Kiev is a magnificent city, and it pains me to see it like this, but I should not be surprised. Almost every country I’ve ever written about is either in hell, has only recently recovered from hell, or is on its way to hell. I hoped when I visited Ukraine that it was on its way out, but I did not have a good feeling about it, as you’ll recall if you read my book.
I’m reluctant to wade in as an analyst, though, because I don’t know the country on an intimate nuts-and-bolts level. Let me instead outsource my analysis to my World Affairs colleague Alexander Motyl who writes about nothing else. I do know the country well enough to say that what he writes seems exactly right to me.
Motyl’s analysis cannot be accepted at face value. Yanukovych’s government was freely and democratically elected and is legitimate. If the demonstrators had majority support or were true democrats they would wait until the next election and simply vote Yanukovych and his party out of office. The fact that they are attempting instead a coup d’etat shows that they are in fact a violent minority. Your friend Motyl is a partisan in this fight.
There is also the issue of US and EU meddling and incitement. Considering the long list of Russian allies that have been attacked and overthrown by the US and the EU (Iraq, Libya, Syria …), some paranoia on Putin’s and Yanukovych’s part is warranted.
What ever can be said about Putin after 2000 bringing back Russia from the brink of anarchy I hope he loses this battle. Hopefully the Ukrainian nationalist win as Putin’s plan is three fold; to make Ukraine a part of Russia once again, to take over the eastern provinces, or at least make Ukraine a vassal state in Russia’s orbit.
It was nice to read in Michael Totten’s link to Alexander Motyl’s article that the statue to Lenin finally bit the dust in Kyiv. It was standing there in 2008. I wonder if in the city of Zaporozhye the Lenin statue is still in Lenin Park at the Dnieper River end of Lenin Street and across from the Lenin Power Dam and around the corner from Lenin Harbour? Thank goodness the statues were full of sparrow droppings.
Ukraine is a beautiful country. In the south near the Black Sea, grape bunches big enough to fill a large mixing bowl. The gently rolling fields of the former Taurida Province have as much grain yield potential as the best farm land in Saskatchewan. We saw thousands of acres that together had fewer potholes than we have on our home quarter (160 acres). Every village yard south of Dnepropetrovsk has three or four different fruit trees. And so forth.
‘I Am A Ukrainian’ video goes viral; brave young woman pleads for help.
This is Yulia. She is a post-graduate student in literature. After the first people were killed on Hrushevskogo Street she posted about it on Facebook. She felt like screaming about everything that had been happening in the country. Her friend suggested to make the video of the same statement for more people to see and hear her. They made the video on Hrushevskogo next to the destroyed makeshift hospital. It was very cold then and her speech is uneven sometimes. ” I wanted to show that here I am – a person. If you say there are radicals and terrorists in our streets, then I am a terrorist too,” explains Yulia.
http://www.bizpacreview.com/2014/02/20/i-am-a-ukrainian-video-goes-viral-brave-young-woman-pleads-for-help-101997
P.S. Ignore the Putin apologists that might appear on here.
Legitimate? That is if corrupt elections are considered legitimate. Plenty of Acorn like organizations there bought and paid for by the eastern Ukraine Russo-phile oligarchs.
Motyl is certainly not disinterested. Neither is he well-informed
“But the fact of the matter is that the Donbas is an economic black hole; it is a drain on Ukraine’s resources…”
http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-split-partition-/25270988.html
No, actually, these are among the most prosperous (least poor) parts of Ukraine.
See this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ukrainian_subdivisions_by_GDP
Don’t forget that we have seen this movie before in the “Orange Revolution” and that didn’t change anything.
Here’s the OSCE report
“Ukraine’s run-off presidential election confirmed the international election observation mission’s assessment that the electoral process met most OSCE and Council of Europe commitments.”
http://www.osce.org/node/51888
Correct me if I’m wrong but the way I see it:
The current president was elected. The more populous economically advantaged and Russian leaning East has outvoted the West. Is it time to consider partition as was done in Czechoslovakia.
For a disinterested observer Motyl has his opinions. Here he talks about the people of the Crimea:
“It’s a highly nationalistic population. One could even say it’s a chauvinist population. It’s certainly an intolerant population. It consistently supports integration with Russia, it supports the Party of Regions and the Communists”
“Yanukovych’s government was freely and democratically elected”
There’s no such thing as free and fair elections in Ukraine. This is arguably the most corrupt nation in Europe and has been so from the breakup of the USSR. It is a symptom of the fundamental absence of democracy that Yanukovich has thrown the opposition leaders in jail after every election. He’s no different that Hugo Chavez or his current successor in Venezuela.
No freely elected government in any democracy ever shoots down its own citizens en masse. What part of Tiannamen Square do you not remember?
Ken Kulak >
Agreed, they say that the Affirmative Action President was legitimately elected as well.
Open Borders, No voter ID’s, Acorn and electronic voting machines serviced in Venezuela, does not bode well for legitimacy.
No records of academics, proven faked birth certificate, and millions spent to repress the truth.
Yea, lets all sit back and enjoy democracy as CNN tells us to do.
Of course it is. Crimea was systematically colonized with Russians by the Czars starting in the late 18th Century after Catherine conquered the place. Crimea feels as much affinity for Ukraine as the Falkland Islands do with Argentina.
“… Almost every country I’ve ever written about is either in hell, has only recently recovered from hell, or is on its way to hell …”
When instability brings death and poverty, people welcome a stable tyranny. And the West these days provides little stable, steady help to any struggling country.
How long before UK/Canada/U.S. etc.’s holiday from history is over? Freedom and stability combined together are rare, fragile conditions for countries throughout history.
