Pepe Escobar in eastern Ukraine: Howling in Donetsk | Asia Times

Asia Times’ roving correspondent Pepe Escobar just returned from a reporting trip to the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the pro-Russian enclave in the Donetsk Oblast province of eastern Ukraine. The area’s been the scene of heavy fighting between pro-Russian rebels and the Ukrainian military.

I’ve just been to the struggling Donetsk People’s Republic. Now I’m back in the splendid arrogance and insolence of NATOstan.

Quite a few people – in Donbass, in Moscow, and now in Europe – have asked me what struck me most about this visit.

I could start by paraphrasing Allen Ginsberg in Howl – “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”.

But these were the Cold War mid-1950s. Now we’re in early 21st century Cold War 2.0 .
Thus what I saw were the ghastly side effects of the worst minds of my – and a subsequent – generation corroded by (war) madness.

I saw refugees on the Russian side of the border, mostly your average middle-class European family whose kids, when they first came to the shelter, would duck under tables when they heard a plane in the sky.

Complete story at - Pepe Escobar in eastern Ukraine: Howling in Donetsk | Asia Times

Ukraine's economy is starting to disintegrate: Polish Deputy PM | Reuters

Notes: You should have thought of this before backing an illegal coup, don't you think? Enjoy your refugee problem Poland!

(Reuters) - Ukraine's economy is starting to disintegrate, creating a risk of hundreds of thousands of immigrants flowing into Poland, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Janusz Piechocinski said.

Piechocinski, leader of the centre-right junior coalition partner PSL, told Reuters he thought Ukrainian elites had made disappointing progress in building a Western-style democracy.

He defended comments by PSL presidential candidate Adam Jarubas who called for a softer stance toward Russia over Ukraine, signaling frictions in a government coalition that ranks as one of Kiev's most outspoken supporters in its battle with pro-Russian insurgents.

"These signals which are coming from Ukraine are very disturbing, because the economy there is beginning to disintegrate, economic ties are beginning to disintegrate," Piechocinski said in an interview.

“In a black scenario of developments in Ukraine, one cannot exclude an inflow of a few hundred thousand emigrants to Poland. Looking at what has happened during the last year, one has to take into account all scenarios and be ready.”

The strongly pro-Kiev line is firmly backed by the ruling Civic Platform (PO) party and the largest opposition party and seems unlikely to change. But the PSL comments could win support among voters concerned about the possible security implications for Poland of the Ukraine crisis.

Complete story at - Ukraine's economy is starting to disintegrate: Polish Deputy PM | Reuters

'Guantanamo of the East': Ukraine Locks Up Refugees at EU's Behest - SPIEGEL ONLINE

'Guantanamo of the East': Ukraine Locks Up Refugees at EU's Behest

By Maximilian Popp

Hasan Hirsi has been learning German for the last year and a half, and recently even enrolled in a class that meets for five hours a day, from 1 to 6 p.m. Nevertheless, he still has no words to describe what happened to him before his arrival in Germany.

Hirsi, a 21-year-old refugee from Somalia, is huddled on a worn sofa in an apartment in Landau, a small town in southwestern Germany, which he shares with three other Somalian asylum-seekers. He is wearing a gray hoodie and has short, black hair. A retiree from Landau who has volunteered to assist the refugees is sitting next to him. He wants to help Hirsi adjust to his new life in Europe.

But Hirsi is finding it difficult to forget the past. Indeed, he still has nightmares about Ukraine, a place where he became stranded for a lengthy stay on his way to Europe. He now refers to the country as "hell." Staring at the floor, Hirsi says: "It is difficult." He repeats the same word, "difficult," in different languages.

After fleeing from Somalia in the summer of 2008, Hirsi tried several times to reach Europe through Ukraine. He was detained once each by Ukrainian and Hungarian border patrols, and twice by police in Slovakia. Ukrainian security forces robbed, beat and tortured him, he says. After being apprehended, he spent almost three years in four different Ukrainian prisons -- for committing no crime other than seeking shelter and protection in Europe.

Most migrants reach Europe through Italy or Greece and many of them die on the way. A broad coalition, ranging from Pope Francis to German President Joachim Gauck, is demanding better protection for refugees on Europe's southern border and the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, describes the route across the Mediterranean as the world's deadliest. But when it comes to the eastern route, and the fate of migrants like Hasan Hirsi, interest has thus far been limited.

