Ukraine (cont.)

[GEddie]

A better life ? Go ask the Greeks or the Spaniards or the Italians or Cypriots about the better life in the EU.

What are you talking about? These nations would be far poorer without the euro and the EU.

In the mid 1900s, the Mediterranean nations were quite poor. Italians flocked to Venezuela, and Spaniards to Mexico, in search of a better life. After the inception of the EC, such cities as Madrid became boom towns.

The economies of these nations remained relatively weak, with results we are seeing today, but not because of association into the EU.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Aramis]

Georgia, Ukraine and = ?

Chechnya is part of Russia, so should not count.

ICXC NIKA

Chechnya was a separate republic from Russia within the USSR, and a separate nation within the CIS, and one that withdrew from the CIS. Its situation is directly analogous to that of the Ukraine.

Soviets deported lots of Chechens, then allowed them to return a decade later, and Russia now claims the Russians who moved in during the USSR are native to the area.

By that logic, they can readily justify taking Alaska. (Which Putin laid groundwork for by claims that the sale of Alaska to the US was actually a 100 year lease, about 2009 or 2010.)

 

[josie_L]

What are you talking about? These nations would be far poorer without the euro and the EU.

In the mid 1900s, the Mediterranean nations were quite poor. Italians flocked to Venezuela, and Spaniards to Mexico, in search of a better life. After the inception of the EC, such cities as Madrid became boom towns.

The economies of these nations remained relatively weak, with results we are seeing today, but not because of association into the EU.

ICXC NIKA

I disagree the Italian economy was doing well, prior to being incorporated into the EU, in fact, their GDP was in the top 10 (even top 5) before they joined in 2001.

 

[AnastasiaRomano]

Heartbreaking news from Crimea… One of the leaders of the Crimean Tatars, who was a baby when Stalin deported his people en masse to Central Asia and had long advocated for Tatar rights, has been banned from entering the Russian Federation – including Crimea, where his home is – for 5 years. He had spoken about his deep concern about the possibility of renewed oppression of Tatars under Russian rule.

Mustafa Jemiliev, Ukrainian MP, former head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People and veteran leader of the Crimean Tatar rights movement, has been presented with a document banning his entry to the Russian Federation. This, according to Moscow and the puppet government installed in Simferopol includes the Crimea. The move coincides with measures to prevent broadcasts with Jemiliev, the current head of the Mejlis, Refat Chubarov, and other Mejlis representatives on Crimean radio and television. It comes less than a month before the seventieth anniversary of the Deportation of the Crimean Tatar People and demonstrates how well-founded Crimean Tatar fears of Russian rule of the Crimea were.

The document was handed to Jemiliev as he and the deputy head of the Mejlis, Aslan Omer Kirimli left the Crimea for Kyiv. It calls Mustafa Jemiliev a “foreign national”, a citizen of Ukraine and bans him from entering the Russian Federation up till April 19, 2019.

…This decree comes a couple of weeks after the publication of a new “Crimean constitution” drawn up following the Russian annexation behind closed doors. The Crimean Tatar response was swift and negative. This “constitution” contains no recognition of their status as indigenous people. The document does not contain any norms guaranteeing the participation of the Crimean Tatars in public life, nor are there the previously promised 20% quotas of positions within government.

khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1398164983

 

[KyivAndrew]

There’s a really interesting book I read last autumn called “It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past.” The author, David Satter, examines a variety of events after the fall of the USSR and argues that until Russia truly comes to terms with the ugly history of communism, it will be “stuck” – or, to use the phrase Sorokin does, it will remain an iceberg. Satter also argues that other post-Soviet countries – e.g. the Baltics and the former satellite states in Eastern Europe – have advanced farther economically, culturally, spiritually, etc. precisely because they have dealt with the Communist past more honestly and fully. It’s a fascinating book and well worth reading even if one doesn’t completely agree with all the author’s arguments.

Hey, Anastasia! Great, another poster on CAF who has actually read David Satter’s book It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past.