Read this quote on National Review recently (don’t know the author): “You can have hegemony or you can have civil war.”
cgh, exactly.
In the late 40s and early 50s Stalin shipped all the Tatars from Crimea to Kazakistan,and after the breakup of the Soviet utopia they began to filter back to the Crimea and now are a significant portion of the population there. Many of the rest are of Russian heritage, so it is understandable that Crimea would want to go with Russia.
The origins of the video are not quite as ‘grass roots’ as is portrayed. The clip was produced by the team behind A Whisper to a Roar, a documentary about the “fight for democracy” all over the world, which was funded by Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco. The “inspiration” behind the documentary was none other than Larry Diamond, a Council on Foreign Relations member. The Council on Foreign Relations is considered to be America’s “most influential foreign-policy think tank” and has deep connections with the U.S. State Department.
Diamond has also worked closely with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The National Endowment for Democracy is considered to be the CIA’s “civilian arm” and has been deeply embroiled in innumerable instigated uprisings, attempted coups and acts of neo-colonial regime change since its creation in 1983, including the contrived 2004 “Orange Revolution” that brought US puppet Viktor Yushchenko to power in Ukraine.Larry Diamond also played an instrumental role in the Arab Spring under the auspices of the NED, a series of supposedly grass roots revolts that were in fact organized and managed by some of the most powerful western institutions on the planet.
Diamond’s connection to the viral “I am a Ukrainian” video clearly suggests that the clip is a crude effort to convince an unthinking public that the Ukrainian uprising is completely organic and is not being instigated by western powers, when the opposite is in fact the case. The clip is reminiscent of the Kony 2012 scam, where a viral video utilized simplified propaganda and emotional manipulation to convince millions of people of the necessity of U.S. military involvement in Africa. In a Huffington Post interview, the creator of the video admits that he was in Ukraine “preparing a film on democracy” before the protests even started. Providing absolute confirmation that the video is a carefully thought out public relations stunt, the woman in the video was immediately invited to appear on CNN with Anderson Cooper in a segment that will be broadcast tonight. Cooper and CNN aggressively pushed the Kony 2012 hoax until it fell apart when one of the directors had a public breakdown. Cooper was also heavily involved in promoting the fake “Syria Danny” scam that relied on staged footage to push for U.S. military intervention in Syria.
The geopolitics of the Ukrainian conflict: back to basics
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.ca/2014/02/the-geopolitics-of-ukrainian-conflict.html
The movement of populations by subtle coersion or force continues. The other day I met a white blue-eyed German truck driver originally from Kazakistan who sounded like Borat.
After being in Kazakistan for generations people like him are no longer welcome there. I told him welcome to Canada; we need hard workers.
You can substitute Obama for Yanukovych, the USA for the Ukraine and the problems become obvious…We don’t have a Putin, but the UN has ambitions. The Rule of Law, MSM, Constitution, all trashed… Yes we also elected a Tyrant
Perhaps Yanukovych controls Obama’s teleprompter..
It has always been a problem to tell whether the dog’s tail is wagging the dog or what…..
One thing without a doubt…..Russia/Russians ain’t any more popular in the Ukraine than they are in Finland…..for the same reasons…..largely……….
“Yanukovych crossed the line long ago. But the fact that today he gave the order for snipers to fire against peaceful, unarmed and defenseless civilians borders on the most extreme sadistic brutally that no human being could commit.”
…
http://www.tymoshenko.ua/en/article/yulia_tymoshenko_20_02_2014_01
Slap Shot >
Agreed. The US is a tinder pile in a world of wildfires waiting for a spark.
Economics and social orders can only be fractured and divided to a finite point, and then you have a mess.
The root of the problem?
Ukraine is broke.
The Kleptos are out of other peoples money, so theft must be ramped up.
Who to dispossess first?
Who’s property can be expropriated by force and sold to enrich the powerful and well connected.
Seems to me the traditional grievances and historic alliances are useful tools, let us set the citizens to fighting amongst themselves.
Well why not, it worked world wide after 1929.
It’s not over yet — here’s one of your “unarmed, peaceful protesters” from Right Sector addressing the crowd.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YmOOn8UJWNE
“Ukrainian parliament passes law allowing for the release of Yulia Tymoshenko”
http://www.tymoshenko.ua/en/article/yulia_tymoshenko_21_02_2014_02
Yanukovych’s government was freely and democratically elected and is legitimate. bob sykes
How many more Ukrainian people does Yanukovych have to kill before he, in your eyes, loses legitimacy. Or are “freely and democratically elected” governments free to kill as they see fit?
That’s very interesting, Marc. Note that Tymoshenko was NOT on the US list of preferred puppets during that State Department-Ambassador conversation. Not surprising, she’s a nationalist and probably too difficult for the US to manipulate. Yanukovich had to get his friends in Moscow to set up the gas pricing dispute to get her illegally tossed out of office and into prison.
Was that a big bowl of stupid you had for breakfast this morning?
Bingo. Btw, nice to see you commenting again.
nold, in 1941 Stalin relocated all those of German, Greek, Serb, Bulgarian, and in fact anyone not of Ukrainian or Russian heritage to Kazakistan or Siberia.
“Note that Tymoshenko was NOT on the US list of preferred puppets…”
But she could be if they wanted. She’s just a little to the right of Justin Trudeau, which would be horrible at best, but for Ukraine the alternatives are much worse.
Of course anything near the Canadian Liberal party is not all that hard to corrupt and a slipper slope to Mao.
Yanukovych has been removed by the Ukrainian parliament. They must have been brainwashed by Motyl, too.
Or, more likely they felt that the cowardly use of snipers on the protestors was something they had to respond to as people in positions of authority.