SPIEGEL and "Report Mainz," a program on Germany's ARD public television network, have now taken a closer look at the stories of refugees who were locked up in Ukrainian prisons for months during their journeys to Europe.

Complete story at - 'Guantanamo of the East': Ukraine Locks Up Refugees at EU's Behest - SPIEGEL ONLINE

EU Policy in Ukraine Could Result in Mass Exodus to Europe / Sputnik International

Europe will have to consider building a wall on the border with Ukraine when millions of hungry and desperate Ukrainians flee west, a professor at Moscow's Higher School of Economics believes.

MOSCOW, January 28 (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova – International experts question Ukraine's national sovereignty and warn Kiev's Western allies to be cautious in supporting Ukrainian extremist rhetoric as it may lead to the nation's collapse entraining a mass exodus of Ukrainian refugees.

Both the number of casualties and the military rhetoric from both sides of the Ukrainian conflict have increased, with shelling last week in the city of Mariupol leaving 30 civilians dead, while over 100 people have been killed in the town of Gorlovka alone.

"I am afraid that the West is making the same mistakes with Ukraine as it did with al-Qaeda while creating and founding it in Afghanistan… or as it did with founding the anti-Bashar opposition in Syria which eventually turned to a back bone of ISIS," Alexander Domrin, Professor at the Higher School of Economics, told Sputnik.

He underlined that, at some point, "Europe will have to consider building a wall on the border with Ukraine when millions of hungry and desperate Ukrainians will start sneaking into Europe."

"They won't be just hungry and desperate but well-armed by the United States and NATO," Domrin stated, stressing that nobody needs or wants to bail out Ukraine at this point. The expert pointed out that Europe is already struggling with the economic crisis in Greece, suggesting that the Ukrainian project could soon turn into a nightmare for the European nations.

Complete story at - EU Policy in Ukraine Could Result in Mass Exodus to Europe / Sputnik International

TASS: Russia - OSCE reports growing number of refugees moving from Ukraine to Russia

MOSCOW, January 22. /TASS/. Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have reported a growing number of refugees moving from Ukraine to Russia through the Donetsk and Gukovo border checkpoints, the OBCE observer mission said in a report made public in Vienna.

According to the observers' estimates, the number of people who had been moving out of Ukraine to Russia on January 14-21 was higher than the number of those who had moved into Ukraine on the same dates. The average number of visitors to Ukraine and people crossing the state border on the way out totaled 6,295 against a little more than 430 on the average reported to have crossed the state border per day earlier.

Two more border checkpoints were built on the territory of the Rostov region in the south of Russia, apart from the four already existing border checkpoints. A regime of an emergency situation enforced last summer because of an avalanche of refugees from Ukraine remains in effect in eleven districts of the Rostov region, while in the remaining 44 regions the emergency regime was dropped, Rostov regional governor Vasily Golubev said in Rostov-on-Don Thursday.

Budgetary allocations to ensure support for refugees from Ukraine accommodated in the Rostov region totaled $13 million. A total of 38,390 refugees were accommodated in the Rostov region, the governor said, citing a regional government source.

Complete story at - TASS: Russia - OSCE reports growing number of refugees moving from Ukraine to Russia

As young minds leave, industrialized eastern Ukraine faces brain drain | Al Jazeera America

As young minds leave, industrialized eastern Ukraine faces brain drain | Al Jazeera America

DONETSK, Ukraine — When the fighting between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian forces moved closer to Donetsk’s city limits in June, one of the region’s leading software development companies made the difficult decision to relocate its 50 staffers to a safer city to wait out the war.

The company, Binary Studio, chose the western city of Uzhgorod, about 900 miles west of Donetsk in the Carpathian Mountains. At an average age of 28, the company’s employees were young and mobile and saw the temporary move as an opportunity to continue working while exploring Ukraine’s mountains on the weekends.

“We all wanted to go back to Donetsk as soon as the situation improved there,” said Kateryna Potanina, 24, Binary’s chief operating officer, in a phone interview. “But it was nice to feel safe and be far from what was happening in the east.”

