Amid escalating tensions in Ukraine, the local population remains unclear who the army is ‘defending’. Latest video shows a taxi driver standing up to Ukrainian soldiers at Slavyansk checkpoint.
A taxi driver confronted a military checkpoint in Ukraine’s eastern town of Slavyansk, asking the Interior Troops stationed there: “Who are you guarding against here?”
In response he received a confused answer from one of the soldiers: “We've been doing that since December, nobody really knows against whom."
The taxi driver stood up to Ukrainian soldiers that had been demanding to see his identification, claiming that they are there “to prevent transportation of forbidden items to or out of Slavyansk,” as part of the “anti-terrorist operation.”
Ukrainian authorities have been pushing ahead with ‘anti-terrorist’ ops in the east of the country, which has been opposing the coup-appointed government in Kiev.
Just last week five anti-government protesters reportedly were killed and one injured in Slavyansk after Kiev authorities sent tanks and armored vehicles against the local population.
On Saturday, leaked satellite images revealed that Ukrainian tanks and armored vehicles have been stationed en masse around Slavyansk. A Russian defense source said that artillery and rocket systems have also been deployed to the area.
RIA Novosti published the satellite images showing the buildup of troops. The photos were dated April 24-25. The images appear to show part of military hardware used for the current Ukrainian troops’ objective of “isolating” Slavyansk.
Crimean #Tatars gathered for a rally in #Simferopol. They demand not to come to Crimea of Mustafa #Dzhemilev. They chanted - go away! We want peace. You do not need us in the #Crimea. Agents of the West no place from us! Dzhemilev is not representative of the people of the Crimean TatarsDzhemilev is not representative of the people of the Crimean Tatars
A US activist organization is mounting a campaign to "flood" Congress and the White House with thousands of emails demanding that "not one cent of taxpayers' money be spent for the new Ukrainian government," which it described as neo-Nazi.
The activists lambasted top US State Department officials for having stood arm in arm with neo-Nazi leaders in the EuroMaidan protest movement, who now hold many of the most powerful Cabinet positions, including in Ukraine’s military.
The online campaign, called the Answer Coalition, stressed on its webpage that the new Ukrainian self-proclaimed leadership’s anti-Russian and anti-Semitic rhetoric spoke volumes, as did their use of Nazi-styled symbolic. Those who now have seats in the Ukrainian parliament and make up the core of its ruling parties also stood behind numerous vandal attacks on war monuments to Soviet WWII vets, including Ukrainians who chose not to collaborate with Germans.
The new Kiev regime is a mixed bag of right-wing and openly fascist forces, with the line between them only visible to those in the know. The movements behind the recent coup – the Social National turned Svoboda party and the Right Sector – are in the ascendancy, as evidenced by the fact that they have been put in charge of the military and given other key positions inside the state apparatus.
For instance, Ukraine’s self-appointed Minister of Defense is Igor Tenyukh, one of the three Vice Prime Ministers Alexander Sych and top commander of Ukraine’s National Defense and Security Council Andrei Parubiy are all members of the neo-Nazi Svoboda party.
In fact, Parubiy co-founded Svoboda (Freedom) in 1991. At that time, it was called the Social National Party and had the "Wolfsangel" (wolf-hook), which closely resembles swastika, as its symbol. Parubiy’s deputy is Dmytro Yarosh, who led the fascist Right Sector’s paramilitary troops in Maidan. Yarosh has gained notoriety after confessing that "National socialist ideas are popular here. …We want a clean nation, not like under Hitler, but a little bit like that."
Svoboda’s leader Oleg Tyahnybok is now one of the most powerful people in Ukraine. Speaking at memorial to a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army that collaborated with the Nazis and butchered tens of thousands of Poles, Jews and communists, he once called on Ukrainians to fight against the "Russian-Jewish mafia."
Among other notorious individuals in power is Oleg Makhnitsky, Ukraine’s Svoboda-affiliated Attorney General, who began his career by indicting Crimea leaders after they spoke out against the new order in Kiev, and Boris Filatov, Deputy Head of South Eastern Ukraine, whose approach to any anti-Kiev dissent in the country’s east is "Give the scum promises, guarantees and then hang them."
People against fascist Junta ________________________ Hooray, they refused to obey orders of the #fascist#junta Oh my God, bless you))) I hope they will no chenge their decision... ______________________________ The leaders of Ukrainian special forces "Alpha" refused to obey orders to storm metropolitan government office buildings in #Donetsk and #Lugansk, ITAR-TASS reported.
The people of Lugansk rose up against the Nazis of Kiev. An endless stream of people going to the building of the SBU and requires a #referendum on the Status of the South-East. We are Russians. We do not recognize fascists junta.
Each time, at the mention of Stalin's name come across the all-new, more sophisticated forms of lying liberals. How did annoy "destalinisators" Stalin, if after almost 60 years since his death, they always lie shamelessly trying to blacken his name.
DEBKAfile
February 25, 2012
Under the protection of the United States, Turkey, Britain, France, Italy, Qatar and the UAE, the first Red Cross convoys reached Homs Friday, Feb. 24. They began evacuating untreated injured victims and bringing medical aid to the city devastated and beleaguered by Bashar Assad’s troops. This ICRC corridor marked the first step toward foreign intervention in the Syrian crisis.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report exclusively that it came about after Washington and Ankara warned Assad through confidential channels that if his forces interfered with the emergency medical route for Homs, US and Turkish warplanes would take off from air bases in East Turkey and give the medical convoys air cover, thereby opening the door for a Western-Arab plan for resolving the Syrian crisis (which was first revealed exclusively in DEBKA-Net-Weekly 530 out Friday, Feb. 23.)
Assad’s response to the warning is unknown.
Early Saturday, US President Barack Obama delivered his harshest denunciation yet of the Assad regime.
The International community must continue sending the message to Syria’s president to step down, and “use every tool available to prevent the slaughter of innocents. It is time for a transition and time for that regime to move on.”