I mentioned this book some time ago on another thread on CAF as being absolutely essential reading for understanding contemporary Russian society. It truly is perhaps the best book written about contemporary Russia out there and deals with the issues we are discussing on this thread head-on and I am glad you have read it. As Yale University Press wrote about this book by David Satter:

Russia today is haunted by deeds that have not been examined and words that have been left unsaid. A serious attempt to understand the meaning of the Communist experience has not been undertaken, and millions of victims of Soviet Communism are all but forgotten. In this book David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent and longtime writer on Russia and the Soviet Union, presents a striking new interpretation of Russia’s great historical tragedy, locating its source in Russia’s failure fully to appreciate the value of the individual in comparison with the objectives of the state.

Satter explores the moral and spiritual crisis of Russian society. He shows how it is possible for a government to deny the inherent value of its citizens and for the population to agree, and why so many Russians actually mourn the passing of the Soviet regime that denied them fundamental rights. Through a wide-ranging consideration of attitudes toward the living and the dead, the past and the present, the state and the individual, Satter arrives at a distinctive and important new way of understanding the Russian experience.

yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300111453

books.google.ca/books?id=Ahh36CepKFUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=David+Satter+It+was+a+long+time+ago&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pNlWU-DJIoOZ2QXK74DwAQ&ved=0CDgQuwUwAQ#v=onepage&q=David%20Satter%20It%20was%20a%20long%20time%20ago&f=false

 

[Ridgerunner]

Look’s like it may start up again soon bbc.com/news/world-europe-27118875

It never ended. Russia is going to conquer eastern and southern Ukraine and about that there can be no reasonable doubt.

Biden’s contribution (from the article)

"The US is to provide an additional $50m (£30m) for political and economic reforms in Ukraine, including $11m to help run the presidential election due on 25 May.

In another US move, Washington is sending 600 troops to take part in Nato exercises in the three Baltic states and Poland."

A pitiful response. In no way serious. Obama has decided the Russian conquest is acceptable.

 

[KyivAndrew]

Ukraine’s Intelligence Chief: 100 Russian Officers Are Leading Ukraine’s Uprisings
Ukrainian Security Agency Seeks to Arrest Russian Army Colonel Coordinating Subversion

As many as one hundred Russian military intelligence officers and special forces troops are leading the seizures of towns and local governments in Ukraine’s Donetsk province, the Ukrainian intelligence chief said today in his first public account of the crisis.

Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, has spent years building covert networks that its officers now are using to help seize cities such as Slaviansk and Kramatorsk in the north of Donetsk, said Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the head of Ukraine’s State Security Service (the Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrainy, or SBU). Nalyvaichenko, a career diplomat and security official, gave one of the broadest descriptions of the conflict by a Ukrainian official during an online discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council.

As many as thirty special forces troops or officers of Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, are working in the Slaviansk region, Nalyvaichenko said. Slaviansk and the adjacent district of Kramatorsk are the strongest point of the Russian operation, he said. Ukraine is seeking in particular to arrest two other GRU officers who are coordinating “the most dangerous and hostile activity” in that region, Nalyvaichenko said. The SBU has named one of those as Colonel Igor Strelkov, who it says also coordinated preparations for Russia’s seizure of Crimea.

The SBU has arrested three GRU officers whom it is interrogating in Kyiv, and twenty-one members of the GRU’s network, Nalyvaichenko said.

atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/intelligence-chief-100-russian-officers-are-in-ukraine-directing-uprisings#.U1bgQpgCnQU.twitter

 

[pepipop]

Pepipop - are there more than “one” of you posting under your pen name? It seems your style of messaging has changed quite a bit. I really don’t expect a straight answer to this
question and just need to comment on it. The before and after posts of the Ukraine takeover appears to have undergone a different style of Pepipop composition.

No, just me - I’m not really sure what you mean. Possibly I’m just reading more from different sources.

 

[pepipop]

When it comes to megalomania, I’d say America has left Russia in the dust.

