Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
The Guardian: Ukraine crisis: Kiev powerless as east slips out of its control (30 April 2014)
The unwillingness of security structures to defend public buildings from separatist occupation has been a theme in eastern Ukraine since early April. Supporters of the "Donetsk People's Republic" have taken over a string of city halls and police stations. An armed unit from Crimea - led by an alleged Russian colonel - has also established a de facto military capital in the town of Slavyansk.

But in recent days Kiev's tentative grip on local law enforcement in the east appears to have slipped completely. In Luhansk riot police stood passively in a courtyard, kettled in by separatists armed with bats and hammers. "The regional leadership does not control its police force," Stanislav Rechynsky, an aide to the interior minister in Kiev, told Reuters. "The local police did nothing."

In a statement on Tuesday, Ukraine's interim president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said: "The vast majority of law enforcement officials in the east are not able to fulfil their obligation to protect our citizens."



A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Apr 30th, 2014 at 08:31:44 PM EST

Others have rated this comment as follows:

afew 4

Display:

Occasional Series