2015

Nazi posers "Gray Wolves" from Turkey (The guys responsible for killing a SU-24 pilot while parachuting down) have arrived in Kherson Oblast. Tatars have announced plans to create their own republic that does not conform to Kiev's rules in the oblast. They also announced sea blockade of the peninsula.

Joe Biden visited Kiev on the 8th of December. After his visit:

1. He told Ukraine to create their own "United States", telling them to federalize and create independent districts with their own local governments, essentially telling them to do what they were fighting a war against for 2 years.
2. IMF changed the rules, allowing loans to bankrupt countries. This means that even if Ukraine defaults, it's government will be able to take more money to prop itself up.
3. Ukrainian army has increased presence at Crimea, Transdnistria and DPR/LPR. There are recent reports of intense shelling in Donetsk. Minks agreements must be broken, therefore escalation after each visit from a US representative?

Ukrainian government has also said that it is ready to send it's army to assist terrorists by any other name moderate rebels in Syria. Earlier they planned to join ISIS the same way, but ISIS has put them on the list of enemies along with most of Europe, Russia and the United States, so that didn't work out.

What is happening with Russia and Ukraine now?

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