Ukraine: photos of secret "Moscow" summit

Wisdom Quarterly (eds.); FEMEN; Robert Krulwich, photographer Vitaliy Raskalov (NPR)

Deva and topless protester in Ukraine sends [censored] message to Pres. Putin (femen.org)

A view from the summit of Moscow Bridge, Kiev, Ukraine (Vitaliy Raskalov)

 

The view from the top of Shanghai (VR)

Okay, this isn't that kind of summit. Putin wasn't there. It was the literal kind of summit, as in the verb for "to climb." And this one was so gripping, so breathless, so crazy, so illegal that I think everyone is going to forgive me as you all watch four freestyle climbers doing this amazingly unsafe thing. Here's their leader (or, at any rate, his feet).

We're bored, bored like crazy. This is exciting.

It's Vitaliy Raskalov, dangling in the clouds from a skyscraper in Shanghai, China. The summiting I'm talking about, however, took place in Ukraine, in Kiev, with Vitaliy and a team of three.
More (plus video)

• AUDIO: Is Putin "insane" or "Hitler," as Clinton called him? Masha Gessen (who writes about Russia's Putin and Pussy Riot) on Morning Edition (NPR.org, March 15, 2014)
• AUDIO: After prison, Pussy Riot keeps protesting gov't

Bored daredevil making a bold statement: "Hey, check this out, dude"! (Vitaliy Raskalov)

FEMEN activists going topless to protest Putin and Russia in Ukraine/Crimea (femen.org)

 

FEMEN for liberation and equality

Women all over the world stand up and protect freedom with bare chests and brave body art messages. Femen receives body messages with slogans like Stop Putin's War from all corners of the world. To join our freedom-loving topless campaign, make a topless photo and send it to Wisdom Quarterly (private comment) or femen.ua@gmail.com. Express yourself, show courage and creativity. The world will be free!
 

Ukraine is Europe's biggest crisis (video)

Amber Larson, Seven, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; T.J. Raphael, Takeaway (PRI)

The CIA's fingerprints are all over this strategic geopolitical revolution. 

Copies of The Company's Anarchist Cookbook must have been translated and sent in. Hare are the "best moments" of the Ukrainian Euromaidan Revolution of 2014. These shocking events transpired in the capital of Kiev from Feb. 18-20, 2014. Police and Special Forces (Berkut) move in, and Ukrainian snipers shoot civilians in the head antagonizing the mob. Snipers aim at neck, heads, and hearts. 

Ukraine's devic opposition leader PM deposed

Police beat children, the elderly, women, and innocent bystanders. Activists respond by attacking a detachment of Berkut with molotov cocktails right out of the Cookbook, stones, pieces of asphalt, and any other materials that come to hand. The Euromaidan movement gains size and wins. It is then the Berkut vs. the Ukrainian people battling on Institutska Street, Kyiv.

Military personnel, believed to be Russian, walk outside territory of a Ukrainian military unit in village of Perevalnoye outside Simferopol 3-3-14 (David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters).

Ukraine Maidan protected by protesters (WP)

The confrontation between Russia and Ukraine continued Monday. Ukrainian officials and some journalists say Russia demanded that two Ukrainian naval ships surrender by 5:00 am local time or face an attack. Russian officials denied making any such demands.
 

EuroMaidan, Ukraine (FEM)

What the Kremlin!

US Secretary of State John Kerry is being dispatched to Kiev to reassure the new government of US support. He told ABC's George Stephanopoulos Monday that “all options are on the table” when it comes to steps the US can take to hold Russia accountable for its military movements in Ukraine. Russia's moves in Crimea have challenged Pres. Barack Obama in a way that no other international crisis has so far. More

This is how Russia's intervention in Ukraine is playing in Moscow

• What can the US do about Russia's occupation of Crimea?
• VIDEO: Russian Navy on the move to the Ukraine
• Shocking knife attack in China compared to 9/11

Putin: "Crimea [river, cry me a sea!]" (video)

Amber Larson, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Sergei L. Loiko (LAT); Amy Goodman (DN!); FEMEN

Femen sexstremists spur Ukrainian Revolution with Tymoshenko braids (femen.org)

Authoritarian Russian KGB/President Vlad Putin faces off with young, topless FEMEN demonstrator as European leaders, including Germany's Angela Merkel, shrink and cower.

 

Who is provoking unrest in Ukraine? Role of USA (CIA) and Russia

 

Russia is vowing to keep its troops in the Ukrainian region of Crimea in what has become Moscow’s biggest confrontation with the West since the Cold War. Ukraine’s new prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, said Pres. Putin had effectively declared war on his country. Concern is growing that more of eastern Ukraine could soon fall to the Russians. Earlier today, Russian troops seized a Ukraine coast guard base in the Crimean city of Balaklava.

 

On Sunday, the new head of Ukraine’s navy defected to Russia. To talk more about the crisis in Ukraine, Democracy Now! spoke to Yale history professor Timothy Snyder. His latest article for The New York Review of Books is "Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda." DN also spoke to retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern. He focused on Russian foreign policy for the first decade of his 27-year career with the agency and recently wrote an article titled "Ukraine: One 'Regime Change' Too Many?" More

Russians invading Crimea, Ukraine

Anti-Putin protests, EU consulate (FEMEN)

BAKHCHISARAI, Ukraine - The tense military standoff in Crimea continued today as Ukraine’s army and naval forces were blockaded by invading Russian troops and supporters, at some sites demanding that the Ukrainian units surrender their bases and swear allegiance to the Kremlin and Russia’s armed forces.

The demand represented an alarming sign that the fresh Russian forces had come here to stay, some analysts said.

