The goverment here has finally done something sane and this is a big load off my mind. Politicians here have finally looked at the fact that if this conflict would go on it would tear the country to bits. Just recently statements were made in the goverment explaining that the economy in this country would only be sustained for 1 more week, 10 days max, unless some results are reached.

Yushenko has first of all stated he is the President of Ukraine, and he is not for any party, not influenced by any party, and that he is his own force. This means that he has distanced himself from all the parties with these statements. I garantee you the opposition parties are included in what he mentioned. He is saying he has nothing to do with any of them.

Yushenko is saying he will arrest anyone who will refuse to follow his orders and that elite teams are on standby (about 100-180 men total) and if given the order will storm goverment buildings and offices to arrest anyone they are told. Scary? Yes BUT I can't possibly picture him using this to supress those who are behind the protests. One the contrary this can be used to put all the waring parties in place and stop them from tearing the country to shreads. They now have to watch it. This I think is a move on his part to restore order to the goverment as it is in chaos atm.

Yushenko stated that he still wants to see elections held but thinks that most likely this will not happen. Yanukovich who has opposed the elections all this time has come forth saying that elections are necessary but should only be held after the constitutional court makes their decission on Yushenko's choice of dismissing the parliament./
Anyone else think this looks like some form of a compromise? My hopes are high here.

Yushenko has stated that there will be no actions carried out by the military regarding the protests. He said he knows so because he is in command of the military. According to his statements the army is completely apolitical and will not follow an unconstitutional order, nor carry out actions against it's people.

For the first time since the beggining the people have had a break from all the politics. There has been nothing serious happening for these past 2 days as far as I'm aware of. But keep in mind it is possible for individuals in the goverment to act on their own initiative without consent of their bosses. Then again Yushenko has police on standby if that happens. All we can do is wait and see right now. I feel very relieved right now, and rather happy.

Regards,
Maestro

To Melbourne:

Alright, my opinion as asked.

Normaly when we hear of such talks between countries they've normaly been going on for a while. Such things aren't just discussed over afternoon tea. That means this was taking place probably befor the statements from Yushenko that I listed above. I personally have no doubt that such talks were held. The initiative was probably from the US side. This only confirms my statements earlier on in this thread saying that the US really wants bases here. However with the current turn of events Yushenko doesn't seem to want to continue taking steps against russia NOT OUT OF FEAR but because he's trying to creat a stable situation in the goverment atm. That's why he's denying the talks. The US acknowledging this is pressure on the Ukrainian goverment in my eyes. Who knows maybe these bases were their aim here all along. Once they have anti-misile basses here this could be expanded don't you think? Russia has steped in on this bigtime right now and is not going to allow this. I think that we might be finally seeing the climax of these protests right now but I could be wrong. Like I said befor, my hopes are high.

In short I do not see this as an escalation of the conflict.

Regards,
Maestro

Things have gotten a little quiter here. The county stopped to take a deep breath in these past few days. Now the protests have shifted. Although tension has died down all this is far from over. Here's what we're looking at atm:

- First the constitutional court is gonna make a call on weather Yushenko's move to disolve the parliament was constitutional. *It will be a very interesting outcome is it rules against him, but at this moment I can't think of what this could cause or lead to*
- After the ruling of the constitutional court the parliamentary elections will be held.

Again I have NO CLUE as to what could possibly happen if the situation would go one way or another. All we could can do right now is wait and see. I'm gonna visit the protesters again soon. Right now the crowd is standing by the constitutional court's building although maidan is still inhabited by the happy campers.

I'm going to, again, be asking questions to those standing in the crowd. If any of you have anything you would like to find out from them - now's your chance.

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Oh and about Yushenko having swat teams on standby: a few days back he asked the politicians to give up their diplomatic immunity if they have it. Ukrainian politicians ofcourse.

Regards,
Maestro

PS: Again guys, I would be happy to get answers to any questions you have to the protesters. Maybe you wanna know how they feel, how they think the court will rule etc etc.

Any fresh news? I am not able to find much on the net. What are the rest of you seeing?

Have there been any new political compromises? What is the current mood in te streets? What are you seeing on local t.v.?

Ok, appologies for not updating this thread as often as I used to. I can't get a hold of some of my contacts and work leaves me less time now-a-days.

Like befor I still don't have any predictions of possible outcomes. Keep in mind though, I know I said the protests have died down in the center BUT things are far from over. We still have to see where things go with the court AND even after that we still have to see how the parliament elections go.

As I've promised I went down to the constitutional court. Several streets are flooded with people. This ofcourse means those streets are closed down for cars. The result is MASSIVE traffic jams all over Kiev. There are tons of police all over the streets but I really question how much they would do should there be any problems from the crowd. There are literally that many people.

Here are some facts:

- It is unlikely that the opposition will try to provoke the coalition into violence. The reason I'm saying this is because Yushenko has stated that he is in control of the military and the military will remaine neutral in politics and that the military will not use force on it's own people. Somehow I trust him on this. I figured if the army was used on Kiev this would spark outrage in other parts of Ukraine and the country could slip into chaos. Also like mentioned in my previous post both sides of the gov. are trying to keep Ukraine stable, they realised finally that they were tearing the country to bits with these power struggles. Now don't get me wrong, the military is still under Kiev and they are ready to act if needed. If any violence did spark from the crowds I doubt local law enforcement and swat teams would be enough to stop that mass of protesters, and should the protesters attack the law enforcement's troops the army will be called in. In that scenario I still see bloodshed as a likely outcome; if the protesters are still showing resistance when the army gets there.

