Potential military action?

We are reading reports of concentrations of special forces in and around the city. The head of a local sanatorium to prepare for close to a thousand special forces. This is in the forest of Pushaveditsa, a place ironically where the partizans functioned in World War II. He has some problems though because he only has room for 500. (A sanatorium is a very popular place of resort for Ukrainians. They see them as a place to restore and revitalize themselves. There are quite a large number of them around.)

A resident of the same area has seen a tank in the forest there. That is not a place where tanks are headquartered or stored.

Yesterday, it was reported that close to a hundred buses were near the monument called "Rodina Mat"--a 300 foot high statue of a woman with sword and shield upraised given by Brezhnev to the people of Ukraine in the 70s as a token of friendship (Some Soviet irony perhaps?) The passengers were men dressed in black with their hair described as what the military in the US would call "high and tight." Some suggested that these were just thugs coming from east Ukraine, but they had to be special forces to me. The interesting thing was that they were not dressed in military uniform. Maybe they want any counter measures to look like a clash between citizens.

Interestingly, Rodina Mat has an outdoor museum of military hardware from WWII to Afghanistan. And there is a kind of ad hoc exhibit using a Hind helicopter about the war in Afghanistan which sounds an awful lot like an exhibit that could have come from the Vietnam War. (Or at least CBS's version of that war.) Maybe they gathered there for some sort of renewal and to take from there the conviction that there will be no more Afghanistans ("no more Vietnams!") when they fire on the Ukrainian people? That is, if they do fire.

This might also account for the reports I relayed the other day of buses on their way to Kiev from the east accompanied by police escort. This could have been busloads of these special forces on their way to Kiev.

A general of the army announced last night that there would be no involvement of the army against peaceful demonstrations and constitutional procedures. Many might have heard the "no involvement part" and relaxed. But the qualifiers would open the gates wide.

UPDATE: Local channel 5 is reporting Russian spetznaz forces in an area just outside of Kiev. I don't know how they know they are Russian or not, rather than Ukrainian, but that is the report.

It is interesting that Putin was the first to congratulate Yanukovych for his win on Sunday. He did it before the final result was in. The Russian observers also certified the election as transparent and fair, 180 degrees from all the other observers from the rest of the world.