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60 surprising facts we’ve learned about Ukraine

1. Muslims offering Christians space to perform service in their mosques? This is Ukraine.
2. Jews fraternizing with “right-wing radicals”? This is Ukraine.
3. Russian producers changing bar codes on their goods to non-Russian en masse? This is Ukraine.
4. Jews chanting “Allah Akbar!” walking past a Muslim culture center? This is Ukraine.
5. Russian diaspora supporting Ukrainians and Ukraine? This is Ukraine.
6. Young women raising money to buy batteries for APCs? This is Ukraine.
7. A Jewish oligarch fueling military vehicles at his own expense? This is Ukraine.
8. Civilians voluntarily raising money to restore their army? This is Ukraine.
9. Thousands of men enlist voluntarily instead of dodging draft? This is Ukraine.
10. The Western Ukrainian city of Lviv saving Russian-speaking Crimeans from Russian “liberators”? This is Ukraine.
11. A destitute people raising almost 7 million dollars in a week to support the Armed Forces? This is Ukraine.
12. A library put up amid bloody protests? This is Ukraine.
13. You can write to a minister or Prime Minister on Facebook and get an answer? This is Ukraine.
14. Protesters reading books and playing the piano on the barricades? This is Ukraine.
15. Football fans of every team unite to defend the people’s freedom and peace? This is Ukraine.
16. Singing the anthem when you don’t know what to do? This is Ukraine.
17. The protesters Renovating the Ukrainian House and the Bridge of Lovers damaged during assaults? This is Ukraine.
18. People putting up a modern field hospital in a couple of days? This is Ukraine.
19. You read the news of Berkut assaulting the Maidan and rush to the barricades, leaving your half-naked lover? This is Ukraine.
20. You learn of enemies on the border, leave your paramour and rush to the draft center? This is Ukraine.
21. Orthodox, Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims and Jews praying and holding services together? This is Ukraine.
22. Protesters get refuge in a cathedral and sleep on expensive carpets? This is Ukraine.
23. A suregery block opened in a monastery’s canteen? This is Ukraine.
24. Priets marching in front of rows of protesters in hard hats and carrying shields? This is Ukraine.
25. The wind always blows the tire smoke to the right side? This is Ukraine.
26. Russian occupants persuading a Ukrainian soldier to defect to their side and hear the response: “Russians never surrender!”? This is Ukraine.
27. Soldiers marching on armed enemies with nothing but flags and singing the anthem? This is Ukraine.
28. A small mine-sweeping vessel blocked by four sunk ships and surrounded by traitors and emeny vessels keeps trying to break through for days? This is Ukraine.
29. Yesterday you were a pacifist but today you have several soldiers among your friends on social networks, read military experts and post videos of military vehicles? This is Ukraine.
30. In less than a week amid occupation and sabotage the new government gathers a group of diplomats that manage to get the whole world on their side? This is Ukraine.
31. You speak of an event, say “It was so long ago!”, and then you realize that “long ago” is actually several days back? This is Ukraine…
32. A month ago everyone was telling a politician to go to hell but today everyone is praising him just as passionately? This is Ukraine.
33. Russia’s idee fixe? This is Ukraine.
34. You’ve learned to analyze the media on the fly and tell apart truth and misinformation? This is Ukraine.
35. Laughing so that you don’t cry? This is Ukraine…
36. Millions suddenly becoming patriots? This is Ukraine…
37. A national prophetic poet in ancient clothes suddenly comes to life and his works become topical? This is Ukraine.
38. You understand that the Chinese curse “May you live during a time of changes!” is not a curse anymore, but a good wish? This is Ukraine.
39. One of the first (if not THE first) constitutions in the world? This is Ukraine…
40. The people gathering a presidential candidate’s deposit in two days, no oligarch involved in paying the deposit? This is Ukraine.
41. Parents learning the anthem from their children and singing it in public places? This is Ukraine.
42. Russian, Jews, Moldavians, Hungarians, Poles, Georgians, Armenians, Crimean Tatars, Azerbaijani proudly say “I’m Ukrainian!”? This is Ukraine…
43. Children collecting tires, building barricades and playing Maidan? This is Ukraine.
44. Unarmed soldiers advancing at an armed enemy, singing the anthem they barely know, to protect their country’s pride? This is Ukraine.
45. Cadets at the “city of Russian glory” become a model for the army, taking their first ever voluntary decision and singing the Ukrainian anthem standing in the doors of their dormitory, while Russian occupants watch, mouths agape? This is Ukraine.
46. First raising money for gasoline to burn APCs, then – to fuel them? This is Ukraine.
47. A captive being tortured and paraded naked in the cold becomes a paragon of dignity for men and a sex-symbol for women, and then forgives his torturers? This is Ukraine…
48. Housewives leaving their hearths, students leaving their lovers, grandmas leaving their gossip and everyone rushing to the Maidan to pout Molotov cocktails and crush the pavement for projectiles? This is Ukraine.
49. Men that can’t fix a shelve in the bathroom for two months build a barricade in two hours? This is Ukraine.
50. The majority of the new government speaks fluent English, German, etc.? This is Ukraine…
51. Volunteer doctors going into the firing line to save the wounded, in peacetime? This is Ukraine.
52. Going to anti-government protests with national flags, singing the national anthem? This is Ukraine.
53. A grandma comes to a draft center to enlist, insisting she’s a nurse? This is Ukraine.
54. Foreign tourists greet border guards with “Glory to the heroes”? This is Ukraine!
55. The only country with a legitimately defected president? This is Ukraine.
56. Jews, Russians, Tatars and people of other ethnicities proudly calling themselves Ukrainian nationalists? This is Ukraine.
57. The church helping to arm the military? This is Ukraine.
58. Creating the UN volunteer hundred? This is Ukraine!
59. The people financing state zoos during a crisis? This is Ukraine!
60. An 82-year old standing for a few hours in a queue to volunteer into the military? This is Ukraine!
*****
Bonus:
61. The president, prime-minister or member of parliament seen by chance in a church without security guards? This is Ukraine.
62. The Slavic Ukrainians consider the Turkic Tatars their brethren? This is Ukraine.