                               I keep hearing ridiculous assertions regarding who Russia might attack next. So far, I've heard Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Czech Republic, and Sweden. When the US invaded Panama, did anyone ask, is Bolivia next ? Or after Somalia, did we wonder when Kenya would be invaded. As unlikely as that all sounds, considering America's track record for attacking other nations, it would be a more believable scenario.

You left out Alaska - mind you Putin said, last week, Alaska was too cold to annex.

 

[AnastasiaRomano]

Hey, Anastasia! Great, another poster on CAF who has actually read David Satter’s book It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past.

I mentioned this book some time ago on another thread on CAF as being absolutely essential reading for understanding contemporary Russian society. It truly is perhaps the best book written about contemporary Russia out there and deals with the issues we are discussing on this thread head-on and I am glad you have read it.

Another salient point that I think Satter’s book makes is the way in which the Russian Federation sees itself as a successor to the USSR – and if one criticizes the USSR or some aspect of Soviet history, that must mean that one is criticizing the current RF. This explains the outrage and cyberattacks when Estonia took down a monument to Soviet soldiers that took over the country during WWII, as well as various other incidents that Satter discusses. And I think Sorokin makes this point as well in the essay you linked to the other day – the reason Russia feels threatened by the “Leninfall” is because Russia considers itself to be the successor to the USSR and feels threatened by attempts to criticize Soviet history.

In a way, isn’t that what we’re seeing with Mustafa Jemilev? He’s a resident of Crimea, a leader in the Crimean Tatar community, permanently registered in Crimea (and permanent registration is a pretty big deal in Russia and Ukraine), his family is there, etc. But suddenly he’s declared a foreign citizen and banned from entering any part of the Russian Federation for 5 years, apparently because he spoke out about his grave concern for how Tatars would be treated under Russian rule and linked his current concern with the Soviet-era oppression of Tatars. (Unsurprisingly considering his lengthy history as a dissident in Soviet times, Jemilev says he won’t be deterred by the order barring him from Crimea…
kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/tatar-leader-banned-from-entering-crimea-344577.html)

On the subject of the Tatars, the Foreign Ministry of Turkey has expressed its concern for the safety of the Crimean Tatar community:
kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/turkey-doubts-safety-of-crimean-tatars-on-peninsula-in-light-of-recent-incidents-344800.html

 

[AnastasiaRomano]

In other news, a poll shows Petro Poroshenko strongly ahead in the Ukrainian presidential race:

reuters.com/article/2014/04/23/us-ukraine-election-polls-idUSBREA3M17J20140423

Ukrainian confectionery tycoon Petro Poroshenko has a chance of winning the May 25 presidential election in the first round, an opinion poll indicated on Wednesday.

It found 48.4 percent of Ukrainians who planned to vote favored Poroshenko. That is just short of the absolute majority needed to avoid a runoff against the second-placed candidate, who the survey found would be former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko on 14.0 percent.

 

[KyivAndrew]

Kidnapping of Ukrainian patriots has Russia’s full support, says Kiev

The last time Vladimir Rybak was seen alive was on Thursday 17 April . The local councillor was walking away from the city hall in the eastern Ukrainian city of Gorlovka after taking part in a pro-Ukrainian flashmob in the central square. Three days earlier, separatists had seized the government building, taking down the Ukrainian flag and replacing it with the tricolour of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

According to friends, Rybak, who was 42, made no secret of his strong anti-separatist views. “He was entirely open – and at times impulsive,” fellow councillor Yurii Zhuk said. After the demonstration Rybak tried to barge his way into the Gorlovka city hall and take down the rebel flag. A video captured what happened next. Pro-Russian protesters jostled Rybak; they refused to let him inside; a youth in a balaclava grabbed his arm and led him away.

Zhuk said that Rybak and a friend then left the square, tracking away from its Lenin statue, and headed towards the city’s Palace of Culture. A Kia car pulled up, and four men in masks and military fatigues jumped out and grabbed him. Rybak’s friends assume the kidnappers must have had a gun. “Vladimir was a sportsman and an ex-policeman. He knew how to handle himself,” Zhuk said.

