The official NMA board
General Category => Everything Else => Topic started by: Pol on March 05, 2014, 01:08:08 PM
-
Russian and Vladimir Putin invade Crimea and Ukraine armed with £86 millions worth of British weapons ! Lets no hope it's Here comes world war 3
-
Vlad Spewtin like most totalitarian dictators is determined to write himself into the history books. Conquest is always the easy way to do this.
-
they are all dictators. every last one of them. and they all want to go down I history. for such intelligent people I always wonder why they think that matters once they are dead.
anyhow, there is a lot of posturing. pretty sure they already know what the other side wants. Ukraine pipelines supply 30% of natural gas to Europe from Russia. sounds a little "afghanistani" all over again to me. they tried the people protests. pretty sure the cia were behind a lot of that just like the arab spring. not sure how much Russia will take with interference with their interests.
-
Imagine a load of teenage boys playing Risk............... Seems to be the only ability required to be a world "leader" (Ha!).
Personally I think the largely USA/European axis has had something like this coming for a while. Our recent history of "running round the world acting superior" ignoring accepted conventions and frameworks has surely meant that others round the world have been waiting for a chance to slap us back. Unfortunately I think Putin and co. have decided that this is a perfect opportunity to give us that slap.
I'm not there, I don't know any Ukrainians all I have is what's gleaned from the media. So I can't take sides in this because for every voice I hear that's "Pro-EU" I hear another that's "Pro-Russia". It does seem that the roots of this goes way back in history to when euro states coalesced into countries and this is a dispute that got postponed because of 2 world wars and a Soviet empire.
I must say tho' that I am intrinsically anti Vladimir "Brokeback Mountain" Putin - surely that amoeba is so far in the closet he's in ******* Narnia? (Oh and if you GCHQ/KGB/NSA boys are searching this place then I'll happily call for a comedy jihad slapping him with an plastic fish stuffed with exploding jelly but lets hope it wasn't swimming off Dungeness because it will be covered in uranium, I bet if you google there's a video out there where you can watch someone doing that to themselves in the buff)
Good times?
:-*
-
all part of the plan
-
is that the plan to be,, ras-Putin, Tsar of all the Russia's ::)
-
anyhow, there is a lot of posturing. pretty sure they already know what the other side wants. Ukraine pipelines supply 30% of natural gas to Europe from Russia. sounds a little "afghanistani" all over again to me. they tried the people protests. pretty sure the cia were behind a lot of that just like the arab spring. not sure how much Russia will take with interference with their interests.
I keep hearing this bandied about so I checked with the dozen or so close friends I have who have spent varying amounts of time on the Maidan barricades (or volunteering to cook, clean etc) and not a single one has gotten their CIA paycheck yet...Man are they angry about that....
-
maybe i listened to too much jello back in the day
-
Things seem quite serious there at Krim now. It makes to wonder the ambiguous way Russia always seem to interact with other nations. Especially with us neighboring nations. The on-going public talk and news are probably forgeting where all that Ukraine issue started only couple of weeks ago: man, their president gave orders to shoot civilians, didn't he? Then he fled to Russia whining he's the official president.
You probably understand it's very hard to be objective here when the history (http://www.google.fi/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFinnish_Declaration_of_Independence&ei=1FwfU-3zH4P9ywP7kYLwCA&usg=AFQjCNET6vAxqfBCKJUxg8uacs8-8lVG0Q&bvm=bv.62788935,d.bGQ&cad=rja) with Finland and Russia is what it is. But I try. Couple of words before that: Finland declared its independence in 1917. We've beated Russia twice in wars. But we've always been a land what other nations bicker and pretend for. Still we've had own language which originates from the culture that is thousands of years old, like in other Fenno-Ugrian cultures too.
We've lost territories to Russia too and nearly every second person have lost generic, uncle or someone in a war. Me too, so I can fairly say I'm not the best person to be objective.
Here's the old Finnish map (http://www.zum.de/whkmla/histatlas/scandinavia/fin192039.gif) before the Second world war. Here's (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Finnish_areas_ceded_in_1944.png) after the Second world war and the lost territories.
-
It's over in Krim (Crimea) for the Ukrainians. The Europeans, and I mean the Western ones, and by that I mean mainly Germany and London (Not the UK-Just London...I mean we wouldn't want to upset Chelsea football) have decided that too take any real action is not in their interest. So Ukraine is gonna take it in the neck...Give it a few weeks and they'll be in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, blocking off the west from the sea.....They may let Western Ukraine go off on it's own and become some small buffer state between them and Poland, but beyond that ther's not much reason to feel optimism for Ukraine...... Just at the start of this week 700 Russian special forces arrived here in Moldova on the Transnistria side of the river, so it seems highly unlikely that Russia has much else planned than to regain complete control over the former Soviet Republics.... We're packing our go bags and setting them by the door in case we need to make a run for the Romanian border.....
And frankly if I lived in the Baltic states I'd be nervous about how much you can rely on western Europe, NATO or not.... I am aware that the US sent 6 or 7 extra fighter jets to Poland and Lithuania this week, but even the US can't do much without Berlin on-board and it looks more and more like they have agreeed not to challenege Putin anywhere much east of Warsaw... I mean Gerhard Schroeder left the German Chancellorship and went right to work for Putin.....Can't help but feel the fix is in....
Sad, Ukraine has a ton of potential , in its people and in its resources but it just doesn't look good....
-
Anyone curious about what's going on or trying to get caught up/make sense of alot of contradictory media noise coming from the press (especially The Guardian or The Fail) should watch this 43 minute film.....It's use of "heart stirring" music and appeals to God on high, can come across as pretty heavy handed and ham fisted to Western audiences (I know it did me) but the timeline is irrefutable and the overall feeling I have for it is it's an honest and balanced accounting of what happened/is happening...
Contrary to some talking, this didn't start a few weeks ago, but back in November, it isn't a west-east/ethnic thing, the "nazi"/fascist angle is completely overplayed and misunderstood.....Students were having a peaceful protest about the turning away from the EU, the Government sent in special police to beat the snot out of the kids, this pissed their parents off and coupled with the abolsute corrpution of the Yanuk government pretty much convinced most ordinary Ukrainians that enough was enough......
Oh it's in Ukrainian and Russian but has english subtitles....
Revolution of Dignity by ICTV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiWnIYemag&feature=sharecontrol (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiWnIYemag&feature=sharecontrol)
-
Oh s*** what they're doing now there? Tomorrow they have the so-called "election" which is largerly judged by 13/15 other nations as a con. Well now Russian soldiers tried to cross the northern border outside Crim (Crimean? Krim? -how do you say it in English?) and Ukraine sent air forces there immediately.
