This is how Russia's "anti-Fascists" have behaved as soon as they took over Crimea. They're despicable, not to mention hypocritical.
By Leonid Rogozin
September 27, 2014 | Buzzfeed
Showing posts with label Crimean Tatars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crimean Tatars. Show all posts
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Kremlin cracks down on journalists, dissidents and minorities in Crimea
Since taking over, the "anti-fascist" Russian government in Crimea has proven it is the truly fascist regime, by jailing and intimidating journalists, allowing pro-Putin brownshirts ("self-defense militias") to act freely without legal accountability, persecuting minorities such as Crimean Tatars and Jews, and discouraging the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages.
Indeed, the non-existent "threat" from Praviy Sektor in Crimea has passed without incident, Putin has seized his Crimean pearl... and yet these pro-Russian thugs still strut around, enjoying carte blanche. Obviously they serve a useful purpose for Putin; they do the dirty work that law enforcement or regular troops shouldn't do -- like bullying journalists and kidnapping and torturing troublemakers.
May 30, 2014 | Kyiv Post
The entrance to the Simferopol Trade Union building, which stands opposite the Cabinet of Ministers on Lenin Square, has been obstructed daily by members of so-called Crimean self-defense militias since March.
These men, dressed in camouflage and armed with police batons and sometimes guns, wander into the building freely, where their frequent destination is the office of the Center for Investigative Journalism. “We’ve all come across them,” says journalist Tatiana Kurmanova wearily. “They make no concrete demands. They just have the effect of scaring us – imagine the first time when they came in here with pistols, looking at everything.”
The center, financed through grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and other foreign donors, was one of the first media organizations to receive such unwanted attention in Russia-controlled Crimea. If Russian President Vladimir Putin remains in control of Ukraine's peninsula and follows the same policy for Crimea that he does with the rest of the Russian Federation, then foreign-funded projects -- in particular those with USAID funding - will be targets for shutdown.
The Crimean self-defense members marched into the journalism center's office on March 1, two days after soldiers without insignia appeared throughout the peninsula and set in motion the Russian invasion and occupation or – as Russian law would have it - annexation of Crimea. The self-defense militias, ungoverned by any law, have since become a permanent fixture of daily life in Crimea, patrolling streets, guarding transport hubs and government buildings, demanding to see the documents of passersby – and harassing journalists.
While attacks on media have abated somewhat since March, when the Center for Investigative Journalism recorded 85 incidents, Crimea has by no means become a safe place for journalists.
In the last six weeks, Andrey Krisko, who heads the Crimean Human Rights Field Mission, has registered nine serious incidents of harassment of journalists, involving personal harm, damage to equipment and illegal detention for more than three hours. He experienced one such incident himself, when he was physically prevented from taking pictures of a journalist arguing with self-defense forces on May 17. Later, he found out the journalist had been followed and detained.
Most cases, Krisko said, concern not single but groups of journalists, and all cases involve the self-defense militias. Some cases have been widely publicized, like that of journalist Osman Pashayev on May 18. Pashayev was filming the Crimean Tatar meeting commemorating 70 years of their deportation, and the hundreds of riot police guarding Simferopol city center, when self-defense forces detained both him and his Turkish cameraman. They were held for 10 hours, had all their equipment taken away, and were denied access to lawyers until a threatened appeal to the prosecutors office.
Kurmanova thinks there are probably many more such incidents involving the self-defense and Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB under its Russian acronym, but journalists working for Crimean government media do not want to publicize them. Most of the journalists who have spoken publicly, like Pashayev, left Crimea afterwards as soon as they could.
Meanwhile several Crimean civil activists who supported the EuroMaidan Revolution that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22 and protested against Russian occupation are currently detained by the FSB.
The FSB said on May 30 that film director Oleg Sentsov, Alexandr Kolchenko, Oleksiy Chyrniy and Hennadiy Afanasyev are under arrest charged with being members of Ukraine's ultra-nationalistic Right Sector and suspected of plotting to stage acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks in several cities of the peninsula.
Kateryna Serhatskova, a journalist and coordinator of an initiative group to help Sentsov, says Sentsov, Kolchenko, Chyrniy and Afanasyev have never been members of Right Sector.
"For those who have doubts: these guys have never been members of the Right Sector and prepared no terrorist attacks, these are absolutely peaceful people, who maintained the integrity of Ukraine. Now confessions are being forced out of them, and probably one of them will admit his guilt all in all. It's outrageous nonsense. No comment," Serhatskova wrote on her Facebook page on May 30, according to Interfax-Ukraine news service.
