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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Zelensky prepares ground to delay presidential election
2023-06-24


[RT] Ukraine will not be able to organize elections so long as martial law is in effect, President Vladimir Zelensky told British state broadcaster BCC in an interview on Friday. His original five-year term is set to expire in May 2024.

"In accordance with the law, elections need to happen in a time of peace, when there is no fighting," Zelensky told the BBC when asked if there would be a presidential election next year.

Ukrainian laws mandate a parliamentary election no later than October 29 this year. For that to actually happen, Kiev would need to end martial law so the 60-day campaign could begin by August 28, according to Rodion Miroshnik, former ambassador of the Lugansk People’s Republic in Moscow. Elections for president would need to happen by March 2024, Miroshnik told TASS.

Zelensky announced martial law on February 24, 2022, and has been extending it ever since. The most recent 90-day extension was announced on May 20 this year, and is due to expire on August 18.

While acknowledging that elections were not allowed under martial law, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) urged Ukraine in May to "start preparing for [a vote] as soon as possible."

"Although democracy is far more than only elections, I think we all agree that without the elections, democracy cannot properly function," Martinus Josephus Maria ’Tiny’ Kox told Ukrainian activist Olga Aivazovska on May 17.

Aleksey Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, responded by saying that "there can be no elections" so long as martial law remains in effect.

Under a law enacted in May 2022, Zelensky has banned a dozen political parties for allegedly challenging his official position on the conflict with Russia. The largest parliamentary opposition bloc, Opposition Platform — For Life, was outlawed last June, while the most recent ban, in February, applied to former president Viktor Yanukovich’s Party of Regions.
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Government Corruption
Whether in Ukraine or Sudan, Death Follows Victoria Nuland Wherever She Goes
2023-04-27
[Gateway] Death seems to follow Victoria Nuland wherever she goes. Whether it’s in Ukraine or in Sudan, people die.
Klingon business developer. Conflict and war is her business, and business is good.
Victoria Nuland was known as the midwife of Maidan — the Obama-Biden point person reportedly running the overthrow of the Ukrainian Presidency in 2013-14.

UKRAINE 2014 COUP D’ÉTAT
After violent events associated with the Maidan revolution protests, Ukraine’s parliament ousted President Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014 and replaced him with Petro Poroshenko. Disposed Yanukovich was an existential threat because his amicable relations with Russia impeded Ukraine from becoming a European member and NATO from expanding to Russia’s border. Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the midwife of Maidan, threatened sanctions against Ukraine’s government if President Viktor Yanukovych remained in office. (Over 100 people were killed in the protests.)
Related:
Victoria Nuland: 2023-04-25 Key moments of the Sudanese crisis
Victoria Nuland: 2023-03-14 'What are we paying for?' US decides to reconsider spending on aid to Ukraine
Victoria Nuland: 2023-03-13 The United States has forgotten how to tell the truth
Related:
Maidan: 2023-04-19 Ukraine is paying the price for a 20-year-old choice
Maidan: 2023-04-17 Why Ukraine turned out to be defenseless against the demons of Nazism
Maidan: 2023-04-15 Russian Perspective: Operation to Denazify Ukraine: Operational Brief April 14th (updated)
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Europe
Putin ally suggests that Ukraine be divided
2014-03-25
A little background: Vladimir Zhirinovsky is Russia's clown prince of international politics, and has been saying these things since Yelstin was president. He said back in the 1990s that NATO and the US should leave Russia alone in her sphere of influence and that includes Afghanistan and the north central Asian mobocracies for the FSU. No one took him seriously then, but now he is identified as Putin's BFF. Vladimir Zhirinovsky should be careful when and where he dines, since once the KGB FSB is done with you, you are done with them.
A prominent political ally and advisor to Vladimir Putin has proposed splitting up Ukraine along the lines of an historical pact agreed between the Nazis and Soviet Union. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, widely regarded as a mouthpiece for the Russian president, proposed a redrawing of the borders of western Ukraine - which would involve regions being incorporated into the territories of Poland, Romania and Hungary.

He appeared to have written the letter in the days after Russia itself annexed the Crimea region of Ukraine last week, and suggested further referendums could be held to see further territory break away from Kiev.

Zhirinovsky wrote: "It's never too late to correct historical errors."

The politician is the deputy speaker of the Duma, and his nationalist Liberal Democratic party largely backs President Vladimir Putin in the Russian parliament.

Sergei Sobolev, head of Ukraine's largest parliamentary faction, the Fatherland party, called him a "provocateur".