It's going to get nasty there. What is a vote when there is only two alternatives to choose and not a single chance offered to say "NO" for the Russian conquerors?
-
outside Crim (Crimean? Krim? -how do you say it in English?) and Ukraine sent air forces there immediately.
when we fought there 1853-6 with the French, we called it the Crimean Peninsula. The Germans 1941-42 called it Krim.
If Putin were being honest, he would call it, - the key to the Black Sea >:(
-
Anyone curious about what's going on or trying to get caught up/make sense of alot of contradictory media noise coming from the press (especially The Guardian or The Fail) should watch this 43 minute film.....It's use of "heart stirring" music and appeals to God on high, can come across as pretty heavy handed and ham fisted to Western audiences (I know it did me) but the timeline is irrefutable and the overall feeling I have for it is it's an honest and balanced accounting of what happened/is happening...
Contrary to some talking, this didn't start a few weeks ago, but back in November, it isn't a west-east/ethnic thing, the "nazi"/fascist angle is completely overplayed and misunderstood.....Students were having a peaceful protest about the turning away from the EU, the Government sent in special police to beat the snot out of the kids, this pissed their parents off and coupled with the abolsute corrpution of the Yanuk government pretty much convinced most ordinary Ukrainians that enough was enough......
Oh it's in Ukrainian and Russian but has english subtitles....
Revolution of Dignity by ICTV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiWnIYemag&feature=sharecontrol (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiWnIYemag&feature=sharecontrol)
Just watched it. Thanks for sharing. Interesting. I'm not sure how balanced it is, though. The film makers and everyone interviewed are obviously opposed to the old regime. While I'd probably side with the views portrayed here, it would have been interesting to let the other side explain their rationale.
Here is hoping for a peaceful outcome in the Ukraine.
-
My poor English: I wrote election although that wasn't an election but just a vote - if even that. But I think there should be coming an election as well on May. Everything seems to happen so fast there that it's a bit difficult to follow things clearly.
This brings in my mind a question how clearly we can get a view in Europe and/or western world. Should not forget that the so-called wellfare civilisation is just a dream here too with all its negative sides as well. These kind of issues get often a black & white perspective about good and the bad, but it's never so easy.
Shush, it's called Krim in Finnish too. That's interesting information that England were there in 1850's, I didn't know that... And thanks to Billy T and Johnz for the information. Do you know btw is a group called IndyMedia still active? They tried to spread uncensored information at the time of G8 and EU-meeting riots. I remember they were active at least in start of 2000's.
-
Oh yes, we were there for three years. Never heard of "the charge of the Light Brigade" ?
-
Just watched it. Thanks for sharing. Interesting. I'm not sure how balanced it is, though. The film makers and everyone interviewed are obviously opposed to the old regime. While I'd probably side with the views portrayed here, it would have been interesting to let the other side explain their rationale.
Here is hoping for a peaceful outcome in the Ukraine.
I guess where I'm going with the balance is that, surprising to me, was the sensitvity portrayed about regular police forces, who while not nearly as savage as Berkut (special police forces) were still responsible for their share of repression and corruption.....
As far as the other side, we did hear from them, but which other side?....One opposing side ran Ukraine for a few years now and seemed to do nothing but manipulate the judiciary, steal money, and make themselves generally unpopular.... And after the shootings many actually defected from the PoR (Party of Regions-Yanuk's party) and voted with the rest of parliament to strip him of his powers...of course some PoR members packed their bags and got the hell out of town.....So even in the ruling party the members seem to know which of themselves belong on the chopping block and which are just ordinary politicians....
Now if you say other-side and mean ethnic Russians, well that is way overplayed in the Western media and obvioulsy any Kremlin sources or sympathizers. Most people in the east regardless of ethnicity were sick and tired of the corruption and graft....The popular saying in Ukraine is "In the West they curse the PoR in Ukrainian, in the East they curse the PoR in Russian".....Also it should be noted that a few of the Oligarchs (the real power in Ukraine), who are almost to a man so-called "Easterners, ethnic Russians and/or native Russian speakers) have come down to help restore calm and order and have all called for Ukrainian soveriegnty to be respected....
These clashes you've been seeing the past week or so in the East (not Crimea) seem to be being organized and perpetrated by large groups of Russian "tourists".... Ukrainian Television has the same woman pretending to be a put upon local Russo-Ukrainian widow in like 4 or 5 different cities....They are assisted by Titushki (local thugs) paid for their mayhem (this is an old former USSR tactic in all these coutries-paid protestors who vanish into the woodwork when the smoke clears)
We here in Chisinau (Moldova) have a checkpoint of Russian "peace keepers" no more than a 20 minute drive from the city for the entrance into Transnistria and another 700 Rusian special forces were recently sent to augment their "readiness"....Concurrently Moscow has been stirring up things in the Gaugauz (Turkish Christian Orthodox peoples - Native langauge Russian and Turkish-though even their Turkish is written in Cyrillic) region of Southern Moldova over the past few weeks, so anyone who thinks Crimea is a one-off or isolated situation is mistaken, also the pot-stirring in Gaugauzia also shows this isn't about "protecting" ethnic Russians, but in restoring to Russia it's previous levels of control of the near-abroad as it was in Soviet times....
I will be damned surprised if you dont hear the words "Moldova" more in the Western press in the coming month or so....
And all that said I have 3 freinds coming down from Kyiv this weekend so I'm sure I will hear something interesting.....
-
Well hell, change pages and already we are getting more fun......
"Moldova's Trans-Dniester region pleads to join Russia"
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26627236 (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26627236)
-
I guess where I'm going with the balance is that, surprising to me, was the sensitvity portrayed about regular police forces, who while not nearly as savage as Berkut (special police forces) were still responsible for their share of repression and corruption.....
As far as the other side, we did hear from them, but which other side?....One opposing side ran Ukraine for a few years now and seemed to do nothing but manipulate the judiciary, steal money, and make themselves generally unpopular.... And after the shootings many actually defected from the PoR (Party of Regions-Yanuk's party) and voted with the rest of parliament to strip him of his powers...of course some PoR members packed their bags and got the hell out of town.....So even in the ruling party the members seem to know which of themselves belong on the chopping block and which are just ordinary politicians....
