Is the above picture the face of the pro-government forces in Ukraine?
From the NY Times:
MOSCOW — A crusading antigovernment journalist and activist in Ukraine who became famous last year after documenting the opulence of the heavily guarded residential compound of President Viktor F. Yanukovich was savagely beaten early Wednesday.
The assault on the activist, Tetyana Chornovol, 34, just outside the capital, Kiev, was the latest attack on government opponents who have been participating in sustained protests that have shaken the country.
On Tuesday evening, Dmitri Pylypets, a protest organizer in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, was beaten and stabbed four times while walking on the street near his apartment, local news media reported.
Most recently, Ms. Chornovol published a blog
post highlighting the "country manor" being built for Vitaly Zakharchenko, the official within the government of President Viktor F. Yanukovich with the most "direct authority" over the security forces involved in the recent violent crackdown against peaceful protestors in the capital's main square.
In the above video, Ms. Chornovol states (translation via the above NY Times article):
“People came out of it and began beating me,” she said. “I tried to bypass it, but it was impossible. The jeep hit me. It tried to kill me. They broke my window. I jumped out, tried to run. I was caught and they began beating me.”
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest the Yanukovich government, prompted by his rejection of an association agreement that Ukraine was to sign with the European Union, and further fueled by his government's turn toward Vladimir Putin's Russia.
The beating of Ms. Chornovol and other violent acts undertaken by presumably pro-government thugs mark another ugly turn in what increasingly appears to be a struggle for the independence, if not the very identity of Ukraine.