"The Kyiv Post" has published an interesting sketch of life in Crimea for people who still hold pro-Ukrainian views:
Expressing pro-Ukrainian views in Sevastopol does, indeed, come with a price.
Larisa Moskalets, 42, knows that well. She almost lost her job in a ticket sales office for telling a client that her president was Poroshenko, Ukraine’s leader, not Putin. Her employer first asked Moskalets to leave, but ended up just transferring her to a different office.
An ethnic Russian, Moskalets has lived in both Russia and Ukraine. She doesn’t speak Ukrainian perfectly, but nevertheless prefers to live in Ukraine, not Russia. She “follows political news and understands what is going on in Russia,” Moskalets says. “Morally it’s now extremely difficult for me here.”
Networking with other pro-Ukrainians helps, she said, so do brave gestures.
During the EuroMaidan Revolution that toppled Viktor Yanukovych as president on Feb. 22, she wrote “Sevastopol - Ukraine - Europe” in big black letters on a fence. She did it late at night to be on the safe side. After the annexation, she once told a vendor she wouldn’t buy a Russian flag because it is the banner of the occupiers.
While Moskalets’ husband and children share her views, her parents are heavily pro-Russian and call her a traitor. They almost stopped speaking to her. “This is the worst thing about this situation - how the ties between people are breaking down,” Moskalets says.
Serhiy Gogol, a 33-year old sailor from Sevastopol, agrees. His family comes from western Ukraine but has been living in Sevastopol since the late 1980s. He grew up going to Russian-speaking school but still prefers to speak Ukrainian to friends.
However, Gogol’s best friend in Sevastopol welcomed Russia, but worried about losing Gogol’s friendship.
Gogol ended up deciding to sever his ties to Crimea. He worked as a navigator on a foreign ship in Brazil during Russia’s military invasion. When he returned to Sevastopol in late March, he found conditions intolerable and packed his things and took the train to Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine.
Gogol senses new danger on Sevastopol streets.
“I grew up here and always felt safe in this city. Now I don’t. Now there are many drunk and weird people on the streets, like never before,” Gogol says.
As he talks to Kyiv Post sitting on a bench in a park in Sevastopol, three police officers pass by and turn heads curiously to him, attracted by his Ukrainian speech.
Gogol is not alone in wanting to leave.
Read the entire article here
A dozen of these have just passed by us in the direction of the border. Cannot confirm that is where they're heading. pic.twitter.com/XOya5Z9NT4
— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) August 15, 2014
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this update from our news desk on some fresh diplomatic efforts concerning the Ukraine situation.
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto is due meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi today, with talks expected to focus on the crisis in Ukraine.
"I do not want to present myself as a great peace mediator," Niinisto told reporters. "What we need are open communication channels. [This]...is a small step forward."
Finland has been hard hit by trade embargoes that Moscow has implemented in retaliation for EU sanctions.
The EU sanctions were imposed to punish Russia for its annexation of Crimea and what Western governments say is Moscow's support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.
A European Commission representative declined to comment when asked by the Reuters news agency whether the meeting suggested cracks in EU unity over Ukraine.
The visit by Niinisto is Putin's first bilateral meeting with an EU leader on Russian soil since the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February.
(Reuters, ITAR-TASS, Interfax)
We are now closing down our live blog for today. Don't forget that you can keep up with all the latest development in Ukraine here.
My story on a really bizarre show in Yalta today: Putin tones down rhetoric on Ukraine. http://t.co/kd8VBAfo0w
— Nataliya Vasilyeva (@NatVasilyevaAP) August 14, 2014
BBC gets praise from unusual quarters RT “@natomission_ru: Questions to @AndersFoghR in BBC #Hardtalk are right to the point”
— Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) August 14, 2014
So @RolandOliphant and I just saw a column of APCs and vehicles with official Russian military plates cross border into Ukraine.
— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) August 14, 2014
The AFP news agency has issued this video showing the aftermath of intense fighting close to the center of Donetsk today:
Disturbing #s of people in military attire moving across RUS-#Ukraine border in plain sight of OSCE observer mission http://t.co/LUlae5OshP
— Andrew S. Weiss (@andrewsweiss) August 14, 2014
CNN: Which foods are off #Russian menus? (#INFOGRAPHIC) http://t.co/2eiXRH9Lsa
— Kyiv Post (@KyivPost) August 14, 2014
Remember Tetyana Chornovol -- the Ukrainian journalist who was savagely beaten and left for dead during Maidan protests late last year? She writes quite moving here about losing her husband -- a volunteer soldier who was killed last week while fighting Moscow-backed separatists.