Die Welt: The Russian solution in Kiev.

By Richard Herzinger               22.01.14

Source: http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article124117682/Die-russische-Loesung-in-Kiew.html (+ Video)

Translated by: Ed Young

Violence during protests in Ukraine is escalating, resulting in deaths. In reality, the person behind this development into a police state is Vladimir Putin.

(Source: Reuters)

New video footage shows the confusing situation in Kiev. Demonstrators and security forces attack each other. At least one person has been killed in the riots.

Ukraine is rapidly turning into a police state. Five dead protesters in Kiev, two of which were killed by police bullets, clearly show how seriously president Viktor Yanukovych is attempting to crush the months-long protest movement against his authoritarian, pro-Russian policy and the practices of his regime. It is certainly regrettable that fringe groups of the opposition are resorting to increasingly violent means. The government, however, has caused this situation by pushing repressive laws through at lightning speed, which with peaceful demonstrations and unwelcome critics have been criminalised. But behind Ukraine’s return to an autocratic regime is not the puppet Yanukovych, but rather Russia’s new tsar, Vladimir Putin.

He wants to go down in history as the ‘reuniter of Russian land’ and to bring the ex-soviet republics back into his kingdom – which would of course not still be called ‘The Soviet Union’ , but the ‘Eurasian Union’. It is to this end that he exports his restorative control to Ukraine.

The crushed democracy movement

Furthermore, Putin wishes to prove that his domination principle is far superior to the detested liberal democracy of the West. Therefore, he uses every opportunity to demonstrate its weakness and impotence. The obliteration of the pro-western opposition in Ukraine might not end up as bloody as in Syria, where the dictator Assad, thanks to Putin’s protection, can continue having people tortured and murdered. But the principle is the same: democracy movements are crushed with massive violence – and the West watches on aghast.
It is high time for the EU to bury the illusions of a “modernisation partnership” with Putin, and to confront him along with his henchman in Kiev. Sanctions against Yanukovych’s regime, like those already inflicted on Belarus, would be a good first step.

Erste Todesopfer in Kiew

(Source: Zoomin.TV)