Sunday, eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts went to the polls to answer the question “do you support the People’s Republic of Donetsk?” They answered yes, now they need to figure out what that means.
The wording of the referendum was deliberately vague because the protest movement has a lot of different people with a lot of different agendas. Now that the movement in general has a formal imprimatur from the public, their ultimate goal becomes much more important.
That could well mean a second referendum, asking if the voters support seeking accession into the Russian Federation, as voters in Crimea did earlier this year. Some protest leaders saw that as the whole point of yesterday’s vote, and want annexation.
But that’s just one possibility. Many protesters saw the whole point of the People’s Republic of Donetsk to be something akin to the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, establishing autonomy within the current nation.
Still others are suggesting that instead of staying in Ukraine or joining Russia, the region could go it alone, establishing themselves as an independent Novorossiya that may or may not ever seek unity with Russia itself.
Figuring out where Donetsk is headed is all the more difficult because all of this is occurring amid a military invasion by the interim government, which is promising to not only reconquer the area, but “liquidate” the protest movement outright. The situation, if anything, is less resolved than ever.
"It is enough that the people know that there has been an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything" ….. J.V. Stalin
What is clear is that Donbass voted against the US imposed Nazi junta in Kiev, that clearly, with US help, will remain in what is becoming Banderastan, after "elections" 25 of May. Being trapped and burned alive en masse (Odessa) and killed by Right sector Nazi death squads disguised as "national guard" (Mariupol) , simply for exercise the right of participate in an election, didn´t exactly convince the anti-fascist Russophones (terrorists) to remain in whatever goes by the name of the "Ukraine".
Clearly, the Nazi junta have yet to take and hold a city in this region, defended by a poorly equipped anti-fascist resistance, defected Ukrainian soldiers and the Berkut, sometimes even by Babushkas. What we have seen so far is hit and run tactics, that is go in with tanks and artillery, kill whats in the way burn down and retreat to the outskirts. Initially with UA soldiers but they defected once they found out what is was all about so now it is CIA & Mossad trained death squads and militiamen from Lvov, trained in Poland and Lituania and a few hundred blackwater "academi" merc´s Even the Nazi junta realize that keeping halv of Donbass & Odessa in terror at gunpoint and killing the other half by death squads is not a long time solution but it is a warfare that Obama´s white masters, the senile cold war warriors in Washington are familiar with, since the good old day´s in the 80´s S.A and this is also what they prefer after being snubbed of Sevastopol, Crimea, the rich Donbass that feeds the Nazis up north despite their genocidal hatred towards them, and soon Odessa too.
OK. But,what is your solution now? Humpty-Dumpty is broke. How are you going to put him back together again. Ukraine does not need a Northeren Ireland 70s-80s scenario. Russia doesn't really want to absorb them if possible.
One thing is very clear. They have no intention of being ruled by fascists in Kiev appointed by bankers and Ms. Nuland.
Good for them! All they have to do now is wait 10 days and vote for the new president and parliament on 25 May.
The May elections had already been agreed BEFORE the putsch, clearly the Kiev junta was uninterested in free and fair elections, and still is. Clearly the junta wants to hold sham elections where the opposition is intimidated by neo-fascists and the people of the South and East do not get to vote at all.
If anyone is still unconvinced of the fascist nature of the junta.
Michael,you are an embarrassment to the animal kingdom
I wonder if there is a "line in the sand" (Obama is so fond of drawing them) that crossing over by the junta in Kiev will force the USG into denouncing? Does it take a massacre of eastern Ukrainian citizens just because they want a say in who governs them? Because that's what's coming next when the illegitimate government in Kiev doesn't get the eastern Oblasts to knuckle under to their American supported fascist rule.
They don't need to knuckle under. They just have to wait 10 days. On 25 May, they will elect a new president and parliament, although the rebels in Donetsk say that they won't allow the election to take place there.
You're an idiot. do you think Svoboda and Pravy Sektor are going to just walk away because of an election? They don't respect such things.
For the moment they have declared themselves an independent republic and their most pressing concerns are going to be self defence and economic activity. The US/EU backed junta has chosen conflict and escalation at every point, if that attitude continues there will be much bloodshed.
Apparently there are NATO exercises due to take place in Ukraine in July, if the Europeans don't show some backbone by then, they will get sucked (or perhaps suckered) into the conflict. One of the key objectives of the neo-cons is to break up the increasingly friendly relations between the EU and the RF, psychopaths don't have friends, only interests. Once the people of Europe fully understand the situation, the ruling oligarch's will see their favourite puppet leaders in Europe begin to fall. The upcoming EU elections (May 22) will be a good indicator of how things continue from here.
A military invasion? These are Ukrainian provinces! A country can't "invade" its own territory and a sovereign state is always entitled to enforce its laws in the entirety of its territory. I wonder what Mr Ditz would say if the Serbian army "invaded" Kosovo.
You still haven't answered my question about how storming government buildings and installing a junta makes one a "sovereign state." So, once again — if I go down to the Florida state capitol in Tallahassee with a weapon and take over the building, am I now the "legitimate governor" of Florida? Or are there perhaps other elements involved when it comes to "legtimacy" and "sovereignty?"
Since the Kiev junta came to power illegally, it is hardly in a position to enforce "it's laws" on anybody. The Kiev junta's very existence is in contravention of Ukrainian law, constitution and all the norms of international law.
No, the 90% of voters who went to the polls, they did not go to prove a positive, but to establish Western propaganda as pure corruption. For 90% of East Ukraine are not terrorists, but members of a well orgainzed political body and this now having been established, Western media stands exposed, between the rock and the hard place surely.
It is not at all relevant that they know all the answers right now. Given that Kiev hunta already declared all the 7+ million people of two regions "terrorists" and "bandits" who must be "annihilated", what they accomplished is amazing. What with Kiev shock troops shooting people right in front of polling places, stealing ballot boxes, and other similar display of "democratic" western "values" — it is important that they let the world know that they exist as people, and cannot be dismissed. The regime has to keep in mind that while other regions have only smaller protests, they are also Russian speaking, and feel the same as the regions that voted. As 85% of Ukraine speak Russian as their mother tongue, and is among other nationalities lingua franca of Ukraine, it is hard to imagine the ultimate goals of hunta that wants to impose minority language on the nation. Such nation will fall apart. Ultimately, they have now many choices, and they know it, They can negotiate with Kiev, or if violence continues against them, go firmer in the direction of joining Federation. It is hardly a divide. They are united in the determination not to live under Kiev hunta. United in defending themselves, but open to any possibiity of staying within Ukraine should the circumstaces change. They are now established, and there is no way of going back, unless hunta plans on having concentraton camps and gas chambers.
It's clear there will be nothing much until after the May 25 Ukraine referendum.
The OSCE agreed to by Germany/Russia along with arm twisting on the Kiev government is the solution. If!!!!! Done the correct way. You can’t have or don’t need a rebel army without resupply. VladMir Putin can not afford sanctions and absorption at the same time.
anyone heard of the Declaration of Independance, in 1770s? That’s when a bunch of terrorists seized power and were declared traitors by the UK. Having declared Independance these terrorists proceeded to seize power and waged war against the legitimate authority of the King of Great Britain. ……of course the western press can’t think that far back or even recall the illegitimate elections in Florida 2000.
Once upon a time 13 terrorist colonies raised an armed militia against the legal authority of said colonies. Subsequently a Declaration of Independence was announced in which such lofty terms as "Inalienable Rights" were mentioned.