It’s now been five months since they set up shop in the west, and the move no longer feels temporary. The eastern conflict has claimed more than 4,300 lives, including at least 1,000 since a Sept. 5 cease-fire. The armed rebels of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic held their own elections on Nov. 2, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has retaliated by cutting off state budget and banking services to the rebel-held territories.

Binary Studio’s workers are part of what is estimated to be more than 1 million people who have fled the eastern regions since April, according to the United Nations, when pro-Russian rebels took over government buildings and declared independence from the Ukrainian central government in Kiev across the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Complete story at - As young minds leave, industrialized eastern Ukraine faces brain drain | Al Jazeera America



A building in Ilovaisk on Nov.16. The town on the outskirts of Donetsk was severely damaged in fighting between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatist fighters. Dmitry Beliakov for Al Jazeera America

The people of Donetsk trudge along warily under the rebel government | Al Jazeera America (1)

DONETSK, Ukraine — Backstage in the Donbas Opera house, Natalia Kovalova is doing her best to maintain a sense of normality amid the chaos that has taken hold in this rebel-held city during the past seven months.

The rumble of artillery shells demolishing what’s left of the city’s airport has become so routine, Donetsk’s residents hardly flinch. Senior citizens who haven’t received their monthly pensions in five months stand in line to collect humanitarian aid packets of food and medicine.

The opera house continues to put on shows, but only matinees and only on the weekend because people don’t feel safe leaving their homes at night. Tickets are half-price, and sometimes given out for free. A large sign in the theater’s entryway reads “bomb shelter” in Russian and points toward the basement classroom used by the ballet school.

But behind the stage and in the costume rooms and practice halls that Kovalova, the theater’s administrator, has called her second home for 25 years, she said she finds her bit of peace watching the ballerinas and opera singers rehearse for their next performance as if it were just a normal day of practice.

“Kiev has said we should leave and relocate somewhere else, but where would we go?” Kovalova said. “The Ukrainian government has just forgotten about us here.”

A year has passed since the Euromaidan protests began in Kiev on Nov. 21 and sparked Ukraine’s worst political crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union. Within six months of the demonstrations’ start, Ukraine’s eastern industrialized heartland was transformed into a brutal battleground between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian rebels declaring independence.

Complete story at - The people of Donetsk trudge along warily under the rebel government | Al Jazeera America



A student writes on the board in a classroom at school No. 18 in Shakhtyorsk, a town not far from Donetsk, on Nov. 17, 2014. Dmitry Beliakov for Al Jazeera America

Wage arrears in Ukraine, as unemployment hits new highs | Ukraina.ru

Public sector workers in Ukraine have not seen their wages in months

Teachers and doctors say their wages are paid in installments, they have lost their bonuses, and it is unknown whether they will see their money before the end of the year.

Teachers in Ternopil gathered outside the regional administration building demanding the payment of back-wages and a 20-percent bonus. Local media reports say that public sector employees across the country either are not paid their wages at all, or are paid in installments with significant delays.

Meanwhile, in some parts of the country, unemployment is setting new records. Vasyl Barilyuk, the director of the Lviv regional employment center, told the newspaper Vesti that there are almost 23,000 unemployed individuals in the Lviv region with 13-16 applications for one job.

"In the past there used to be 1,500-2,000 vacancies, but now there are two or three times fewer," city employment center head Oleh Risnyi adds.

Economic decline is only one reason; refugees are another, he said. Officially, there are 9,000 refugees in the region, but in reality their number is three times as large.

Complete story at - Wage arrears in Ukraine, as unemployment hits new highs | Ukraina.ru

Skilled professionals are fleeing Ukraine | Ukraina.ru

Viktor Medvedchuk, the leader of the public organization Ukrainian Choice, said the number of Ukrainians willing to leave their country is growing

"In the past, it was mostly unskilled labor, but now it is skilled professionals who are leaving Ukraine, although many of them have to accept unskilled jobs in the West," Medvedchuk said.

The politician said that economically-active people are leaving Ukraine because they have no confidence in the future. He said the scale of this catastrophe for the country would only become obvious in several years, when Ukraine will suffer from a shortage of skilled professionals and blue collar workers, and when there will be several times more pensioners than working-age citizens.

"The authorities refuse to see this because they are too busy trying to keep at the helm of a country that is moving into an economic and social abyss," Medvedchuk said in conclusion.

