Thread: Что происходит в Украине? События, новости.

Originally Posted by Ramil

In two words - the inept government's policy (its absence, in fact) led to a coup performed by the most extremist and nationalistic part of the population.

I don't like these accusations sometimes coming from Russian media about various ex Soviet republics inhabitants being nazis and fascists etc. Doesn't seem fair or reasonable to bring up events from the War... So I thought it was exaggerated and rather irritating that they'd sink so low as to bring this up.

But then I saw pictures of some kind of Ukrainian organisation with people who had actually styled uniforms emblems on a swastika, making nazi salutes and certainly giving the impression of actually being Nazis.... Not to mention things they were saying.
Loitering around the "Maidan" and pestering people.
Pretty shocking. Real nazis involved in a coup d'etat.

Nobody in Germany ought to support anybody involved with that (yes mrs merkel) since it's strictly illegal there to have anything to do with Nazism. But several German ministers have gone to Ukraine and cheered these people on. And now they are going to treat Julia Timoshenko for some unspecified illness.

I shouldn't be blabbering about this though, because I really don't know enough about the background, the events themselves, or what would be the best way forward. So I'll shut up and read what those with more insight have to say.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Nobody in Germany ought to support anybody involved with that (yes mrs merkel) since it's strictly illegal there to have anything to do with Nazism.

But who's going to show to the Germans those 'unpleasant' pictures? No, they will see staged photos of beautiful young people who proclaim 'universal values' and freedom for all people.
Just look at the beginning of this thread, at those photos and videos that I and Lampada posted. It's very educating - a small 'handmade' informational war was going on. The Europeans will see only what Lampada posted and they will probably say that my examples are a forgery of some kind or at least biased.

Originally Posted by Ramil

But who's going to show to the Germans those 'unpleasant' pictures? No, they will see staged photos of beautiful young people who proclaim 'universal values' and freedom for all people.
Just look at the beginning of this thread, at those photos and videos that I and Lampada posted. It's very educating - a small 'handmade' informational war was going on. The Europeans will see only what Lampada posted and they will probably say that my examples are a forgery of some kind or at least biased.

Oh that's a DIFFERENT Nazi inspired emblem in your pictures! So there are more than one such organisation!

Yes, you can imagine the coverage of this. Everyone that's dead is implicitly Russia's fault somehow... And suddenly this democratically elected government is an evil dictatorship that deserves the rage of the people and the condemnation of the West.

I think these people are insane. Do they realise what real Nazis back in the days would have thought of them? They are spitting on their own history.
The Nazis wanted to steal the land in the USSR and use the people as slave labour because they were "untermenschen". And now they imitate the Nazis?!

So I have no idea what will happen now. Ukraine needed money very urgently as I understood it, and Russia was offering.
So will they now get the cash they need from the EU, USA or IMF instead because they were performed as expected in this coup d'etat?
What's going to happen to Ukraine's economy? I understand there's been a lot of destruction in Kiev and other places.

I used to think it might be nice if Ukraine joined the EU, or got closely involved. But now, after seeing this type of situation I actually don't want it. I certainly don't want my tax money to fund a bunch of Nazis and people who behave like they are puppets on a string and seem to completely lack perspective politically.

I never express strong views here, because I usually think I lack the insights that Russians, Ukranians and others have on these topics and because it's not my business strictly speaking.

But in this case, I think this is IDIOTIC. They could have waited ONE year for the election, and THEN if the election was fradulent, they could have staged this revolution. The majority voted for this president, and all he wanted to do was to postponed EU discussions and receive some extremely badly needed cash from the only country that was offering it. It's supposed to be "Western style " democracy there now, isn't it! Well the name of the game is you cast your vote, you allow them to do their worst for 4-5 years and then you get the opportunity to get rid of them if they failed. You don't have a revolution and smash up the capital just because a decision is taken that some people don't agree with! Particularly not one year before the next election.

Who does this benefit, and is there ANYthing at all to indicate that whoever takes over will be less corrupt or incompetent? Best guess is that this next government will also open up the doors for EU and US multinationals to crush what's left of local Ukrainian business and industry and maybe turn Ukraine into an outsourcing hothouse for the EU. I think Ukrainians are better than that.

The first thing that hit me when I was in Ukraine was how much Western European big brand corporations were there. It was so in-your-face in old historical or Soviet era blocks. Saw plenty of Swedish, German, Dutch not to mention American brands That's thousands of Ukrainian jobs lost and extra money wasted that goes straight into the pockets of people in Frankfurt, London and other EU capitals. While competent Ukrainians go without a job or are underpaid and overqualified in some dumbed down job.

I really don't get what motivated these people. I really like Ukraine and wish it the very best, but I just don't understand what they think they are doing.


"Peaceful protesters"

Originally Posted by Hanna

They could have waited ONE year for the election, and THEN if the election was fradulent, they could have staged this revolution. The majority voted for this president, and all he wanted to do was to postponed EU discussions and receive some extremely badly needed cash from the only country that was offering it.