The whereabouts of two more activists, Timur Shaimardanov and Leonid Korzh, reported missing by the Ukrainian organisation Ukrainian House on May 28, are unknown.
The effect of this intimidation has been to effectively silence critical or opposition media to the Russian annexation within Crimea. TV channel ATR and the website 15 Minutes, both owned by Crimean Tatar businessman Lenur Islyamov, have greatly cut down on their live programming and news coverage since March.
The only other independent agencies left, the Center for Investigative Journalism and the Radio Liberty-supported project Crimean Reality, both have regular problems with the self-defense militias.
“This situation when there are these groups that don’t answer to anyone, that aren’t controlled by any law, means it’s impossible to say journalists can work professionally here,” says Krisko. “The risk of damage to equipment or personal attacks, as well as fear of censorship, means that those who want to give objective information simply can’t.”
In methods reminiscent of Soviet tactics, smear campaigns, censorship and simple exclusion by news sources are also silencing journalists who might want to show a less one-sided, pro-Russian view of current affairs in Crimea. Kurmanova and her colleagues regularly receive online threats and hate mail since the beginning of March.
Meanwhile two journalists from the Yevpatoria council-funded newspaper Yevpatoria Health Resort, who had been less than enthusiastic about Russian occupation, became subject to an attempted witch hunt in May when rival journalists sent a letter accusing them of being spies and provocateurs to the city council.
"We don’t demand the exile of these people from their town and their profession," according to the letter. "But we Yevpatorians do not need these masked ‘fifth columnists’ in our hometown, and paid from the town budget!"
It concludes by saying that if the town council does not remove them from the paper, "we will appeal to the FSB demanding they protect us Russian citizens from journalists openly conducting subversive activities."
[ People writing donos on their enemies and professional rivals -- this is behavior straight out of the USSR! Alas, how quickly, under Russian rule, some Crimeans have fallen back into their bad old Soviet ways!.... -- J ]
The two journalists have so far held on to their jobs, and did not want to comment further on the incident. Since the end of February, when a new Crimean parliament was announced, journalists from the Center for Investigative Journalism have not been able to get parliamentary accreditation. Lawmakers refuse to speak to them, or call them "American spies." The Crimean Cabinet of Ministers’ press service does not answer their calls. They are not informed of meetings and press conferences, or are denied entry.
“There’s a very clear difference between journalists from Russian media who can get into the offices of officials and anywhere else with no problem, and journalists from Ukrainian media who might ask awkward questions,” says Kurmanova. “We’re like white crows; no one wants to talk to us. Before it was all organised, we could write a request for information, or set up filming. Now we get our information in bits and pieces, grabbing officials outside buildings, if they agree to speak.”
Shevket Ganiyev, editor-in-chief of Crimean Tatar programming at the Crimean state broadcasting company TRK, was excluded from news coverage through a different method: He and his director were simply sent home for a month’s holiday.
Ganiyev’s small amount of allotted live broadcasting had already been taken off air with no warning in March, before a hastily-organised referendum on joining Crimea to Russia. Ganiyev and his colleagues, who like most Crimean Tatars openly opposed the referendum, then agreed with TRK management (which openly supported it) that his department would boycott working at TRK until after the referendum. When his team came back on air, they were subject to much closer control.
On April 24, they were told they could not make any mention at all of Crimean Tatar governing body the Mejlis, or of Crimean Tatar leaders Mustafa Jemilev and Refat Chubarov in their programming. This has meant the editorial has had to ignore events widely covered in the international media – including Russian.
“If there’s news in Russian media and we are not allowed to talk about it, how can any journalist accept this as normal?” asks Ganiyev. “We’re not just banned from talking about the Mejlis as good or bad. We are not even allowed to cover facts.”
The same day as the ban, Ganiyev and the editorial director were asked by TRK management to take a month’s leave.
“Of course they didn’t say so, but I think they had to send us on holiday because then our collective would be easier to control,” says Ganiyev. “May was a worrying time for them [the Russian authorities - J] because of the 70th anniversary of the [Crimean Tatar] deportation and events connected with that. I think they were scared and tried to protect themselves.”
Ganiyev was back at work from May 28, but he and his team have no idea what the future will bring amid the general upheaval at TRK, which was formerly funded by the Ukrainian government but is now is a state of stasis. For the Crimean Tatar editorial, this is yet another set-back in their fight for more airtime in their own language. Their live airtime was reduced over a year ago to 13 minutes news a day, and their recorded programming is exclusively about cultural and social matters.
We’re hostages in this situation,” says Ganiyev. “For us, the most important things are to preserve our work places and editorial so that we can broadcast in Crimean Tatar language. If tomorrow they kick us out and bring in new journalists who are convenient for them and who speak in incorrect Crimean Tatar they’ll be pleased, because it will start the assimilation of our language.”