He believes that this dramatic situation is rooted primarily in the armed conflict in Donbas, in political and social instability, and in the crash of the national economy and living standards.

Complete story at - Skilled professionals are fleeing Ukraine | Ukraina.ru

Central American refugee children: Victims of U.S. intervention in Central America | Fight Back!

Jacksonville, FL - In the past year, over 50,000 refugee children have fled from Central American countries and crossed the U.S. border. While many have been released to their families and other caregivers, thousands remain locked up in mass detention centers. Much of the media coverage carries the familiar anti-immigrant slant, blaming the parents and even the children for imagining the U.S. to have pro-immigration policies. This tendency to blame immigrants parallels the longstanding trend of blaming formerly colonized countries for internal violence, and it omits the role of U.S. and European colonialism and imperialism in originating it. It erases the history of Central America and it distorts the nature of mass migration.

For over a century, the U.S. has exerted dominance over the region, both military and economic. The land for growing raw goods is often owned by U.S. transnational corporations, which ship the goods out of the country and keep the profits for themselves. In Honduras in the early 1900s, the private army owned by the United Fruit Company (UFC), today known as the U.S.-owned Chiquita banana company, led a coup and established General Manuel Bonilla as president. The U.S. also supported a right-wing dictatorship in Guatemala, one that secured land for the UFC rather than Guatemalan farmers. When Guatemalan Presidents Juan Jose Arévalo and Jacobo Árbenz began challenging the UFC’s control of the nation’s land, the CIA led a coup in 1954 to reassert U.S. control over the country’s resources. In 2001, El Salvador, which has a coffee export-based economy, and its then-right-wing government changed their national currency to the U.S. dollar, leading skyrocketing costs for basic goods and greatly aiding U.S. businesses, while leaving Salvadorans impoverished.

After decades under these violent U.S.-backed dictatorships, and then the successful example of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Central American struggles for liberation gained unprecedented momentum. However, so did U.S. repression. One example is El Salvador, where new mass movements and revolutionary organizations such as the FMLN sprouted up in the 1970s and 80s. To repress such groups, the U.S. funded and trained a vicious right-wing junta in El Salvador, which forced boys the age of 12 and above into the army. Death squads were formed at the U.S. School of the Americas. They massacred and even extinguished small towns like El Mozote. The U.S.-backed right-wing government of Guatemala also repressed their people, with a brutal emphasis on mass killings of the Mayan people. Even today, Guatemalan military officials are being charged with war crimes and genocide of indigenous peoples. There were over 200,000 known deaths in Guatemala and over 70,000 known deaths in El Salvador in the late 20th century, the vast majority killed by U.S.-backed forces, with countless more listed as “disappeared.”

Complete story at - Central American refugee children: Victims of U.S. intervention in Central America | Fight Back!

The Vineyard of the Saker: Ukraine's Démarche Against Refugees - To Be Interned, Split and Forcibly Utilized as Soldiers

Ukraine's Démarche Against Refugees - To Be Interned, Split and Forcibly Utilized as Soldiers

Preamble: The document below was published by LifeNews as a true copy of a letter prepared by the acting Ukrainian Minister of Defence, Colonel General Mikhail Koval, who addressed it to the President of Ukraine, Pyotr Poroshenko. Unless I receive a specific request—and due to lack of time and volume of work—I am not going to apply my legal experience dealing with refugees (in Egypt and in Canada) to expound on the enormous and obvious legal failings of this proposed policy.

Suffice to say, this newest pearl of the Ukrainian national-fascist, Nazi government flies directly in the face of the very foundations of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, as well as applicable customary international law. If there is sufficient interest, I may ask Barbara Harrell-Bond, a recipient of the Order of the British Empire and a world-renowned expert in the field (and my kind and dear mentor) to provide a short commentary on the subject, if she is so inclined. In the meantime, a few brief points would be useful here:

The most basic rule of refugee law is the prohibition on the expulsion of refugees from safety into harm's way. Once a refugee has crossed the boundary into a safe haven (wherever that may be), he or she may not be compelled to return to danger (this prohibition applies also to those accused of international crimes, such as war crimes or crimes against humanity. Although the latter accusations have not here been made, it should be noted that even persons in this category must be brought to trial, rather than re-exposed to the very threat they fled from).

