Ukraine

[Johnny Canuck3]

The Ta(r)tars have suffered an awful lot of Kremlin-directed shit in the past almost-century.

...including, but not limited to, Stalin's deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar population to Uzbekistan and elsewhere in 1944; they weren't allowed to return to the Crimea until the mid-80s and perestroika.

 

[RosyFuture]

...including, but not limited to, Stalin's deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar population to Uzbekistan and elsewhere in 1944; they weren't allowed to return to the Crimea until the mid-80s and perestroika.

Funny you should mention the Sauce People:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-rus...mean-tatars-tragic-past-and-uncertain-present (published yesterday, M 3Mar, by David Marples & David Duke - not that one)

Also AJE vid, 'Coming Back' (2012, 45mins):
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2012/05/2012517132318999379.html (incl. filmmaker's remarks)

& @ the ubiquitous yt, if you must:

I'm reading a great book on exactly this [growth of the far-right in Ukraine in recent years and how it relates to historical memory], have a read of chapters 3-6

20mins of Marples with your cornflakes:
http://archive.kpfk.org/mp3/kpfk_140221_170030bts_friday.MP3 (done at the very moment Yanuk was flying the nest, during the night F-Sa 21-22Feb; i/v by Suzi Weissman, biographer of Vic Serge)

Other piece by the nephew of Miss Marple:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/david-marples/ukraine-view-from-west (pub'd Th 20Feb, day before the agreement)

Much Ukrainian studies is in Canada, where Master Marples resides (he's also a world expert - small field - on Belarus):
http://www.historyandclassics.ualberta.ca/en/People/Faculty/MarplesDavid/ResearchPublications.aspx

Page on the 2007 book butcher's kindly shared (it's also excerpted at google books):
Contents
Preface Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Independent Ukraine Reviews the Past Chapter 2: The Famine of 1932–33 Chapter 3: The OUN, 1929–43 Chapter 4: Making Heroes: the Early Days of OUN-UPA Chapter 5: UPA’s Conflict with the Red Army and Soviet Security Forces Chapter 6: The Ukrainian–Polish Conflict Chapter 7: Writing New History in Ukraine Chapter 8: Assessments Conclusion Bibliography Index
http://www.ceupress.com/books/html/HeroesandVillains.htm

 

[hipipol]

"The world’s 300 wealthiest people lost a combined $44.4 billion yesterday as global stocks tumbled the most in a month and the ruble dropped to an all-time low amid Russia’s growing military presence in Ukraine."
Ruble?
Are they suggesting some sort of all out war has already started?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...drop-13-billion-as-global-stocks-retreat.html
Think the Oligarchs may be putting some pressure on Putin to tread carefully as what bothers them most is a pain in the wallet

 

[Pickman's model]

"The world’s 300 wealthiest people lost a combined $44.4 billion yesterday as global stocks tumbled the most in a month and the ruble dropped to an all-time low amid Russia’s growing military presence in Ukraine."
Ruble?
Are they suggesting some sort of all out war has already started?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...drop-13-billion-as-global-stocks-retreat.html
Think the Oligarchs may be putting some pressure on Putin to tread carefully as what bothers them most is a pain in the wallet

yes because capitalists are pacifists and can't turn a profit inwartime

 

[hipipol]

yes because capitalists are pacifists and can't turn a profit inwartime

Not the point some would benefit, others would lose - point is no one can be sure how it will fall for them
What they can see is that they are billions out of pocket now

 

[elbows]

An initial Russian response to economic threats, via the BBC live updates page:

08:44: Russia will reduce its economic dependency on the US if Washington agrees sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine, a Kremlin aide has said, warning that the American financial system faced a "crash" if this happened. "We would find a way not just to reduce our dependency on the United States to zero but to emerge from those sanctions with great benefits for ourselves," Kremlin economic aide Sergei Glazyev said. He added that Russia could stop using dollars for international transactions.

08:48: More from Kremlin aide Sergei Glazyev about the Russian response to any imposition of sanctions over Ukraine. "In the instance of sanctions being applied to stated institutions, we will have to declare the impossibility of returning those loans which were given to Russian institutions by US banks," he was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26428296

 

[SpineyNorman]

And when you get tired of Lviv there's always the chance to meet up with old friends in the capital & dance the night away at an ethnoparty!

There ain't no part like an ethno party

 

[Pickman's model]

Not the point some would benefit, others would lose - point is no one can be sure how it will fall for them
What they can see is that they are billions out of pocket now

so your thought the oligarchs are putting pressure on putin for peace is wishful thinking because you seem to believe he operates in world of his own where he doesn't consult beforehand with 'stakeholders'

 

[Dan U]

Sky News showing a stand off between Ukrainians trying to enter a base taken by Russians. The Russians fired warning shots over the heads of the Ukranians.

Tense.

 

[TopCat]

So the first shots have been fired.

 

[Dan U]

So the first shots have been fired.

it would appear so. it did seem to calm down after that but it was only a 90 second or so clip.

