“Ukraine’s telecommunications system has come under attack, with equipment installed in Russian-controlled Crimea used to interfere with the mobile phones of members of parliament, the head of Ukraine’s SBU security service said on Tuesday,” Reuters reports.
“‘I confirm that an IP-telephonic attack is under way on mobile phones of members of Ukrainian parliament for the second day in row,’ Valentyn Nalivaichenko told a news briefing,” Reuters reports. “‘At the entrance to (telecoms firm) Ukrtelecom in Crimea, illegally and in violation of all commercial contracts, was installed equipment that blocks my phone as well as the phones of other deputies, regardless of their political affiliation,’ he said.”
Reuters reports, “Russian forces seized Crimea last week.”
Full article here.
“Vladimir Putin said he sees no immediate need to invade eastern Ukraine,” Ilya Arkhipov, Indira A.R. Lakshmanan and Stepan Kravchenko report for Bloomberg. “In his first public remarks since Ukraine said its Crimean peninsula had been taken over by Russian forces, President Putin said he reserved the right to use force to defend ethnic Russians while there’s ‘no such necessity’ at present.”
“‘Clearly Putin would like to lower some of the rhetoric,’ Paul Denoon, who oversees $29 billion of emerging-market debt at New York-based AllianceBernstein Holding LP, said today by phone. ‘But I don’t think he’s signaled a new direction in his intentions. We still think there’s a risk of escalation,'” Arkhipov, Lakshmanan and Kravchenko report. “Putin claims extremists orchestrated a coup to dislodge President Viktor Yanukovych and says Russian speakers in Ukraine’s east and south need protection. Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov has warned that a military invasion would be an act of war, saying Russians aren’t at risk.”
“The Russian leader struck a more conciliatory tone today. While saying Yanukovych remains Ukraine’s legitimate president, he ruled out any political future for the deposed leader and said Russia would engage the new administration,” Arkhipov, Lakshmanan and Kravchenko report. “Russia isn’t considering absorbing Crimea, Putin said today. Forty-one percent of its residents want to join Russia, compared with 33 percent and 24 percent in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a February poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology showed. That figure is 12 percent nationwide, down from a fifth in recent years, according to the survey of 2,032 people, which had a 2.2 percent margin of error.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Mac news in 3-2-1…..
Yeah, seriously….I don’t see anything at all Mac, iPhone, Apple, iPad-related at all….nor even about Apple competitors, regulations that would effect them, etc, etc, etc. OK, sure, it’s *vaguely* IT-related, but that’s it.
It’s bad enough when the comments (frequently) stray to political banter, but now MDN is directly posting purely political articles??
What’s next, Money magazine doing a feature story about the breeding habits of the Columbian ground squirrel???
What next? More clueless comments like yours.
@Tflint
I guess the “irony” of your own comment flies right over your head. You criticize Craig’s comment – which whether you like the content or not, actually HAS some content and makes a point – with your tiny post which has no point of any substance at all and is merely a short personal insult.
“Colombian”
Ronald Reagan to the Russian leader: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” And it was done.
Barack Obama to the Russian leader: “Mr. Putin, get out of Crimea!”
Vladimir Putin: “Fuck you, you weak pathetic Kenyan. I wrestle bears for breakfast.”
I just love how the “hope & change” is working out. There’s no change for a Benjamin in Crimea, that’s for sure.
Gorbachev was the leader of the Soviet Union. Putin is the leader of Russia.
Two different countries. Two different eras. Vastly different circumstances.
I just love how that whole “education and thought” thing is working out for ya.
Oh please its a good analogy and funny. Get a life!
And BTW what country is most associated with the Soviet ? Russia of course!
It’s a HORRIBLE analogy and not even close to reality and not the least bit funny. Why? Because there are people with little or no knowledge of the circumstances behind the situations who will actually believe the the tow are equivalent.
Michael Gorbachev was already predisposed to reforming the Soviet Union and he got the boot because of it. Gorbachev held the Soviet government together with a loose coalition of powerful groups with divergent views.
