Ukraine Admits Troops ‘Helpless’ Against Eastern Protests

May 1st, 2014

David Schulberg

Days after ordering the “liquidation” of the protest movement in the eastern provinces of the country, Ukraine interim President Oleksandr Turchinov has conceded now that his military is “helpless” to stop the protesters’ control of those areas.

Turchinov was quick to suggest that something untoward was responsible for the inability of his military to silence dissent, saying he believed some of the police were “actively colluding” with the protest movement.

Not that the military has completely given up on attacking protesters, and the troops are said to be “probing the defenses” erected around the outskirts of the city of Slovyansk, and managed to take down a couple of makeshift checkpoints there.

That the military has been trying for weeks to retake a city of a little over 100,000 people and now can’t even seem to get past the makeshift barricades on the outskirts does not seem to bode well for Turchinov’s predictions of an imminent World War 3-style war with Russia.