Ukraine Government Cuts Cash Off to Rebel Areas
Source: Associated Press
For hours, small crowds in Donetsk huddle hopefully in the cold around cash machines that never get filled, as artillery rumbles in the distance. Money is running short in the rebel heartland since the government announced this month it will suspend banking services as it piles on the pressure. Almost all ATMs have stopped working and the remainder are expected to stop operating over the next two weeks.
The move is part of Ukraine's plan to suffocate its separatist foe, now that its costly military campaign has foundered. Authorities say they are also withdrawing all state services from rebel areas, although hospital and school workers in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk say it has been a while since they last saw funding anyhow.
Yet if the government of President Petro Poroshenko hopes to turn people in eastern Ukraine against separatist leadership, the evidence on the ground suggests the strategy may only be hardening their resolve.
"What Poroshenko is saying to us is: 'You are no longer Ukrainians. You won't get pensions, you won't get social payments. When you croak, then we'll stop this war against you,' " Donetsk retiree Georgy Sharov said. "But I don't want to go to Ukraine and beg for their mercy."
Read more: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/life/Ukraine+cuts+cash+rebel+areas/10414943/story.html
How to win friends and influence people.
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DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)And why. It's quite predictable.
- And pathetic.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)<snip>
Hard-pressed recipients of state benefits have for months turned expectantly to the rebel government for cash. Crowds of pensioners and single mothers assemble daily before the separatist headquarters. When anybody in the crowd becomes especially vocal, one of the gunmen guarding the building rushes to bundle them away, accusing them of being "provocateurs."
The brunt of the rage, however, is still directed at the Ukrainian government.
"Ukraine says Donetsk is Ukrainian territory, and yet they came here with tanks and weapons instead of paying pensions properly," Donetsk retiree Anatoly Visly said. "I am a disabled veteran and I haven't received my pension for three months."
Elmergantry
(884 posts)So why should they expect anything different? Moral of the story: Watch was you asked for, you might just get it.
Let Pootie Poot feed you.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Elmergantry
(884 posts)Ukraine is not letting go of its soveriegn territory, and its within their discretion to whithold funding and services to those areas under rebellion. The rebels should not expect anything else. Did the Union support and service the South during the civil war?
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)The "invading army" remark was in response to your remark about how the Donbass people voted to leave Ukraine and they should take their lumps. Are they part of Ukraine or aren't they? If they are, they should get their pensions. If they're not, then Kiev's military looks like an invading army. It's not "the rebels" who are losing their pensions, it's the pensioners.
Elmergantry
(884 posts)The vast majority of the people in the Donbas want nothing to do with Ukraine per the referendum. (The seperatists wouldnt lie about that now would they?) That vast majority would include a lot of pensioners. That is a vote for supporting the rebellion. That makes them rebels. Rebels shouldnt expect alimony.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)It makes perfect sense to not just send money into such a region... Money that may very well fund the rebels in one fashion or another.
I have a feeling some in the east want to have their cake and eat it too.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)Fuck Poroshenko and the jackass he rode in on.
MattSh
(3,714 posts)But they claim no responsibility for the people who live there. In fact, they've been actively targeting civilians. Sound like a plan to keep this territory under their control... NOT.
Monk06
(7,675 posts)a finger to get his way.
Getting this land is not what Putin wants. Its infrastructure is destroyed, the economy was in shambles even before the war. Putin would be owning a shit sandwich. Also without a land link to Crimea, it has no strategic value. Putin actually wants Ukraine to be in his orbit only. He has painted himself in a corner. No way will Ukraine ever now go back in his orbit, and subsidizing "NovoRussia" would kill his economy. Thus far he has only obtained a pyrhic victory. I wonder if Ukraine should tell him, you broke it, you now own it, and proceed to turn their back on him and proceeed to join the rest of the civilized world.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)He wants it to be in his sphere of influence, but not to actually have to govern it.
