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Voynich said:
But a shitty VK poll I saw this week put Yarosh's ranking really very low. But Lyashko's - and his Radical party - very high, among presidential candidates.
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Here's the latest opinion poll from kiev international institute of sociology:
http://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=307&page=1
  • 33.7% would vote for Poroshenko,
  • 5.9% - for Yulia Tymoshenko
  • 4.1% - by Sergey Tigipko
  • 4.0% - by Anatoly Gritsenko,
  • 3.3% - by Oleg Lyashko,
  • 2.6% - by Mikhail Dobkin,
  • 2.4% - by Peter Symonenka,
  • 2.1% - by Olga Bohomolets,
  • 1.0% - by Oleg Tiagnybok
  • 14 other candidates - an average of 2.4%
  • 13.0% - chose not to vote
  • and 25.4% - have not decided for whom to vote
 
This link purports to demonstrate the role of pro-Kiev agents provocateurs (not the ones with the nice underwear) in the Odessa massacre:

http://LINKBROKENscgnews.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened

Relatively, persuasive. . . but scroll down and there are disturbing allusions to states' rights (he says the anti-Kiev crowd want a federal system 'like the US used to be') and attacks on 'globalists', which AFAIK is an old far-right trope.
 
Meant to post this from the economist blog the other day :

Developments on the ground have left people wondering if the past few days have been the calm before the storm—or whether both sides, uncertain about what to do and unable to muster enough force to prevail, have reached a stalemate. In one dramatic development the commander of rebel forces railed that he had less than 1,000 men to fight the entire Ukrainian army “while tens of thousands are watching calmly on TV, drinking beer."
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In an extraordinary video released by Colonel Igor Strelkov, the military commander of the rebel forces, “Strelok” says that while he now has enough weapons to fight Ukrainian forces who are preparing a major onslaught, hardly anyone was volunteering to fight. He complained that many of those who did volunteer only wanted to defend the areas around their own homes. Many want to use the resistance, he says, as a cover for banditry. Strelok suggests that many believed that they need not actually fight themselves, thinking that Russia would intervene on their behalf.

If men are failing to flock to lay down their lives for the anti-Ukrainian cause, that counts as another indication that the eastern rebellion could be running out of steam. At a rally in Donetsk on May 18th, called to demand the withdrawal of the Ukrainian army from the region, barely 300 people turned up in a city of almost 1m people. Ilya, aged 25, who had come from Kramatorsk, where there has been fighting, put the tiny turn-out down to the fact that “it is hot” and “people are tired”.
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Any russian speakers confirm the economists summary of what the vid says?
 
Some interesting thoughts rather than news - i expect the 2nd paragraph that describes russia as police state will go down like a cup of cold sick for some, but i think it's worth reading beyond that:

Excuse Me Mister: How Far Is It From Simferopol To Grozny?

What follows is an attempt at the impossible: a critical review of the situation in Ukraine, the involvement of Putinʼs Russia, and the international Leftʼs capacity (or lack thereof) to respond to social uprisings without repeating prescribed narratives. It is written on one sole premise: that the victims of an eventual military escalation in Ukraine will predominantly be ethnic minorities such as the muslim Crimean Tatars, marginalized groups such as the Sinti and Roma, and the working class—while bureaucrats in Brussels and the Czar and his clan in Moscow will continue to further their respective interests. To highlight the likelihood of this prediction, a comparison will be made between events in Chechnya and Crimea.
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KVPU union - is this union a genuinely independent working class union? Or a "scab union with links to Tymoshenko" as I've also seen it described?
 
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/20/ukrainian-oligarch-akhmetov-backs-kiev-workers-strikes

Ukraine's richest oligarch has come down firmly on the side of Kiev authorities, calling on thousands of workers at his plants across the east to attend workplace protests against the armed separatist movement in the east of the country.

In a video address released late on Monday, Rinat Akhmetov appeared emotional and angry, and after months of equivocating between the separatists and the new Kiev authorities, launched a savage attack on the armed rebels, who have declared independence from Kiev as the Donetsk People's Republic.