 

[butchersapron]

Here's a collection of articles that may help:

Ukraine in Context.

 

[TomUS]

An initial Russian response to economic threats, via the BBC live updates page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26428296

Or maybe not.....

The Kremlin now seems to be distancing itself from the comments by presidential aide Sergei Glazyev that if the United States were to impose sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, Moscow might be forced to drop the dollar as a reserve currency and refuse to pay off any loans to US banks.

According to this (Russian) report, a senior Kremlin source said that Glazyev was expressing a “personal opinion” and not speaking in his capacity as a presidential adviser.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/04/ukraine-crisis-shots-fired-crimea-airbase

 

[Teaboy]

Any Russia v US stand-off on this will have a huge impact on both economies, the rouble is already suffering. Neither country want it and I doubt it'll happen. Ukraine is not part of the EU and not part of NATO, the Russian intervention is only going to bother the West so far.

 

[hipipol]

so your thought the oligarchs are putting pressure on putin for peace is wishful thinking because you seem to believe he operates in world of his own where he doesn't consult beforehand with 'stakeholders'

It is entriely consistent for him to act without consulting but then to ameliorate his position after pressure from the rich and powerful
Equally, given the near unanimous vote in the Duma, he may already have laid out plans that are acceptable to them but not yet revealed to the world
Either way they will have some influence
Having moved huge amounts of cash out of Russia the last thing they want is to have their assets in the West frozen

 

[kebabking]

Any Russia v US stand-off on this will have a huge impact on both economies, the rouble is already suffering. Neither country want it and I doubt it'll happen. Ukraine is not part of the EU and not part of NATO, the Russian intervention is only going to bother the West so far.

in terms of it being purely about Ukraine that may be true - i don't see any great 'we're all Ukranians now..' political movement - but Ukraine is important to the eastern EU/NATO states as an indicator as to whether Russia can live with former republics/satelite states choosing to move out of the Russian 'near abroad' and it not seeking to normalise their relationship at a later point when an opportunity arises/can be manufactured.

that looks like an unlikely prospect now, and to the eastern countries of the EU/NATO, Russia has got 'predator' written all over it rather than the more euphamistic 'partner'.

 

[Idris2002]

Any Russia v US stand-off on this will have a huge impact on both economies, the rouble is already suffering. Neither country want it and I doubt it'll happen. Ukraine is not part of the EU and not part of NATO, the Russian intervention is only going to bother the West so far.

I hope you're right, but the fact that Kosovo wasn't a party to the NATO treaty didn't stop NATO being used to bash the Serbs in 1999.

 

[co-op]

I hope you're right, but the fact that Kosovo wasn't a party to the NATO treaty didn't stop NATO being used to bash the Serbs in 1999.

That's true and the most significant thing about the Kosovo war (for me) was that it openly converted NATO from a clearly defined defensive pact into just another imperial coalition, ready to invade other countries. But Kosovo was part of Yugoslavia which was never part of the USSR so to some extent the Russians could turn a blind eye (not to mention they were close to a low ebb in their economic, diplomatic and military power in 1999).

The situation now is almost the reverse; the Crimea has never really been in the west's sphere of influence and is much closer to the South Ossetia case. The west will allow Putin to take it (albeit with a lot of public huffing and puffing) and probably always knew he would. The tricky bit is not the Crimea which is a done deal, it is the whole of the rest of the Eastern and Southern Ukraine - how will the new govt in Kiev deal with these areas? The removal of official status from the Russian language is a bad sign. And if the neo-nazis in the Kiev govt really start getting their way and being jerks, will they provoke further Russian intervention elsewhere? Then there's a real possibility of nasty Yugoslavia-style ethnic wars.

But at the moment, both the new Kiev govt and the Russians are playing it pretty cool as far as I can see. It's the western powers that are screaming and shouting.

 

[Idris2002]

But at the moment, both the new Kiev govt and the Russians are playing it pretty cool as far as I can see. It's the western powers that are screaming and shouting.

Uh-huh. I actually think that this, combined with the failure to build for intervention in Syria, is America's Suez. Unlike Britain, it's not going to lose its superpower status, as UK did over the Suez affair, but it will find that its pretensions to dominance take a severe knock.

Now when Britain was forced to chuck in the towel, it was able to slip into a new position in a more-or-less stable cold war system. Whatever system comes out of this, it won't be stable, and the positions of rising and falling states won't be obvious. Until they drop the Big One, anyway.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Putin:

Of course people wanted change. But it cannot impose illegal change ...you need to use only constitutional means.

I sympathise with the people on Maidan even though I don’t recognise the change in regime … People are not demanding renovations of the facade of power, they want cardinal changes, because they are used to crooks taking over from other crooks...

Why was this done? President Yanukovych, before Poland Germany and France, and before my representative, ombudsmen Lukin, signed an agreement with the opposition, by which, I want to note, Yanukovych basically gave up his power, he aggreed to all demands of opposition, early elections, to return to the constitution of 2004, … he didn’t give one illegal command to shoot unfortunate protestors.