"But Zhirinovsky often is the voice of Putin," he added.
You don't say...
Zhirinovsky's letter, seen by Reuters, suggested Poland, Hungary and Romania, who are now in the European Union, might wish to take back regions which he said were in the past their territories. The regions were incorporated into Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union at the end of World War Two and featured in a secret annex of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact under which the Soviet and Nazi German foreign ministers carved up the area.

It was not clear whether the letter was serious or a publicity stunt. But it follows a crisis in relations between Moscow and Kiev since the Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich was ousted as Ukraine's president last month.

Zhirinovsky proposed Ukraine's Chernivtsi, Zakarpattia, Volyn, Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Rovensky regions, together with Poland, Romania and Hungary hold referendums on whether the regions should break away from Ukraine. Romania might wish to have Chernivtsi, Hungary the Zakarpattia region, and Poland the rest, he said.
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Europe
Ukraine police find 42 kg of gold in home of ex-energy minister
2014-03-24
[The Peninsula] Ukrainian police have seized 42 kilograms of gold and $4.8 million in cash during a search of the apartments of Ukraine's former Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Saturday.

Avakov said the searches had been conducted in connection with a corruption investigation in the energy sector.

"It blew my mind when I received a report on the results this morning. How much would one have to steal, to have such a 'trifle' at home as pocket money," Avakov said in a post on Facebook.

Stavytsky's career blossomed under the presidency of ousted Viktor Yanukovich and was appointed energy minister in December 2012.

Ukrainian media describe Stavytsky as a member of Yanukovich's inner circle. He could not be reached for comment.

Ukrainian police on Friday detained another energy official - the chief executive of state energy company Naftogaz, Yevhen Bakulin, as part of the investigation into corruption that it says may have cost the Ukrainian state about $4 billion.

Naftogaz is responsible for the import and distribution of Russian natural gas in Ukraine. It also holds a monopoly on the shipment of gas from Russia's Gazprom via Ukraine to Europe.
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Europe
Ukraine signs political accord with European Union
2014-03-22
[LATIMES] Ukraine was tugged in opposite directions Friday in a reminder of the Cold War past, with the government in Kiev pushing westward through closer ties to the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
 and Russia pulling Crimea eastward by formally annexing it.

Separate signing ceremonies in Brussels and Moscow illustrated the rapidly diverging paths of Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula, which Ukraine insists still belongs to it but which Russia claims as its own. The dispute over the strategically important region has led to perhaps the most serious confrontation between the West and Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

There were a few indications Friday that the penalties imposed on Russia by the United States and Europe were having some of their intended effect. Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
 signaled a possible pause in the mutual retaliation between the two sides.

In Brussels, Ukrainian officials sealed a deal deepening political cooperation with the 28-nation European Union. The pact revived an agreement that the EU offered to Ukraine several months ago that then-President Viktor Yanukovich rejected in favor of closer ties with Moscow, a last-minute turnaround that led to months of protests, Yanukovich's ouster and Russia's incursion into Crimea.
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Europe
Putin signs Crimea treaty, Russia suspended from G8
2014-03-19
[Dhaka Tribune] Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
, defying Ukrainian protests and Western sanctions, yesterday signed a treaty making Crimea part of Russia but said he did not plan to seize any other regions of Ukraine.

In a fiercely patriotic address to a joint session of the Russian parliament in the Kremlin, punctuated by standing ovations, cheering and tears, Putin lambasted the West for what he called hypocrisy. Western nations had endorsed Kosovo's independence from Serbia but now denied Crimeans the same right, he said.

"You cannot call the same thing black today and white tomorrow," he declared to stormy applause, saying Western partners had "crossed the line" over Ukraine and behaved "irresponsibly."

He said Ukraine's new leaders, in power since the overthrow of pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich last month, included "neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites."

Putin said Crimea's referendum vote on Sunday had shown the overwhelming will of the people to be reunited with Russia after 60 years as part of the Ukrainian republic.

La Belle France's foreign minister, meanwhile, said leaders of the Group of Eight world powers have suspended Russia's participation in the club.

The other seven members of the group had already suspended preparations for a G8 summit that Russia is scheduled to host in June in Sochi.

To the Russian national anthem in Moscow, Putin and Crimean leaders signed a treaty on making Crimea part of Russia. During his address, Putin was interrupted by applause at least 30 times.