Under the Ukrainian license still being used at TRK, Crimean Tatar language is allotted seven percent of overall airtime. Ukrainian language programming before March was even more limited. Since March, one of just three weekly Ukrainian language programmes has switched to Russian. Svetlana Datsenko, editor of one of the two remaining Ukrainian programmes, said she had also been asked to switch to Russian. “If there are three equal state languages in Crimea then there should be proportional coverage, 33 percent for each language,” Ganiyev points out. But neither he nor Datsenko have much expectation of that happening.
The new head of TRK, Boris Nemets, is from Crimean government head Sergei Aksyonov’s Russian Unity party, as is the new Crimean minister for information. The party’s key campaigning platform is Russian language rights.
As Crimea moves rapidly towards adopting Russian legislation, the situation for a free media is only set to get worse.
On top of harassment and exclusion, staff of the Center for Investigative Journalism have a whole array of logistical problems to deal with. Their salaries, paid from foreign donors, are frozen as the Crimean banking system has collapsed.
They have been told to vacate their rented offices by the end of July. Russian legislation, which comes into force in Crimea in January, requires that their organisation register as a foreign agent, and completely bans their main donor, USAID. Increasingly repressive Russian laws can shut down opposition websites, and impose prison sentences on anyone questioning Russian territorial integrity (which would include Crimea) in the media.
Meanwhile a law legalizing the self-defense militias has already passed its first reading in the Crimean parliament. According to Kurmanova, it grants the militias a wide range of powers to stop, search, confiscate and detain, with minimum responsibilities. As state media in Crimea produces a soothing stream of information about a bright Russian future, ignoring the economic and social problems since annexation and downplaying or disregarding non-Russian ethnic groups, it is little surprise that Kurmanova and Datsenko from TRK both plan to leave Crimea for mainland Ukraine by the end of the summer.
“We had strict editorial standards and I suppose that’s why it's hardest of all for us, because now no one here needs such editorial standards,’ says Kurmanova. “It’s easier just not to ask questions and to keep quiet.”
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Ex-CIA chief: Russian action in Ukraine 'is a classic covert operation'
By Lorena O'Neil
May 20, 2014 | NPR
Keeping up with the battle in Ukraine? Then you must know of a man named Ramzan Kadyrov. No? Well, that's because he's the Instagram dictator staying in the background, behind the curtain, asking people to pay no mind to the Chechen military fighters he might be ordering over to fight for Russia.
Ramzan Kadyrov is the president of Chechnya, a Russian republic situated in the North Caucasus region. Multiple reports from Russia, Chechnya and Ukraine suggest that there is Chechen military involvement in the eastern part of Ukraine, fighting on the pro-Russia side. While the number of Chechens in Ukraine is hard to gauge and their existence difficult to prove, even a small number could have a deep significance.
To understand why this is important, one must first understand how Russia (and many of its supporters) plays ball. In a word? Subversively.
"What's going on with Ukraine is a classic covert operation," says OZY contributor and former deputy director of the CIA John McLaughlin. "The Russians probably won't have to go in militarily with special forces because they are gradually stirring it up, co-opting it." Multiple Russian experts assume that what we see on television from Ukraine has been influenced by Vladimir Putin's intervention.
"Everyone assumes this is not spontaneously generated by someone who woke up and said, 'Hey, I'd like to be a part of Russia,' " says McLaughlin. "They are doing this very indirectly. Involving the Chechens in that would be also kind of classic, to the extent that you can confuse the adversary." He explains that confusion makes it harder for those who oppose Russia to know what to do next, which is ultimately the aim of covert actions.
There are a host of reasons why Chechens in Ukraine could add confusion. It would mean introducing fighters of a different nationality with motives that seem to clash with Russia's. Chechnya itself fought a separatist war against Russia in 1994-1996, briefly winning until it lost a second war in 1999-2000.
The wars turned into an Islamic insurgency in response to the Kremlin's actions, geographically and politically. Kadyrov and his father, both Muslim, fought against Russia in the first war, but changed sides in the second. Given this recent history, it seems like many Chechens would be sympathetic to those fighting against Russia in Ukraine, and not willing to take up arms on behalf of Russia.
So what would motivate Chechens to fight for Russia?
"Kadyrov is a man who has survived by taking positions that are more pro-Russia than Russia," says Paul Goble, a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious issues in the post-Soviet world. He says the Chechen Republic is vastly more Islamic today than it ever was before, and Putin looks the other way because Kadyrov constantly expresses his undying love for Russia.
