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On Monday, Chairman of the Government Dmitri Medvedev said that “substantial doubts” existed over the legitimacy of the new acting government in the Ukraine. Medvedev attacked the swift recognition of the new authorities in Kiev by a number of Western governments, describing the régime as the unconstitutional outcome of an armed uprising, saying, “Strictly speaking, there’s nobody to speak with over there. The legitimacy of a whole range of organs of power working there raises substantial doubts. Some of our foreign partners think otherwise. I don’t know what constitution they’ve read, but it’s aberrational when you describe as legitimate something that’s the result of an armed uprising”. Moscow moved to formulate a clear diplomatic position on the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who was pro-Russian, following days of deadly clashes between police and anti-government rioters in Kiev that left nearly 100 dead. President Vladimir Putin has yet to make any public pronouncements on the change of government in the Ukraine. Medvedev said that Russia would adhere to all existing agreements with the Ukraine, including those on energy, noting, “We don’t co-operate with a specific set of people, or specific personalities, these are interstate relations. We’re neighbours, we’re nearby states, and we can’t get away from one another”.
On Monday, the acting Ukrainian energy minister told Reuters that he hoped the price it pays for Russian natural gas imports would remain unchanged despite the change of government. Gazprom agreed with Naftogaz Ukrainy in December to slash the price that Ukraine paid since 2009 by about one-third, from about 400 USD (14,200 Roubles. 443 CAD. 443 AUD. 292 Euros. 241 UK Pounds) per 1,000 cubic metres (35,315 cubic feet) to 268.50 USD (9,525 Roubles. 297 CAD. 297 AUD. 196 Euros. 162 UK Pounds) per 1,000 cubic metres. This followed Yanukovich’s rejection of an association agreement with the European Union in November in favour of closer ties with Moscow, the event that triggered the street protests in Kiev. More than half of the 55 billion cubic metres (1.943 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas consumed by the Ukraine each year comes from Russia.
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On Monday, Konstantin Dolgov, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law, said that Moscow would closely scrutinise a Ukrainian draft law banning Russian as an official language. The legislative proposal follows the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich over the weekend and already aroused concerns that a surge of nationalism in the former Soviet nation could unfairly marginalise the substantial ethnic Russian community. Dolgov said, “Any political reforms, including constitutional reforms, must take into account the interests of all Ukrainian citizens”. On Sunday, Ukrainian media reported that the Rada was considering a draft law establishing Ukrainian as the only official state language. Currently, Russian is an official language in oblasts where at least 10 percent of the population is Russian-speaking. Just under half of Ukrainian oblasts meet that standard. The country is split between the Ukrainian-speaking West and the Russian-speaking East, although many speak both or a mixture of the two known as “surzhik”.
Yanukovich’s base of support was in the East, whilst the protest movement, which also includes a notably rabid nationalist element, drew most of its impetus from the West. Yanukovich, who won the presidency with 48.9 percent of the vote in 2010, had a poor command of Ukrainian. In December, Yanukovich agreed to a financial aid package from Russia to defuse the crisis in what was widely seen as a foreign policy coup for Moscow. With Yanukovich’s removal from power, Moscow signalled that it might shelve that deal, and Western leaders scrambled Monday to assemble a replacement.
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On Monday, the MID said that the new Ukrainian government aims to use “dictatorial and sometimes terrorist methods” to suppress opposition in disloyal regions. The MID expressed doubts about the legitimacy of the Rada’s actions, saying that lawmakers “churn out ‘decisions’ and ‘laws’, including those designed to infringe on the rights of Russians and other national minorities in the Ukraine. [The new leadership] aims to use dictatorial and sometimes terrorist methods to suppress disloyal citizens in various regions of the Ukraine. Some want to introduce an almost complete ban on the Russian language, bring about lustration, abolish parties and organisations, close disloyal media, and drop restrictions on dissemination of neo-Nazi ideology”.
The MID also expressed its “extreme concern” about recent “armed clashes between aggressive youths [or] militants from ultra-right nationalist organisations and security forces defending peaceful citizens and the interests of the state. These militants refuse to disarm; they refuse to leave the streets de facto under their control, to free administrative buildings, or to stop the violence”. The MID also called for constitutional reform in line with the recent reconciliation agreement signed shortly before the Rada impeached Yanukovich, observing, “It’s evident that for reform to be successful all political forces and all regions of the country should take part; then, they should put it up to a vote in a nationwide referendum”.
24 February 2014
RIA-Novosti
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140224/187851752/Medvedev-Raises-Doubts-on-Legitimacy-of-New-Powers-in-Ukraine.html
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140224/187845639/Moscow-Monitoring-Ukrainian-Bill-on-Curtailing-Russian.html
http://en.ria.ru/world/20140224/187856185/Moscow-Accuses-Ukraines-New-Leaders-of-Dictatorial-Methods.html
Voices from Russia 
24 February 2014. Video. Patriots in Kerch Disperse “Euromaidan” Slimers… URA!
Tags: Crimea, Kerch, Kiev, Pete Seeger, political commentary, politics, Russia, Russian, Sevastopol, Ukraine, United States, USA
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Here’s a five-minute vid showing healthy patriots in Kerch kicking ass on pro-American running dogs. The cops couldn’t protect the collaborators in the end. THIS is what’s going on now in the Ukraine… don’t believe what you read, hear, or see in the Western media. The kleptocratic Timoshenko junta only controls a small area in central Kiev… they can’t catch Yanukovich, can they… he’s not so stupid after all, is he? To hear the Western media pundits, you’d think that the putschists are like filet mignon paired with a rare vintage of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. This vid shows you that they’re really like beans n’ motherfuckers washed down with a bottle of piss-warm Night Train. Reflect on this… they still haven’t told you about the actions of the VS ARK banning the Svoboda pigs or the good people of Sevastopol giving the heave-ho to the junta’s toadies (and here), have they? Wake up! They’re lying to you… clean the beans outta yer ears and hear! In fact, that’s the title of a right-top song by Pete Seeger…
This is turning out to be a replay of the August 1991 events… Klichko, Tyagnibok, Yatsenyuk, Timoshenko, et al are nothing but farcical retreads of the 1991 plotters. I predict that the result will be the same… the total defeat of the coup. God willing, we can do it without bloodshed… dear Lord, let that be so…
BMD