[Sixstrings]

Interesting article about the volunteer militias in Ukraine. A pentacostal pastor says Russian troops came into his village and beat up some of his congregation, and that's what drove him to join the militia.

He says he doesn't have anything against Russians, but that Putin must be resisted, that Putin is reinstating the Soviet system.

And please nobody get mad at me, it's in the New York Times, get mad at them, or this Ukrainian pastor if you have to be mad at someone.

A Pastor’s Turn Fighting for Ukraine

PISKY, Ukraine — Sergei I. Reuta was in many ways typical of the 15,000 to 18,000 volunteers who, loosely organized in about 30 battalions, have emerged as the backbone of the Ukrainian military in the war in southeastern Ukraine.

Fired by a religious passion and a desire to remake their country, Mr. Reuta and others like him have left behind families and careers to join groups like his Dnipro-1 battalion — named for the city it came from, Dnepropetrovsk.

“I understood that as a Christian I should defend the land where God put me,” Mr. Reuta, a Pentecostal minister, said in an interview last month. “And I understood there was no escape from armed conflict.”

After years of neglect, the Ukrainian Army was wormy with corruption, and its Soviet-trained senior leadership of uncertain loyalty in a conflict with Russia. Early on, whole units defected.

Volunteers made food for the regular soldiers, gave them clothing and even weapons. Increasingly, as the fight with rebel separatists and Russian special forces exploded in the spring and summer, they fought alongside them.

“The army is morally strong because of us,” said Mr. Reuta, who was called Padre in his unit. “They see we are here, just like them, fighting beside them.”

Recently, Mr. Reuta talked at length about why he had set aside his work as a pastor to put on camouflage and pick up a Kalashnikov rifle.

Last spring, he said, men he is certain were Russians came to his hometown in eastern Ukraine and beat up members of his congregation.

“It was clear from their speech, from their behavior, that they were Russians, and they said they came to bring order to our region,” he said. Russian soldiers had already occupied Crimea.

Mr. Reuta said he had nothing against Russians or the Russian language. His was not on a nationalistic crusade he said, which put him and members of Dnipro-1 at odds with many others in the volunteer battalions, who come largely from areas of western Ukraine. Mr. Reuta had spoken Russian his whole life.

In Dnipro-1, Russian is the language of commands, radio traffic and banter, even as its members fight the Russian-backed separatists. Mr. Reuta said he was fighting to oppose repressive Russian politics, particularly restrictions on religious freedom.

“This is not just Putin, but a thought process,” of Soviet-style leadership, he said, that must be resisted. “The group of men around Putin, those who whisper in his ear, they think the same way. It’s an old idea” revived today, he continued.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/world/europe/a-pastors-turn-fighting-for-ukraine.html?_r=0

[radon1]

There's been apparently an article in NYT saying that lots of refugees poured from Ukraine to Russia and then asking - how can it be an occupation by Russia if the refugees are fleeing there? Why don't you post it.

[Sixstrings]

There's been apparently an article in NYT saying that lots of refugees poured from Ukraine to Russia and then asking - how can it be an occupation by Russia if the refugees are fleeing there? Why don't you post it.

Weren't there also Ukrainians getting flown to Siberia, and they landed and were like "where are we" and they're told "you're in Siberia" and then the Ukrainians are like "well can we go back, I don't want to be in Siberia," and then they were told "you were given a one way ticket, you must pay if you want to fly back."

I don't know, Radon, you know the situation as much as I do.

Correction on what I said in the above post, the pastor profiled said that "Russians" beat up some members of his congregation, not Russian troops per say.

You know all I know about this, Radon. Thousands of Russians have come across the border to fight in Ukraine. And then Russian troops too, and Russian paratroopers.

It's not unusual that refugees would actually flee into the country where aggression came from to start with.

You know all I do about this, that yes there's some local element to the rebellion, but still it never would have been so large without Russian backing. And you know that cossacks came in off the train from Moscow, there's that one separatist republic that was proclaimed to be a "cossack republic" but there weren't any cossacks ever there to start with.