[hr] Source: Elise.com.ua
Translated by Kirill Mikhailov

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January 22: Whereas Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov said again, mockingly, that he yet needs to be presented with any evidence that Russian army is indeed fighting in Donbas

January 22 – On August 24th, 2014 (Independence Day of Ukraine) Putin's army entered Ukrainian Donbas en masse and started its offensive. On January 22nd, 2015 (Day of Ukrainian Unity – celebrating the unity of Eastern and Western Ukraine) Putin's army has ostentatiously "conquered" a symbolic Ukrainian site – Donetsk airport – today Ukrainian military left behind most parts of the airport. Whereas Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov said again, mockingly, that he yet needs to be presented with any evidence that Russian army is indeed fighting in Donbas.

January 22 – 10 Ukrainian military were killed and 16 wounded in ATO on January 21st, – informed the spokesman of the General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces Vladyslav Seleznyov.

January 22 – Whereas NATO would like to re-establish communication with colleagues from the General Staff of the Russia's Armed Forces, – stated Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO Allied Command Operations, US General Philip Breedlove (Reuters).

January 22 – The Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksandr Turchynov hasn't ruled out offensive operations by the militants in the near future (stated by Turchynov as a result of his visit to the war zone, according to NSDC press-service). "New terminal has been almost completely destroyed, but our Armed Forces have strengthened their positions near the village of Pisky and inflicted a series of very strong assaults", – said Turchynov.

January 22 – Militants of the terrorist group "People's Republic of Donetsk" have "paraded" captive Ukrainian soldiers along the streets of Donetsk. Abuse of prisoners and torture of prisoners violates Hague Convention on the rules of military operations (The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907). Abuse of prisoners is punishable under Hague Tribunal. Instead, Ukrainian government is trying to start negotiations on the release of prisoners of war captured at Donetsk airport, – informed NSDC spokesman Andriy Lysenko.

January 22 – Self-proclaimed leader of Donetsk-based terrorists Oleksand Zakharchenko has said that they intend to "push the frontline" further from Donetsk. It has been previously reported that in September 2014, when explaining the invasion of the city of Novoazovsk and other areas by the militants and disguised Russian soldiers, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained that the main objective of the militants is "pushing the frontline further".

January 22 – In Donetsk, the terrorists fired at a trolleybus with a mobile mortar, killing seven civilians. The site of the attack is located 20 km from Donetsk airport. For several days now, the terrorists have been travelling around Donetsk in a van with a mortar, shooting at residential areas, trying to encourage the residents to take up anti-Ukrainian views.

