10 April 2014



Today, the first English translation was released of Channel ’1+1′ and the creative association ‘Babylon 13 series of documentaries ‘The Winter That Changed Us All’ about the revolutionary events this winter.

Postcards from Maidan is also translating some of their work into English. Postcards from Maidan and Stories from Maidan is a two-fold art initiative that helps to bring support to Ukrainian protesters in different regions of the country. The postcards project contains a series of cards based on works of contemporary artists and the stories project is a campaign in which contemporary artists visit hospitals, talk to people and work on the artistic embodiment of their stories from Maidan. Among other goals, the project aims to recover lost contacts and enable protesters to learn about each other. http://postcardsfrommaidan.org/

In Kyiv, investigations on-going by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, the Security Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Revenues and the National Bank of Ukraine, reported today that Yanukovych, his family and friends ‘legalized’ UAH 77.2bn (3.65bn GBP), revenues from their criminal activities. The Financial Monitoring Service sent requests to financial investigative units of 136 countries with the goal of establishing and further blocking bank accounts, corporate rights, securities and other legal claims to real estate and other assets.

Meanwhile on the Crimean peninsula, the headmaster of the only Ukrainian-speaking schools in Simferopol, Natalya Rudenko (in the position since 1997), was forced to resign from her position today under pressure from ‘Aksenov’s self-defense’ and City Council officials. The government has stated this school must become Russian-speaking.

Excerpt from an article from ‘voices of the revolution’: a memory of Ustym Holodnyuk (Sotnya #38), by Alyona Stadnik

“... I saw his [Ustym’s] mom again. Bloodless, lifeless, understanding everything and having lost everything. I tried to explain to her, to say thank you. Ustym saved me, Ustym saved my 18-year-old sister, Ustym saved my mother. Ustym saved all the girls, all the children. I do not know, I do not know… But I think that everyone who saw a mother whose son was killed, will never be able to shoot at anyone.

We went to Zbarazh for the third time for 40 days, it was last weekend. Ustym’s mom was so beautiful – her face, colorless. With such a look [in her eyes]… And you know what … I would like to say that I’ve never seen such a look, but it’s not true. I saw it later. I saw it, because we stopped at the village Travneve (Zbarazh district, Ternopil oblast) on our way back. A 17-year-old Nazar, who also was killed on Maidan, lived there. And I saw his mother there. His mother’s face was ashen, all features were smoothed out by the sadness and the look in her eyes, it was that look … And she was silent as well. Very silent.”

In other news:

Putin warned Europe on Thursday that it may face a shutdown of Russian natural gas supplies if it fails to help Ukraine settle its Russian gas bill.

Pro-Russian protesters continue to occupy government buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk. Many of these demonstrators are armed.

In northwest Romania, U.S. and Romanian troops began a week of joint military exercises. Romania, Russia and Ukraine all border the Black Sea.

Former president of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski, stated today that he believed Putin will not stop after the annexation of Crimea or Eastern Ukraine. He warns Putin will attempt to gain control over all of Ukraine to make it a part of the Russia-led Eurasian Union.

Finally, NATO released satellite images that show Russian military build-up at the Ukrainian border. Between 35,000 and 40,000 Russian troops are in a state of advanced readiness and could deploy within 12 hours of a decision. 


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