Now if you say other-side and mean ethnic Russians, well that is way overplayed in the Western media and obvioulsy any Kremlin sources or sympathizers. Most people in the east regardless of ethnicity were sick and tired of the corruption and graft....The popular saying in Ukraine is "In the West they curse the PoR in Ukrainian, in the East they curse the PoR in Russian".....Also it should be noted that a few of the Oligarchs (the real power in Ukraine), who are almost to a man so-called "Easterners, ethnic Russians and/or native Russian speakers) have come down to help restore calm and order and have all called for Ukrainian soveriegnty to be respected....
These clashes you've been seeing the past week or so in the East (not Crimea) seem to be being organized and perpetrated by large groups of Russian "tourists".... Ukrainian Television has the same woman pretending to be a put upon local Russo-Ukrainian widow in like 4 or 5 different cities....They are assisted by Titushki (local thugs) paid for their mayhem (this is an old former USSR tactic in all these coutries-paid protestors who vanish into the woodwork when the smoke clears)
We here in Chisinau (Moldova) have a checkpoint of Russian "peace keepers" no more than a 20 minute drive from the city for the entrance into Transnistria and another 700 Rusian special forces were recently sent to augment their "readiness"....Concurrently Moscow has been stirring up things in the Gaugauz (Turkish Christian Orthodox peoples - Native langauge Russian and Turkish-though even their Turkish is written in Cyrillic) region of Southern Moldova over the past few weeks, so anyone who thinks Crimea is a one-off or isolated situation is mistaken, also the pot-stirring in Gaugauzia also shows this isn't about "protecting" ethnic Russians, but in restoring to Russia it's previous levels of control of the near-abroad as it was in Soviet times....
I will be damned surprised if you dont hear the words "Moldova" more in the Western press in the coming month or so....
And all that said I have 3 freinds coming down from Kyiv this weekend so I'm sure I will hear something interesting.....
Thanks for the reply Billy. Really interesting. Yes, I was thinking of the ethnic Russians and those Ukrainians that voted to break away from the Ukraine. How true are the right-wing allegations levelled against the new government? I know that some have never forgiven the Ukraine for siding with the Nazis so willingly. Is this just being exploited by the Russian propaganda machine or is there some merit to that? Is the new government any better than the old one? I'm not very well informed when it comes to that part of the world so I really appreciate to get some insight from someone who actually lives in the region.
-
How true are the right-wing allegations levelled against the new government? I know that some have never forgiven the Ukraine for siding with the Nazis so willingly. Is this just being exploited by the Russian propaganda machine or is there some merit to that? Is the new government any better than the old one? I'm not very well informed when it comes to that part of the world so I really appreciate to get some insight from someone who actually lives in the region.
3 members of the Svoboda (neo-fascist) party are in the new cabinet so it's certainly not ALL Russian propaganda. Just like despite what the west is desperately trying to say the majority of Crimeans WANT to be part of Russia (regardless of whether the hasty and fairly dodgy referendum they held was 'legal' or not) which is rather clearly evidenced by what people tell the media when they're interviewed and the fact that the 'mysterious' militias that have appeared and taken control of the peninsula have been largely welcome and have done so without firing a single shot. The Crimea was only transferred to the Ukraine SSR from the Russian Federation SSR in 1954, by Kruschev. Why he did it I don't know, possibly because it is geographically attached to mainland Ukraine, what it's certain is that at the time it was the same country anyway (and it had been since much earlier than the October revolution and the birth of the Soviet Union; Russia and the Ukraine, minus the western part of it, had been a single country since the middle ages, another fact the west conveniently chooses to ignore. The Ukraine, like some of the other former Soviet Republics had never existed as independent countries till 1992 and were hastily and artificially created by the west precisely for the reason they now don't want Russia to get them back: to weaken Russia as much as possible) so he didn't think this would one day generate a problem.
The rest of the country I honestly don't know, and I don't doubt the eastern part might have been as pissed off with the old government as the western one was. What I DO know from what I've seen with my own eyes the two times I've been there though is that a) the only place of those I've been to (Lvov, Kiev, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk) where I have heard anything OTHER THAN Russian spoken is Lvov, which is very near the Polish border and was part of Poland at various times in history and b) that pretty much all the Ukrainians from east of Kiev I've come into contact with - whether in the Ukraine or over here - certainly never saw the Russians as 'enemies', more like some sort of 'cousins', kinda in the way the various Scandinavian populations see each other. Of course this doesn't necessarily mean they want to rejoin Russia, but the vast majority of the population certainly don't want to break all ties with them either and feel culturally closer to them than to us western Europeans.
Putin certainly has his own agenda about the Ukraine and uses the 'ethnic Russians' excuse to further his aims, but so do America and the west, and the latter care as much about ordinary Ukrainians as he does, ie zilch. If both superpowers fucked off and left them alone they might just have a chance of finding a way that pleases most of the people, whether it involves keeping the country with its present borders or allowing some parts of it to rejoin the Russian Federation.
-
[...] The Ukraine, like some of the other former Soviet Republics had never existed as independent countries till 1992 and were hastily and artificially created by the west precisely for the reason they now don't want Russia to get them back: to weaken Russia as much as possible) so he didn't think this would one day generate a problem. [...]
Hi Danny. May I ask: by a reference to 1992 - do you mean the Baltic or rather mid-Eastern Europe or even South-Eastern Europe? I wouldn't be so sure about the artificiality, because there are numerous ethnicities who have a various, long tradition of culture. I'm not kidding if I say it started since the Attila and the Huns, Genghis Khan, Roman empire and Mesopotamia :-). You know, I often like to remind about a prehistorical era when it concerns other than western Europe, because folks around eastern Europe have started wandering thousands of years ago before settling down. I've also seen "these" territories are more like a shadowy and unknown part to the rest of the world.
I may lead this a bit to off-topic once again, but not all the countries at the borders of Russia have the same situation. It goes further than nation borders and economics. But now the public talk with Ukraine seem to stay at the same levels. However, I think it's true that after being under a Russian siege, many of the countries raised their indepedent status quite high. We should also remember that after the Second World war (which is seen as a taboo) there were many countries that actually had co-operation with nazis at some degree. But I can't see that as a reason to all neighboring nations getting toward rightwing. In Finland for example, there was a war in Lapland once too and nazis travelled through the Sweden there to help the Finn's strike against the Stalin's army. The Germans were nicknamed here as "Lapland burners" because they set fire everywhere and they're not seen as a help in the case.