Over the weekend, Rybak’s battered body was found in a river near the separatist stronghold of Slavyansk, 60 miles away. According to investigators, he had been tortured. There were stab marks on his stomach and bruising on his chest. Rybak’s kidnappers tied a sandbag to his body and drowned him while he was unconscious. On Wednesday, , his widow Elena, a 49-year-old doctor, and 25-year-old son Yura, went to Slavyansk to retrieve his body.

The gruesome case is the latest in a string of kidnappings and murders in eastern Ukraine which Kiev blames on Russia and its undercover agents. Law and order in Slavyansk and surrounding areas of the Donetsk region has deteriorated dramatically. In Kramatorsk, pro-Russian gunmen hijacked the security agency HQ. They also beat up the city’s deputy mayor and kidnapped its police chief – both supporters of Ukrainian unity.

The situation in Slavyansk, the separatists’ fortified capital, appears to be one of gun rule. Pro-Russian militias continue to hold an American journalist, Simon Ostrovsky, taken hostage early on Tuesday, as well as several Ukrainian reporters including Irma Krat.

In the past week, 16 people have been kidnapped in Slavyansk and Gorlovka, and two murdered, including Rybak. Rybak was a deputy for the Batkivshchyna party of Ukraine’s acting president, Olexsander Turchynov, who announced on Tuesday that Kiev would now restart military operations against pro-Russian separatists in the east. The body of a second party supporter, unidentified, was found near Rybak’s. Both had been tortured to death, Turchynov said.

“The terrorists who effectively took the whole Donetsk region hostage have now gone too far, by starting to torture and murder Ukrainian patriots. These crimes are being committed with the full support and connivance of the Russian Federation,” he said on Tuesday.

According to Zhuk, the majority of Gorlovka – a mining and industrial city of 275,000 people – do not support the separatists’ cause. But he said Russian television had had a brainwashing effect, with many people now unable to tell “what was true and what a lie”. He stressed: “The big majority are peaceful.”

theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/kidnapping-ukrainian-patriots-russia-support-kiev-vladimir-rybak

**Tally of persons kidnapped by Russian-backed insurgents in Ukraine’s east grows to 16 **(UPDATE)

kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/tally-of-persons-kidnapped-by-russian-backed-insurgents-in-ukraines-east-grows-to-16-update-344798.html

 

[KyivAndrew]

So, further to the above post, for months now Putin’s Russia and his state-controlled propaganda channels have been shouting about Ukrainian radical nationalists coming into places like Donetsk to harm, if not kill, the Russian speaking population and/or ethnic Russian Ukrainians and/or Russian citizens in these places (the terminology changes all the time). Nothing of this sort has turned out to be true! There are no massed columns of some Ukrainian radical nationalist bogeymen lined up dying to get into Donetsk to torture Russian people. How long can Russian TV keep putting out these fantasy stories?

Polls, it turns out show more than 2/3 of Donetsk wish to remain in Ukraine. Russian-speaking Ukrainians wish to remain in Ukraine, not under Putin. Latest polling finds 85% I believe of Russian-speakers in Ukraine feel absolutely no threat to the Russian language.

It appears the only people wishing to literally “torture” and kidnap and kill people in Ukraine are pro-Russian separatist armed “terrorists” (what else would you call Rybak’s killers) and their Russian Secret Police (FSB and GRU) and Spetsnaz co-ordinators: the people whom Ukrainians call the “little green men”, the same green men earlier seen in Crimea: in masks, same camouflage, Russian weapons, no insignia - who it turns out were Russian military and special ops.

And to prevent further loss of life, the Ukrainian government wishes to push these terrorists out of the buildings they have occupied and to which they kidnap people and to stop the anarchy which is being fueled by a foreign power - Putin’s Russia. What other European country in the 21st Century would let a hostile foreign country ruled by an imperialist dictator annex one of its provinces by force under false pretexts, and then have that same foreign government send in special agents of military and secret police to coordinate attacks on government buildings, officials, police buildings, army bases in whole provinces using thugs for hire, criminal groups (Donetsk has tons of criminal groups - the most in Ukraine), and disgruntled separatists (a minority). And all this time, that belligerent foreign power keeps a massive army a couple of miles from the border ready at a moment’s notice to attack and overpower this country if Ukraine even dreams of defending itself. This is Ukraine’s situation now. How would Poles react if this happened to part of their country, or the Germans? They wouldn’t fight back?

