Trying to understand the Ukraine
A Ukrainian author's comment on events in Kiev: http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...-crisis-russia
Now this I found strange, the second sentence:
Quote:
Kolomoisky is considered to be an enemy of President Poroshenko since he was sacked from his position as governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region. Kolomoisky’s man in Odessa, Igor Palitsa, also lost his job as governor and was replaced by the former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili.
Ukraine crisis: Is conflict fuelling far-right threat?
A reasonable overview from the BBC after the violence in Kiev:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34176602
The Crimean blockade: how Ukraine is losing Crimea for the third time
The blockade of the Crimea has appeared on SWC elsewhere (the war thread) or earlier in this thread.
Open Democracy have this commentary that the blockade does not help either the people living in the Crimea, notably the Tatars, or the Ukraine:https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-rus...for-third-time
Crimea: has no electricity from the Ukraine
For several months now activists have blockaded the land access routes into the Crimea (see Post 413) and I have seen little recent reporting on this, let alone the impact.
The Daily Telegraph reports:
Quote:
A state of emergency has been declared in Crimea after pylons carrying electricity from Ukraine were blown up cutting off power to almost two million people, media and the Russian government said on Sunday. The Russian Energy Ministry didn't say what had caused the outages, but Russian media reported that two pylons in the Kherson region of Ukraine north of Crimea had been blown up by Ukrainian nationalists.
It would appear the Ukrainian state could not stop this happening:
Quote:
On Saturday, the pylons were the scene of violent clashes between activists from the Right Sector nationalist movement and paramilitary police, Ukrainian media reported.
The pylons had already been damaged by the activists on Friday before they were blown up on Saturday night, according to these reports.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-darkness.html
I cannot think of anything more likely to get the Russian Army moving west, ostensibly to "restore order and power".
Given the state of relations I do wonder if the electricity provided, which I assume is from Ukrainian generators was being paid for. IIRC there was a map long ago showing the interconnectivity of the Russian and Ukrainian power grids.
Added: The BBC has some more information:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34893493