The second basic rule of refugee law is the principle of preservation of families: family units ought not to be split, regardless of the circumstances and irrespective of what any of the family members have done or are alleged to have done. Families (by which I mean husbands, wives, children, relatives, the elderly, etc.) must be permitted to remain together, just as they otherwise would have had the opportunity to do so.

The third basic rule of refugee law is that refugees are persons in need of protection, and not a convenient workforce to be exploited as forced labour, or as soldiers; nor are they to be forcibly interned and segregated into various groups and dispersed into various institutions or establishments (however suitable such institutions may appear to an ignorant, untrained eye). By law, refugees possess and must be furnished with unrestricted freedom of travel and mobility within their country of refuge and may not be corralled or segregated from the rest of the population. This is a fortiori the case when refugees are found in a country in which they already benefit from a full panoply of personal, political and social rights, as is the case with Ukrainian refugees in Ukraine.

A more in-depth discussion would, as indicated, raise further issues. For now, though, I leave you to consider the following shining example of the rise of totalitarianism in Ukraine.

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Ukraine's Démarche Against Refugees - To Be Interned, Split and Forcibly Utilized as Soldiers

The Vineyard of the Saker: Situation report evacuees from Auslander

We received the first 5 evacuees who will be benefactors of our efforts. We have two adult women and three children. I will give no information about this group or how they came to us beyond these are special people whom no one else could help. When this war is over I will tell some details of the evacuees. This makes a total of 8 women and children we have gotten out. The first group of 3 women were all mothers of an earlier group of children evacuated that we were not involved with in regards to their actual evacuation. Mother is taking care of their food and lodging.

This group was picked up and taken to the facility where they will live for the duration. Their journey was not uneventful. After we arranged all for them, VCO spent three hours talking to them and translating for me as they rotated out to shower and clean up. They are exhausted but three were anxious to tell their story. The best therapy is for them to talk about their experiences.

I am pretty good at gently getting information from people. When 3 people tell me the same story over the course of 3 hours and often not all 3 are together, and I from time to time go back to conversations an hour or two before the moment and ask a question and get the same basic answer, I tend to believe them. Plus, VCO spent some time speaking to them alone and she got exactly the same story with added details.

First, a caution.

All identifying information such as street names and numbers, personal names, places of work etc is redacted. These people are in danger simply because of who they are. We must protect them but we must also get their story out. The information they gave was detailed and voluminous, far more than what is written here.

The evacuees speak.

'I worked in a bank office. I have been there for some years. I have not been paid since March. Every week we were promised we would be paid next week. 3 weeks ago masked and armed men came to the office with manager. They ordered us to leave. We stood outside and watched as the men loaded all the computers, machines and records in to two large cars (trucks) and last they brought all the money in large black metal boxes. We asked them about our money and they pointed their automats at us and told us to shut up. They left. That night the bank office was burned. Our самообороны (defense forces) was blamed for the fire. It was not our men, it was the men who took all the money.

Militsiya (police) are useless. They don't work, they are cowards, they are waiting to see who wins this war. When there is trouble we send children running to get самообороны to us.

Shooting started. They shoot from the radio tower on the hill at us every day and every night. Many shops have been damaged. Almost all shops have stopped working now. No one could get their money from banks. All banks are closed. Every day someone is killed near us. We do not have any самообороны post in our area. The guns are very big. We can hear them when they shoot. We have nowhere to hide.

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Situation report evacuees from Auslander

The Vineyard of the Saker: Auslander reports about the refugee assistance program

All the women and children evacuated from the fighting areas are doing well, some better than others considering what they have been through. I can not report much on our efforts to evacuate more women and children from the conflict area to safety. There are too many prying eyes who read this blog for information and pass it on to the Ukies and their allies, read US/EU. I am keeping Saker up to date on the effort. I will not even say where these women and children are coming from nor their routes to safety. Ukraine is actively trying to prevent evacuations and as of late yesterday is making a spirited attempt to close off the Novorossiya/Russia border to prevent anyone from leaving. They will shoot and have shot refugees en route to the borders.

