Happy People
"Look how happy people are. By the will of God and through the hands of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, the years of humiliation under Ukrainian rule are over."
Alexander (The Surgeon) Zaldostanov, leader, Night Wolves, Sevastopol, Crimea
"We wanted to be ready to repel any kind of Ukrainian attack or provocation."
"We started thinking how we would defend ourselves with baseball bats and iron bars. We figured out who'd done military service, who could give a knife-fighting course."
"My father was an admiral in the Black Sea fleet. He died in November 2013 just as the coup was starting in Kyiv. Six months later I went to his grave and told him, 'Papa, now, at long last, you are on Russian soil."
Mikhail Nichik, Sevastopol Without Fascism (SWF) group
"About 35 men in black uniforms and masks and carrying truncheons barged into our head office last month."
"They occupied our rooms, changed the locks and pushed us out. Then they falsified documents and held a fake meeting to appoint a new chairman whom we'd never heard of."
"It was naked banditry."
Margarita Levashkina, stakeholder, market co-operative and food warehouse, Bakhchsysaray district
Russian troops in unmarked uniforms had infiltrated the Crimean peninsula. They were there to promote and monitor a referendum that took place a year ago endorsing a "return" to Russia of the Crimea. They were there to intimidate Ukrainian members of the Navy and to confiscate their barracks taking possession of their naval assets. Two days later the formal announcement of the official annexation of Crimea was made by Vladimir Putin.
A year after that annexation a poll was taken that resulted in a huge approval rating among residents of the Crimea leaving Ukraine and joining Russia. So the will of the people has been done. Russia would never have taken that initiative were it not for the plight of its Russian-speaking responsibilities living in a Crimea dominated by Kyiv, the fascist oppressor of ethnic Russians, denying them their due. This is what Russians celebrate with pride.
Now, jubilee events mark the first anniversary of Russia's claim of Crimea. The admission by Mr. Putin that he had planned the Crimean takeover weeks in advance, and was fully prepared to place Russia's nuclear weapons on alert if the conflict escalated to the point where NATO or western interference irked him beyond restraint might perhaps have surprised no one in Kyiv. They know with whom they are dealing, even if he is still capable of surprising them at times.
And likely are not at all surprised that Russia is stationing state-of-the-art missiles in the Baltics, deploying nuclear-capable bombers to Crimea; vaunting Russia's resurgent military power. The Baltic Fleet, the Southern Military District and the Airborne Forces brought to the highest stage of combat readiness, moving to shooting targets with the Northern Fleet on combat alert; all "exercises" in intimidation. No, make that national pride.
But the huge popularity of life in Crimea under Russian rule is the issue. Validating Russia's commitment and satisfaction with its internationally disapproved assault on international law. In Moscow it is viewed as a triumph of justice, a thumb in the eye of Western hypocrisy. In the West it is a flagrant flaunting of established protocols denoting sovereignty respect between states.
A Moscow Defence Ministry official stated that Russia is on the brink of deploying long-range, nuclear-capable Tu22M3 bombers to Crimea. The celebrations are broadly viewed as an expression of the people of Crimea, satisfied with the outcome of their old-new place in the greater Russian sphere. The undercurrent of dissent against rule by Moscow is masked discreetly under the mantle of wide approval.
Militiamen go about officiously doing the work of the new state; confiscating businesses in an overt program of nationalization. Three young men were sentenced to 40 hours of manual labour last week for an unauthorized gathering in Simferopol park on the anniversary of the birth of the father of Ukrainian literature, Taras Shevchenko.
At the gathering, the men held up a Ukrainian flag while some twenty people in attendance read poetry. One of the men, Leonid Kuzmin, 24, a history teacher, lost his job. "The director of the school called me into his office and told me I was an agent of the U.S. State Department", he explained. The self-defence forces in the capital Simferopol that sprang up a year earlier are now the "people's militia".
They carry batons, they wear uniforms, and they have a quasi-policing role. They have become the foot soldiers in government seizures of private enterprises. "Naked banditry", according to Margarita Levashkina, one of 260 owners of a co-operative that operates markets, shops and food warehouses, employing 100 people -- 'owned' now by the Crimean 'government'.
Labels: Aggression, Conflict, Crimea, Russia, Threats, Ukraine
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, March 19, 2015
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