Crisis in Oekraïne #119 De bevrijding van Oost-Oekraine

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Op zondag 24 augustus 2014 17:17 schreef Spatzmann het volgende:

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Principekwestie, je gaat een bezetting cq annexatie toch niet toestaan?! Alleen de laffe europeanen vinden dat een optie...

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Op zondag 24 augustus 2014 16:35 schreef deelnemer het volgende:

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EuromaidanPR twitterde op zondag 24-08-2014 om 15:57:58 Independance Day, #Kyiv |EMPR Photo #Ukraine http://t.co/IRM4tSIsN9 reageer retweet

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Blondes have more fun.
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De Oekrainse jeugd staat al klaar om de Russen eruit te meppen
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Alleen de hulpverlening is in slaap gedommeld.
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Op zondag 24 augustus 2014 17:17 schreef Spatzmann het volgende:

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Principekwestie, je gaat een bezetting cq annexatie toch niet toestaan?! Alleen de laffe europeanen vinden dat een optie...

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In total, there are over 139,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in the country, and our analysis has found that there are two distinct groups emerging - with 125,000 having fled from eastern Ukraine, and 14,000 from Crimea, mainly to the eastern regions that border Donetsk and Kiev.

While the latter group of IDPs are mainly politically active supporters of the new Ukrainian government, the public perception of the former group is that of separatist sympathisers, unwilling to work and ready to cause trouble. This narrative is reinforced through actions of the local media and politicians who tend to blow isolated incidents out of proportion.

In Crimea - following the secession referendum in March - threats or acts of violence on the basis of political allegiance, ethnicity or religion have fuelled much of the displacement. Politically active supporters of the Euromaidan movement that overthrew the last president, as well as the Crimean Tatars, an ethnic minority of over 240’000 on the peninsula with a history of anti-Russian sentiment due to being deported from Crimea by Stalin in the past, are being particularly targeted by the new Russian authorities and their supporters.

While many of the Crimean IDPs assumed their displacement would be temporary, the current reality is that they will most likely remain displaced on mainland Ukraine for longer, because they are not willing to return to Crimea as long as it is part of Russia. Moreover, they are unable to access their savings due to the closure of Ukrainian banks in the peninsula, and are unable to sell their assets because of new property registration systems that the Russian authorities are putting in place which will prevent the displaced from selling their original property. This in turn will make it even harder for them to rebuild their lives in the longer term.

On the other hand, IDPs from the eastern part of Ukraine, have already started to return - 24’000 people so far - mostly within the Donetsk region, but also from Kharkiv and Kiev. Most IDPs from the east are women and children. Men also fled but in fewer numbers as some opted to remain and protect the family property, while others have been unable to pass through either separatist checkpoints, or the Ukrainian army; the former draft men to fight against the army, while the latter are suspicious of men for this same reason.

This group of IDPs, knowing that return is on the horizon, are not planning to integrate themselves into the areas of displacement, which negatively impacts their relationship with the locals, already struggling with a lack of resources. Moreover, some of these displaced, contrary to the Crimean IDPs, are critical of the Ukrainian government and army, and openly supportive of the separatist movement in the east, giving rise to even more conflict.

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In June, the government agreed to pay 75 per cent of Crimean IDPs’ accommodation costs up to 1 July and accepted an action plan to streamline service provision to all IDPs. With the increase in IDPs’ needs and numbers, such measures have proven insufficient.

In response, the Ukrainian Parliament swiftly drafted an IDP law which the president, however, saw as inadequate, resulting in a veto. A new law is currently being drafted, that includes provisions to finance IDP housing for six months, improve access to services and benefits, establish compensation mechanisms for destroyed or lost property and provide preferential loans to Crimean IDPs. While much of it should secure positive change for some IDPs, there are also negative aspects and still plenty of room for further action.

For instance, provisions in the new draft legislation state that IDP men can be drafted into the army. If adopted in its current format, this law will contradict the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement that ensure IDP families are allowed to stay together in the aftermath of displacement. Principle 17 calls on the national authorities to ensure IDP ‘family members who wish to remain together shall be allowed to do so’. IDP families should be able to stay together to better cope with the psychological effects of the trauma of displacement.

Moreover, the Guiding Principles state that IDPs must be protected ‘against discriminatory practices of recruitment into any armed forces … as a result of their displacement’. There is a possibility that IDP men will be disproportionately drafted due to being perceived negatively. The deputy head of Dnipropetrovsk region administration, for example, already put forward an initiative for all IDP men of conscription age to be drafted if they are “living like parasites”.

The national authorities must take the Guiding Principles into account when drafting this legislation, and must continue to step up assistance to IDP.

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Op zondag 24 augustus 2014 18:00 schreef deelnemer het volgende:

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Het valt mij op dat (pro)Russen verwachten dat een land cultureel & etnisch homogeen is, vrij is vooroordelen of andere spanningen. Zo niet, dan is een scheiding noodzakelijk. Ik vraag me af hoelang een huwelijk in Rusland stand houdt.

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We drive to a border crossing and the pairs of shoes are handed out to families who have crossed over from Ukraine. Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry has pitched large tents here for the refugees.

Inside one of the tents I meet Valentina Grigorievna. She's come here with her two granddaughters from Horlivka in Donetsk region.

Back in Ukraine she has a sister, further west in the town of Poltava. But she says she can't go and stay with her - they're on different sides of this conflict.

Valentina says her sister views everyone in eastern Ukraine now as a terrorist. Her story shows how difficult it will be to reunite Ukraine.

"On the phone my sister asked me: Where do you get weapons to shoot down planes? But I don't shoot at planes! I spend my days in my allotment growing strawberries."

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Op zondag 24 augustus 2014 18:47 schreef deelnemer het volgende:

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Belgen zijn altijd al dommer geweest dan de rest van de wereldbevolking.

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Op zondag 24 augustus 2014 19:15 schreef deelnemer het volgende:

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Goed, nu komt de aap uit de mouw. Ze zijn voor de separatisten vanwege hun eigen afscheiding van het moederland, en voor een federale oplossing in Oekraine omdat ze in eigen land elkaar ook de tent uitvechten.

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Op zondag 24 augustus 2014 19:29 schreef deelnemer het volgende:
Dmitry Tymchuk: Greetings on Ukraine’s Independence Day

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Op zondag 24 augustus 2014 19:39 schreef deelnemer het volgende:
Kyiv Post
Abandoned Donbas Battalion fights on

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With disillusionment and anger at the Ukrainian government and army leadership rising, it is a question how long volunteers like Semenchenko and his men will continue fighting - or rather, just where they think that fight should be taking place.

Glyadelov and his fellow photographers decided to disregard principles of wartime secrets or keeping up national morale in order to speak out about what they are witnessing: that more and more volunteer soldiers, tired of the government’s inability to support them, are talking about finishing the war in the east and then turning their guns on Kyiv.

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Some of these volunteer soldiers believe their battalions are deliberately being sent without backup to hotspots like Ilovaisk in order to remove a potential threat to the authorities. Semenchenko describes his men, now armed and seasoned fighters though many had never picked up a gun until a few months ago, as “a restraining factor” on a government many perceive to be betraying the ideals of EuroMaidan. He suggested that after the separatists are defeated, it may be time to take the battle from the fields and towns of east Ukraine to Kyiv’s government buildings.