Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Eastern Ukraine Will Be The Next Flashpoint In The Ukraine Crisis

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Ticking Timebomb: Moscow Moves to Destabilize Eastern Ukraine -- Uwe Klussmann and Matthias Schepp, Spiegel Online

It's not only in Crimea where Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing with fire, but also in eastern Ukraine. The majority of the people in the economically powerful region speak Russian and reject the new government in Kiev.

The pensioner Oxana Kremenyuk limps as she passes by the House of Culture in a small village in eastern Ukraine. As a young woman, she used to dance here. Today the stucco is crumbling and the windows are broken. "The people in Kiev are driving our country into civil war," she says. "These good-for-nothings should be slaving away the way we do here." Kremenyuk receives a pension of about €90 ($125) a month. In order to ensure there is food on the table, she keeps 10 chickens and a pig.

Kremenyuk's village of Maidan, with its three dozen homes, is a peaceful place in a gentle, hilly landscape. The village is 378 kilometers (235 miles) -- but also worlds apart -- from the Maidan in the capital city of Kiev, the Independence Square that has become known around the world since the start of the revolution. Most of the village's homes have fallen into a state of disrepair and young families moved away long ago. The people living here don't think much of the revolution taking place in the western part of the country.

Read more ....

My Comment: Russia does not have to do anything to destabilize Ukraine .... the Ukrainians are doing an excellent job all by themselves. On a personal note .... my aunt lives in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, and she (and my cousins) have confirmed to me that chaos is the prevalent state of affairs throughout this part of the country. She has also not received her last pension payment.

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