(Reuters) – His mistake was to run from the advancing mob, and that was enough for the men and women carrying clubs, knives and swords through Donetsk’s Lenin district. In eastern Ukraine, the mob rules
No pitchforks? Were there torches? I searched but could not find a picture of the man who was beaten to see if he had a bolt through his neck. But boy oh boy does this have some unflattering correlations to the Tea Party here.
The Russians in Ukraine claim they are under fascist rule, they want their country back, the are angry, they want no treading and of course they wallow in misogyny, homophobia and Orthodox Christianity. They also seem middle age but it is hard to say just how many Hostess products the consume each day.
We also have our hypocrisy problem with democracy, state and regional initiatives and now Wisconsin joining Texas in suggesting secession from the union.
No one could say what he’d done; he was a “provocateur”, a term used by both sides of Ukraine’s increasingly bitter divide to describe the other, but in the rebel-held east it means only one thing – a supporter of the “Fascist” government in Kiev.
It was a brutal picture of the mob-rule that has descended upon this city in eastern Ukraine, the biggest to fall to an armed uprising against a government in Kiev that wants to take the country west. Kiev blames Russia for fomenting the violence, a charged denied by Moscow.
Pro-Russian separatist leaders want a referendum on May 11 to declare Donetsk and the surrounding region an independent republic.
Whatever the outcome, it won’t be recognized by Kiev. The anger unleashed in the process will prove hard to rebottle, and points to a state descending into dangerous disorder, potentially civil war.
Some weeks ago I tried to explain that the Russians see the history of Odessa as Texans see the history of the Alamo, and now it’s gotten even worse…
“We will not forgive Odessa!” the crowd chanted, a phrase that has quickly become the new rallying cry in towns across Ukraine’s industrial east.
The deaths of more than 40 pro-Russian activists in a burning building during clashes in the Black Sea port on Friday have injected new venom into the fight for Ukraine.