Stop Putin. Ukraine must be free! (FEMEN)

“The fact that Russians openly demand that Ukrainian officers and soldiers in the Crimea take a military oath to Russia may mean one thing: The Kremlin intends to keep them here for a long time, if not for good,” said Kost Bondarenko, head of the Ukrainian Policy Institute, a think-tank based in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.

“It means that Ukraine is steadily losing the Crimea to Russia, and it will be extremely difficult to get it back as the Ukrainian army is incapable of opposing Russia," he said. More

VENEZUELA: Tens of thousands march in anti-government protests

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• Russian troops are stirring ethnic tensions that could tear Crimea apart
• Here’s why Russia won’t let go of Crimea (PRI)
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• Coup or Revolution? Ukraine seeks arrest of its ousted president [now hiding in Russia] following deadly street protests

I am a Ukrainian girl (video)

Ashley Wells, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Michele Kirk (bizpacreview.com, 02-20-14)

  

This clip is being called “a must-see video of a Ukrainian girl asking the world for help against [police] oppression and corruption.” It has gone viral and left an impression on millions of people. Here is a brief description from the Facebook page linked to the video on YouTube:

Russia's Putin is to blame! (FEMEN.org/en)

This is Yulia. She is a post-graduate student in literature. After the first people were killed on Hrushevskogo St., she posted about it on Facebook. She felt like screaming about every- thing that had been happening in [Ukraine].

How are democratic citizens supposed to react?
(Kostyantyn Chernichkin/kyivpost.com)

Her friend suggested to make the video of the same statement for more people to see and hear her. They made the video on Hrushevskogo next to the destroyed makeshift hospital. It was very cold then and her speech is uneven sometimes.” I wanted to show that here I am -- a person. If you say there are radicals and terrorists in our streets, then I am a terrorist too,” explains Yulia.

Life in Kiev, Ukraine before police and military began killing civilians

Pussy Riot whipped, beaten, tear gassed by Russian police in Sochi

The head of the Udar (Punch) party Vitali Klitschko speaks to a man as anti-government protesters gather on Independence Square (Maidan) in Kiev on February 21, 2014. Pres. Yanukovych and three main opposition leaders signed a deal to end three-month crisis over the ex-Soviet country's future that has led to ~100 murders by police (AFP/Bulent Kilic).

This deal helps [Ukrainian President] Yanukovych, who can now get the support of Putin's KGB as Pres. Putin will no longer be busy with Sochi [and the Winter Olympics]. If I were a Ukrainian then I would keep the protest going until Yanukovych is finally out and not replaced by another Putin puppet. If Ukrainians do not win now then they will ALWAYS be under Putin's KGB dictatorship. - Donovan Pullen (Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool)

 

Protesters threaten violence if Ukraine's Pres. Yanukovych does not resign now (Kyiv Post)

 
EuroMaidan rallies in Ukraine (Feb. 21 LIVE updates)

Ex-Ukraine PM Tymoshenko to go free after 30 months in prison

Embattled Yanukovich, opposition sign deal to end Ukraine crisis

Military bloodlust: At least 75 killed in week of carnage

Ukrainian protesters take police hostages in conflict
 

How is one meant to respond to police abuse when protesting a police state? (kyivpost.com)

Averting police state chaos in Ukraine

Wisdom Quarterly; Will Englund and William Booth (washingtonpost.com, Feb. 21, 2014)

Anti-government protesters guard the perimeter of Independence Square, known as the Maidan, in central Kiev, Ukraine (Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images/WashingtonPost.com)

Interior Ministry members on fire, caused by molotov cocktails hurled by protesters, as they guard corrupt government offices, Feb. 18, 2014 (Reuters.com/Andrew Kravchenko/Pool)

US actress, Klitschko's partner (DM)

KIEV (Battle in Kiev) - Ukraine pulled back from the brink of chaos today when Pres. Viktor Yanukovych signed a deal with opposition leaders [led by Klitschko] to dilute his powers, form a caretaker government, and hold early elections. 

 

But the accord appeared likely to be a hard sell to the [tens of] thousands of demonstrators who vowed that nothing short of his ouster would get them off the streets.

Protesters guard bus holding captured police before letting them go home, as some object to the release, during demonstrations (Sergey Dolzhenko/European Press Photo Agency).

 

Yanukovych sign at pro-gov't rally (KP)

The agreement represents a remarkable, humiliating fall for Yanukovych, whose decision to turn away from [new] closer ties with the European Union and [back] toward Russia sparked protests [from Ukrainian citizens] that began here peacefully in November but turned increasingly violent [in response to police abuses].

Anastasia Vlasova (Kyiv Post)

The atmosphere remained tense late Friday in Independence Square [the Maidan], the epicenter of the protests.

Police bloodlust, Kiev (KP)

When one of the opposition leaders, former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko [who is married to American actress Hayden Panettiere], told the crowds this was the best deal they could get, one of the protesters grabbed the microphone and demanded that Yanukovych resign Saturday morning or face the wrath of the people.

 

“We will go with weapons,” said the protester, who leads one of the more militant groups in the square. “I swear it.”

 

Opposition leader

The pact, reached after Ukraine’s bloodiest week of street fighting, following all-night negotiations sponsored by European and Russian officials, calls for an immediate return to the 2004 constitution, which gives parliament, not the president, the right to choose a prime minister and most of the cabinet. More + PHOTOS

• Ukraine's president buckles but protesters split
• Venezuelan violence has roots in [general anger]
• Ukraine's former P.M. Yulia Tymoshenko may be freed: jailed opposition leader
• Can Ukraine's parliament end the crisis? 
• Special Report: Waste at the Pentagon The U.S. armed services are spending billions of dollars to store -- and sometimes destroy -- excess equipment and outdated material. Reuters Investigative Reporter Scot Paltrow visited the military warehouses where the waste is on display. VIDEO