Terrorist thugs are now kidnapping and/or torturing Ukrainians (and not just Ukrainians, but Western journalists). And these thugs have Putin’s support. And Russia warns Ukraine not to protect itself by reclaiming its rightful property, army bases, government buildings from these terrorists who are assisted by Putin’s secret police.

Ukraine has to protect itself from this small violent minority supported by Russia which is causing havoc and bloodshed in the Donbas. And to top it all off, the Russian foreign ministry issued a statement demanding that Ukraine pull its armed forces out of the crisis-ridden region. Russia, meanwhile, has tens of thousands of troops stationed in areas near the Ukrainian border. According to Putin, Russia’s massed army can stay on Ukraine’s border, while Ukraine must remove its army from those parts of Ukraine destabilized by pro-Russian forces. What century does Putin live in? Is this not unbelievable.

Simon Ostrovsky is an American journalist and he too has been kidnapped by these pro-Russian thugs. Journalists are abused and kidnapped in Russia, if not killed, so I guess these pro-Russian blokes think kidnapping journalists, even American ones, a good thing. He has been accused of the most fanciful conspiracy theories by his captors. His reporting on Russian Roulette: The Invasion of Ukraine on Vice News is absolutely riveting viewing starting with episode one and the shenanigans that started in Crimea in part one up to Donetsk in the last episode he filmed before being kidnapped. I encourage all to watch his reports filed up until now to see the true situation. It’s on Youtube here at Vice News Channel Ukraine coverage:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw613M86o5o7DfgzuUCd_PVwbOCDO472B

He of course can’t upload anything now. He’s being held in confinement by these “peace-loving” pro-Russian captors. His reporting was honest, objective, and brave. It was truthful which is what must have aggravated and upset his captors who are used only to propaganda on Kremlin TV stations.

 

[saintjohnxxiii]

About 11 years ago when the US went into Iraq relations between Canada and the US went south because we (Canada) wouldn’t send troops to Iraq under our former Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Afterwards relations seemed to sour between our 2 countries. My Dad told me that once before that we are lucky to have the US as our neighbour because if Russia ever decides to invade our country we could count on the Americans to help us.

Back in December Putin said this:

winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/russia-s-putin-rattles-sabre-over-canada-s-claim-to-north-pole-and-to-santa-1.1583467

If Putin does try to take the North Pole can Canada expect any help from the Americans?

 

[Nelka]

If Putin does try to take the North Pole can Canada expect any help from the Americans?

Only if it is in America’s interest.

 

[pepipop]

Only if it is in America’s interest.

 

[Path_Finder]

If Putin does try to take the North Pole can Canada expect any help from the Americans?

It would be definitely in America’s interest to defend that territory, interests and Canada.

Let alone, intervene against foreign aggression.

 

[saintjohnxxiii]

Is it in the Obama Administrations interests to ensure that Canada has access to evil oil considering the billions it has spent on “clean” energy alternatives? They might tell PM Harper that Putin is doing us a favor!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

If Putin does try to take the North Pole can Canada expect any help from the Americans?

One can never be sure what Obama might fail to do.

However, of all the nations of the earth, Canada is probably the foremost among them that the U.S. would defend, for all kinds of reasons; some selfish, some not-so-selfish.

Canada and the U.S. are so economically integrated that an invasion of Canada is practically an invasion of the U.S., and vice-versa. Culturally, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between many Canadians and many Americans. If you had to pick out who was from where among a group of upper Great Plains residents and some Albertans or Saskatchewaners, you would be hard put to do it successfully.

And that’s before you ever get to the oil and minerals issues, which are of vital concern to both countries.

I don’t think the majority of Americans would allow Obama to betray Canada.

 

[josie_L]

Only if it is in America’s interest.

Isn’t that attitude representative of all nations when you come down to it??