Meanwhile the Kremlin is not hiding their anger with the situation and isn't relenting in their interference. Russian intelligence agencies have been busy creating and arming their own "Ukrainian Front” as a resistance to the protesters. I'm curious what Russia will do next and if conflict will continue.
This is the type of crisis situation intelligence agencies love to exploit. Using citizens for proxy wars to further their interests.
"S.V. Lavrov expressed the most serious concern over the inability of those who signed the agreement in Kyiv on 21 February to agree. Not only did the opposition fail to honor any of its commitments, it is also putting forward new demands, taking its cue from the armed extremists and rioters whose actions pose a direct threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty and constitutional order."
I can't add more than that. The opposition signed an agreement only to break it the next morning. How could anyone trust the new leaders of the country if this is how they ascend to power?
The situation is quite a bit more complex than that. Also, remember that the opposition leaders represent the protesters on the streets. The protesters on the streets were not satisfied with the agreement from Friday. The opposition leaders then did exactly what good politicians should do: listened to their constituents and acted accordingly.
Moreover, they did the right thing. I will repeat it again: Yanukovhich is a criminal who should have been put into prison when he tried to rig a presidential election. Instead, he was allowed to run again.
Instead they should have just stepped down and let the crowd do any further talking. Crowd is a very interesting beast, and I would be very scared if the crowd would be making decisions on where the country should go.
I agree that Yanukovich is a criminal, but he is an elected president, elected by the people of the country and is the lawful authority. What is happening now is an upheaval.
Also, an entirely separate matter is, who is going take the power now. I seriously doubt that the new ruling class would be any better for the country than Yanukovich and his gang.
Your first paragraph does not gel well with the idea of democracy: rule of the people.
> I agree that Yanukovich is a criminal, but he is an elected president
In my book that's on oxymoron. Not only is he a criminal, but he committed crimes while in office, abusing the powers of his office. Moreover, due process was followed to remove him. He was not dragged out and shot like some other dictators usually are. This is not an upheaval, this is correction. Once again, Ukraine does not have a strong judicial branch to oversee constitutionality of what's happening. People taking to the streets and demanding change is a part of the process, not an exception.
> Also, an entirely separate matter is, who is going take the power now. I seriously doubt that the new ruling class would be any better for the country than Yanukovich and his gang.
I think it is hard to do worse than him. In either case, if they are worse, it will not take a long time for the crowds to come back. Also, the change on Friday was to restore the 2004 version of the constitution where the parliament has much more power and the president has less, so whoever becomes the president will not be in the same position as Yanukovych was just in.
> Your first paragraph does not gel well with the idea of democracy: rule of the people.
And who said that democracy, the rule of people, is ideal? It is the system that brought a convicted criminal that has been twice in jail to presidency. It was also the rule of people that allowed George W Bush to be a president of the US for 2 terms! I don't trust people, because they often choose idiots.
> In my book that's on oxymoron. Not only is he a criminal, but he committed crimes while in office, abusing the powers of his office.
I meant he was a criminal before becoming a president. And I will second, that the common crowd, the people still elected him.
> Also, the change on Friday was to restore the 2004 version of the constitution where the parliament has much more power and the president has less, so whoever becomes the president will not be in the same position as Yanukovych was just in.
Yanukovich stepped into presidency during the 2004 version constitution and it didn't prevent him from changin the rules of the game in his favour.
>> I agree that Yanukovich is a criminal, but he is an elected president, elected by the people of the country and is the lawful authority. What is happening now is an upheaval.
Wasn't he also lawfully voted out by his own people?
The opposition signed an agreement only to break it the next morning. How could anyone trust the new leaders of the country if this is how they ascend to power?
Maybe they can trust the elected new leaders after free and fair elections are delivered as Ukrainian MPs have voted to hold early presidential elections on 25 May?
It's right to be apprehensive and perhaps even suspicious in the case of the violent overthrow of a government, because things can easily spiral out of control or be taken over by a faction, but it doesn't always end in tragedy or dictatorship. I'd say the fact that demonstrators have left the parliament to pass laws and proclaim new elections is a good sign.
The thing is that the president, that had just been overthrown was elected on "free and fair elections". I am watching the live stream from Maidan right now, and people from the stage say that the age of dictatorship is finally over. Noone seems to remember that at the first Maidan in 2004 people had similar euphoria. I am worried that perhaps in another 10 years we will see a new dictator being thrown over by the angered crowd...
That is disputed and there is much talk of rigged elections, but I don't know enough about the elections to have an opinion. Let's see if things proceed peacefully and democratically from this point on - the lack of looting and the organisation do bode well compared to say the uprising in Egypt, and the regime lost my sympathy when police used assault weapons and snipers against lightly armed civilians (the people shot did not have guns, some were medics).