Additionally, deploying fighters works to Chechnya's advantage because it gives them military experience in the field, something the Russian government denies them by hesitating to draft North Caucasians in big numbers, Chechens in particular. The government is worried that if it trains Chechens to use its weapons, they may turn around and use their training against Russia.
Chechen forces in the Ukraine can also serve as an implied threat to Russia itself, proving [to Putin - J] how many able-bodied men Kadyrov has at his beck and call. "I find it a fascinating play by Kadyrov, a very evil man who is not stupid," says Goble.
Goble points out that it may be hard for observers to distinguish Chechen forces in the eastern regions of Ukraine from the Crimean Tatars, since both groups are Muslim. "They look similar. They could do something, and the Crimean Tatars could be blamed," says Goble. "Then there'd be more support for tough measures against the Tatars because they [would be seen as] dangerous Muslims, like the Chechens."
The introduction of foreign fighters would eerily resemble the events leading to the escalation of the ongoing Syrian civil war.
The Tatars were deported from their homeland of Crimea by Stalin in 1944, but have returned en masse since 1989. They make up about 12.1 percent of the Crimean population and have been consistent allies of the Ukrainian government against Russia. Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of their mass expulsion, and thousands gathered in commemoration.
Adding Chechens to the mix could intensify instability yet have minimal consequences for Russia. Goble explains that Chechens have a reputation for being brutal fighters. Kadyrov himself has been suspected of horrific human rights abuses and runs an intensely thuggish regime. (He tries to counterbalance this reputation with pictures of fluffy kittens on Instagram.) However,Moscow could easily deny any responsibility for actions taken by Chechens, as nothing has been officially ordered by Putin.
In fact, Kadyrov himself is denying official Chechen military involvement. When acting Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said Chechens were fighting alongside pro-Russian rebels in Slovyansk, a town in east Ukraine, Kadyrov took to his Instagram to call this allegation "absurd." As Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Liz Fuller points out, Kadyrov was careful to say "Chechen battalions" are not currently deployed in Ukraine, which does not really touch on the issue of informal military units.
Right now there is no definitive proof that Chechens are in Ukraine, just hearsay and YouTube videos. Kavkazcenter, the official website of the North Caucasus Islamic insurgency, posted a letter from a man who claims he was sent to Crimea and then to Slovyansk as part of a Chechen security force. Reuters spoke with a soldier who says he went to Crimea ahead of its voter referendum.
Recruitment centers in Grozny were reportedly asking for volunteer soldiers to fight in Ukraine, but the offices suddenly closed after stories about them were published. A Chechen student in Grozny alleges, via Russian blogger Oleg Leusenko, that residents were reluctant to volunteer, and recruiters called those people cowards and violently beat a man who refused to sign up.
Of course, this is not the world according to Kadyrov. "There are tens of thousands of volunteers in Chechnya who are ready to help those who are being abused by fascistic thugs, whose blood is being shed by the unlawful government of Kiev," writes Kadyrov, who can't resist a not-at-all-veiled threat even in a denial. "And if the Chechens really go to Slavyansk and other cities, you will see how people like Avakov flee from there, and will not stop even at the Western border of Ukraine."
Translation: We're not there — but if we were, you would know because you would be fleeing in terror. How thoughtful of the totally trustworthy Kadyrov to provide such ... reassurance.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Peninsula of Nazis: Russian Crimeans who served Hitler
This article is important enough to translate to English in order to put Crimea into its proper historical context vis-a-vis Russia's accusations of "nationalism" and "fascism" in certain regions of Ukraine. You are free to read or Google translate it yourself; the original is here. [Emphasis below mine].
March 24, 2014 | CRIME.in.UA
Recently, thanks to the brilliant follower of Adolf Hitler, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian citizens who felt their homeland was Ukraine (not Russia or the Soviet Union) were automatically branded "Banderites" and "neo-Nazis."
For what purpose since the 2000's have our so-called "brothers" stamped all Ukrainian patriots and ordinary Ukrainians to whom is alien the "Russian world" with the stamps "Banderites" (banderovtsy), "Nazi collaborators" and the like? Why does comrade Putin hate people who fought for the independence of their country against all comers: the Germans, the Red Army and Soviet partisans? Probably because in the plans of that Nazi there is no place for an independent Ukraine, just as there was not in Hitler's plans.
Today we offer to lift the curtain and shed light on a number of facts that "Putin & Co." does not like to remember, preferring to pretend that it was not in Russia's history of betrayal of millions of Russians during World War II. That it did not exist in the great history of the great Russian millions, as if they just drowned in the endless pages of time.