"What have they [the separatists] done for our region, what jobs have they created? Does walking around Donbass towns with guns in hands defend the rights of Donetsk residents before the central government? Is looting in cities and taking peaceful citizens hostages a fight for the happiness of our region? No, it is not! It is a fight against the citizens of our region."

In recent months, Akhmetov had turned sitting on the fence into an art form, putting out a series of statements of lukewarm support for Ukrainian unity while rumours were rife that he was actually helping to fund the separatist movement.

Now, he has finally put his cards on the table. Akhmetov said in his video address that he was calling on workers in all his factories to carry out a mini-strike each day at midday until the situation is brought under control.

At the metal plant in the town of Enakievo on Tuesday, however, there was no real protest or even any visible emotion as midday struck. A few hundred assembled workers listened patiently while the factory director gave a speech about the danger of production numbers falling if the railways were disrupted, presumably by separatists. There was no mention of the Donetsk Republic, Akhmetov, Kiev or anything political. After a few minutes the workers trudged back to the factory's cavernous halls to continue their tough labour.

Most of them, when questioned, said they actually supported the Donetsk People's Republic, though they also expressed worry that the current situation could impact jobs and regional stability.

"Some people are for joining Russia and others are for staying in Ukraine," said Vladimir Sadovoy, the head of the factory trade union. "But everyone is against the current Kiev government."
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butchersapron said:
That's Jay Blackwood - local serial party joiner and would fuser of fourth international trotskyism and surrealism - been through socialist resistance, green party and now left unity in the last few years. That position above is fairly standard across a lot of the more orthodox old-left i think.
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surrealists (bar Aragon maybe) would be rolling in their graves at this stuff.
 
I've read Dada Turns Red - but thought flirtation with PCF was relatively brief - other than for Aragon (and Eluard?). Breton certainly wasn't dependent on PCF by the time of Contre-attac which was having a proper go at Blum at the popular front.
 
articul8 said:
I've read Dada Turns Red - but thought flirtation with PCF was relatively brief - other than for Aragon (and Eluard?). Breton certainly wasn't dependent on PCF by the time of Contre-attac which was having a proper go at Blum at the popular front.
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We do the art they do the politics. We're radical in this field (a conservative position) they're radical in that field. Membership not required.
 
Losing interest in Ukraine again, seems like it is getting back to the old which shitty imperialist pays better dynamic... not sure it is worthwhile working out who Poroshenko is really working for. Although, Tymoshenko's far-right bullshit is a funny.
 
Oh no :(

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27515514

Ukraine's government has confirmed a deadly attack on troops in the eastern region of Donetsk, with reports saying at least 11 soldiers died.
Heavily armed "terrorists" attacked a checkpoint in the Volnovakha area, killing or wounding a number of soldiers, the defence ministry said.
Associated Press journalists counted 11 bodies at the scene while a Russian website said 15 soldiers had died.
Russia appears to be withdrawing troops from its border with Ukraine.
Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a tweet that Russian troop activity near the Ukraine border suggested some Russian forces were preparing to pull back.
 
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/73cdf238-dfec-11e3-9534-00144feabdc0.html#axzz32RLopuFv this is worth a read


Kiev authorities had seized on Mr Akhmetov’s comments as evidence of a shift in tone by the billionaire. He has made few public statements on the crisis in Ukraine and had been reluctant to criticise pro-Russia insurgents who began seizing government buildings last month and creating the so-called Donetsk’s People’s Republic.
“Finally some energy,” Arsen Avakov, Ukraine’s interior minister, wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. “The strength and energy of the people will sweep the terrorist filth better than any antiterrorist operation.”
However, turnout at the rallies was low and a number of workers in attendance said they supported the insurgents, a sign of the difficulties Kiev faces in Ukraine’s east.
 
Picasso's portrait of Joe Stalin got him accused of trolling by the party.

picasso-stalin-lettres-francaises.jpg
 
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