Gray Lady Obscures Cause of Deadly Kiev Clashes

Having suckled at the Gray Lady's teat for many a year, one grows sensitive to her wiles and her ways. Today's frontpage story, "Clashes in Kiev Kill Dozens as Protesters Cling to Square," by Andrew Higgins and Andrew Kramer is case in point. Usually in describing an event like the deadly clashes roiling Kiev's Independence Square reporters begin at the beginning, when hostilities were actually initiated. But to get that information the reader has to wade through many column inches before finally, near the story's end, arriving at a vague idea that violence began near the Ukrainian Parliament when street toughs attacked security forces after the opposition failed to pass constitutional amendments designed to curtail presidential powers:

Some protesters acknowledged that they had contributed to the violent spiral of events by attacking police officers during street battles early in the day near the Ukrainian Parliament, which the opposition had hoped would approve constitutional amendments curbing President Yanukovych’s powers.

“We have no other way,” said Lena Melniko, a 33-year-old accountant who joined a team of protesters digging up paving stones and passing them on to fighters to throw at the police, “We have been protesting for three months but are stuck in a dead end.”

Instead of opening their story in a way that would allow for readers to piece together the logic of the violence, Higgins and Kramer go out of their way to obscure and distract by beginning their report at the end of the action, like a sophisticated Coen brothers film noir:

KIEV, Ukraine — Protesters in Kiev stoked what they are calling a “ring of fire” separating themselves from the riot police in a desperate final effort on Wednesday to defend a stage on Independence Square that has been a focal point of their protests and keep their three-month-old movement alive. 

Men staggering with exhaustion dismantled the tents and field kitchens from the movement’s earlier and more peaceful phase and hauled their remnants onto the fires. They piled on mattresses, sleeping bags, tent frames, foam pads and whatever else looked flammable, burning their own encampment in a final act of defiance. 

Ukraine’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday that 25 people, including police officers, protesters and a journalist found dead on a side street near the square, had been killed after hundreds of riot police officers advanced on the antigovernment demonstrators Tuesday and in subsequent fighting on streets in the government district of the Ukrainian capital.

From there on out until almost the end of the piece you can get mostly sports reporting, the ebb and flow of the street battle, though Higgins and Kramer do find space in the middle of their story for the pro forma statements from Western officials warning Ukrainian officials against using force to take control of their burning capital:

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. telephoned Mr. Yanukovych to “express grave concern regarding the crisis on the streets” of Kiev and urged him “to pull back government forces and to exercise maximum restraint,” the vice president’s office said in a statement on Tuesday. 

Secretary of State John Kerry urged Mr. Yanukovych to stop the bloodshed. “We call on President Yanukovych and the Ukrainian government to de-escalate the situation immediately, and resume dialogue with the opposition on a peaceful path forward. Ukraine’s deep divisions will not be healed by spilling more innocent blood,” he said in a statement. 

The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, warned the Ukrainian government that it could face sanctions. 

“Whoever is responsible for the decisions which have led to the bloodshed in Kiev and other parts of Ukraine should expect Europe to reconsider its position on imposing sanctions on individuals,” Mr. Steinmeier said in a statement on Tuesday night. The bloodshed erupted only hours after Mr. Steinmeier had received the two main opposition leaders, Vitali Klitschko and Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, in Berlin, where they also met Chancellor Angela Merkel.

This morning there is a story about another lethal terror bombing in southern Beirut by Al Qaeda affiliate Abdullah Azzam Brigades; five dead and dozens wounded. Can we expect a call from Joe Biden warning Lebanese President Michel Suleiman against responding with violence?