Vice News, known for their gritty reportages, has had reporter Simon Ostrovsky on the ground in Crimea, Ukraine since almost the beginning of the Russian invasion there. He has been doing some of the best, if not the best, reporting from Crimea.
If you want to get a good idea of what is going on in Crimea, then there's probably no better way to do it than watching Vice's Russian Roulette on the ground series of dispatches. Except for traveling there oneself, that is.
In dispatch #5, Ostrovsky interviews some Serbian Chetniks who have come to Crimea to "help", and then interviews some Ukrainian troops who are besieged in their base. In dispatch #6, he visits the border checkpoint to mainland Crimea, where he has an unpleasant run-in with the Berkut, the special forces police that were terrorizing demonstrators in Kiev when Yanukovych was still in charge. It's one thing to read about the scary stuff going on in Crimea in op-eds and articles, but another thing entirely to see and hear it. Scary stuff... I doubt the referendum that will be held there on Sunday will be even remotely close to free and fair.
Dispatch #6:
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The previous 5 dispatches can be viewed directly on the Vice News site:
http://www.vice.com/...