Elmergantry
(884 posts)And when his puppet was kicked out, he somehow thought causing trouble in the Donbass would force their hand to come back to Russia. Using a stick when the carrot was rejected. This though had the opposite effect. Ukraine resisted, became more unified and is more hell bent then ever to go west. In the meantime he has this shit sandwhich of the Donbas to eat.
MattSh
(3,714 posts)Please do us all a favor...

Igel
(35,300 posts)But they're finding that many officials of the LNR and DNR are collecting or registering to collect pensions.
In the last couple of days branches of the Oshadbank have been seized and assets confiscated. That's the main bank that distributes penions and other social benefits.
At the same time, the LNR and DNR are claiming that they'll pay benefits. That the various taxes and confiscations are going to pay benefits. And they've guaranteed raises to those benefits. Issued new benefits cards. And claim credit for payment. Even as they demand that the central government in Kiev pay for what they'll claim credit for.
A number of apts. have been confiscated. The state subsidizes the apts. and pays for heating and hot water, but they're housing those trying to kill Ukrainian forces and pledging to seize Kiev and L'vov.
Even Putin admits as much, claiming that the Donbas is like Groznyi. Even as the rebels were seizing the monies and embezzling them, he says, Russia continued to send money to Groznyi. (Of course, he flattened Groznyi and considered killing what--100k or more people?--to be a good thing, so he only wants his analogy to go as far as needed to justify having those the DNRovtsy and LNRovtsy want to kill hand them lots of hryvny.)
It actually goes further: As they insist that the local schools, institutions of higher learning, etc., abide by their ethnicity-based curriculum they want Kiev to accredit those schools/etc. for issuing diplomas. They want free natural gas and electricity and water, even as they embargo Kiev (for the last few months) and refuse to let farmers sell their food to Kiev or miners sell coal. The only people that the DNRovtsy and LNRovtsy seem to have money for are their officials and their fighters, who continue to shell areas on the other side of the "border" and insist that areas that are majority Ukrainian and never voted to be part of the DNR be ceded to them.
Why, even today the main power generating plant that supplies Luhans'k was hit by Grad fire, for the second or third day in a row. Yesterday the notorious Aidar batallion helped get the backup generators on line.
Of course, if you're in those areas you might not know this, since the only news sources around are Russian--and not things like Dozhd', but Channel 1 and Russia 24. The ones that are the most nationalistic. (Or the DNR and LNR stations that were seized and given over to friends of the new rulers to run.)
daleo
(21,317 posts)Either that, or illegally withholding funds owed to citizens.
Elmergantry
(884 posts)they can go over to free Ukraine and get it to keep it out of the hands of the Thugocracy.
daleo
(21,317 posts)Can be construed as ethnic cleansing.
Elmergantry
(884 posts)
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)The DNR basically is such a clusterfuck it can't pay or feed its own people.
Elmergantry
(884 posts)Just had to shake my head over the guillable and brainwashed masses waving Novorussia and Soviet flags thinking, "The Holodomor didn't teach you anything did it?"
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)If the DNR/LNR were distributing the funds then this would be even worse, but it's clearly retaliatory. For better or worse.
What needs to happen is the DNR and LNR need to make assurances that they will distribute the pensions, but that would sort of recognize the DNR/LNR's existence. So it would have to be done privately in some negotiations.
But I completely agree that they are completely delusional about the rebel intent and actions. The rebels just don't give a fuck, and it's basically a reign of terror.
Elmergantry
(884 posts)Its just another means to put pressure on the DNR/LNR/Putin. Unfortuantely its gonna hurt some pensioners who didn't want this NovoRussia and I feel for them. What can I say, war is hell. Those that do like the DNR, well, proceed to sleep in the be you made.
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)And then point to the DNR/LNR/Putin for not distributing them. Obviously the funds are being diverted. It needs to be shown that they're being diverted, rather than cutting them off so they can't be diverted.
They're basically justifying it by saying "the pensioners aren't getting the funds anyway." This is classic western sanction style punishment. The west sucks at propaganda.