January 22 – During the meeting in Berlin of the heads of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the countries of the "Normandic foursome," progress was made only regarding one issue of the Minsk agreements. This was written by Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pavlo Klimkin on his page on Twitter. "Yesterday in Berlin there was a Borodino – a diplomatic battle, which no one won or lost. We made one step forward on one point of Minsk agreements," he wrote. According to him, it concerns a ceasefire.

January 22 – Facts confirm that Russia is directly involved in the army operation in Eastern Ukraine. This was stated by the President of Lithuania, Dalia Hrybauskaite to the Lithuanian journalists during the Davos Forum, writes Delfi.lt. "This is open territorial aggression, carried out not by some terrorists-seperatists, but by Russia itself, because neither the separatists nor some other people can have such weapons. These cannot be bought at the market or on the street; they are very specific – they can only be owned by big countries," she emphasized. "All the more, there are direct indications that not only the weapons, but the army itself (Russian), its subdivisions are involved," said Hrybauskaite. According to her, Russian representatives are openly lying about the situation in Ukraine. "We really see an enormous demonstration of lying when they say one thing and do something totally opposite, when they blame one side, but, it turns out, that the obligations are not being fulfilled by the other (side)," said the President of Lithuania.

MUSTANG WANTED: Why Ukrainians will win (music video)

Aid and sanctions, NOT appeasement

P.S.: Please spread this appeal as much as possible.

March 27: First Deputy Speaker of Parliament Andriy Parubiy has said that Russia could try to carry out a large-scale invasion in the nearest future

March 27 – Polish prosecutors charged two Russian flight operations officers with involvement in the crash of Tu-154 near Smolensk on April 10th, 2010 (the plane was carrying President Lech Kaczynski), reports Wprost. According to military prosecutor Ireneusz Shelonk, they are accused of creating a situation which resulted in immediate danger as well as inadvertently causing disaster within airspace. Warsaw plans to summon these flight operations officers for questioning as suspects. The airplane, which was carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski and another 96 people, crashed, while landing in heavy fog and low visibility at an airfield Smolensk-North. All passengers and crew members died.

March 27 – During the night the militants fired at ATO positions 8 times as well as used heavy artillery – ATO's press center.

March 27 – First Deputy Speaker of Ukrainian Parliament Andriy Parubiy has said that Russia could try to carry out a large-scale invasion in the nearest future in order to have it over and dome with by May 9th, as planned by Putin. "Large number of troops is located close to the border of Ukraine with Russia. Many reports state, and this is no secret, that in the next week there is a high risk of large-scale military operation", – said Parubiy. "The operation must be carried out brilliantly before May 9th, believes Putin, and thus demonstrate the power of the Russian army. Therefore, we need lethal weapons not "when they invade Mariupol" but urgently".

March 27 – Every eight soldier joined the army on his own initiative, voluntarily. The plan of mobilization from January 20th to April 20th of 52,000 army obligated recruits into the Armed Forces of Ukraine has, as of today, been 76% fulfilled, informed at a briefing the Press Secretary of the General Staff, Vladislav Selezniov. According to him, every eight one of this number is a volunteer. Selezniov added that more than half of the plan of mobilizing of transport vehicles – the transfer of automobiles for the uses of the arm – has been fulfilled. Overall, in 2015, it is planned to call up into the army 104,000 individuals within the two mobilization stages. The first phase started on January 20th and will last for 90 days.

March 27 – Premier Arseniy Yatseniuk commissioned to involve European and American investigators in the battle against corruption in Ukraine. "Right now we have a form of the so-called international investigation commission, but I am asking that the Ministry of Internal Affairs to introduce a change in the law, so that we, according to the decision of the investigator, could involve into the carrying out of the investigative actions, professional representatives from the USA and separate EU countries, so that they could help us in the investigation of criminal cases, assist us in tracing the foreign assets and officials, and other people, suspected of corruption," he noted.

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Taras Kuzio: far more Europeans join separatists in Donbas than Isis in Syria:

Taras Kuzio: far more Europeans join separatists in Donbas than Isis in Syria

This week, St Petersburg hosted a bizarre gathering organized by the Rodina (Motherland) party of 150 European fascist and nationalist-populist political parties united in their opposition to the EU and US and in support of Russia's annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. Rodina is the loyal nationalist ally of President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party and consequently plays a similar role to the Radical Party's alliance with the Serbian Socialist party.