The Russian media loves to make noise about the "complicity of banderovtsy with fascists," concealing the massive scale of collaboration in Crimea, including Sevastopol, in the period of the German-Romanian occupation. And today, this period of time is still a mystery of mysteries.
But not everything was so simple. If in the western regions of Ukraine, UPA [Ukrainian Resistance Army] protected its people from the Nazi aggressors, in the southeastern regions and in Crimea, it was more difficult -- on the contrary, legions became collaborators to help the invaders oppress native people. Since the middle of the summer of 1942 they went under the same banner under which now walks the Russian community, and wore the same uniform worn by the current Crimean Russian Cossacks.
And, by the way, they all spoke Russian. The absolute majority of Germany's supporters -- Russian Liberation Army (ROA) formations in the territory of Ukraine and Crimea -- were created mostly of Russian-speaking collaborators.
And if Ukrainian battalions "Roland" and "Nachtigall" are a favorite topic of the Russian media, then it is time to tell you about homegrown Crimean Cossacks whose descendants today have lined up in the service of the Moscow as "fighters against fascism," but who in fact are fighting exclusively with the Ukrainian state. Even on the day of celebration of Victory over Nazism on May 9, under the flags of ROA they love to walk the streets of Sevastopol and demonstrate that "in the city of Russian glory" there is no limit to cynicism. The archives and statistics, and documentary research of many Russian writers are packed with dry eloquent facts.
So, Crimea put up "only" 45,000 (!) bayonets in the 11th German Army of Manstein who participated in the storming of Sevastopol.
In the 17th Army of the Wehrmacht were formed nine separate Russian companies.
Crimean "volunteers," unlike the UPA , who defended their land, took part in the siege of Leningrad. Crimean Tatars, by the way, did not take part in the "Wehrmacht," so any theses about "Crimean Tatar traitors" can find no basis in fact here.
Modern Crimean "fighters against fascism" are somehow not in a hurry to to tell Crimeans, how, and with whom, in Simferopol in February 1942 was formed the 5th Simferopol Cossack Squadron, Cossack Cavalry Regiment "Von Yungshultz" and the 1st Andrew Hundred near Simferopol.
In addition, Russian Hitlerites on the peninsula formed four Russian Cossack battalions, which became the basis of the Russian Cossack Security Division "Von Schulenburg." This Division was finally destroyed in battles with UPA in 1944.
In February 1942, in Simferopol, by the headquarters of the 11th Army of the Wehrmacht was formed the 5th Simferopol Rejtarskiy Cossack squadron, on the basis of which was established Cossack Rejtarskiy regiment under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel von Schulze's 1st Panzer Army. In 1943 the regiment, as one of the best in the fight against the Red Army and the guerrillas, was included in the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division of the Waffen SS, and later expanded and was reorganized into the 15th Waffen SS Cossack Corps.
It should be noted that Hitler included Crimea in the Reikskomisariat "Ukraine". Therefore, it was the 15th SS Cossack Corps, formed in Crimea, not the SS Division "Galicia," that became the first collaborationist unit in Ukraine that was fully included in the Waffen-SS.
Corps-- not division, and still much more. Therefore, Lviv with its Division "Galicia" and two battalions that had not sworn allegiance to the Fuehrer and the Reich mostly went over to UPA, in great contrast to Crimean Cossacks.
In addition to the above facts, inhabitants of Crimea formed three Russian battalions marching in the Wehrmacht, 560th and 994th field battalions of the ROA. Besides the Cossack Corps, first in Sevastopol, and then in Simferopol were well-outfitted headquarters, command and two battalions of the 1st Grenadier Division of the SS "Russia" and initiated the formation of the 2nd Division.
Residents and prisoners of war in Sevastopol formed the 381st Sevastopol Educational Field Division of the Wehrmacht .
Coastal defenses from Sevastopol to Feodosiya in 1942-1944 were provided the team "Kringsmarine Black Sea," in which officers were Germans, and soldiers were Russian, exclusively recruited from the local population and prisoners of war. Although these "kringsmarintsy" at the approach of the Red Army shot their officers and went over to the partisans -- nevertheless, for two years they loyally served the invaders.
Separately, we should mention the Crimean police battalions -- the so-called "HÑ–wÑ–" ("Volunteer helpers " -- helpers of the Nazis, of course). In Sevastopol, a battalion was formed of 450 locals that guarded the seaport, and likewise in Crimea "helpers" blockaded Soviet partisans in the mountain forests.
If we compare the number of collaborators pf Crimea and Western Ukraine in their relation to the number of the local population in 1941, we obtain interesting results. In the western regions of Ukraine the number of collaborators that fell in the service of the occupiers (even including the general list of Ukrainian Division "Galicia" and battalions "Roland " and "Nachtigall") was about 2.5% of the total population of the region. In Crimea -- it was almost 12%.
