2014 Ukrainian Maidan Revolt: News, Views, Photos & Videos

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Mr T said:

If that's the case, why doesn't anyone know where he is? If he was going to make a stand, he would be all over the media from a stronghold somewhere.

The fact he has disappeared (and reportedly dismissed his security detail) suggests he has done a runner because he thinks he'll be arrested if he sticks about. Going to Eastern Ukraine wouldn't necessarily help because there are still many people that think he's a murdering crook and would try to grab him.

Even if he does resurface somewhere in Ukraine, the fact he has fled will have seriously damaged his image, even amongst many of his supporters.

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According to an article in the Viktor Yanukovych has been missing since he fled Kiev on Friday night. He has since been sighted in various places in his former electoral strongholds in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, including Kharkov, where he gave a television interview on Saturday night denouncing the Kiev protesters who overthrew him as Nazis, and later in his home town of Donetsk.

I don’t have any love for this guy, but you can’t blanket say he has disappeared and no one knows where his is, when its news that he is in eastern Ukraine. He may or may not be organizing a new government. At any rate his best chance for survival is to be in the ethnical Russian majority side. He odds of saving his skin are better there than in Kiev.

Another thing that lead to the assumption that he may be organizing a new government is that Dmitry Medvedev denounced the armed mutiny and that it is not legitimate. That and that Yanukovych has been seen in eastern Ukraine may mean that he is in contact with the Russians.

Granted all of this is speculation. But just ask yourself, what would you do to save your live if you where him?

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Miragedriver said:

...where he gave a television interview on Saturday night denouncing the Kiev protesters who overthrew him as Nazis, and later in his home town of Donetsk.

Another thing that lead to the assumption that he may be organizing a new government is that Dmitry Medvedev denounced the armed mutiny and that it is not legitimate.

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He and Russia cannot have it both ways.

Yes, he won an election in a very close contest and was dully elected. But his policies also led to great upheavel, rioting, unrest, and the death of many citizens.

But that violence alone is not what stands as his undoing...nor should it be.

He was impeached by the Ukrainian parliment on Saturday, according to the provisions of the Ukrainian constitution and officially and legally removed from office.

So yes, he was constitutionally elected...but now he has also been constitutionally removed from office.

He is no loinger the President and they will have to have new elections, which will be held.

For him, or Russia, to try and in any way name a new government with him at the head would be unconstituional and a crime against the Ukranian constitution at this point. I do not see it happeneing.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Yanukovich had been the face of the hated pro-Kremlin faction since 2004, and the the struggle between pro-western and pro-Russian faction over the years between the orange revolutionaries and the Kremlin fraction has largely been a struggle to keep Yanukovich from assuming power in Ukraine. So I think to the pro-west faction that just gained power in Kiev, Yanukovich is more like Nicolai Ceausescu, the head and embodiement of evil of their enemies, than Li Pen, a mere high ranking apparatchik who happen to be in power when blood was shed,

So I have no doubt his life is not safe and it was right for his own well being to flee.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Jeff Head said:

He and Russia cannot have it both ways.

Yes, he won an election in a very close contest and was dully elected. But his policies also led to great upheavel, rioting, unrest, and the death of many citizens.

But that violence alone is not what stands as his undoing...nor should it be.

He was impeached by the Ukrainian parliment on Saturday, according to the provisions of the Ukrainian constitution and officially and legally removed from office.

So yes, he was constitutionally elected...but now he has also been constitutionally removed from office.

He is no loinger the President and they will have to have new elections, which will be held.

For him, or Russia, to try and in any way name a new government with him at the head would be unconstituional and a crime against the Ukranian constitution at this point. I do not see it happeneing.

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To be honest, we don't know what the laws and customs of Ukraine actually are, nor whether the impeachment really has a priori legal basis, or whether the pro-west fraction simply made it up as they went to sanctify a coup ex post facto with a more legal sounding term. I suspect it is a little more of the latter.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Jeff Head said:

He and Russia cannot have it both ways.

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That is what makes this entire situation very confusing. Too many contradictions and people switching sides. The only thing I can say with a certain degree of confidence is that I don’t think the Russians will ever willingly give up the Crimea.

The next few days, or week should be very interesting and be the topic of conversation and postings.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Miragedriver said:

That is what makes this entire situation very confusing. Too many contradictions and people switching sides. The only thing I can say with a certain degree of confidence is that I don’t think the Russians will ever willingly give up the Crimea.

The next few days, or week should be very interesting and be the topic of conversation and postings.

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I suspect that it is more accurate to say that Russia will not give up its naval base at Sevastapol on the Black Sea.

They gave up the whole of the Crimea to Ukraine, long ago under the USSR and Nikita Khrushchev. The Presidium of the Supreme Council gathered for a session on February 19, 1954 and voted unanimously to do so.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, it has remained with the Ukraine. However, it is an autonomus region of the Ukraine.