"In the hearts and minds of people, Crimea has always been and remains an inseparable part of Russia," Putin said. He thanked China for what he called its support, even though Beijing abstained on a UN resolution on Crimea that Moscow had to veto on its own, and said he was sure Germans would support the Russian people's quest for reunification, just as Russia had supported German reunification in 1990.
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Europe
Russia touts own solution to Ukraine crisis
2014-03-11
[The Peninsula] Russia said yesterday it will unveil its own solution to the Ukrainian crisis that runs counter to US efforts and appears to leave room for Crimea to switch over to Kremlin rule.

The unexpected announcement came as Ukraine's new pro-European leaders raced against the clock to rally Western support in the face of the seizure by Kremlin-backed forces of the strategic Black Sea peninsula and plans to hold a referendum on Sunday to switch its allegiance from Kiev to Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
's threat to invade Ukraine after last month's ouster of a pro-Kremlin regime by pro-EU leaders has set off the most explosive crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War.

US President Barack Obama
I inhaled. That was the point...
and his European allies are urging Russia to call its Crimean troops back to their barracks and launch immediate negotiations with a Ukrainian leadership that Putin claims rose to power thanks to an "unconstitutional coup".

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Putin yesterday that proposals he had received from US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
 on resolving the stand-off "do not suit us very much".

Lavrov said documents he had received from Kerry on Friday were "framed as if there exists a conflict between Russia and Ukraine."

He added that Washington was basing its solution on a recognition of Kiev's new leaders while Russia still considered the ousted Viktor Yanukovich as the legitimate president of Ukraine.

"Our partners proposed moving forward on the basis of a situation born out of a state coup," Lavrov told Putin.

But Lavrov gave no indication about when or where Russia's proposals would be made public. He added that Kerry had delayed a visit to Moscow he planned for yesterday to finalise the details of Washington's crisis plan.
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Europe
Russian forces tighten grip on Crimea despite US warning
2014-03-10
[Egypt Independent] Russian forces tightened their grip on Crimea on Sunday despite a U.S. warning to Moscow that annexing the southern Ukrainian region would close the door to diplomacy in a tense East-West standoff.

Russian forces' seizure of the Black Sea peninsula has been bloodless but tensions are mounting following the decision by pro-Russian groups that have taken over the regional parliament to make Crimea part of Russia.

The operation to seize Crimea began within days of Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich's flight from the country last month. Yanukovich was toppled after three months of demonstrations against a decision to spurn a free trade deal with the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
 for closer ties with Russia.

In the latest armed action, Russians took over a Ukrainian border post on the western edge of Crimea at around 6 a.m. (0400) GMT, trapping about 30 personnel inside, a border guard front man said.

The front man, Oleh Slobodyan, said Russian forces now controlled 11 border guard posts across Crimea, a former Russian territory that is home to Russia's Black Sea fleet and has an ethnic Russian majority.

President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
 declared a week ago that Russia had the right to invade Ukraine to protect Russian citizens, and his parliament has voted to change the law to make it easier to annex territory inhabited by Russian speakers.

The worst face-off with Moscow since the Cold War has left the West scrambling for a response, especially since the region's pro-Russia leadership declared Crimea part of Russia last week and announced a March 16 referendum to confirm it.

U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
, speaking to Russia's foreign minister for the fourth day in a row, told Sergei Lavrov on Saturday that Russia should exercise restraint.

"He made clear that continued military escalation and provocation in Crimea or elsewhere in Ukraine, along with steps to annex Crimea to Russia, would close any available space for diplomacy, and he urged utmost restraint," a U.S. official said.

President Barack Obama
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...
spoke by phone on Saturday to the leaders of La Belle France, Britannia and Italia and three ex-Soviet Baltic states that have joined NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
. He assured Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which have their own ethnic Russian populations, that the Western military alliance would protect them if necessary.

Shots fired

A spokeswoman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said military monitors from the pan-Europe watchdog had on Saturday been prevented for the third time in as many days from entering Crimea.

Shots were fired on Saturday to turn back the mission of more than 40 unarmed observers, who have been invited by Kiev but lack permission from Crimea's pro-Russian authorities to cross the isthmus to the peninsula. No one was hurt.

Crimea's pro-Moscow authorities have ordered all remaining Ukrainian troop detachments in the province to disarm and surrender, but at several locations they have refused to yield.

Moscow denies that the Russian-speaking troops in Crimea are under its command, an assertion Washington dismisses as "Putin's fiction". Although they wear no insignia, the troops drive vehicles with Russian military plates.

A Rooters reporting team filmed a convoy of hundreds of Russian troops in about 50 trucks, accompanied by armored vehicles and ambulances, which pulled into a military base north of Simferopol in broad daylight on Saturday.