Today in the Crimea again operate the henchmen of a new Hitler -- from Moscow. Only now they are not fighting against the Soviet power, but against the Ukrainian government. And at the same time against Ukrainian citizens, who do not even really know how to speak Ukrainian .
And so that such "national traitors" would not stay on "native Russian land," Cossacks and FSB agents advise them "delicately" in Russian to leave their home and their Motherland. Because in Russia there is no place for Ukraine. In the twisted imagination of the Moscow Fuhrer there exists only "Little Russia" -- "a petty historical misunderstanding."
Section "Delta" group "IS ." Based primarily on research by Miroslav Mamchak.
Source: Flot2017.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Hostages beaten and tortured in Crimea
If you're inclined to ignore or disregard this report because of the source, then follow the hyperlinks provided therein. They are all quite legitimate.
How anybody could say that the Crimean referendum was "free and fair" when journalists and anti-referendum activists in Crimea were being harassed, threatened, kidnapped, tortured, and in at least one case in Belohirsk, murdered, meanwhile Russian troops had shut down Ukrainian TV channels and laid siege to Ukrainian military bases ... well... then such people are determined to believe what they want to believe.
By Mat Babiak
March 21, 2014 | Euromaidan PR
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Statement of Head of EU Delegation on human rights in Crimea (19/03/2014)
Since a group of armed persons seized the Verkhovna Rada and Government of Autonomous Republic of Crimea buildings in Simferopol on 27 February, a growing number of Ukrainian citizens have fallen victim to serious Human Rights abuses. Reported violations include enforced disappearances, ill-treatment and torture, violent attacks against journalists, restrictions to freedom of the media, freedom of movement and freedom of peaceful assembly.
Our thoughts and prayers are now with the families and relatives of those who were killed in past days. Today Ukraine mourns the loss of a Ukrainian army serviceman, S. Kakurin, who was killed yesterday during an attack on a Ukrainian military facility in Simferopol. Several others were gravely wounded. I firmly condemn this and other acts of violence. On Monday we learned that the body of R. Ametov, a member of the Crimean Tatar community, was found dead with signs of torture. An effective and impartial police investigation must start immediately and those responsible for this shameful crime must be brought to justice.
Persons who have been kidnapped must be immediately and unconditionally released. These include Andriy Shchekun and Anatoliy Koval'skiy, his son Sergiy Koval'skiy, Mikhail Vdovchenko, Stanislav Polishchuk, Oleksiy Grytsenko, Natalya Lukyanchenko and Sergiy Suprun, Yaroslav Pilunski, Sergei Hruzinov, as well as several servicemen from the Ukrainian military who, according to reports, were abducted in the last few hours. I firmly condemn these cases of enforced disappearances, which put Crimea under self-proclaimed authorities at the level of some of the world's most dangerous regions.
The situation of freedom of expression and freedom of the media in Crimea is deeply worrisome. A number of Ukrainian national TV channels have been cut off the air, and journalists have been subject to a systematic campaign of violent attacks. Over 75 violations of freedom of the media have been reported by independent watchdogs.
Freedom of peaceful assembly has dramatically deteriorated. In past days persons, who peacefully demonstrated for the unity of Ukraine, were forcefully dispersed by violent groups.
Full respect of the rights of ethnic groups in Crimea, including the Crimean Tatar community, for whom Crimea is homeland for centuries, is of outmost importance.
International human rights observers, including from the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the UN, should immediately be allowed unrestricted access to Crimea.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Charles King: Crimea is Putin's 'grand experiment'
I'm a few days late re-posting this op-ed on Russia's occupation of Crimea, but it's still relevant. Some of it is very good exposition, but some of it is a little... off. If not blatantly pro-Russian.
For instance, Charles King advises that, "The Ukrainian government must block armed groups from traveling to Crimea from other parts of Ukraine, just as Russia must halt the formation of pro-Russian militias in Crimea and beyond." But Russia has already formed such pro-Russian militias! And it is being blatantly dishonest about the Russian military's support of them, and their conduct of joint operations. Is King taken these militias as a given, or is he really naively accepting the Russian line that they don't exist? It's not clear at all.
Secondly, King argues that Ukraine's sovereignty is not the issue, since the West regularly ignores other nations' sovereignty when it suits them (Iraq, Libya, etc.). Rather, King says the problem with Russia's actions is that Putin used "ethnic nationalism" as an excuse to invade and occupy Crimea. I disagree. If we concede King's point then the entire international order would break down, and "might makes right" would rule the day. King is being extremely cold-blooded and cynical here; more so than a pundit/academic has a right to be.