But, the Naval base at Sevastapol, like the US Naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, is something else again. The US has never given it to Cuba...I suspect at the very least, the Russian base will fall into the same category.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

chuck731 said:

Yanukovich had been the face of the hated pro-Kremlin faction since 2004, and the the struggle between pro-western and pro-Russian faction over the years between the orange revolutionaries and the Kremlin fraction has largely been a struggle to keep Yanukovich from assuming power in Ukraine. So I think to the pro-west faction that just gained power in Kiev, Yanukovich is more like Nicolai Ceausescu, the head and embodiement of evil of their enemies, than Li Pen, a mere high ranking apparatchik who happen to be in power when blood was shed,

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I can only pray that those bastards who were with him to the last moments and ordered killing other people will be hanged or shot dead or whatever with their families losing all the money they had extorted from the nation. I'm so radical because... BEACAUSE people will never settle down without that and the Ukrainians will be divided between themselves for at least as long as the last man from the Maidan will live while honorary Berkut members who killed their compatriots without any objections will live a pretty good life paid from the nations money. Maybe it will last even longer...

That's how things should be handled. Unfortunately for Ukraine and it's people - it won't happen...

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

chuck731 said:

To be honest, we don't know what the laws and customs of Ukraine actually are, nor whether the impeachment really has a priori legal basis, or whether the pro-west fraction simply made it up as they went to sanctify a coup ex post facto with a more legal sounding term. I suspect it is a little more of the latter.

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Well, Chuck, perhaps it would be honest for you to operate under such an assumption...but that is simply because you are perhaps not familiar with the Ukrainian Constitution.

But please do not cast that particular judgment upon others. The Ukraine Constitution does have provisions for the impeachement of the President in Chapter V, Article 111. In Article 112, it plainly states that the Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (Parliment) will then assume presidential powers until elections are held for a new President.

The Ukrainian parliament acted upon those provisions under law.

In order to impeach the President, he must be convicted high crimes first by a two-thirds constitutional majority in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) with 300 ayes, who must support a procedure of impeachment. An investigative commission is established by the parliament at that point for an impeachment investigation. The commission's final conclusions are then considered at a parliamentary meeting.

At that meeting, in order to convict and remove the President from office, a minimum three-quarters of parliament must support the resolution.

In the event that a President is impeached, the Chairman of the Parliament becomes the acting president until a new president is elected. This is in Article 112. The acting president is not given the authority to address the nation or parliament, or to dismiss the legislative branch, or to appoint candidates for parliamentary approval of government, or to judicial posts. The acting president can also not call for any referendum, he cannot grant military ranks, or issue state orders, or exercise the right of pardon as a normal President can.

As it is, the Ukrainian Parliament went through with all of this and now it is done...and done according to their Constitution.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Jeff Head said:

I suspect that it is more accurate to say that Russia will not give up its naval base at Sevastapol on the Black Sea.

They gave up the whole of the Crimea to Ukraine, long ago under the USSR and Nikita Khrushchev. The Presidium of the Supreme Council gathered for a session on February 19, 1954 and voted unanimously to do so.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, it has remained with the Ukraine. However, it is an autonomus region of the Ukraine.

But, the Naval base at Sevastapol, like the US Naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, is something else again. The US has never given it to Cuba...I suspect at the very least, the Russian base will fall into the same category.

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No, US has a treaty right under the terms of 1903 US-Cuban treaty, no implication on the justice or reasonablness of the treaty, to stay in Guantanomo and use it for military purposes only as long as the US likes.

Sevastopol naval base is part of Ukraine and only leased to Russia to from 1992 to 2022. Yanukovich negotiated and extension of the lease to 2042, but that is part of the reason why he is now running for his life. Other than that Russia has no claim to Sevastopol naval base.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Jeff Head said:

Well, Chuck, perhaps it would be honest for you to operate under such an assumption...but that is simply because you are perhaps not familiar with the Ukrainian Constitution.

But please do not cast that particular judgment upon others. The Ukraine Constitution does have provisions for the impeachement of the President in Chapter V, Article 111. In Article 112, it plainly states that the Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (Parliment) will then assume presidential powers until elections are held for a new President.

The Ukrainian parliament acted upon those provisions under law.

In order to impeach the President, he must be convicted high crimes first by a two-thirds constitutional majority in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) with 300 ayes, who must support a procedure of impeachment. An investigative commission is established by the parliament at that point for an impeachment investigation. The commission's final conclusions are then considered at a parliamentary meeting.

At that meeting, in order to convict and remove the President from office, a minimum three-quarters of parliament must support the resolution.

In the event that a President is impeached, the Chairman of the Parliament becomes the acting president until a new president is elected. This is in Article 112. The acting president is not given the authority to address the nation or parliament, or to dismiss the legislative branch, or to appoint candidates for parliamentary approval of government, or to judicial posts. The acting president can also not call for any referendum, he cannot grant military ranks, or issue state orders, or exercise the right of pardon as a normal President can.

As it is, the Ukrainian Parliament went through with all of this and now it is done...and done according to their Constitution.

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You are very well informed on this Jeff. Are you preparing for another book, or do you have “contacts” on the inside?

With what is going on now in the Ukraine it almost seems like a fictional story. Too bad people are really dying
.