Some trivia (only) about the Fenno-Ugrians and the Ugrians: Sixteen (16) cultures, all having their own language but with many similarities. Some of them became extinct and forever gone after 1900`s. There are three (3) of them who are independent nations (Finland, Estonia & Hungary). Finland & Estonia belong to the Baltic-Finnish part, while Hungary belong to the Ugrian part. Others of the "family tree" are scattered in numerous areas in Russia and Siberia as far away as until the Bering Sea. Some of them are animistic hunter cultures. In Russia they are clearly minorities (although counted as many tens or hundreds of thousands) and have faced the controls of Russian state and its efforts to "turn" them to Russian culture.
-
great thread. great content. going to take a while to intellectualise what is being said. might try and contribute after that
-
Some interesting points of populations shifts Rusco. Tribes in Eastern Europe for centuries did not habitat known borders. The Russians have been good at populations shift for centuries, especially after the three patricians of Poland in the late 1700s. Most of what is Ukraine today was part of the 1st Polish republic. After Russian occupation in the 1800s, they rounded up the Jewish populations and moved to western Poland, hence the large population available for Hitler's Holocaust of WW2. After moving all of post-war occupied Poland westward, populations in this area were again shifted eastwards make the area more Russian.
The Germans also with their expansions into the east. Peoples forced out of areas were re-populated during the war with German speakers "liberated" from eastern areas. This also to them was not a new thing, the area known as Prussia was inhabited by the Prussians. Not the people we know as the Germans from eastern Germany, but a now long gone European tribe, the Germans took their land, and even their name.
You mention the Ukrainian cooperation with the Germans during the war. Most of the German occupied countries supplied the Germans with a Waffen-SS division, be it made up from volunteers or conscripts, such as the Finnish Viking Division. When the Germans invaded the Ukraine in 1941, many locals greeted them as liberators, but this was soon rejected by them Germans who wanted the land and forced labour. Later on as the war turned against them, they were able to recruit many into the Waffen-ss divisions. Ukrainian and Cossack divisions. These units responsible for many of the worst atrocities during the Warsaw Rising 1944.
The population and borders of Poland and Russia over the area of the Ukraine has been in movement for centuries making the history of the area very - very confusing and open to a lot of mis-interpretation, selecting whichever facts suit the current political situation. Nationality is so often validated by selected history.
-
wow
any authors/books that you would recommend on the subject of the tribes?
just like africa or the north American people before colonisation there is a lack of good sources.
I've watched the 500 nations series about the Americas. its so enlightening
-
wow
any authors/books that you would recommend on the subject of the tribes?
just like africa or the north American people before colonisation there is a lack of good sources.
I've watched the 500 nations series about the Americas. its so enlightening
"Poland and the Baltic" by Henryk Baginski covers central - eastern European race / tribes in-depth.
-
cheers.
-
Hi Danny. May I ask: by a reference to 1992 - do you mean the Baltic or rather mid-Eastern Europe or even South-Eastern Europe? I wouldn't be so sure about the artificiality, because there are numerous ethnicities who have a various, long tradition of culture. I'm not kidding if I say it started since the Attila and the Huns, Genghis Khan, Roman empire and Mesopotamia :-). You know, I often like to remind about a prehistorical era when it concerns other than western Europe, because folks around eastern Europe have started wandering thousands of years ago before settling down. I've also seen "these" territories are more like a shadowy and unknown part to the rest of the world.
Wasn't referring to the Baltics, that - although by no means as straightforward as some in the would like to make it - is another question entirely. Although very few former Soviet Republics had ever been independent states in history (when they weren't under/part of Russia in one of its forms they were under/part of some other nation or empire) I was especially referring to the Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and to a lesser extent Kazakhstan, and even those 4 for rather different reasons from each other.
What you say about tribes and ethnicities is certainly true, but that applies to virtually every part of the world, not just Russia and Eastern Europe. Of course the bigger the country the more separate ethnicities there will be (hence why Russia is - and has been at least since Soviet times - a federation with quite a few autonomous republics/territories) but virtually every single country I can think of, down to rather small ones like the UK, Italy or even Belgium or the Netherlands have sections of the population who see themselves as different from the majority and seek greater autonomy or in some cases even independence.
In principle I'm in favour of the right of self-determination of peoples, but that applies both ways - so if for instance the Crimeans want to be part of Russia (as it seems they do) they should be allowed to
-
First of all I know it seems pendantic, but even calling it "the" Ukraine" is loaded colonialist langauge, the name of the country is just Ukraine, "the Ukraine" is a term created under colonialist powers to discount the culture of the tribes, if you must, who lived there...
3 members of the Svoboda (neo-fascist) party are in the new cabinet so it's certainly not ALL Russian propaganda.
This is true and disgusting, just note that civic activists as well as many regular people are furious about this. The PM also condemned it, though the Verkovna Rada has yet to do anything about it. Also, while not an excuse, this fella did just spend the past few months running a televison station airing entirely pro-Yanukovich viewpoints, it's bit surprising it took someone this long to do something. And make no mistake it was just about the dumbest thing that could have been done.
Just like despite what the west is desperately trying to say the majority of Crimeans WANT to be part of Russia (regardless of whether the hasty and fairly dodgy referendum they held was 'legal' or not) which is rather clearly evidenced by what people tell the media when they're interviewed and the fact that the 'mysterious' militias that have appeared and taken control of the peninsula have been largely welcome and have done so without firing a single shot.
Any way you slice it, a referendum at the end of the barrel of a gun....Crimea's population is 58% ethnic Russians, and assuming all of them wanted to go, still in no way accounts for a 95% aye vote...We know the Tatars didn't vote for it, and there's little reason to believe all the rest of the people being ethnic Ukrainians voted aye...The vote was rigged, you get that right? I'm not saying it wouldn't have passed in its own right, with say a 60-40 split, but nowhere on earth do 95% of people agree with anything...But if it was such a sure thing, why fix it? Also note the Crimean "Prime minister" installed by the "self defence" forces got a whopping 4% in the last election, but sure now he's the most popular guy in Crimea? Oh and don't look to closely at the debts he owes to banks in Kyiv.....
Also the mysterious militas that have been welcomed, sure have in Simferopol and Sevastopol, two majority Russian cities....Whereas in other places, welcome not so much, but the people have been quiet....Being outgunned will do that to you....
And bloodless, well if you don't count the Tatars whov'e been beaten to a pulp, the journalists who've been held and beaten, nevermind the intimidations such as swastikas, painted on the synagogues which according to the Rabbai's was never a problem until these "self defence" forces arrived, or the Ukrainian soldiers families who haven't been allowed to visit their loved ones or even deliver food.