When the choice is between an oligarch or a dictator it is not a great one, but the choices in western democracies are similarly limited.
I am worried that perhaps in another 10 years we will see a new dictator being thrown over by the angered crowd...
Quite possible. I completely understand and sympathise with your ambivalence; western news sources are perhaps a bit too triumphant and hubristic over a complex and violent situation, as long as the outcome suits their geopolitical biases (EU/West good, Russia bad), and Russian media is even more limited by state control.
> That is disputed and there is much talk of rigged elections, but I don't know enough about the elections to have an opinion.
The presidential elections were "certified" by international observers. So I think it's fair to say that they were fair.
However, after becoming president, Yanukovich had the Constitutional Court change the Constitution and make Ukraine a presidential republic, consolidating in his hands a lot of power presidents in Ukraine were not supposed to have. He reportedly used that power to rig the parliamentary elections and gain complete control of the Parliament.
> He reportedly used that power to rig the parliamentary elections and gain complete control of the Parliament.
However this can also be disputed since the PoR had previously gained the most votes in parliamentary elections even when Yushchenko was in power... It's not like the PoR was unpopular. And of course Yanukovych also won the presidential elections when the opposition was in power.
It's a weird situation (urging for changes, meeting, agreeing on some terms then immediately breaking the agreement).
I guess I understand why they broke the agreement (keeping Yanukovich until December is, well, quite contrary to what protestors seek), but what I really fail to understand is why they ever agreed to that.
> I guess I understand why they broke the agreement (keeping Yanukovich until December is, well, quite contrary to what protestors seek), but what I really fail to understand is why they ever agreed to that.
The "they" you are referring to are not one group - the first "they" are the protesters, while the second "they" are the opposition leaders. The first "they" broke the agreement that the second "they" made because they never agreed to it.
Russia will do nothing. Today, even Kharkov, the unofficial capital of eastern Ukraine (which is supposed to be loyalist) featured a 30+k manifestation of opposition and had president, mayor and governor fly to Russia.
It's too late for Russia to do anything and they won't even if it wasn't.
"Meanwhile, in the Crimea, people discuss an opportunity to separate from Ukraine and address Russia with a request to be accepted in the structure of the Russian Federation."
Whaaat? I mean, sure, Russia has been wanting Crimea for a long time for its access to the black sea, but even just the geography of the region would make that impossible without occupying Ukraine. Needless to say, if Russia occupies a foreign country using military force, the West would not be happy.
There are some US ships in Black Sea because of Sochi now. Let's wait until Sochi ends. Again Ukraine is interesting place. E.g. while some of them can be considered Russian because they don't speak Ukrainian language they consider themselves Ukrainians.
Well, considering the US has played a rather strong role in overthrowing Yanukovych's democratically elected government, it's understandable that Russia would be angry.
As a Ukrainian-American I really did not see this happening and am very pleasantly surprised. I thought the deal announced on Friday would be it, and the parliament would not have the backbone to deliver anything more. Turns out, there are people in there who actually care about the fate of the country.
Now the question is where will it go from here. From what I understand, the opposition leaders are not exactly angels themselves, though certainly much less criminal than Yanukovych (none of them tried to steal an election before AFAIK).
On top of that, change in leadership does not necessarily mean change in course. Russian/Putin can still exert quite a bit of force on any Ukrainian president while Ukraine (just like the rest of Europe) is heavily dependent on Russia's natural gas. So it remains to be seen if Ukraine will have enough momentum from this victory to actually reduce corruption and turn more towards the EU to position itself such that the talks with Russia can be done on a more level playing field. I imagine it is hard to negotiate a deal regarding natural gas when you are paying Russia back with borrowed money.
> (none of them tried to steal an election before AFAIK)
What do you call the Orange Revolution? Especially since Yanukovych was elected in the following round of Presidential elections?
If anything, the government has been the reasonable party in this whole debacle, with the opposition being represented by violent fascist protesters and racist leaders (Oleh Tyahnybok and Dmitri Yarosh have both risen to prominence).
Now is the most critical and pivotal time for the protestors. All revolutions reach the point of actually having to deliver, and it can go many ways. But the most likely two are this: degeneration into infighting, power struggle, and the emerging of a "strong man" who isn't any better than the last, or everyone sitting down at the table, agreeing that it's in everyone's best interest to work together, and putting together a slate of non-corrupted statesmen who have the nation's best interest at heart.
Unfortunately, most revolutions go in the first direction.
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This is the type of crisis situation intelligence agencies love to exploit. Using citizens for proxy wars to further their interests.
http://20committee.com/2014/02/22/kremlin-denounces-independ...
http://20committee.com/2014/02/03/meet-moscows-new-ukrainian...