They immediately seized his residence rather than giving him a chance to fulfil the agreement. .. He didn’t have any chance of being reelected. … Why did they need to take unconstitutional steps and bring the country into the chaos that now reigns there? … It was a stupid act.

The military exercises were not related to what is happening in Ukraine. We did not announce them before because they were surprise exercises...They were planned for months.

The interim president is not legitimate. From the legal perspective it is Mr Yanukovych who is president.

 

[RosyFuture]

And to keep the Vic Serge theme alive, who better than Richard Greeman, the translator of most of what there is in English of the Belgian-with-the-Ukrainian-dad:
'Ukraine, Coup or Revolution?' http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/943.php (M 3Mar)

Please note, the undated pic of the Agriculture Ministry, with the graffito, 'Vlada Narodu' (Authority/Power to the People), is headed by one of the Freedom peeps, Igor Schvayka, who became the Minister on his 38th b'day:

We know what the Narod means to his kind.

 

[Idris2002]

And to keep the Vic Serge theme alive, who better than Richard Greeman, the translator of most of what there is in English of the Belgian-with-the-Ukrainian-dad:
'Ukraine, Coup or Revolution?' http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/943.php (M 3Mar)

Please note, the undated pic of the Agriculture Ministry, with the graffito, 'Vlada Narodu' (Authority/Power to the People), is headed by one of the Freedom peeps, Igor Schvayka, who became the Minister on his 38th b'day:

We know what the Narod means to his kind.

Were his parents cousins by any chance?

 

[goldenecitrone]

The removal of official status from the Russian language is a bad sign.

Russian ceased to be an official language after Ukraine declared its independence in 1991. It was only reinstated by Yanukovych in 2012 to curry favour with Russian speaking voters. Anyway, the decision to repeal the law has been vetoed now

 

[co-op]

Uh-huh. I actually that this, combined with the failure to build for intervention in Syria, is America's Suez. Unlike Britain, it's not going to lose its superpower status, as UK did over the Suez affair, but it will find that its pretensions to dominance take a severe knock.

It's an interesting comparison - but Suez didn't cause Britain to lose its superpower status, it just revealed the fact that it had already done so - and in particular revealed that the US was no longer prepared to act out the fiction that the relationship between the UK and the US was one of equals.

Compared to now, I'd say the US is a long way from a Suez moment here - it is still massively more militarily powerful than anyone else in the world. But it may be the end of an era of uni-polarism - a couple of decades when the US has been able to do what it likes (almost).

The fact that Europe is en masse refusing to line up behind any serious sanctions or action against the Russians means the US can't act. They're just squawking at the moment really. It's the next few stages of this process which are the tricky ones, Crimea is history.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The president, however, didn’t confirm his resignation, saying that the country is facing the threat of a return of Nazism, as over 500 regional offices of his Party of Regions have been torched by the radicals.

http://rt.com/news/ukraine-crackdown-crisis-administration-393/

So the prez spouts hyperbole about "the return of Nazism", then drops in a claim about the 500 offices.
Oddly, little credibility has been given to his claim, and no non-acdotal supporting evidence has been provided, anywhere.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So that means every single local PoR office in the entire country was set on fire and 'burnt to the ground' as you claimed?

ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raions_of_Ukraine

Care to find me one other single credible source that supports this claim?

You haven't been able to find one either?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Point of order - he was the president, not "president elect".

Fairly large difference that depends on a quite straightforward understanding of democratic due process.

Let's be polite and call him the president emeritus.

 

[co-op]

Russian ceased to be an official language after Ukraine declared its independence in 1991. It was only reinstated by Yanukovych in 2012 to curry favour with Russian speaking voters. Anyway, the decision to repeal the law has been vetoed now

Of course its status has been tossed back and forward according to who is in power and anyway its status is supposedly constitutionally guaranteed (even when not an official state language) - I just meant that a new Kiev govt that had less nazis in it might have been a bit thoughtful about the symbolism of trying to repeal this kind of law right now. Being cycnical, if I was a Ukrainian nationalist, I'd say do it later when there's no Russia-invasion option. It's almost like they want to provoke a fight (or elements there do).

 

[co-op]

Let's be polite and call him the president emeritus.

Non-meritus might be more apt.

 

[Idris2002]

So the prez spouts hyperbole about "the return of Nazism", then drops in a claim about the 500 offices.
Oddly, little credibility has been given to his claim, and no non-acdotal supporting evidence has been provided, anywhere.

Well, Der Spiegel has this:

"Revenge taken against the rich and prominent is part of that chaos. In the Kiev suburb of Gostomel, 20 assailants burned down an estate belonging to Communist Party head Petro Symonenko. A Toyota Land Cruiser and an Aston Martin Vantage -- a €129,000 vehicle allegedly driven by his wife -- were found in the garage."

The whole article is worth reading, and you can find it here:

http://www.spiegel.de/international...t-pitfalls-a-956585.html#ref=nl-international