Crimea's chief Rabbi escaped from Crimea with a torrah scroll he smuggled out, he's telling pretty openly what sort of welcome has been enforced, along with half a dozen Tatar families who have found refuge in the Lviv region...The supposed hotbed of Nazism
"The Crimea was only transferred to the Ukraine SSR from the Russian Federation SSR in 1954, by Kruschev. Why he did it I don't know, possibly because it is geographically attached to mainland Ukraine, what it's certain is that at the time it was the same country anyway (and it had been since much earlier than the October revolution and the birth of the Soviet Union; Russia and the Ukraine, minus the western part of it, had been a single country since the middle ages, another fact the west conveniently chooses to ignore. The Ukraine, like some of the other former Soviet Republics had never existed as independent countries till 1992 and were hastily and artificially created by the west precisely for the reason they now don't want Russia to get them back: to weaken Russia as much as possible) so he didn't think this would one day generate a problem.
Wow....where to start...Ok so the transfer of Ukraine to Ukrainian SSR wasn't seen as a big deal at the time as you say.....However these 1992 borders were in no way shape or form drawn up by th West...These were exactly the borders that had seperated the various SSR's....They, themselevs agreed to these borders in their process of disolution....If Crimea was so vital why wasn't that bone of contention during the disolution and later formation of the CIS?
Also this 1954 date keeps being thrown around as if it's some sort of justification...OK nobodies arguing that Crimea used to be part of the Russian SSR, or even the Russian empire before that....But why is that anymore of a valid argument than the fact that is was the Crimean Khanate for 400 years before that? It belonged to the Tatars much longer, but nobody is running around pointing guns at people in the name of the Khanate's restoration....So, honestly 1954, 1984, 1785...What does any of it have to with the price of rice in China today?
The rest of the country I honestly don't know, and I don't doubt the eastern part might have been as pissed off with the old government as the western one was. What I DO know from what I've seen with my own eyes the two times I've been there though is that a) the only place of those I've been to (Lvov, Kiev, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk) where I have heard anything OTHER THAN Russian spoken is Lvov, which is very near the Polish border and was part of Poland at various times in history and b) that pretty much all the Ukrainians from east of Kiev I've come into contact with - whether in the Ukraine or over here - certainly never saw the Russians as 'enemies', more like some sort of 'cousins', kinda in the way the various Scandinavian populations see each other. Of course this doesn't necessarily mean they want to rejoin Russia, but the vast majority of the population certainly don't want to break all ties with them either and feel culturally closer to them than to us western Europeans.
Well, what I DO know from having lived there 3 years, Moscow for 2 and now Moldova for 3 years is that a lot of what you are saying is correct, but first the langauge issue....The vast majority of Ukraine's peoples speak both, more or less, some areas are more prone to use Ukrainian, some Russian, and even some Romanian, Polish, or Hungarian...The language issue is largely a giant bone of contentiononly between radicals and bored old academics, but not ordinary people...In fact Kyiv and the central part of the country speak what the locals call "sirzhik" which is a straight up mix of the two big languages peppered with a good dose of local slang....It's the same here in Moldova, more or less, you listen to two people talk and they will drift back and forth between Russian and Romanian, sometimes in mid sentence...Ukraine is largely no different, especially with the two languages being from the same "family"....My first trip to Lviv ( I call it by it's Ukrainan name, not Russian Lvov) I was warned by friends in Kyiv to be careful about speaking Russian (the only one I have any hope in), but oddly enough during my time out there people sure seemed happier once they knew we could communicate in any language and didnt get hung up on which...I've had the exact same experience in Lithuania and Estonia as well....
That said, yeah the people were amazingly close culturally and even commonly in families...Intermarriage bewteen ethnic groups was terribly commonplace in the USSR and so today you'd be hardpressed to find anyone in any of the other former republics who doesn't have family living in Russia.....There have been absolutely zero incidents of anti-Russianism in Ukraine since the start of Maidan...No single reputable source can be found for this..... These clashes in the eastern cities lately have resulted in zero pro-Russian fatalities but have resulted in a few dead pro-Ukrainian protestors....So who's doing all the stabbing? What I'm getting at is though the cultural ties are strong, Putin is doing more harm to them than help.....
Putin certainly has his own agenda about the Ukraine and uses the 'ethnic Russians' excuse to further his aims, but so do America and the west, and the latter care as much about ordinary Ukrainians as he does, ie zilch. If both superpowers fucked off and left them alone they might just have a chance of finding a way that pleases most of the people, whether it involves keeping the country with its present borders or allowing some parts of it to rejoin the Russian Federation.
Agreed about the other powers leaving them the hell alone, but there's one who just won't....The people themselves were tired of Yanuk stealing and abusing them, they rose up and said enough and Putin said oh no you don't. Left alone by Russia, there would be no big push to cozy up to the west...Most Ukrainian's in poll after poll for the past 10 years have expressed a strong desire to stay free of NATO, maintain their neutrality, and to develop strong and freindly relationships with both east and west...Putin refused to accept this and wanted to force them into his Eurasian alliance....And taht's how this current shitestorm kicked off....And in the end he has probably created his own self fulfiling prophecy of "losing" Ukraine for good....
-
wow
any authors/books that you would recommend on the subject of the tribes?
just like africa or the north American people before colonisation there is a lack of good sources.
I've watched the 500 nations series about the Americas. its so enlightening
If you are interested in Ukraine's history there is a book called Ukraine: a history by Orest Subtlney, the largest, most comprehensive history of Ukraine in English, but be warned-it's big
http://www.amazon.com/Ukraine-History-Orest-Subtelny-ebook/dp/B005DB7J9G/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395417672&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=orest+subtelney (http://www.amazon.com/Ukraine-History-Orest-Subtelny-ebook/dp/B005DB7J9G/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395417672&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=orest+subtelney)
An easier read and still good book is Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine by Anna Reid, very good, gets to the main points without chapters about medieval farming yields
http://www.amazon.com/Borderland-Journey-through-History-Ukraine/dp/0813337925/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1395417672&sr=8-3-spell&keywords=orest+subtelney (http://www.amazon.com/Borderland-Journey-through-History-Ukraine/dp/0813337925/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1395417672&sr=8-3-spell&keywords=orest+subtelney)
And then there's Black Sea by Neal Ascherson...This is one of my all time faves on any subject...I think it's a gem....It doesn't cover just Ukraine but all of the peoples around the Black Sea, with one notable exception -the Romanians. It's part serious history lesson, part travelogue written at the collapse of the USSR, and even part lesson on the serious ecological situation in the Black Sea...Really nice prose keeps it from ever being dry as well.......