The military standoff has remained bloodless, but troops on both sides spoke of increased agitation.

"The situation is changed. Tensions are much higher now. You have to go. You can't film here," said a Russian soldier carrying a heavy machine gun, his face covered except for his eyes, at a Ukrainian navy base in Novoozernoye.

A source in Ukraine's defense ministry said it was mobilizing some of its military hardware for a planned exercise, Interfax news agency reported. Ukraine's military, with barely 130,000 troops, would be no match for Russia's. So far Kiev has held back from any action that might provoke a response.
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Europe
Putin rebuffs Obama as crisis deepens
2014-03-08
[THEPENINSULAQATAR] President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
 rebuffed a warning from US President Barack Obama
Ready to Rule from Day One...
over Moscow's military intervention in Crimea, saying yesterday that Russia could not ignore calls for help from Russian speakers in Ukraine.

After an hour-long telephone call, Putin said in a statement that Moscow and Washington were still far apart on the situation in the former Soviet republic, where he said the new authorities had taken "absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern and Crimea regions.

"Russia cannot ignore calls for help and it acts accordingly, in full compliance with international law," Putin said.

Ukraine's border guards said Moscow had poured troops into the southern peninsula where Russian forces have seized control.

Serhiy Astakhov, an aide to the border guards' commander, said there were now 30,000 Russian soldiers in Crimea, compared to 11,000 permanently based with the Russian Black Sea fleet in the port of Sevastopol before the crisis.

Putin denies that the forces with no national insignia that are surrounding Ukrainian troops in their bases are under Moscow's command, although their vehicles have Russian military plates. The West has ridiculed this claim.

The most serious east-west confrontation since the end of the Cold War -- resulting from the overthrow last month of President Viktor Yanukovich after violent protests in Kiev -- escalated on Thursday when Crimea's parliament, dominated by ethnic Russians, voted to join Russia. The region's government set a referendum for March 16 - in just nine days' time.

European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
 leaders and Obama denounced the referendum as illegitimate, saying it would violate Ukraine's constitution.

The head of Russia's upper house of parliament said after meeting visiting Crimean politicians on Friday that Crimea had a right to self-determination, and ruled out any risk of war between "the two brotherly nations".

Before calling Putin, Obama announced the first sanctions against Russia since the start of the crisis, ordering visa bans and asset freezes against so far unidentified persons deemed responsible for threatening Ukraine's illusory sovereignty.
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Europe
Tymoshenko warns of guerrilla war
2014-03-08
[THEPENINSULAQATAR] Leading Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko said there was a danger of guerrilla war in Crimea should it be incorporated into Russia and appealed to Germany and others yesterday for immediate economic sanctions against Moscow.

She said a Russian takeover of the Crimean peninsula would create long-term dangers for the whole region.

Speaking after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom...
, Tymoshenko said international measures against Russia had so far been ineffective and called for immediate action to prevent a "flashpoint".

"As of today, those instruments that have already been applied by the US and the EU didn't produce any tangible effects," she said, summarising her message to Merkel.

"If these instruments do not produce results, there are two options left. To opt for next strongest sanctions, I proposed a set of nonviolent, economic measures." The alternative, she said, was to give Crimea to Russia. "They have to be very convincing for Putin to send the strongest signal that it would not be tolerated."

She also underscored the "serious obligation" of the United States and Britannia to support Ukraine, referring to an earlier agreement with Kiev to surrender nuclear arms in exchange for their pledge to guarantee its territory.

"In terms of international law, there are clearly defined country guarantors, namely the US and the United Kingdom."

Crimea's parliament has voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, calling a referendum on the question. The West, Tymoshenko said, should not accommodate such action. "The immediate consequences would be guerrilla warfare," she said, speaking through a translator. "(This)...would be a real flash point in the Black Sea.

"Putin would be allowed to (use) such instruments with a military component in the Crimean case, then where will he stop?"

"He goes as far as he will be allowed to go," said Tymoshenko, who suffers from back problems and sat in a wheelchair throughout the interview.

"Who is next? We never will be able to stabilise the situation in Ukraine and the wider region, if it will be a permanent conflict."

Tymoshenko was strongly at odds with now deposed President Viktor Yanukovich, and was considered a political prisoner by the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
 until she was freed from jail hours after he fled the country. She had been imprisoned in 2011 over a gas deal that she signed with Russia.
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Europe
Ukraine mobilises after Putin's 'declaration of war'
2014-03-03
[Dhaka Tribune] Ukraine mobilised for war yesterday and Washington threatened to isolate Russia economically, after President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
 declared he had the right to invade his neighbour, creating Moscow's biggest confrontation with the West since the Cold War.

