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AT LEAST THREE unmarked armoured personnel carriers bearing the Russian flag drove through the eastern Ukraine town of Kramatorsk on Wednesday, a day after authorities in Kiev launched an operation to oust pro-Moscow separatists.
Dozens of armed men in camouflage were seated on top of the vehicles as they drove through the town accompanied by a military truck.
About 20 pro-Russian protesters armed with Kalashnikov rifles have also entered the mayor’s office in Ukraine’s eastern industrial city of Donetsk.
The men, who met no resistance from the building’s security personnel, said their only demand was for the heavily Russified region to stage a referendum on turning Ukraine into a federation with broader local rights.
It comes as Russian leader Vladimir Putin warned that Ukraine is on the verge of civil war after the Kiev government sent in troops against pro-Moscow separatists in the east of the country.
“The Russian president remarked that the sharp escalation of the conflict has placed the country, in effect, on the verge of civil war,” the Kremlin said in a statement on telephone talks between Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
But the leaders both “emphasised the importance” of planned four-way talks on Ukraine happening tomorrow between top diplomats of Russia, the European Union, the United States and Ukraine.
Ukraine pushed tanks towards a flashpoint eastern city on Tuesday to quash a separatist surge backed by Moscow, a high-risk operation that was sharply condemned by the Kremlin but won Washington’s support.
The 20 tanks and armoured personnel carriers sent to Slavyansk were the most forceful response yet by the Western-backed government in Kiev to the pro-Kremlin militants’ occupation of state buildings in nearly 10 cities across Eastern Ukraine.
“They must be warned that if they do not lay down their arms, they will be destroyed,” Ukrainian Security Service General Vasyl Krutov told a group of reporters tracking the sudden tank movements.
‘Untenable’ situation
He insisted that the militants were receiving support from several hundred soldiers from the Russian army’s Main Intelligence Directorate that had been dispatched to Slavyansk and surrounding villages.
The economically depressed industrial city of 100,000 has effectively been under the control of separatist gunmen since Saturday.
Ukrainian troops were also helicoptered into a military aerodrome at Kramatorsk, south of Slavyansk which the interior ministry said was “liberated” without any casualties.
However pro-Russia activist Oleg Issanka told AFP that the troops had opened fire injuring two people.
The Kremlin statement described the actions of the Ukrainian army in eastern Ukraine as an “anti-constitutional course to use force against peaceful protest actions”.
Kiev’s response to the eastern insurgency prompted Putin to tell UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that Moscow “expects clear condemnation from the United Nations and the international community of the anti-constitutional actions” by Ukraine.
Ban in turn “expressed his alarm about the highly volatile situation in eastern Ukraine” and told the Russian leader that everyone involved needed to “work to de-escalate the situation”, his office said.
But the White House described Ukraine’s military operation as a “measured” response to a lawless insurgency that had put the government in an “untenable” situation.
‘Frank’ Putin-Obama talks
The rapid turn of events on the ground was preceded by a telephone conversation Monday between US President Barack Obama and Putin that the White House described as “frank and direct”.
The Kremlin chief continued to reject any links to the Russian-speaking gunmen who have proclaimed the creation of their own independent republic and asked Putin to send in the 40,000 troops now massed along Russia’s border with Ukraine.
But Obama accused Moscow of supporting “armed pro-Russian separatists who threaten to undermine and destabilise the government of Ukraine”.
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Ah yes the Workers party associates 1985 – racketeering counterfeiting protection robberies intimidation … ah wonderful memories !
Sure your not mixing them with FF?
I’m amused at the second paragraph: “1985 – Fine Gael and Labour were in power. They introduced water charges and promised to reform Local Government. We’re still waiting.”
I guess that could still be on the local election posters..
I actually believed that man had scruples and would do what was right for the lower/working classes. How wrong I was.
A complete and utter sellout of the highest order. A stain on our country and a destroyer of the left. Thanks Eamonn.
@ Roland 303
Totally agree with you. Labour will be gone in next election, the party missed the opportunity to stand up for the common man. We’re facing into a continued top-down structured economy with little concern for those in need. We need a conversation in Ireland to agreed what type of society we want. Seems to me, no matter who gets into power they forget that we are human beings and not economic beings!
And what a traitor Gilmore turned out to be
He’ll have a big pay day and pension after the next election.
Him and his buddies.
“mission accomplished”……
Oh, it’d make you want to be sick!!!
LANGER
That’s just put me off my bacon sarnie.
He has certainly made 2014 a year to remember so far !
Spineless , worthless Stickie – only interested in the big fat pension – having destroyed The Labour Party !
Dick spring destroyed it the ladt time they were in government…..its no surprise how useless they are this time around aswell
“Stickie” wow, talk about living in the past. Should we continue to classify Sinn Fein as the “Provos” while we’re at it?
Gaping arsehole
Nobody in the workers party ever did a tap in their whole life
He even looked like a w@nker back then.
Was this just after he left the official RA !
It’s eamon’s way of breaking up the left wing parties and making them right wing chickens. Workers party democratic left now labour. Good job eamon way to go ruin the left.
Yes, he’s a totally laid- back individual all right!!
Just replace the ‘or’ with ‘an’ in the Workers Party ,and then 26 years later , replace the W with the letter B and make it the Bankers Party !
Where are his knitting needles?
Buried un the common mans back
He was going for reelection in 1985. So he has been in the political profession for 30+ years? And most f the rest of them the same. We need a new generation of politicians. Time for term limits to be introduced. Something like 10 years max. Get some new blood in there and chuck the dead wood. Any takers?
Have always thought the same..Lets do away with career politicians ..they have had long enough at the trough!
2 terms max with pensions pro rata might go someway to restoring trust and bring new blood and new ideas…but could the same not be said for the permanant civil service..who really run the country!
Any aspirations or ambitions to be a politician should automatically bar you from ever becoming one.
Mrs Brown hasn’t aged a bit
Laid back liar.
He is not even worth a heckle.
Little did we know then what sort of a vile turncoat this creature would turn out to be….
The last true Labour leader was Frank Cluskey, all this shower are DL, even the late Tonas McGiolla would be ashamed of how Gilmore and his lackeys have folded and Cowtowed to Enda and the Fine Gael Mafia
Mcgiolla, now that was a good msn
I prefer this one:
Laid back and groovy?
Surely the heading for this article should read: Who’s the younger looking D!ckhead with the glasses?
Seeing this picture reminded me of W.B Yeat’s lines “What need you, being come to sense, / but fumble in a greasy till.” I think that just about sums it up.
Groovy !!! Hahahaaaaaaa.
Don’t make me laugh.
Knob
The new labour banner should read fcuk the workers party
Eamon Gilmore a political WH**E will jump into bed with any party
There they are fresh from making their own money,and Gilmore looking like a clown.
The funniest part of this article is the use of the word “leader” in the sub-heading. Gilmore does what he’s told by his FG bosses.
Is it Colin Hunt from the Fast Show?
Too bad he turned his back on the ethics of that party.
He certainly put Putin in his place
have your say