Donations. Saker and I communicated last evening. At first he thought I was disappointed at the response from our readers on the blog. At this time, 09:30 Sevastopol, 37 people have donated to the refugee fund. Another 22 have expressed interest in donating. What he thought at first was disappointment he now realizes was my shock at the numbers in just the first 24 hours. Donations have come in from all over the world, from Australia to Canada, from Kamchatka to Cape Town SA, from Finland to Argentina. We had meetings with officials involved in this effort for most of yesterday. We will spend a goodly part of today doing the same. By tonight my time I will have a close idea of how much it will cost for each child or woman for transport and daily living costs. I will inform Saker of this amount and he and I will formulate a policy for the evacuees. It is Saker's call to pass on any information he deems fit.

This effort will be an ongoing process. We will need more donations to support these poor evacuees. I think it will be another month minimum before the situation in Novorossiya is resolved one way or another and possibly more. Please, please, pass the word to everyone you can. Tell your Churches, your civic organizations, your friends, everyone you can. No donation is too small, all are deeply appreciated. As we get up and running I will have an accounting sheet listing all donations and all dispersement. This I will send to Saker and he can provide what information he feels expedient on the blog.

Situation Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Federal City of Sevastopol. V. Nuland, US assistant SecState, met on or about 16 June in Odessa with the exiled head of a small part of our Tatars in Crimea, read 5% or less. After our election of 16 March where we (including our Tatars) overwhelmingly voted to return to the Russian Federation and were accepted in to same, roughly 2000 Crimean Tatars left Crimea, most moving to Lviv in west Ukraine. Our population of Crimean Tatars is about 350,000, 10% of the total population of Crimea. You can run the numbers to see the percentage that left.

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Auslander reports about the refugee assistance program

The Vineyard of the Saker: Auslander reports on refugees from the Ukraine and how to help them

The situation in Novorossiya for civilians in many areas is critical. In the areas under heavy and continuous bombardment food is scarce. Water in Slavyansk area is stopped some days ago. Electric also. The other important part of water supply, the removal of sewage, well, the Ukes shot those plants to pieces also. The situation in Kramtorsk is even worse, so bad that there are civilian bodies in the streets, many bodies, that have not been picked up for days. I am not joking. I tell the truth. I shudder to think how many dead civilian men, women and children we will find when we eventually secure the area but I will not be surprised to find the numbers exceed a thousand if not far more.

To the best of my knowledge the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has refused to bestow refugee status on the civilians leaving the combat and bombardment areas of Novorossiya. To quote a famous quote, why should they care? Those who are suffering are Untermenschen.

What this apparent decision means is Russia and we the people of Russia will do the work for the civilians and refugees ourselves with no official help from The West. The reality is I am not unhappy with this apparent decision from those fops in NYC. At least when we work for the refugees and citizens they will get every kopek of the money and effort we spend as opposed to perhaps 5% from that useless UN plus we will not be under their thumbs, 'guidance' and control while we do what is needed.

At this time we are working on getting as many civilian women and children out of the combat areas as possible. I can not give you the slightest detail of this effort. The Ukes are trying to watch everything and they do read this blog faithfully. The Ukes are following their American and EU master's instructions and will kill evacuees they find before they let them go. That is a fact. I can not tell you where our evacuees are going, suffice it to say they are going out of the combat area. Let the Ukes figure out if it's east, west, north or south.

All this being said, some of you asked how you can help, where can you send donations. You will have to trust me on this one. None of you, not even The Saker, know me personally, although my official US HOR is close to Saker. All I can say is I will tell you all when this is over, just as I promised The Saker some information after all is said and done. Trust me, wherever you live you will hear The Saker laughing when I give him the info promised, but before you hear the laughter you will hear a 'Holy s//t, really? It's true?'. You will also hear me say 'Yes, my friend, it is true. Remember when I told you to look at ///// ////?'.

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Auslander reports on refugees from the Ukraine and how to help them

Refugees Slaviansk in Kiev Courier - Russia

NoBC4U Note: Translated from the original French by Google Translate.

Plagued by civil war, the eastern Ukraine is now experiencing a mass exodus of its population. Thousands of people leave the region. While the pro-Russian in Russia will, supporters of Ukraine united flee Kiev - as did Sergei and Olga Sviatko originating Slaviansk. Faced with threats from insurgents, the couple had to quickly leave his hometown to stay alive. Interview with the relevant Ukrainian Journal Reporter .

The atmosphere in this small studio is stifling: there is no air inside and just half-open window to the room is filled with trees flew down. In the entrance enthroned a packet of detergent and a mop.

