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Ukraine in Revolution

palbert said:
From what I have read it appears to be only the peninsula. Roadblocks and barricades have been set up at the peninsula's entrance. There are disturbances on mainland eastern Ukraine but no groundswell of Russian troops.
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So, not so much like this:

500px-Ukraine_ElectionsMap_Nov2004.png


I would have expected them to go after the three southeast districts as well, just to have a land connection to the peninsula. Given the voting numbers in the easternmost two of them, that wouldn't be too hard. Or maybe they're thinking of putting in a bridge across the Kerch Strait (where Crimea almost touches Russia)?
 
There is an historical context to the current crisis in Ukraine that influences anti Russian sentiments.

It is noteworthy that Western Ukraine supplied tens of thousands of soldiers for The Third Reich's SS, so vehement was the anti Russian feelings amongst its population in response to the starvation of millions of Ukrainians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_National_Army

I quote:

The primary purpose of creation of the Ukrainian National Army was to integrate all the Ukrainian units fighting the Soviets under a single command. The intended size of the army, encompassing all the Ukrainian units subordinate to Oberkommando des Heeres was 220,000. However within the two months left till the end of the war, Shandruk was able to gather about 50 thousand soldiers.
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http://www.holodomorct.org/history.html

I quote:

1933
By June, at the height of the famine, people in Ukraine are dying at the rate of 30,000 a day, nearly a third of them are children under 10. Between 1932-34, approximately 4 million deaths are attributed to starvation within the borders of Soviet Ukraine. This does not include deportations, executions, or deaths from ordinary causes. Stalin denies to the world that there is any famine in Ukraine, and continues to export millions of tons of grain, more than enough to have saved every starving man, woman and child.
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It is difficult to predict what will happen now, with events on the ground continuing to shape the political landscape. Perhaps Russia will negotiate with this odious ‘government’ in Kiev. Otherwise Ukraine’s future will be decided elsewhere.

As Seamus Milne says:

What is needed instead is a negotiated settlement for Ukraine, including a broad-based government in Kiev shorn of fascists; a federal constitution that guarantees regional autonomy; economic support that doesn't pauperise the majority; and a chance for people in Crimea to choose their own future. Anything else risks spreading the conflict.
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/05/clash-crimea-western-expansion-ukraine-fascists
 
I have not explored this question so I ask it naivete but are we trying to make one country out of two? The map at #122 shows a pretty dramatic divide between east - which I understand has such industry as there is - and west - which I understand to be more agrarian. Is the Crimea issue merely evidence of a larger problem: that this "country" isn't ever going to work.
 
Seamus Milne, the well known apologist for The Kremlin, now attempting to reconcile his all embracing love for Vladamir Putin with the Russian president's attempt to persuade the world that Ukraine's independence can only be guaranteed by accepting a status of neutrality; in other words, by subordinating Ukraine's will for self determination to enforced economic ependence on Russia, with Russia's military presence in the Crimea protecting Ukraine from Western aggression....some protection...some ally....some friend.

Bizarre kind of independence.

Funny kind of anti-imperialism being proposed by Comrade Milne when suggesting that only Fascists are responsible for removing a highly corrupt president from office.....suggesting that other Ukrainians are indifferent, or ignorant of their former president's corrupt practices....twelve billion is being touted as a rough estimate.
 
palbert said:
I have not explored this question so I ask it naivete but are we trying to make one country out of two? The map at #122 shows a pretty dramatic divide between east - which I understand has such industry as there is - and west - which I understand to be more agrarian. Is the Crimea issue merely evidence of a larger problem: that this "country" isn't ever going to work.
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The Russian influence on Ukraine's economy is enormous... but the main preoccupation for Putin is the Russian Naval Base, the status of which has never been threatened by the Ukrainian Government for, it also provides much work for the local population, providing an economic benefit in a country that is very, very poor.

Crimea was originally part of Russia until 1954 so it could be argued that transferring Crimea back to Russia is a possible option to resolve the crisis, sweetened by a fifty year very cheap Russian gas supply contract to compensate Ukraine for its loss of territory.

The historical context...similarly in Poland...weighs heavily on the relationship between Non Russian Ukrainians, and Russia.

Western influence will also impact on Putin's position, for some 60 pct of Russia's external trade is with the European Union.
 
palbert said:
I have not explored this question so I ask it naivete but are we trying to make one country out of two? The map at #122 shows a pretty dramatic divide between east - which I understand has such industry as there is - and west - which I understand to be more agrarian. Is the Crimea issue merely evidence of a larger problem: that this "country" isn't ever going to work.
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Ukraine has been a fragile political entity since independence with the east favouring closer ties with the EU and the west not willing to forego its historically close relationship with Russia at its expense. It has been a delicate balance. The protests in Kiev which toppled the previous corrupt government broke this delicate balance, egged on by the EU and US. Incidentally, every government in Ukraine since independence has been thoroughly corrupt. Indeed if Ukrainians are united on one political issue it is their opposition to pervasive corruption at every level of society.
Despite this, most Ukrainians share a common cultural heritage with Russia – perhaps this is why the country has not completely collapsed and engaged in civil war.
 
palbert said:
I have not explored this question so I ask it naivete but are we trying to make one country out of two? The map at #122 shows a pretty dramatic divide between east - which I understand has such industry as there is - and west - which I understand to be more agrarian. Is the Crimea issue merely evidence of a larger problem: that this "country" isn't ever going to work.
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Spot on.

