26 April 2014



Today marks 28 years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Eastern Ukraine.

Tatar organizations in the Middle Volga have nominated Mustafa Dzhemilev for the Nobel Peace Prize. This calls attention to Dzhemilev’s efforts to defend his land and growing ties between the Tatars of Crimea and the Tatars of the Middle Volga. But then again, maybe Putin will be nominated again this year for ‘defending Russian speakers in Ukraine’. Or yet, another United States official will be ‘humbled’ by this prize while they continue warfare and their mastery of foreign intervention.

Interim PM Yatsenyuk met with Pope Francis today in Rome. Does peace have a place in geopolitics? What can the Pope say? If only he could tell Yatsenyuk not to trust anyone. Not his `allies’ like  Tymoshenko, the  USA or the IMF.  But then again, surely Yatsenyuk knows that already. What options do the interim leaders have?

In other news, overnight, Russian aircraft invaded Ukrainian airspace seven times. Meanwhile, two residents of Donetsk and Luhansk disappeared today: the theatre director Pavlo Yurov, whose work recently won an award in Kyiv, and Denys Hryshchuk, a volunteer in the arts.

Furthermore, the violence continues in Slovyansk. A BBC reporter has had a gun held to her head. The Roma community continues to be targeted with violence and intimidation and Ukrainian speakers are beaten up in the streets.


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