"I bought the laundry today, says his tenant, Sergei Sviatko, showing the package. We have very little money, but it is not a reason to live in the dirt. Want to see our kitchen? "

The small room, bright, contains an oven, a sink and a small table. Top: tea, sugar, buckwheat, cookies, bread, vegetables and preserves.

"You see under what conditions of paradise we were seated? "Said Sergei. And his voice does not contain a hint of irony - only sincere gratitude to the Kievan which allowed them to him and his family to live here free "as long as it takes." There are only a few days Sviatko was ready to sleep even in a cave - anything but being shot in his native Slaviansk. In Kiev, the man takes everything that happens to him as a gift.

"I am pleasantly surprised at how people, learning where we fled, trying to help us recognize Sergei. Everything you see here, mattress, sofa bed, bed in which we sleep, all the clothes I wear, my wife's ...: all that was brought to us by people we have met since we are here. "

Complete story at - Refugees Slaviansk in Kiev

Refugees Slaviansk Moscow Courier - Russia

NoBC4U Note: Translated from the original French by Google Translate.

Everyone hoped, but in vain: the election of Poroshenko to the Ukrainian presidency has not helped this time: the situation in the east of the country remains critical and fighting between insurgents and Guard members National intensify. Alongside Ukrainian soldiers also fought private battalions, trained and financed by oligarch and governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region Igor Kolomoïski. The number of victims is increasing day by day. The humanitarian situation in the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk is increasingly worrisome to Slavjansk, it borders on disaster. The latter insurgent stronghold, undergoes regular onslaught of the National Guard: it is not uncommon for a shell hits a residential building or a public place, a school or a hospital. Civilians, mostly women and children, leaving the city in droves. Valeria, 33, is among them. A Friday in May, she embarked her two children and took the train to Moscow. Correspondent Gazeta.ru Elizaveta Antonova met with her.

Gazeta.ru: Why did you decide to come to Moscow?

Valeria: My husband decided that we had to leave the children and me. My daughter is 14 and my son will soon be six. It'll be two months since my husband and I are physically separated; he fights [in the insurgent camp, ed], and I am with the children. We've been together for fourteen years. We had projects, our girl draws very well, we wanted to buy a house ... But recently, he phoned me and said, "Tomorrow you go with children, this is not negotiable. "We have gathered some cases what we wear summer, and we left. They also let us leave the city so surprisingly quiet: Ukrainian military simply searched the trunk.

Gazeta.ru: Was there someone waiting you in Moscow?

Valeria: Yes, my sister. We all live together with her ​​and her husband to Reutov, a suburb of Moscow. She's 22, she arrived in Moscow on March 9 with her ​​husband who works in the building.

Gazeta.ru: Slavjansk I was there a month, and things were not so bad ...

Valeria: Even last week, it was not so bad! But today, it has a grenade launcher in the city center ... There are still eight days, the fighting took place in the outskirts. But right now, they bomb hospitals, kindergartens ... it's scary.

Complete story at - Refugees Slavjansk Moscow Courier - Russia

‘Not safe for our children!’ Mothers with kids flee Kiev crackdown in Lugansk — RT News

A mother anxiously hugs her baby, a teenager fears for his father staying in the besieged city, and a little girl doesn’t know why her grandpa can’t come on the bus. These refugees are just some of those fleeing Lugansk to escape Kiev’s crackdown.

“It is not safe for them [children] to stay here after everything that is happening. We want them to stay alive,” a crying woman hugging her small daughter close to her heart told RT’s Paula Slier, who spoke to refugees from the eastern Ukrainian city of Lugansk.

Read more on besieged Slavyansk as the city is under fire, without water and power due to Kiev’s shelling

The refugees have been forced to leave the troubled city since Kiev intensified the military crackdown on the country’s east. Now families, packing their bags into buses and crying, are leaving for an uncertain future.

“We don’t know what will happen there and for how long this situation will continue. We want to return home as quickly as possible,” Olga, another refugee, told RT.

The residents have been on the waiting list for days. One woman told RT that she received a phone call in the morning which told her that she had less than four hours to pack her things and leave Lugansk.