Vladimir Putin is ex-KGB and wants to go back, as much as possible, to the PRE Gorbachev Soviet Union. Putin holds onto de facto power through cold war techniques even when he isn’t the leader of Russia. (Even when he’s not in charge he’s still the power behind the scenes and is pulling the strings.)
You don’t get it, do you?
uh Gorbachev was the last premier of the Soviet Union until its collapse. So watch your “education and thought” jibes you stupid fscking idiot.
..and the first president of modern Russia.
the main difference is, Mr. Gorbachev had brains and ethics.
…and didn’t have large parts of NATO by the bollocks in terms of being their energy supplier.
other parts of NATO prefer to hand their bollocks to Arabic countries…
The Messiah will STFU. These guys aren’t little brown people with sticks, they’re cossacks with ICBM’s pointing right at your caddy’s ass.
http://www.tomatobubble.com/putin_obama.html
Whats the matter? Did a Kenyan piss on your cheerios? You sound bitter.
“President Putin said he reserved the right to use force to defend ethnic Russians while there’s ‘no such necessity’ at present.” Substitute Chancellor Hitler for President Putin and Germans for Russians and Sudentland for Crimea. It sounds much to familiar.
too
Except that Germans in Sudetenland were not threatened by the Czechs the way Russians are today by folks from Kiev.
Not much information about that is filtering down in the foreign media, because everyone loves this narrative of freedom-loving opposition overthrowing a dictator in mass protests. However, when message from those protesters are clearly ultra-nationalistic and vitriolic, in a country where almost half of population is of a different ethnicity than the main one, then that population has a reason to be afraid. Especially since the older generation remembers very well what happened in WWII (collaboration with the Nazis in the western part — the same that has now overthrown the government).
Besides, there was no orchestrated coup d’etat in lands Germans attacked.
I also like “Clearly Putin would like to lower some of the rhetoric” from the article, because Putin never raised rhetoric. He has said on the very first day that force will be used only if Russian speaking people are in danger. Nothing has changed after those days.
If radical nationalists will not come to East or South of Ukraine (and they might, as they came to Chechnya to kill Russians along the side of the likes of Basaev, and other Wahhabi terrorists), then nothing will happen there. East and South of Ukraine did not accept new illegal authorities, so neo-Nazis coming to those regions in attempt to force new authorities upon people is not unexpected.
And don’t forget to throw in our Neville Chamberlain.
To be honest I see this as more like Serbia/Kosovo than Germany/Sudetenland. An autonomous region dominated by an ethnic minority feels threatened and wants the protection of a bigger power. Putin has gone in fast and quick to make a statement. He’s telling Ukrainian nationalists that the Russian minority in Ukraine are NOT to be mistreated. The new government in Kiev hasn’t helped itself by inviting people from extreme right Nationalist parties to join their coalition. The best thing they can do now is offer reassurance that Crimea and the eastern parts of the Ukraine are not under any threat, and for that they need to invite members of the previous government back into positions of power. That would allow everyone else to negotiate back from the current standoff, including the Russians who cannot be seen to be backing down unless they win concessions of some sort.
This relates to Apple how??
They all have iPhones in Kiev ?
Not at all, Ed… not at all. But for some reason, rather than going to any of innumerable political discussion sites, they go on about this here.
I no more want this site clogged up with politics than with discussions of how wonderful Winblows is, how god made everything six thousand years ago, what the best brand of paint for my kitchen is, or the relative benefits of 26, 27.5 and 29″ wheels for different types of mountain biking!!!
MDN – is there some way to keep the discussion on this MAC NEWS site to MAC NEWS?
I doubt that such pleas are ever acknowledged, or that prayers are ever answered. But a cry in the wilderness can still be heard by the powerless, and strengthen their resolve.
There’s going to be a lot more trouble from here on out. Not a Cold War. Putin has lost his mind. We need to treat these events as if they could turn into WWIII, and curtail any escalation. Russia needs to be broken up into the various autonomous regions, so it does not have the radical ability to creat terror. Bully no more.
“Bully no more.”