Moreover, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances that was signed by Presidents Yeltsin, Kuchma and Clinton stated that all sides would respect Ukraine's current borders and sovereignty. In return, Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal. Ukraine is only the second country is history to do that. It was a foreign relations coup for the U.S. and Russia, and arguably for global security. But now we see it was a terrible move for the national security of Ukraine. Simply put, Russia would not be in Crimea right now if Ukraine still had nuclear weapons. The Ukraine trusted the U.S.... and now the U.S. is about to let Ukraine down.
King notes that Russians know the "real" story of events in Ukraine. And yet most Russians, and certainly Putin's government, ignore the fact that Russia's envoy to Ukraine refused to sign the February 23 agreement that Russia now cites as the basis for any settlement. Furthermore, Russia can't justify why the President of Ukraine felt the need to abandon the country only days later, inexplicably, without a word to anybody. Now Yanukovych says his safety was threatened, which Putin affirms... but come on. We can't be expected to believe this. My personal theory is that Yanu knew that soon enough the new government would uncover the empty Treasury and his theft of billions of dollars and set criminal charges on him. Therefore ex-President Yanukovych fled -- first to the East, then South to Crimea, then to Russia.
By Charles King
March 1, 2014 | New York Times
The Russian military intervention in Ukraine’s autonomous republic of Crimea has brought relations between the United States and Russia to their lowest level in a quarter century. It has transgressed the sovereignty of one of the most populous countries in Europe, violated the terms of a diplomatic agreement to respect Ukraine’s borders, and placed Russia on a war footing with one of the few states in the post-Soviet world that has managed to hold multiple free elections. It is a military operation that is unsanctioned by any international body, wholly open-ended, and blessed only by the Russian Parliament.
Crimea is routinely described as “pro-Russian,” given that an estimated 58 percent of the population of two million is ethnic Russian, with another 24 percent Ukrainian and 12 percent Crimean Tatar. Many of its inhabitants, regardless of ethnicity, are actually Russian citizens or dual-passport holders. But the picture is even more complicated. A vital naval base run by another country, a community of patriotic military retirees, a multiethnic patchwork, a weak state and competing national mythologies — that mixture is why a Crimean conflict has long been the nightmare scenario in the former Soviet Union and now represents the gravest crisis in Europe since the end of the Cold War.
But that is also the reason all sides must tread carefully. Affirmations about territorial integrity and cries of foreign invasion are empty mantras at a moment when a major European country — unbuilt by a string of fatuous governments and now further destabilized from abroad — has ceased to exist as a functionally unified state. NATO cannot possibly extend security guarantees to a government that does not control its own territory. Yet even in the midst of a standoff, Russia and the West have a clear common interest: forestalling a civil war in the heart of Europe.
If you were able to make your way through the closed airspace, past the demonstrators and Russian-run checkpoints, you could visit a spot that symbolizes why Crimea matters. The Cathedral of St. Vladimir rests on a small hill on Crimea’s southwestern coast. The church is a modern creation, gilded and graceless, but it stands on an auspicious site: the place where, it is thought, Vladimir adopted Christianity in 988 as the state religion of his principality, Rus.
To Russians, Vladimir is the first national saint and the truest progenitor of the modern Russian state. To Ukrainians, he is Volodymyr the Great, founder of the Slavic civilization that would eventually flourish farther north, in medieval Kiev. His church overlooks the expansive ruins of Chersonesus, an ancient Greek settlement that is one of modern Ukraine’s most convincing claims to continuous membership in the Western world. [ It is also a UNESCO World Heritage site -- J ].
Just around the headland is Sevastopol, the protected port and naval base where Tolstoy once served on the ramparts. During the Second World War, it was besieged and leveled by German bombers despite a heroic stand by the Soviet Army and partisans. It remained the seat of the Soviet Black Sea fleet after the war, and when the Soviet Union disappeared, the Russian and Ukrainian navies divided up the ships and berths. For generations, sailors and marines have returned from sea to retire in the city’s leafy neighborhoods.
An hour’s car ride away is Yalta, where czars vacationed and Chekhov wrote “The Cherry Orchard.” An hour farther is Stary Krym with its centuries-old mosque and the splendid palace at Bakhchisarai — two of the principal historical sites of the Crimean Tatars, the Muslim community that ruled Crimea for centuries before the Russians arrived. In 1783, when Catherine the Great wrested control from the Tatar khan and the Ottoman Turks, hundreds of thousands of Tatars fled the advancing Russian armies. A century and a half later, in 1944, those who remained behind [ about 190,000 of them -- J ] were scooped up by Stalin and deported to Central Asia. Their children and grandchildren eventually returned to their ancient lands and now fly the blue Tatar flag, with its distinctive cattle-brand seal, alongside Ukrainian and Russian ones in the crowds of clashing protesters who have come into the streets of Sevastopol, Simferopol and other cities.