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Sea-Neal-Ascherson/dp/0809015935/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395417891&sr=8-1&keywords=black+sea (http://www.amazon.com/Black-Sea-Neal-Ascherson/dp/0809015935/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395417891&sr=8-1&keywords=black+sea)
-
Thanks for the reply Billy. Really interesting. Yes, I was thinking of the ethnic Russians and those Ukrainians that voted to break away from the Ukraine. How true are the right-wing allegations levelled against the new government? I know that some have never forgiven the Ukraine for siding with the Nazis so willingly. Is this just being exploited by the Russian propaganda machine or is there some merit to that? Is the new government any better than the old one? I'm not very well informed when it comes to that part of the world so I really appreciate to get some insight from someone who actually lives in the region.
There are right-wingers and ultra-right wingers in the new government, but there are also moderates, left wingers, student activists, academics, gangsters, oligarchs, 1 former heavy weight boxing champion and every other stripe of a people that make up any country on earth. There are also many members of the deposed Presidents party still in parliament (the Verkhovna Rada). There are ethnic Ukrainians, ethnic Russians, probably an ethnic Moldovan or two, Orthodox Christians, Jews, Catholics and probably an atheist or two. The argument that the Rada is dominated by right wingers is categorically false, but they are there.
The WW2 Nazi thing.....This is such a BS double standard....Yep a lot of Ukrainians welcomed the Nazi's, who they saw as liberators from the absolutely evil Soviet's. Remember the USSR, killed more Ukrainians in the Holodmor than Hitler killed in the Holocaust -13 million, and that doesn't include Tatars, Moldovans, and peoples from the Baltics...BUt why are the Ukrainians painted with this brush so readily? You know who else sided with the Nazi's in one fashion or another? France, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, The Baltics, Austria, Japan and Norway...Oh and you know who else enthusiastically sided with the Nazi's? Germany....But somehow Ukraine bad, everybody else? Not so much. Additionally it's rarely mentioned that after ethnic Russians, it was ethnic Ukrainians who gave the most lives in the Red Amy to defeat the Nazi's (1,377,400 dead -source Wikipedia)
As for your last question, is the new government better than the old.? Too soon to tell, there are positive signs and negative signs, but honestly due to the crisis in Crimea we aren't really getting to see how they would run a normal country. But in good news, there is actually a Maidan event planned for tomorrow to remind all the Rada that the demands of the people were not just to get rid of Yanukovich, but to clamp down on corruption and that they want a more normal country, and remember that the people are still watching....
Now I said normal country twice because in almost 10 years living in the former USSR this is the phrase I hear the most from locals when talking about their aspirations. An old fella I worked with, former Red Army Tank commander in Mongolia, during a toast for his twin granddaughters birth is the first time I heard it, and it's become something I hear at almost every birth or wedding party, and less but still frequently on other subjects as well. "I just want my (grand)children to grow up in a normal country". This is never said as a passing or flippant thing, but a passionate thing. I personally find it humbling, that for all the faults of my home country, the "normal country" was always a given.
-
without trying to simplify it too much, isn't the issue here to do with territories returning to the be part of the country they were part of before the Bolsheviks. I just don't understand why the western powers are interfering. maybe its too obvious.
-
without trying to simplify it too much, isn't the issue here to do with territories returning to the be part of the country they were part of before the Bolsheviks. I just don't understand why the western powers are interfering. maybe its too obvious.
No, it's one country trying to re-incorporate all the territories that were taken by the Bolsheviks (Stalin) in the case of Moldova (which had been a part of Romania), or that belonged to the Russian Empire in the case of Crimea, which was moved to Ukraine by the "Bolsheviks" (Kruschev). That said both of these territories have other claims to them, in the case of Moldova, an independent country for 400 or so odd years which believes it has the right to be an independent country again, and in the case of Crimea the Tartars who were forcibly and genocidally expelled from their ancesteral homeland by Stalin. In the case of the wider mainland Ukraine, it's people thinking their country and its policies should serve Ukraine and its peoples first, instead of Moscow.
As for why the west is intervening...several different reasons, in my personal opinion-some good, some bad... Some in the western political establishment see a chance to stick it to Russia, some, notably the Baltics and Poland, have historical reasons to fear Russia (that whole oppression and genocide thing again), and some of us naive dreamers think it would be nice for the Ukrainians themselves to have more control over their own destiny.
-
Preliminary invasion, or take over tactics now underway for Ukraine . Encourage the Russian population to become active so they can be "liberated"
Just as the Nazis did in the 1930s to "liberate" the German peoples of Austria , Sudetenland, and then implanted German peoples in Danzig to be liberated from their Polish oppressors leading to WW2.
Lets hope it only leads to the re-emergence of the Cold War, as opposed to WW3 >:(
-
i thought crimea was traditionally russian and not ukrainian. the tartars claim is legit. but they are a minority. and its main ties have been to russia for over a quarter of a millennium
although i am reading as much as i can. i haven't got the book yet. plenty of information to consume and try to build a view
-
Woops :-[
Sorry Heno, meant to say Ukraine earlier, not Crimea. changed it
-
i thought crimea was traditionally russian and not ukrainian. the tartars claim is legit. but they are a minority. and its main ties have been to russia for over a quarter of a millennium
Russian state should honour the numerous minorities it has. Instead of turning and adopting arrogantly them by force from their own cultures and traditions. That won't never work.
-
sure thing shush
rusco. don't the majority in crimea claim russia as their preference? and are these not the most current majority and have been for a long time?
i'm not saying its right by everyone but most democracies have majority rule and the majority, by far the majority, want russia.
-
rusco. don't the majority in crimea claim russia as their preference? and are these not the most current majority and have been for a long time?
Oh, yes. I actually thought about the minorities inside Russian borders, not in Ukraine. Right for their own language, teaching of it, occupation and religion.
-
so in effect crimea as part of russia is really a microcosm of the overall russian state and its treatment of minorities. which is a huge issue. they control some of the biggest most valuable resources on the planet and provide little or no benefit to the indigenous people who would traditionally own and benefit from the resources. so maybe the agitation is more do with the breakdown of russia which is more or less intact after giving pseudo independence with the fall of the iron curtain. and the western powers know that the indigenous peoples will give them better deals for they resources than if the russians control it.
i can remember germany very clearly setting itself up as the gateway to the east when the berlin awl came down. they were the ones that went in and helped develop the freed countries in a effort to profit from their emerging economies. a financial lebensraum maybe. i'd love to see where the germans stand on all of this. i mean the german banks and corporations, not the people
-
by the way, apologies for some spelling. the auto correct on this thing is so annoying. and i'm too tired to change it now. nite
-
Interesting thought Heno. Is the motive of the western powers the preservation of freedom, or the preservation of good trade. That thought reminds me of the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the true motives to go to war.
