The good news from Ukraine: most of the totalitarian laws suppressing free speech have been repealed and prime minister Mykola Azarov has resigned.
The bad news: brutal thug and Putin toady Viktor Yanukovych is still President, and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko is still imprisoned.
Says one writer in the Moscow Times:
The Yanukovych administration is marked by two main features. First, Yanukovych is essentially a small-time criminal, and such people have a unique profile. They are typically rather dull, always looking for an opportunity to steal and incapable of anticipating the long-term consequences of their actions.
Second, Ukraine is actually ruled by Yanukovych’s eldest son and his friends — all filthy rich. Since coming to power, Yanukovych has fired all of his original associates and alienated his initial sponsors, such as oligarchs Rinat Akhmetov and Dmytro Firtash.
Current map of the situation:
Other Ukraine/Euromaidan news
A look inside the brutal Berkut riot police. “While other security and law enforcement agencies have undergone reform in the years since the Orange revolution, Ukraine’s police remain largely unchanged.”
EU actually getting pissed off over Russian meddling in Ukraine.
Putin responds by threatening to withdraw his offer of $15 billion in bailout funds if Yanukovych is deposed.
Tymoshenko’s most recent statement.
An open letter from Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych:
During the less than four years of its rule, Viktor Yanukovych’s regime has brought the country and the society to the utter limit of tensions. Even worse, it has boxed itself into a no-exit situation where it must hold on to power forever – by any means necessary. Otherwise it would have to face criminal justice in its full severity. The scale of what has been stolen and usurped exceeds all imagination of what human avarice is capable.
More photos.
On a lighter note, all I could think of when viewing this pic was “Ukraine’s furry contingent has joined the fight for freedom!”