The whole thing is like a Monty Python movie, you read these articles, the one Ukrainian in the crowd saying "so we're all cossacks now?" And then the woman next to him says, "shhh, best keep your mouth shut."

The point of the posted article is that there's a lot more to the militias than just the far right thing. They're shopkeepers, farmers, pastors, all walks of life. It's just an interesting piece, like how a lot of the Ukrainian military defected early on, since some of them had loyalties to Russia.

But then average citizens joined the volunteer militias and fight alongside the army, and have forced the army to get its act together, too.

If Obama signs the Ukraine Freedom Act, then that's the beginning of the end. That half billion worth of US gear will be just the start. And really, this thing does need to end, if Putin could not / would not end it, then someone needs to end it.

[Strummer]

Weren't there also Ukrainians getting flown to Siberia, and they landed and were like "where are we" and they're told "you're in Siberia" and then the Ukrainians are like "well can we go back, I don't want to be in Siberia," and then they were told "you were given a one way ticket, you must pay if you want to fly back."

Actually, no. Can you stop spreading this bullshit?

[Sixstrings]

Actually, no. Can you stop spreading this bullshit?

How is it a bogus story?

Ukrainian Refugees to Repopulate Siberia

I was shocked by an article published in a Magadan newspaper reporting that when the first airplane landed there with 400 Ukrainian refugees, journalists rushed forward to ask their questions but were stopped by the passengers asking, "Where are we?"

It turned out that when they were put on a plane in the Crimean capital of Simferopol, they were told they were flying to the Black Sea town of Anapa. And when they landed instead in Magadan — almost 7,000 kilometers to the east — they were told they were only entitled to that one free flight: for all flights out of Magadan, they would have to pay full price.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/ukrainian-refugees-to-repopulate-siberia/506624.html

[Strummer]

How is it a bogus story?

Are you kidding? It's an opinion piece in The Moscow Times, which is a pure propaganda outlet. The author says he's seen an article in some local newspaper. No sources, no citations, no first-hand accounts. It's completely made up to impress american idiots.

[Strummer]

Here's a first hand account from Radio Free Europe:

"We were asked to choose between Yakutsk and Magadan, I picked Magadan," says refugee Irena Gracheva. "It's still better than sitting in a basement under the bombs with my son."

http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-di ... 57904.html

Don't you think that RFERL would use the opportunity to mention the "forced resettlements" in Magadan? They didn't, because they don't exist.

Here's another one:

http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/n ... fic-coast/

One man, Konstantin Ivashchenko, said he was offered other locations - notably Magadan, Chita and Sakhalin, all in the east of Russia. 'Naturally, we chose Yakutsk because it is a developed city, and there is a real chance to find a job faster. My primary goal is to find a job. I need to feed the family'.

His arrival in Yakutsk was a 'pleasant experience, people are smiling, this is the most important thing. I personally have no desire to go back to Donetsk. Everything was bombed - factories, hospitals and there is nothing to do. The city is almost empty. If ever the Donbass becomes the territory of Russia, it is possible. But if it stays with Ukraine, we are not going back'.

[dissident]

The refugees recount the bombing that the western media basically never reports. The Kiev regime is shelling population centers 24/7 since April of 2014. But that's OK, because the USA is greenlighting its quislings.

[dissident]

http://voxukraine.org/2014/12/14/the-na ... t-it-back/

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), Ukraine’s central bank, is no longer in control of the monetary and financial situation in the country. The Ukrainian currency — the hryvnia — has lost 19 percent of its value in the last five weeks. Consumer prices are nearly 22 percent higher than a year ago. The banking system is rapidly becoming insolvent: More than half of all bank loans are deemed to be non-performing, while both domestic and foreign deposits needed to fund these loans have been leaving the banks.

Ukraine is collapsing financially. This partly explains the ratcheting up of the crisis by Washington. Their project is going south.