Has Crimea also now become a Sudetenland? Or is it just a Grenada? Some Western commentators have already suggested the former, comparing President Vladimir V. Putin’s dispatch of Russian forces to Hitler’s 1938 annexation of German-populated parts of Czechoslovakia. In his 90-minute telephone call with President Obama on Saturday, Mr. Putin used a novel justification for his country’s attack on a neighboring state: protecting the interests of both Russian citizens and “compatriots” — code not just for ethnic Russians but for anyone with a political or cultural disposition toward Russia.
In the parallel universe of the Russian media, the preemptive and humanitarian nature of the operation gets pride of place. The ouster of Ukraine’s former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, was a takeover by militant “ultranationalists,” Mr. Putin declared, and Ukraine was slipping toward widespread disorder. That line resonates at home. In a poll carried out in late February by the independent, Moscow-based Levada Center, 43 percent of Russians called the overthrow of Mr. Yanukovych a violent coup and 23 percent labeled the developing situation a civil war. A plurality of respondents saw the entire affair as an orchestrated attempt by the West to draw Ukraine into its geopolitical orbit.
This interpretive frame may be hard to understand, but some things are not wrong just because Russians happen to believe them. Russian news crews were covering a real story in Ukraine: the chaotic dismantling of a legally sanctioned government, the quick breakdown of an agreed framework for new elections, and the creeping transformation of political disputes into ethnic ones.
All of this points to the chief opportunity as well as the chief danger for Mr. Putin. The Crimean affair is a grand experiment in Mr. Putin’s strategy of equivalence: countering every criticism of his government’s behavior with a page from the West’s own playbook. If his government has a guiding ideology, it is not the concept of restoring the old Soviet Union. It is rather his commitment to exposing what Russian politicians routinely call the “double standards” of American and European foreign policy and revealing the hidden workings of raison d’état — the hardnosed and pragmatic calculation of interests that average citizens from Moscow to Beijing to New Delhi actually believe drives the policies of all great powers.
But Crimea is different, and the results are potentially disastrous. With rival militias now forming on the peninsula and the Russian flag flying over government buildings in parts of southeastern Ukraine, the immediate task of diplomacy is to rescue Ukraine from the consequences of its accidental revolution.
First, the European Union, the United States, and Russia must all agree that the principal goal is to prevent greater violence. The Ukrainian government must block armed groups from traveling to Crimea from other parts of Ukraine, just as Russia must halt the formation of pro-Russian militias in Crimea and beyond. Rather than returning to base, as President Obama has demanded, Russia must use the current disposition of Russian forces to police the very situation they have created. Any confirmed transfer of arms to civilians or non-uniformed soldiers from Russian stores should be treated as a violation of the United Nations charter.
Second, European and American officials must be clear on the reasons why the international community should band together to condemn Russian actions. It is not because of the violation of national sovereignty — a concept imperfectly defended by Americans and Europeans in recent years — but because Mr. Putin’s reserving the right to protect the “Russian-speaking population” of Ukraine is an affront to the basis of international order. Not even the alleged ultranationalists who Mr. Putin claims now control the Ukrainian government have tried to export their uprising to Ukrainian speakers in Poland, Moldova, or Romania, or indeed Russia itself. It is Mr. Putin who has made ethnic nationalism a defining element of foreign policy.
Russia was in fact a pioneer of the idea that, in the jargon of international affairs, is now called R2P: the responsibility to protect. Under Czar Nicholas I, Russia asserted its right to guarantee the lives and fortunes of Orthodox Christians inside the territory of its chief strategic rival, the Ottoman Empire. In 1853 Russia launched a preemptive attack on the Ottomans, sending its fleet out of Sevastopol harbor to sink Ottoman ships across the Black Sea. Britain, France and other allies stepped in to respond to the unprovoked attack. The result was called the Crimean War, a conflict that, as every Russian schoolchild knows, Russia lost.
[ Interestingly, every British schoolchild used to be taught the same: Great Britain lost the Crimean War. -- J ]
The future of Ukraine is now no longer about Kiev’s Independence Square, democracy in Ukraine or European integration. It is about how to preserve a vision of Europe — and, indeed, of the world — where countries give up the idea that people who speak a language we understand are the only ones worth protecting.
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