- The mood in the crowd has dramaticaly changed. More and more people were brought in from every corner of Ukraine. Just in case you didn't know Kiev is the only part of Ukraine that would be considered a modern city with "modern" people living in it. These people don't just look intimidating, they can also be pretty agressive. This prevented me from getting much of the desired interviews and opinions with people, and at one point I was even nearly in a fight.

- Most of the flags for the coalition present outside the constitutional court are blue. They are not the mix of blue, red, and pink like there were in the center. This only shows which party has more money they can spend on flags and paying people to go and protest.

- Tons of law enforcemnt units stationed all over the protesting area. Buses that are used by them (a regular tour bus) are parked close to each other back to back so they block off certain parts of the streets. They creat channels for movement so to say. You can either walk on the sidewalks, but if you want to get to a certain part of the road you have to go to the end of the "bus fence". I was thinking this was done so in case violence broke out - then the protesters wouldn't be able to move so easily. Again I stress that somehow I feel they wouldn't be enough should the crowd riot.

- Alot of trash, the streets occupied by the protesters are a total dump despite the constant efforst to clean it.

- The general mood of the people in the city as far as I've been hearing is - "F*ck it". Like I warned befor, they're loosing faith and hope in their goverment and you can't blame them. They know well that the 2004 protests have gotten them nowhere, and they don't feel this will get anywhere either. Even when I somehow manage to find a patriot in the crowd they tell me that if this doesn't work lead the country somewhere they're just gonna give up on the gov. and stop voting. The majority of the protesters don't care either. There are some, but few, elderly people who actually want to see Yanukovich in power but most don't care really. The vast majority of them are getting paid, others come just to chill with the crowd, check out what's going on, or just go for the hell of it.

- It's not just the coalition standing outside the constitutional court, opposition protesters are present too. Quiet often early in the day they will exchange insults, bang on metal, and play their theme music, so to say. And since the young people in the crowds are rather agressive this worries me a little now.

I wish I could have gotten more interviews and info guys. The content above is based on what I was told by 2 people that I actually managed to talk to. It is rather dangerous there now. All the law enforcement tere don't bring much peace to the soul either. As befor, all we can do now is wait and see.

Regards,
Maestro

[edit on 26-4-2007 by maestro46]

That's actually a pretty useful update. Has anyone been able to identify blogs from people iwho are involved in this? Might be interesting to see what some are saying online. Many thanks, M.

Apparently the situation has calmed down with the announcement of parliamentary elections on September after a reunion between the president and the prime-minister.

Originally posted by ArMaP
Apparently the situation has calmed down with the announcement of parliamentary elections on September after a reunion between the president and the prime-minister.

Yhea, it calmed down pretty much around the time I stopped posting...for those that were keeping up with the thread. I personally stopped giving a rats tail about the local politics here. Impossible to predict, and nothing but a fuss - nothing ever is achieved. there were a few rumbles that nearly resulted in Ukrainian Spetsnaz divisions fighting between each other, but nothing major. After that things calmed. Elections coming up in a week or so however. I would tell you who I think is likely to win and who isn't but there is no point in it. I'll probably be wrong since you never know who is gonna get bribed next. This thread is done, protests are long since over. If anything happens during the elections which will be worth attension I'll be sure to start a thread. Thing is I hardly have the time for this site anymore with my current job but I would do my best.

Regards,
Maestro

[edit on 24-9-2007 by maestro46]

Hello , This is a very old post but not much has changed. I was just looking for stuff about Sevastopol and found this.

A few comments

"Forget the soviets. They're long gone"
Putin has not forgetten the soviets and desperately wants to reestablish the Russian empire. Sure it it not a soviet empire but the same empire only with capitalism so that they can be wealthy this time.


"To them May 9th is a HUGE celebration. Having the US navy dock there at this time will be viewed as mockery. Russia will take it the same way, and in my opinion this is a very dirty move on Yushenko's part."

It was important show that if they join nato ukriain will be protected from the expansion of the Russian empire. They desperately need nato. They lose absolutely nothing and they gain protection from their worse and most dangerous enemy. Putin would love nothing more than to destroy Ukriane economically that way he can point to Urkaine and tell the Russian people " look what democracy gets you"

"If both parties are "pro demcoracy" why are we told that one is pro russia whilst the other is pro west? we see russia slowly going backward under Putin in regards to centralisation of power and state control of lots of things, and is this what they want to happen in Ukraine? I hope not."

Both parties are not pro democracy. Russia tried to replace one dictator with a new one .... Yanocovich. They failed but they are still trying.
Russia is not going slowely backward. They have gone very rapidly backward to undenieable totalitarian dictatorship again and are trying to reestablish the empire. They are busy brainwashing the Russian people with false inforamtion and false history though the total control of the media. Even Russian language information in other coutries is controlled by the kremilin. Conspiracy theories abound.

"neutral protester"

Are you kiding !!! That was a brainwashed Russian. Not one of the people interviewed was neutral.