Major kudos to John Fund of NRO who actually went to the heart of what took place this past weekend.    Inside this article you find the substance of when the actual Ukrainian straw was placed on the camels’ back.

Following on the heels of the “brokered” Friday 2/21 agreement one brave journalist went on *LIVE* ( <– important ) TV and did two distinct things.   First she destroyed the claims of the government.  But, more importantly, she showed the Ukrainian people how the media was complicit in telling a false story thereby destroying the construct of the ruse.   There are major lessons for all of us in the USA within her strategy.

EXCELLENT ARTICLE at NRO –  Every revolution has moments where the hinge of history seems to swing wide and everything is different and the old regime is delegitimized.

In Ukraine’s revolution, the moment that’s likely to be immortalized is when protestors charged police barricades in Kiev’s Independence Square (“Maidan”) last Thursday, reportedly capturing a number of police troops, only to have dozens of protesters then gunned down by snipers. Even a face-saving compromise brokered the next day by Western diplomats couldn’t save President Viktor Yanukovych.

His security forces withdrew their support, leaving him unguarded. At 2 a.m. last Saturday, helicopters ferried him and his stooges away from his Michael Jackson–style presidential palace to the Russophone eastern sector of Ukraine. He remains in hiding.

But for many Ukrainians, there was another moment when they realized the ground was shifting beneath them.

It came last Friday evening, during one of the most popular talk shows on Inter, the most-watched Ukrainian network. Lidia Pankiv, a 24-year-old television journalist, was invited on by host Andriy Danylevych to discuss the need for reconciliation following the agreement signed by Yanukovych and dissidents earlier that day.

While reporting on the Maidan protests, Pankiv had helped persuade the Berkut riot police not to use further violence against the activists, and she had disclosed that one of the Berkut officers was now her fiancé. But reconciliation was not what Pankiv wished to discuss. As relayed by journalist Halya Coynash, Pankiv had a different message:

You probably want to hear a story from me about how with my bare hands I restrained a whole Berkut unit, and how one of the Berkut officers fell in love with me and I fell in love with him.

But I’m going to tell you another story. About how with my bare hands I dragged the bodies of those killed the day before yesterday. And about how two of my friends died yesterday. . . . I hate Zakharchenko, Klyuev, Lukash, Medvedchuk, Azarov.

I hate Yanukovych and all those who carry out their criminal orders. I came here today only because I found out that this is a live broadcast. I want to say that I also despise Inter because for three months it deceived viewers and spread enmity among citizens of this country. And now you are calling for peace and unity ?

Yes, you have the right to try to clear your conscience, but I think you should run this program on your knees. I’ve brought these photos here for you, so that you see my dead friends in your dreams and understand that you also took part in that. And now, I’m sorry, I don’t have time.

I’m going to Maidan. Glory to Ukraine.

Danylevych immediately tried to return to the night’s topic of reconciliation. But he was stopped by guest Konstantin Reutsky, a human-rights activist from Luhansk. Reutsky agreed with Pankiv, saying that Inter journalists had “lied and distorted information about Maidan over the last three months.”

Danylevych tried to interrupt Reutsky, who went on to say that the protestors had tried for months to avoid bloodshed. “But what happened yesterday is a point of no return,” Reutsky continued. “After that you can no longer say, ‘Sorry, we got carried away, let’s turn the page and start afresh without offense.’ What happened yesterday is impossible to forget.” Danylevych, after shouting down Reutsky’s further attempt to discuss the crimes committed by the government, changed the topic. But a chief media mouthpiece of the regime, owned by the president’s oligarch backers, had been exposed. Hours later, the president fled his palace.

After the broadcast, several Inter journalists approached Reutsky and thanked him for speaking out. Earlier that day, 16 journalists at the network had issued an open letter disagreeing with Inter’s coverage of the protests.  (continue reading)