I think one key thing over the whole Ukraine issue, and Crimea is the way Russia is handling it. If there is true concern and belief that the majority of Crimea, and now Ukraine have a majority wishing to return to Russian rule, then there are more internationally acceptable ways of doing it, such as referendum. Not a hasty take over done in a short period of time before anyone knows what is going on.
For comparison, look at Scotland. The Scots have a massive decision to make, but the people will be making that decision after years of notice and planning and plenty of time to listen to both view points. That's the way to determine a countries liberty, not the Russian way.
-
Interesting thought Heno. Is the motive of the western powers the preservation of freedom, or the preservation of good trade. That thought reminds me of the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the true motives to go to war.
I think one key thing over the whole Ukraine issue, and Crimea is the way Russia is handling it. If there is true concern and belief that the majority of Crimea, and now Ukraine have a majority wishing to return to Russian rule, then there are more internationally acceptable ways of doing it, such as referendum. Not a hasty take over done in a short period of time before anyone knows what is going on.
For comparison, look at Scotland. The Scots have a massive decision to make, but the people will be making that decision after years of notice and planning and plenty of time to listen to both view points. That's the way to determine a countries liberty, not the Russian way.
An honest argument can be made that the majority inside Crimea wanted to return to Russia, with 58% of the population being Russian, but we'll never know because the referendum that was held was patently engineered from Moscow, with armed Russian soldiers at every polling station and the few people who showed up who openly expressed pro-ukrainian or Tatar sentiments beaten by thugs....
But pay attention carefully to what's hapening in the east right now and you'll see the same "self-defense" forces who showed up in Crimea, wearing the same uniforms and carrying the same very modern weaponry that is oh so coniscidentally the same as the spetznazt (Russian special forces) is kitted out with....
Also there are valid questions about what the West's interest is in Ukraine, is it energy, is it German banks etc. But the question I'm not seeing asked by most Western press and especially the lefty press, is "what is Russia's real interests here?"...It's very easy to point the finger at big oil, big banks etc. and they are evil, but be very aware that a good chunk of Russia's armed forces are supplied with technologies and products developed and manufactured in Ukraine....Ukraine is something like the 5th or 6th largest arms exporters in the world and their number 1 customer is Russia, by an overwhelming amount....... Without Ukraine Putin has trouble ktting out his armed forces. So for a lot of the self-loathing western set it seems to be "war for oil bad, war for weapons...wait look over there the west is doing something bad"
It should also be noted that last week before the "spontaneous" uprisings in the 4 Eastern Oblasts, the Kyiv central governemnt had already more or less agreed to Russian demands for a referendum on more autonomy for the eastern oblasts to occur on the same day as the May 25th presidential elections, to which the Russians demanded it be held before then.... Another important note, inside the 4" Russian" speaking obalsts the "peoples republic" guys, the reunion with Mother Russia guys and "self defense" forces were run out of town in all but one by the Russian speaking majority, waving Ukrainian flags and throwing rocks at them...
And in case you aren't following any of the news from Ukrainian (or even Polish sites) you should know the shooting started at the weekend in Donetsk Oblast...4 Ukrainian Intelligence Troops were shot, with 1 dying....And last night Ukrainian troops defending an air base shot and killed 3 armed protesters.... Some Ukrainian troops sent east to quell the uprising have apparently switched sides, but there is also noise that the limits placed on the Ukrainian commander were so unrealistic that his troops would have no choice but to surrender if confronted, a la the Dutch UN troops at Srebenica during the Bosnian war..... Hard to tell through the propaganda what the exact situation is here.
Today is huge though....All the muckety mucks are meeting in Luxembourg marking the first time the Russians have been willing to sit at the table with the new leadership in Kyiv, and there is a mass pro-Ukrainian rally planned for Donetsk at 18:00 tonight.....Something very big could happen today, going either way.....
-
One more blackly humorous happening during the uprisings in the east....Last week when the local "self defense" forces in Kharkiv (Ukraine's 2nd largest city) rolled into town they stormed and took over city hall.....Then realized they had actually siezed the Opera House...so left and went and found the real City Hall.....Yeah, sure those guys were locals, seems totally legit.....
Shortly thereafter they were run out of town by the locals....Russian speaking locals
-
Last week when the local "self defense" forces in Kharkiv (Ukraine's 2nd largest city) rolled into town they stormed and took over city hall.....Then realized they had actually siezed the Opera House...so left and went and found the real City Hall.....Yeah, sure those guys were locals, seems totally legit.....
;D And another page of crazy world is written...
-
interesting and very informative stuff billy t. thanks.
so it would appear there are two sides testing where the ukraine stands if they are to take a side. will they want to be autonomous which with western support they might achieve. or do they simply want to benefit from a strong omitted relationship with russia. this would be a key consideration for any invading force from west or east.
i am sure there are benefits to the west if they were to take it. certainly there are resources that would pay their expenses if contracted to them. but the west does not look like they are provoking the situation. russia is making a very clear statement that ukraine will either maintain their allegiance to moscow or they could be forced to. the west appears to making sure that the ukranian people know they have a choice if they choose otherwise.
the thing that surprises me is that the crimea was annexed to russia without much by way of opposition from the west. that can probably be attributed to europe 's dependence on russian energy resources. if it was all out US against russia and europe wasn't in the middle then the US may not have been so willing to stand by.
i'm on linked in, the business social network, and there is a guy from ukraine who is still advertising jobs for experienced western execs to take up and go live there. i think it will be while before he fills them.
-
interesting and very informative stuff billy t. thanks.
so it would appear there are two sides testing where the ukraine stands if they are to take a side. will they want to be autonomous which with western support they might achieve. or do they simply want to benefit from a strong omitted relationship with russia. this would be a key consideration for any invading force from west or east.
i am sure there are benefits to the west if they were to take it. certainly there are resources that would pay their expenses if contracted to them. but the west does not look like they are provoking the situation. russia is making a very clear statement that ukraine will either maintain their allegiance to moscow or they could be forced to. the west appears to making sure that the ukranian people know they have a choice if they choose otherwise.
the thing that surprises me is that the crimea was annexed to russia without much by way of opposition from the west. that can probably be attributed to europe 's dependence on russian energy resources. if it was all out US against russia and europe wasn't in the middle then the US may not have been so willing to stand by.