"This is not a threat: this is actually the declaration of war to my country," Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, head of a pro-Western government that took power when Russian ally Viktor Yanukovich fled last week, said.

Putin obtained permission from his parliament on Saturday to use military force to protect Russian citizens in Ukraine, spurning Western pleas not to intervene.

Russian forces have already bloodlessly seized Crimea - an isolated Black Sea peninsula where Moscow has a naval base. They surrounded several small Ukrainian military outposts there and demanded the Ukrainian troops disarm. Some refused, leading to standoffs, although no shots were fired.

Russia has staged war games with 150,000 troops along the land border, but so far they have not crossed. However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
 pro-Russian demonstrators have marched in the east of the country and have raised Russian flags over government buildings in several cities, in what Kiev says is a move orchestrated by Moscow to justify a wider invasion.
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Putin orders military test in west, central Russia
2014-02-26
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a test of the “battle readiness” of military forces deployed in the western and central areas of the country, a likely show of Kremlin muscle to reassure ethnic Russians in Ukraine that their rights and interests will be defended.
That'll be an interesting exercise; I assume US intel assets will monitor how well the 'test' goes. Is the Russian military a juggernaut or a paper tiger? If the latter, could it still occupy and pacify the Ukraine?
The announcement of the “immediate and thorough” readiness exercises was made by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and reported by the Interfax news agency.

“Putin ordered confirmation of troop capabilities for action in the event of a crisis situation that presents a threat to the military security of the country,” as well as anti-terrorism and emergency response readiness, Shoigu was quoted as saying by Interfax.

The readiness test was ordered amid growing tensions in Ukraine between the Russian-allied eastern areas of the restive country and pro-Western political forces now in control of the capital, Kiev, following a rebellion that drove President Viktor Yanukovich to flee his office.
Here again, some sort of deal allowing eastern and western Ukraine to go their own ways would seem to be in everyone's interests, including Putin. Give Russia guarantees on its pipelines through the western half and Putin might not care what else they do.
Russia had been backing Yanukovich with a promised $15-billion package of loans and energy subsidies after he angered liberal and nationalist politicians in late November by scrapping an association agreement with the European Union. That pact would have enhanced Ukrainian economic ties with the West and opened a path to eventual membership in the EU.

Yanukovich’s rejection of the EU deal in favor of strengthening ties with Russia, for centuries the dominant political force in Ukraine, set off three months of demonstrations that escalated into rioting last week and a bloody crackdown by security forces. At least 82 people died in the confrontations before an EU-brokered peace accord and agreement on early elections.

Pro-Western opposition politicians who led the rebellion have filled the power vacuum in Kiev, which triggered demonstrations in Russian-speaking areas of eastern and southern Ukraine, where industry remains elaborately entwined with Russia’s economy and Moscow keeps its Black Sea fleet based in Sevastopol.
Even if Ukraine separates from Russia the industry can't, not easily. It's not like EU industrial interests will pick up the tens of thousands of contracts, deliveries, raw materials, shipping and so on with any sort of reasonable timeline.
Several dozen Russians worried about their status in a potentially opposition-ruled Ukraine have been demonstrating for the last three days outside public buildings in Sevastopol, Simferopol, Odessa and other southern cities, some demanding that Russia protect them or that the region secede and annex to Russia.

On Wednesday, rival demonstrations involving thousands of Crimean Tatars, who were exiled from Russia to Crimea by dictator Josef Stalin during World War II, pledged allegiance to Kiev and their place within Ukraine.

Shouts of “Ukraine is not Russia” and “Allahu Akbar” could be heard from the crowd of historically Muslim Tatars as they waved the yellow and blue Ukrainian and Tatar flags in defiance of the considerably smaller pro-Russian turnout, according to news agencies and Ukrainian television.

The Kremlin has taken a cautious approach to the evolving crisis in Ukraine, a country of 46 million and arguably Russia’s most important ally as most of Moscow’s exports of natural gas pass through pipelines on Ukrainian territory.

In Moscow, the speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament dismissed warnings by Russian nationalist politicians that the Kremlin would take military action against Ukraine if it senses any threat to the Russian-speaking population, which numbers about 7.5 million.

“This scenario is impossible,” said Valentina Matvienko, speaker of the Federation Council. “Russia has been stating and reiterating its stance that we have no right and cannot interfere in domestic affairs of a sovereign state. We are for Ukraine as a united state, and there should be no basis for separatist sentiments.”
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