Complete story at - ‘Not safe for our children!’ Mothers with kids flee Kiev crackdown in Lugansk — RT News

The Vineyard of the Saker: Auslander reports about the Ukrainian refugees situation in Crimea

Auslander reports from Crimea:

Today after Church we went to a facility that is housing some of the children and women from Slavyansk. The group consisted of Father and his wife, a senior Navy officer and his wife and we two. The officer had informed the facility of the time of our arrival and who was in the group.

I will not give the name or location of the facility beyond it is one of very many old Soviet holiday sights lining the Krim coast from north of Kerch on the east coast all the way around the peninsula to above Yevpatoria on the west coast. This facility, like many of them, was renovated in the last few years and is quite nice and clean as a whistle. The evacuees housed there are not crowded together by any stretch of the imagination and there will be more evacuees housed there in the next few days.

Security is tight and I'll leave it at that. The beach is beautiful, sand and very clean, the water shallow out to about 50 m from the gentle surf. As with almost all of these facilities there are extensive athletic grounds including a regulation football field. Nature trails are extant in the facility also. By the by, there are no sharks in the Black Sea and no tide, ergo swimming is safe for the children.

The housing facilities on sight are excellent, again clean almost to an extreme with substantial food preparation areas and a more than adequate dining area. The kitchen is spotless and as usual the staff are local women for the cooking and serving and in house cleaning. Local men do the grounds maintenance and cleaning. An efficient administration is in place and the usual on sight medical support has excellent rooms and modern equipment. Bath and toilet facilities are also spotless and modern, segregated to men at one end of the hallways and women at the other. All toiletries are provided as are soap, towels and washing pads in abundance. No photos are allowed.

The Evacuees

The number of evacuees at the facility are let's just say over 100. No men came from Slavyansk with this group. The ages of the group range from two almost brand new babies to late teenagers with a relatively small percentage of adult women, a few the mothers of some of the younger children and of course the mothers of the two babies. All will have a medical examination starting tomorrow.

The adult women are holding up well. All are distraught to one extent or another but all are functioning well with the children. We met with two groups of the women in private and their distress was quite visible when out of sight of the children. They are all very thankful to Russia for taking the children from harm's way. The evacuees run the gamut from upper middle class to quite poor.

Children are children. They are quite different here than in The West even though some of them try to mimic what they see on TV and the Internet from the west. It is in the eyes of the teenagers, especially the girls, where you can see the worry and fear just below the surface. The teenaged girls are working with the children, relatives or not, alongside of the adult women. The boys, some are worried, most are angry at the events in and around Slavyansk and their inability to do something about them. The boys are, after all, young men and the will to protect their families and their homes is already ingrained in them. There is adequate staff to assist the women with the children and keep the teenagers in line.

It is in the young children, the under 10 year olds, that the innocence yet reality comes through as you talk to them. After all, here is a group of children and teenagers who have seen far more than they should have at their tender ages and suddenly they are in another country in a heavily guarded facility and here are strangers including a foreigner in their midst. Some of the teenagers and younger children speak some English and more than one teenager was quite fluent in English, one so fluent she relieved my wife from translating for a while. Some of the children's comments, through the translators:

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Auslander reports about the Ukrainian refugees situation in Crimea

​Slovak PM: Growing inflow of illegal Ukrainian migrants to Slovakia raises concern — RT News

Amid Ukraine’s looming political crisis, thousands of illegal immigrants from the country may soon flood its neighboring country – Slovakia, a tendency which raises concern, says the Slovakian prime minister.

“We can speak of thousands of illegal migrants from Ukraine who are motivated to cross the Schengen borders in our or other zones,” said Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico at the GLOBSEC annual conference in the country’s capital, Bratislava, reported Itar-Tass.

Meanwhile, organized criminal groups have recently been stepping up illegal transportation of migrants across the Slovak-Ukrainian border, according to Mr Fico.

Slovakia borders Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region in the West. This is Ukraine’s shortest border - only 98 km long.

In February, Jozef Danko, spokeman for the Slovakian village of Vysne Nemecke on the border with Ukraine, told Voice of Russia radio that the inflow of vehicles from Ukraine has recently increased, not only from the nearest cities which border Vysne Nemecke but also from other parts of Ukraine.

Complete story at - ​Slovak PM: Growing inflow of illegal Ukrainian migrants to Slovakia raises concern — RT News