In the capital city of the most populous Oblast ( Provincial Political Subdivision - 7.4 Million people - 90% in urban areas ) in Ukraine and also in the capital of the 7th most populous Oblast in Ukraine ( 2.3 Million people - 85% in urban areas ), the local police and interior ministry troops who live in eastern Ukraine are no longer following the orders of the Kiev government. Anit-Kiev activists, violent anit-Kiev activists, break the law and break the peace at will, and the police do not intervene nor do they ( the police and the interior minister troops ) offer resistance ( other than words ) when the anti-Kiev mobs overrun their police stations and demand the police surrender their weapons and leave.John wrote:
There's plenty of rhetoric to go around. You have the government in Kiev saying, "The world has not yet forgotten World War II, but Russia is already keen on starting World War III." You have Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov responding with, "The West wants - and this is how it all began - to seize control of Ukraine because of their own political ambitions, not in the interests of the Ukrainian people." And the middle ring of the three-ring circus is Russia's armed forces on Ukraine's eastern border, with soldiers running around, tanks rolling around, and warplanes flying around to thrill people.
Circus acts, such as the Russian troop exercises only yards from eastern Ukraine on Friday and Saturday, and threats from Putin to "punish" those who order violence against civilians in eastern Ukraine, and the targeted killing of independent politicians in eastern Ukraine, all do have a political impact on those who live and work in eastern Ukraine, including local police, national police ( interior ministry troops ), other Ukrainian government officials who live and work in eastern Ukraine, and the Ukrainian standing army military personnel who live, and are based, in eastern Ukraine.
Add to this the fact that armed forces, from the portions of Ukraine outside of eastern Ukraine, that have moved into eastern Ukraine on the orders of the Kiev government, have been ordered to stand down and not initiate violent actions, since Putin's threat last Thursday; and the result is, that the Kiev government is losing the political battle for control of eastern Ukraine, even with substantial, apparently loyal to the Kiev government, Kiev government armed forces located in eastern Ukraine.
Diplomacy, the credible threat of military force, and the use of military force to achieve Geo-Political objectives have been part of competition between nation states for millennia.
Russia deployed a credible threat of military force with it's circus act on Friday and Saturday. The Kiev government, by standing down Kiev's loyal military forces deployed in eastern Ukraine since last Thursday, has proved Kiev's threat of using military force is less credible; Thus locally based police forces and locally based military forces in eastern Ukraine are standing aside while anti-Kiev violent protestors consolidate political power in eastern Ukraine.
Mao is quoted as saying political power comes from the barrel of a gun. Sovereignty is often defined as the exclusive legal right to use violence. The Kiev government is experiencing, the on going, and accelerating, process of losing sovereignty over eastern Ukraine, and, so far, not a single Russian tank has rolled across the border into eastern Ukraine.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dcd37f44 ... z30Icg2pV7Financial Times, Tuesday, April 29th at 18:24 London Time wrote:
Ukrainian authorities appear to have lost control of law and order in Donetsk, the capital city of the province at the heart of separatist unrest, as violent pro-Russia militants roam the streets unchallenged.
On Monday evening men carrying sticks and bats set upon a pro-unity demonstration of men, women and children waving Ukrainian flags in a central square. The demonstrators were ostensibly protected by 450 police and interior ministry forces, riot shields at the ready and positioned at the front and side of the square.
However, the force did little to intervene when men lunged from behind, armed with clubs and Molotov cocktails. They bludgeoned several people, mostly old men unable to outrun them. As blood was spilt and people cried for help, most of the police stood by.
Novosti Donbassa, a news website, published a photograph of the attackers picking up police shields for their own use, as a policeman turned his back. Afterwards about 1,000 of the pro-Russia militants marched along a main street, banging sticks and shields as bystanders fled down side streets, in a scene reminiscent of the film “Gangs of New York”.
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On Tuesday hundreds of pro-Russia militants broke into a government building in Lugansk, capital of the easternmost province of the same name, and were filmed calling on police who were loosely guarding the building to “give up your arms”. The police then marched away, and the militants got to work piling sandbags to barricade the building.
Pro-Kiev authorities believe the hard-core separatists who occupy public buildings in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions number no more than 5,000 out of a population of 7 million people. However, they worry that weak law enforcement is allowing the region to spiral into chaos and fall into Russian control, without any need for a Russian military invasion.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/ ... M320140429
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tions.html
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dcd37f44 ... z30Icg2pV7
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/61285c88 ... z30Icg2pV7
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