UKRAINE….

UKRAINE….

An explosion near the site where thousands of Crimean Tatars were holding a political rally damaged the office of the Crimean branch of the Ukrainian Communist Party. The Tatars camped out in the Crimean capital of Simferopol to commemorate their deportation by Stalin and to protest their treatment by Ukrainian authorities today. Although the Tatar rally called for “Communists out of Crimea” and specifically attacked local Communist leader Leonid Hrach as a “mini-Milosevic,” Hrach (who was unhurt) blamed only “criminal groups,” not the Tatars, for the act…. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said United States government statements of concern about Ukrainian oil shipments to Serbia are “unfriendly acts.” But the ministry did not say they were false. On the contrary, the ministry’s statement asserted that “Ukraine considers this to be a political embargo, and it is up to each country to decide whether to comply….”