Russia's alignment with European fascist and nationalist-populist parties would seem to contradict official rhetoric that has incessantly attacked the Ukrainian Euromaidan leaders as a fascist junta brought to power by western intelligence agencies. It also, as Timothy Snyder of Yale University has pointed, out recalls uncanny memories of the 1939-1941 Soviet-Nazi Pact that also had the goal of dividing European powers.

One sinister outgrowth of Russia's cultivation of extreme right and extreme left parties and movements in Europe is the large mobilisation of people travelling to the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine to fight for pro-Russian separatists.

There has been understandable outcry over the three young British girls who travelled to Istanbul on February 17 on their way to join Isis, the brutal terrorist organization based in Syria and Iraq. But what has gone unnoticed is the hundreds – far more Europeans than have travelled to join Isis – who have joined Russian-backed terrorists fighting Ukraine's legitimately elected leaders. The BBC reported that the influx of foreign fighters into eastern Ukraine "mirrors that of young Muslims from Britain and other parts of Europe travelling to the Middle East to fight in its wars".

Russian-backed separatists have attracted an eclectic mix of extreme left and extreme right followers, nostalgic in the former case for the USSR and the Spanish civil war and in the latter drawn by a common anti-EU and anti-US platform with Putin and the Donbas separatists. Greeks, traditionally the most pro-Russian nationals in the EU, the Hungarian Legion of St Isztvan, Serbs, French, Germans, Spaniards and volunteers from former Soviet republics such as Kyrgyzstan are fighting alongside separatists widely condemned by the UN and international human rights groups for crimes against humanity.

The eclectic group has included 20 Frenchmen from the fascist organisation Continental Unity formed in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Serbian war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj. France's far right National Front party has strongly supported Russia's annexation of the Crimea and invasion of Eastern Ukraine and has received a $10 million loan from Russia.

Not surprisingly, there are reportedly over 100 extreme right Serbs fighting for what they see as a common Orthodox religious faith and historic ally. Russian nationalist Igor Girkin "Strelkov" ("Shooter") who commanded Russian special forces in western Donbas until summer of 2014 had fought for the Bosnian Serbs in the 1990s.

One hundred extreme right Germans are fighting alongside the terrorists according to Die Welt. Stephan Mayer, a member of the ruling Christian Democrats, told Die Welt that Germans who participate in civil wars should be taken to court, although presently the German criminal code only punishes those who fight alongside Isis.

The Spanish Republican Guard detained a group of extreme left-wing Spaniards on their return from eastern Ukraine. Angel Davilla-Rivas, one of the Spaniards, has two big tattoos of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin and explained his decision to go to Eastern Ukraine as "gratitude" for Stalin's support for the Spanish Republicans in the 1930s.

British volunteers have not reportedly gone to fight for the Donbas separatists, although the National Front (NF) and UKIP have given their support to Putin, and the NF attended this weeks St Petersburg conference. The Conservative Friends of Russia, renamed the Westminster Russia Forum after a critical in-depthinvestigation by The Guardian, has been functioning as a pro-Kremlin lobby group with extensive support from Sergey Nalobin at the Russian Embassy in London.

British journalist Graham Phillips, who moved from the Conservatives to UKIP, has sent numerous pro-separatist reports for Russian media outlets and was detained on March 4 at Heathrow and questioned for four hours by Border Police under Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act about his activities in the Donbas before being released without charge. The British Foreign Office is allegedly pressuring Phillips to halt his reporting from the Donbas.

Phillips does not hide his political sympathies for pro-Russian separatists and does not attempt to be impartial in a conflict zone, posting photos of him wearing lapel badges of Novorossiya (New Russia, the Tsarist term used by Putin and separatists to describe Eastern and Southern Ukraine) and cheering after separatists captured the strategic railway hub of Debaltseve.

Phillips' notoriety came into the public domain late last year when he interviewed Ukrainian prisoners and a wounded Ukrainian soldier. In the interviews, herepeatedly demands the prisoners explain why they have come to "murder civilians" and asks are they "ready to go home now and accept that it is Novorossiya here and not Ukraine". In the second interview Phillips aggressively interviews a severely burnt Ukrainian soldier prisoner.

European law enforcement have been understandably concerned at their citizens travelling to join Isis, yet they have largely ignored the many more far right and far left extremists that are fighting for pro-Russian groups in Ukraine. Recent detentions in Spain and the UK were hesitant, because law enforcement officers still lack political direction as to how to respond to Russia's support for the separatists.

P.S.: Please spread this appeal as much as possible.