Anti-Government Protests In Kiev, Ukraine

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I hope this is something that dies down soon. Thought this would be relevant to this forum since Dr. Jamal in the Doctors Directory has his practice location in Kiev and many people have expressed interest in getting their lengthening done by him. If these protests go on for a while, I wonder how this will affect Dr. Jamal's practice. The place looks like a war zone currently.


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http://framework.latimes.com/2014/01/23/anti-government-protests-turn-deadly-in-kiev-ukraine/#/0

KIEV, Ukraine — Enraged protesters stormed government offices in three western Ukraine cities Thursday, forcing one governor to write a letter of resignation, as demonstrations against the pro-Russian president and his allies intensified outside the smoldering capital.

Kiev, the capital, has been the epicenter of two months of protests against President Viktor Yanukovich, which have grown increasingly violent this week. Opposition leaders had given Yanukovich a deadline of Thursday evening to make concessions or face renewed clashes there, and they quenched the barricade fires that had coated the capital in black smoke in a tenuous cease-fire.

The president responded by calling a special session of parliament next week to discuss the tensions, telling parliament’s speaker, “The situation demands an urgent settlement.” But there was no indication that the move represented a compromise, since the president’s backers hold a majority of seats.

The protests began after Yanukovich turned away from closer ties with the European Union in favor of getting a bailout loan from Russia. The protests turned violent this week after Yanukovich pushed through harsh anti-protest laws, rejecting opponents’ demands that he resign and call new elections. At least two protesters died Wednesday of gunshot wounds, a grim escalation that also galvanized anger in western Ukraine, where support for Yanukovich is virtually nonexistent and most residents want closer ties to the 28-nation EU.

Thursday in Lviv, a city near the Polish border 280 miles west of Kiev, hundreds of activists burst into the office of regional governor Oleh Salo, a Yanukovich appointee, shouting, “Revolution!” and singing Christmas carols. After activists surrounded him and forced him to sign a resignation letter, one ripped it out of Salo’s hands and lifted it up to the cheers and applause of the crowd.

Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters smashed windows, broke doors and stormed into the governor’s office in the city of Rivne, shouting, “Down with the gang!” — a common reference to Yanukovich’s government. Once inside, they sang the national anthem. Angry crowds also besieged government offices in two other western regions. The protests have been centered on Kiev’s main square, where demonstrators have defended a large tent camp for nearly two months. On Wednesday, riot police moved to dismantle barricades erected next to a government district nearby and two people were fatally shot in the clashes.

The opposition has blamed the deaths on authorities, but Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Thursday that the two men’s wounds were caused by hunting rifles, which the police do not possess. The opposition maintains that as many as five people died in Wednesday’s clashes, but say they have no evidence because the bodies were removed by authorities.

Azarov, Yanukovich’s staunch ally, maintained a harsh stance against the protesters, calling their actions an attempted coup. “It’s not the opposition — it’s rebels who are acting against us,” Azarov said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The Interior Ministry said Thursday that 73 people had been detained, 52 of whom are being investigated for “mass riots,” a new criminal charge that carries a prison sentence of up to eight years.

Reaction from the West and neighboring Russia has been mixed. The United States has revoked the visas of Ukrainian officials linked to violence and threatened more sanctions.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Thursday that if the situation in Ukraine did not stabilize, the EU “would assess possible consequences in its relationship.” Barroso also said he had received assurances from Yanukovich that the Ukrainian leader did not see the need to impose a state of emergency.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her nation didn’t think this was the time to consider sanctions against the Ukrainian government, but added that it must comply “with its obligations to secure fundamental democratic rights.” “We are extremely concerned — not just concerned, appalled — about the way in which laws have been pushed through that raise questions over these fundamental freedoms,” Merkel said.

Russia, meanwhile, accused the West of meddling in Ukraine’s affairs. “We feel regret and indignation about the obvious foreign interference in the developments in Kiev,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.

The protesters said they would give peace a chance — a brief one. “We’re ready to wait so that new victims don’t appear,” said 30-year-old demonstrator Anatoly Lovchenko. “But if the government doesn’t listen to our demands, we’ll start up again.”

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Quote from: Ocean on January 27, 2014, 03:10:18 AMI'm in Kiev right now, it's a big city, you will hardly even notice this when you're under dr. Jamal's care.

That's good to know. The news over here makes it look like a much larger crisis than it is, I suppose. Guess that goes to show how sensationalized American news is.

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Who knows how far this will escalate. Even if I had Dr Jamal as on option at the moment, I'd wait until things died down or go somewhere else.

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Ukraine is looking way more dangerous than ever now that there is apparently a threat from Russia that they will use military force against Ukraine if they don't surrender.