The official death toll has now risen to 25 and the EU are threatening sanctions against those behind the violence.

What to do? Take the Russian money or risk all by relying on the EU to take some form of limited punitive action?

I can't see Putin staying out of this for much longer, especially after Sochi finishes.

Looks like a choice between a rock and a hard place.

Is there any Ukrainian forum member in here actually ? :)

Yanukovich has fired his Army Chief of Staff, which is an interesting move and hints of potential troubles between the government and army...which I did not expect, considering the benefits the army have received from the Russians. Unless, of course, the army wants Yanukovich to go, so they can put their own pro-Russian candidate in power, but Yanukovich isn't willing to go gracefully.

Either which way, things are starting to move faster now, it may all come to a head within the week.

Now the both the US and EU are talking sanctions against the Ukrainian government. But of course the government isn't the one that usually gets hurt by those. :nope:

Paper Tigers, nothing they can say or do will effect the situation on the ground in the Ukraine and everyone knows it. This is a game between the Ukraine and Russia, and time is running out.

About the only impact is a bit of international media which makes it look like the west is doing something.

Putin is in the drivers seat and everyone knows it.

Putin. Russia. Democracy. One of these does not belong with the rest.

I say let Ukraine split in two !

The Eastern industrialized two-thirds of the country are in the hands of Russian-speaking people, plus Crimea that is Russian (now, while it was once Tatar, Ukrainian in no way) would constitute a Russian-speaking state joining the Russian common market.
And Ukrainian nationalists would stay in the western poor rural part of the country, around Lvov, joining the EU (and NATO of course) that is going to indebt it heavily, forcing it to dismiss civil servants and privatize everything, and to sell everything to the big capital, just like in Greece.

The Ukrainian parliament is being evacuated, the protesters seem to have managed to break through and are in position to take it. There's also reports of police forces moving with protesters, although it's not clear if they are hostages or have defected. Despite the calls for calm, it seems today is going to be a big day in Kiev...

Seventeen more deaths and the foreign ministers of Germany, Poland and France are meeting Mr Yanukovych.

US President Barack Obama warned there "will be consequences" for anyone who steps over the line in Ukraine - including the military intervening in a situation that civilians should resolve but I'm not sure how seriously his words will be heeded by Putin, especially after those he made about Syria and chemical weapons.

The situation is completely out of the hands of the EU, US and even the 'leader' of the opposition, Klitschko. Right now, it's the more radical side of the protesters which has grown tired of the continued negotiations which have gone nowhere, and after Yanukovich tried breaking the protest up yesterday, they've had enough and are on the offensive.

Unfortunately I think that the next thing we will see will be BTRs and BMPs rolling in. :dead:

EDIT: Scrap that, the BTRs are already there:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bg5zf-tIcAAqARv.jpg

Live twitter updates - https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/lists/bbc-kiev-feb-2014

I proposed that split earlier, by linking an article arguing for that. But it leaves the Europeans, as you correctly point out, with just another hungry mouth demanding to get fed.

I also wonder why Russia should let go the Western half for nothing, if the Western half could be claimed for free for a Russian Ukraine.

The joke of yesterday was a German SPD clown from the EU parliament, babbling that now would be the right time to go to ol' buddy Putin and start talking with him about how the Ukraine could be made to turn towards the EU. That Putin has completely opposing interests seems to have escaped this brilliant mind. - And such is our political intellgenzia that we are demanded to feed with our hands' work!

Doctors say they have seen so many bodies killed from distances with just one shot that now there is a strong suspicion that snipers have opened the hunt for opposition people, possibly in the fashion snipers in WWII took out officers and command staff.

I must say that the EU has to face its share of responsibility for this escalation. Its megalomania once again made it to boast with empty words since autumn, hoping that a big mouth and shallow phrases would be enough to bring the Ukraine into the EU, and ignoring that the clan they are up against is not shy to let deeds do the talking. Reality-denying lip-heroes.

Ruptly news seems to have the right idea, no-one will dare shoot at these girls:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bg6qiHyCYAErl_8.jpg

And so the schism has begun:
And the police have been given permission to use firearms:


Current flashpoint areas, either captured by protesters or being contested:


http://rt.com/files/news/22/90/30/00/map-1.jpg

Whatever they're shooting with doesn't seem to mind this variety of bulletproof vest. One protester died wearing this one today. If the person behind the trigger is female, I don't know if gender will protect you either.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bg6KrAzIgAAQcOc.jpg:large

About half the Ukrainian Olympic Team has quit Sochi and headed for home. Make me wonder if the real hammer will fall after the Olympics.

What has boiled over these days is not just an internal Ukrainian conflict.

What has broken out here is a conflict over the question who will dominate Europe in the future - Russia or the EU.

With the US having entered a phase of both reshifting from Europe to SE Asia and thus loosing interest in Europe and the ME, while at the same time becoming increasingly isolationistic for a whole variety of practical and mental reasons, and on the other side of the pond the EU and Russia being unable to truly reign over the other, what we maybe see these days will be labelled in historic books as the beginning of a new ice age and cold war between Russia and Europe.

The EU looks like monkeys riding on donkeys now. I like that sight.

I just wonder how would you like EU deal with the issue?

The thing is, the EU and NATO has, over the past twenty years, encroached ever closer on Russias sphere of power. It's a bit like China buying out South America, Russia has little choice but to perceive this as an attempt to push western influence on what has been traditionally Russian territory for the past century.
So really the main tugs of war are going to be, and indeed have been, over the former Pact states, in particular those on the border with Russia, Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine, and possibly Latvia and Estonia (although I think that Russia isn't too bothered about letting them slip).
I don't think that it is so much a case of who is going to control Europe, but more a case of who is going to control Eastern Europe, and that's a 'battle' that started in 1989, and this is just another part of it.
Personally though, I don't see the EU has any cards to play in this situation, Russia could roll a legion of T-72s into Kiev in ten hours flat, and there's nothing that NATO or the EU could do to stop him...all the EU has is soft power, and since a Ukrainian civil war would screw most nations around the Ukraine over (the Polish economy is already wobbling because of the Ukrainian chaos) neither side wants it to go that far, and so really, the only thing the EU can do is bleat while Putin conducts his business.
It's a Realpolitik thing, like David Cameron with Syria, there's nothing that you can do, but you have to pretend that you're making the effort otherwise certain pressure groups will be up in arms that "you're not defending democracy (TM)" and so on and so forth.