Ukraine is an unworkable concept.

Russia has effectively owned the Crimea and eastern Ukraine long before the Soviet Union days.

After losing it in the Crimean War...gaining it in the 20th century...as I've noted a number of times...Russia will never cede Sebastapol.

As for the rest of the eastern Ukraine? I guess it will come down to whether they feel that the 'independence' they have as a nation separate from the [STRIKE]USSR[/STRIKE] Russia is as appealing as being a [STRIKE]Soviet[/STRIKE] imperial Russian province...or semi-autonomous region.
 
palbert said:
I have not explored this question so I ask it naivete but are we trying to make one country out of two? The map at #122 shows a pretty dramatic divide between east - which I understand has such industry as there is - and west - which I understand to be more agrarian. Is the Crimea issue merely evidence of a larger problem: that this "country" isn't ever going to work.
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Those lines actually closely parallel ones back when the Kievan state was fighting (I'm probably mangling these names) the Yatars on it borders (they correspond to the mainland dark bluish area) who in turn were being pressured by some Turks in Crimea.

The thing that makes that parallel not important (maybe?) is that the populations in the three "zones" were within a handful of percentage points of being identical (OTOH, humans have fought when less was at stake).
 
kallipolis said:
Crimea was originally part of Russia until 1954 so it could be argued that transferring Crimea back to Russia is a possible option to resolve the crisis, sweetened by a fifty year very cheap Russian gas supply contract to compensate Ukraine for its loss of territory.

The historical context...similarly in Poland...weighs heavily on the relationship between Non Russian Ukrainians, and Russia.

Western influence will also impact on Putin's position, for some 60 pct of Russia's external trade is with the European Union.
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There's something that I noticed in my additional few hours of pursuing Russian history: both the Kievan and Muskovy states settled disputes with neighbors by just handing them bits of border regions. Those regions got swapped back and forth as fortunes shifted, leaving areas, especially along the Polish frontier and in the Crimean region, where ethnicities and cultures mixed -- but never really melded. Reading through the past it's easy to see how they were just storing up problems for the future, much as with the oft-traded border between France and Germany that led to several wars.

It's too bad there aren't any leaders in Ukraine who could stir popular opinion to say both "Fuck you!" and "Welcome!" to both Russia and the EU, and build a country which would specialize in friendship to both, rather than "leaders" determined to draw lines in the sand.
 
^There is a very real awareness in Ukraine that a repetition of Munich 1938 is near at hand, with The West agreeing to Russian annexation of The Crimea, to satisfy Putin's fear that the Russian Black Sea Fleet will lose its base...in my opinion an unjustifiable fear.

Henlein's Sudeten separatists were helped by Nazi forces from across the border in the German Reich in preparation for the German annexation of The Sudentenland, Czechoslovakia leading to Nazi Germany annexing the whole of Czechoslovakia....and world war when Germany invaded, and divided Poland with guess...the Soviet Union.
 
The West is not about to go to war over Ukraine, any part of it.
 
I think if Ukraine tried to join NATO Putin would invade.
 
DreamTeam said:
I agree, for now at least. It kind of makes sense to let Russia have Crimea (reluctantly), because there is little we can effectively do about it. Ukraine insists it will not let go of Crimea, and certainly the argument that it is Ukrainian soil, so why should they?, is going to weigh on the minds of the West should Ukraine go to war with Russia alone. Ukraine is at a disadvantage and Russia will appear the bully. The West could end up getting involved in the future, regardless of what its rhetoric is now. With any luck, Ukraine will weigh everything up and determine that the Crimea is not worth a potential war, join Nato to protect the remainder of its sovereignty and then join the West in sanctions or economic restrictions whatever.
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No -- Ukraine should stay out of NATO and work to make itself a bridge between Russia and the EU.

And NATO does not need a member state with so many fascists in power.
 
Ukraine has said it will not react militarily to the annexation of Crimea.

Ukraine's acting president has said the country will not use its army to stop Crimea from seceding, in the latest indication that a Russian annexation of the peninsula may be imminent.

The interim leader said intervening on the south-eastern Black Sea peninsula, where Kremlin-backed forces have seized control, would leave Ukraine exposed on its eastern border, where he said Russia has massed "significant tank units"

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/12/kiev-army-crimea-ukraine-acting-president
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It is normal that Ukraine should have friendly relations with neighbouring countries. I think it would seem legitimately odd from Russia's point of view that western countries would seem jealous that Ukraine would sometimes make overtures toward Russia. Yes, Russia's current policy in Crimea is inept and hostile and uncivilized, but we might have spent less time shutting Russia out over the last 12 years and more effort defining a role for it on the international stage. Would we care about Ukraine's relations with Russia if we had better relations with Russia as western nations? If it were better integrated into G8?
 
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