What? Let me know when you find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
This has nothing to do with Iraq. I didn’t want us to go into Iraq, I thought it was stupid and based on corporate greed.
What’s going on in Ukraine is a completely different sort, that defies logic and morality. This is about ideology.
“Russia needs to be broken up into the various autonomous regions…”
What? Bullying seems to be your ideology. And that sentence is certainly not a way to prevent WWIII.
What does society do with bullies? Let them be or cut them down to size? I am not suggesting I or any government could or should do this. This will happen all by itself, as the autonomous regions tire of the overlord. You see, the grumblings are already happening. Protests are propping up in St Petersburg and elsewhere. So I am being misread here. Russia’s fate and WWIII are on separate paths. Now if it was the US who forces the breakup, and vise versa, if the same thing happened to the US, then of course world war is at hand. But I don’t see that happening. Russia can mitigate this, by having fair treatment of its people and regions. They need to get out of Georgia, get out of Crimea, and make amends with other regions and people within its borders. They are a thug state. Brutal and ruthless.
sounds better, but try not to become a diplomat…
No matter what the official version are. Fact is: there is no “good against evil” kind of story (like americans mostly love to simplify things).
Putin is an ex-KGB knowing a lot about torture, and half of the new Ukrainian government is made of pure neo-fascists… So, all together no gentle victims against bloody reds.
This all smells pretty bad and i’m afraid NONE of those guys are that clean…
That doesn’t make it OK for Russians to march into Crimea and tell the Ukrainian soldiers to disarm and surrender etc. Putin’s BS line that he needs to protect Russians is…BS !
Sorry but Russia is looking evil right about now.
so far, no shots have been fired by any of those Russians. I’m not quite sure which particular action of theirs qualifies for evil, unless the bar is set extremely low.
Let us not forget, many of those Ukrainian soldiers gladly switched sides over the past few days.
With almost half of Ukrainian population speaking Russian and feeling Russian, there was no doubt that the moves that the newly installed authorities in Kiev were making, and messages they were sending, against Russian language and the Russians, were not going to make those Russians all that happy.
The problem is, while you and I know the real narrative, it simply doesn’t work for the daily consumption of foreigners. They like simple story lines: guys with white hats vs. guys with black hats. Never mind that the first item of order for the new rebel government, upon taking power, was to ban Russian language (even though for two out of five people it is their native tongue).
The NATO-lead wars in Kosovo and Iraq make it easy for Russians to go into Eastern Ukraine (historically known as Little Russia).
It is never as simple as the daily media makes it to be.
Almux and Predrag, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The new Ukrainian government is NOT “half neo-fascist.” The far-right Svoboda party is represented, but has few seats.
No one has banned the Russian language in Ukraine, and only about 1/4 of the people speak Russian (and only about 1/6 of the people are ethnic Russian). And the “Little Russia” name for Ukraine was “historically” used only by Soviet sympathizers, not by Ukrainians.
(As it happens, I’m on the parish council at a Ukrainian Catholic Church, where we have many parishioners who have family or friends actively involved in the civil rights conflict in Ukraine. And it’s not over yet.)
While there are seldom stories where anyone has completely clean hands — not even the American revolution — the Ukrainian people have every right to rid themselves of Moscow’s influence, and those in power in Ukraine have no right to ignore the people from whom their power comes. Yanukovich did exactly that, and was removed from office by vote of the Parliament.
Do you and your fellow American-Ukrainians think that the Ukraine should align itself with the EU? From what I can garner, the source of the conflict is that Russia supplies so much of Europe’s natural gas and that a Ukrainian pact with EU and NATO would threaten that near monopoly.
…forgot to add, also all the vast majority of the natural gas pipelines from Russia to Europe go through the Ukraine.
So you’re saying: follow the money.
sorta, just what Ive read.
You’re dealing with communists. And a former KGB col. . He’s not going to play fair.
Yeh. For sure. Communists have the market cornered on “unfair”. If only it could be some fine and noble Republican like…. ohhhh…. Chris Christie.
Chris Christie may be a stooge, but Putin has the eyes of a cold-blooded killer.