The thing is, that it seems like, unintentionally, Ukraine and Russia are both giving the other one what they want.....If Ukraine's anti-uprising movements get too violent, Putin has the very justification he needs to stop pussy footing around with special forces and just roll in large. While at the same time Putin has done an awful lot to strengthen nationalism and patriotism amongst Ukrainians of all ethnicities...Knock on effect-here in Moldova, most people seemed to feel pretty ambivalent about Ukraine unless they had family from there, now there are marches for Ukrainian solidarity and people I know who coulnd't have given two shakes about Ukraine two months ago are pretty worked up.....Nobody likes a bully, and with Russia's history of ebing the big boy in the neighborhood, this is stirring up resentment all over the neighborhood..... Putin is winning in Ukraine to be sure, but it looks more and more like all his short term gains will cost the traditionally strong relationship they had in the long run.....While dismantling Ukraine he has brought most of it's people closer together....
When the people of Kharkhiv and Zaporozhiya (Russian speaking cities) ran the "local self defense" guys out of town last week, it put the final nail in the coffin of Putin needing to protect Russians in Ukraine.....
But of course some ethnic Russians in Ukraine are terrified...but imagine if the only sources of news you had available to you, the only ones you could understand were all saying that the guys in the next village over were coming to kill you, and you could find no source of information to contradict this-you'd certainly be on the lookout....This is what has happened in parts of Ukraine...And the governement in Kyiv shares the blame in this....They haven't come out to visit to reassure people, they got so wrapped up in their post Maidan euphoria they forgot to speak in Russian as well, and so there was certainly someone waiting to speak to these people....Note also that while Kharkhiv and Zaporozhiya are Russian as a first langauge cities, they also have a higher incidence of people who speak both and so had access to more information....
Something else on what "they" want....
Of course the west has an agenda, and of course no one believes it's all puppy dogs and rainbows because it isn't. What you have in at least the three post Soviet countries I have lived in over the past 11 years is as much an age divide as a culture divide.....The pensioners, most all anyway, had a better life under the USSR....The pensions they recieve these days is absolutely shameful.....But the young people never grew up under the USSR and so have no fond memories of it, they have also had access to books about the bad shit that went down that their grandparents didnt...... An ethnic Russian friend of mine in Kyiv (26 years old at the time- Lawyer, from a prominent former USSR military family) for weeks just going on about how dumbfounded he was upon reading about Stalin and the purges and genocides, even in the 90's they hadn't learned this stuff in school.....
And this is a tricky bit..... We in the west were taught that every day in the Soviet Union was an unending hell. It wasn't. People still fell in love, had a laugh and drink with friends after work, went on picnics, had children etc....So now for their grandparents to accept the truly vile stuff that went on, can feel like a turning of their backs on their own lives...Nobody in any country wants to that, Germany is the only place I can think of that really has....
Now young people today here aren't interested in ideologies or soviet nostalgia, they want the same thing young people want everywhere- mobile phones and material crap but also jobs and dignity, an ability to take care of themselves and to travel....When looking at the politics of any eastern european country don't discount the desire to travel...these young people meet young people from western europe, north america and oz and they judge their lives against the lives of young people from these countries and they are often left feeling embarrassed by their lack of worldliness and of their poverty....I know we all look at it as silly marketing and FIFA yanking our chains, but I'll tell you I think when Ukraine co-hosted the European Football Championships two years ago, it changed the young people in Ukraine....Even ones who never had the money or visa to travel got to meet the rest of Europe, and they liked you guys....
-
Here's a great take on some of the internals of the situation, not by me but by a Ukrainian journalist.....
The following was circulated today by Eastwest Skytalets:
"Yesterday evening I was watching Shuster LIVE–it’s become a daily habit. Serhii Sobolev (Bat’kivshchyna) explained what is going on in Donetsk in a way that I never thought about (at least not systemically).
The mayors in all those small towns like Slaviansk are people from the Party of Regions, they are making deals with the “terrorists” to come in to their towns and occupy administrative buildings. Think about it–the mayors are leading the attacks against their own buildings.
Who does that? That was the moment the light-bulb went on in my brain. Yes, Russian spets-naz are involved but the other layer is the huge network of criminal corruption trying to save itself or at least gain leverage. That’s why it is important not to see this just as “Russian vs. Ukrainian”–that is only one dimension and doesn’t capture the complexity of what is going on. One way to look at this is that this is the extension of the Maidan to the East. It’s the great front in the battle against criminal corruption. This moment was inevitable. As we now know, Yanukovych’s son has for years been supplementing the low pay of the security services and militia in Donetsk with envelopes of cash. They essentially privatized the security services. But that doesn’t make them reliable in the heat of battle. It’s also why the solution is not as easy and straightforward as it may seem–it’s not a simple military operation.
People are going to have to liberate themselves. And that’s not a bad thing. In Kramatorsk last night, the green men occupied the militia, got drunk, got bored and left. How do you think people in Slaviansk are feeling today? The mayor fled. The local city administration workers were forced to gather and were instructed that “they are now working for them”. What great joy have the armed men brought to their lives? And who can the armed men trust in Slaviansk? This is the problem with occupation. Pretty soon every resident of Slaviansk will start looking like a ‘Banderite”.
The Russian spets-naz are the most lethal and dangerous–but they don’t want to be captured and will try to elude direct confrontation at all costs. The green men, the Crimean blow-hards (sorry for the vulgarity) aren’t nearly as formidable and the local criminal thugs for hire are in it for the money. It’s not a winning formula, especially if the locals begin to fight back, as they seem to be doing. What happened in Zaporizhzhia was instructive, the “pro-Russian” protesters turned out to be mostly members of a local criminal gang, paid to stir up trouble. People came out by the thousands to surround them. It’s no secret that people are organizing and arming themselves in the East in pro-Ukrainian partisan groups.
The battle line is less “Russian” vs. “Ukrainian”–it’s criminal corruption vs. hope for law and order. That is the narrative that should find the greatest resonance. To complicate things further–I think the real target is Dnipropetrovsk. The third layer in all of this is the longstanding war between the Donetskie and the Dnipropetrovskie. But the difference there is that Dnipropetrovsk actually makes money and their guys are less afraid of the EU, as opposed to Donetsk."