Imagine you borrowed $1 mil from the yakuza and in order to pay the debt you borrowed money from, say, an Italian mafiozi. Then you 'somehow' spend a weekend in Las Vegas and now you don't have any money. The only thing that is left is your house. Now both the mafiozi and yakuza come to your house and start arguing who's going to take it. Your continued well being is the last thing those two are worried about.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Imagine you borrowed $1 mil from the yakuza and in order to pay the debt you borrowed money from, say, an Italian mafiozi. Then you 'somehow' spend a weekend in Las Vegas and now you don't have any money. The only thing that is left is your house. Now both the mafiozi and yakuza come to your house and start arguing who's going to take it. Your continued well being is the last thing those two are worried about.

So the EU is the mafiosi and Russia is the yakuza and Ukraine is the "stupid" "victim".
Clever allegory. Took me a few seconds to get.

I don't know anything about how incompetent and/or corrupt Yanukovich and his party were. Or if he was affected by circumstances beyond his control and faced with an impossible task.

But I don't understand how a person goes from democratically elected and internationally respected leader, to dictator who people want to prosecute as a war criminal. There is something rotten.......

Originally Posted by maxmixiv

It is clear, that they wanted the POWER, ASAP. What I don't get, why Yanukovich acted as he did.

What in particular did you have in mind? I thought this was so upsetting that I didn't watch it on the news...
I'm not defending him, but he had a full scale riot and revolution on his hands. The job of governments is to keep the public order, and they were totally out of control.

If he ordered "shoot-to-kill" then he should answer for that.
But look at the pictures of these people. They wanted a "war" and they got it

The thing that TOTALLY DISGUSTS me about this, is that this riots was cheered on by the EU and the USA. It was a mini Syria!

They deserve a dose of their own medicine. What if China stirred people up in the EU, so they took to Brussels and started smashing things up and setting things on fire? Then the Chinese leaders turn up to give the rioters cookies and hold speeches to motivate them. Anyone tried this in Washington DC and they'd be facing methods and weapons the Ukraine couldn't dream o!

If and when this happens in either the EU or the USA, they would probably react the same way, and they would totally condemn it.
It is such incredible double standards to openly support a revolution against a democratically elected leader in Europe, because they don't like who who he wants to take loans from, or negotiate trade union with.

The EU and USA have big contingency plans and annual exercises for how to disperse crowds, for example blank out mobiles, noises and smells that people can't tolerate, and a whole arsenal of non-lethal weapons. Particularly after "Occupy" and the London Riots.
Drone and satellites that can do facial recognition from space. Ukrainfe probably doesn't have this type of sophisticated equipment. But if you go out in the street and throw molotov cocktails, kidnap people and put buildings on fire, then surely you have to realise that you are taking a risk, possibly your own life.

I wonder if the EU and USA are going to turn a blind eye if these nazis execute Yanukovich on the spot, or hang him from a lamppost, as they are talking about. Trial in the Hague would be a FARSE. So he might have 88 innocent lives that could have been spared on his hands. How many do Obama have? Tony Blair for Iraq and Washington? Yanukovich is nothing compared with those.

And I know exactly how some in the USA and the EU regard Ukraine. I happened to work with an American woman just recently, who spent 7 years in Ukraine, working for a US international firm, according to her "teaching the Ukrainians how to run a business and do accountancy". Such arrogance! In this time she didn't manage to learn Russian or Ukrainian herself, and it's really insulting to suggest that there aren't people in Ukraine who know how to do accountancy, a. Everything was "wrong" about her flat, shopping in Kiev etc. Nevertheless she probably had a much better flat than most people in Kiev and the salary to get the best of the available shopping. I listened to so much of her "war stories" from living there, her dissing of Russia and Belarus and unfortunately with her being senior to me, I couldn't tell her my real view.

As for the EU, it's always been about getting EU brands in and taking over the markets and getting access to a cheap outsourcing labour force.


Please tell me that this baptist minister, Oleksandr Turtjynov, who is acting prime minister, was not trained in the USA? I didn't even know there were baptists in Ukraine - definitely the fruits of recent missionary efforts. I really like baptists and a strong Christian might be just what this situation needs. On the other hand, a lot of baptists on this continents are totally in bed with the USA.

And what's the situation with Ukrainian names? Do people have two versions of their names, a Ukrainian and a Russian? Western media confuses itself and believes it's talking about two different people - Mykola / Nikolai etc. The different ways to Romanize the name causes even more confusion.

Finally - my view: Just call it quits and split the country. This has been going on for over 20 years now. Can the people take any more of this now? Plus smaller nations are less interesting to manipulate - Ukraine's size is part of its curse. Do a referendum in Eastern Ukraine and find out if people want to be part of the Russian federation or a smaller independent nation.

Lots of European nations have split for various reasons. It's better than having a country where people are pulling in different directions and have different loyalties. That way, Western Ukraine, the nazis and the lack of money becomes the EUs problem. They'll be another Eastern European member like Romania.
Just another problem to add to the list. And let the East Ukrainians have an independent nation or merge with Russia. The EU made this bed, so now we can lay in it, I guess... And Western Ukraine would probably get on really well with Poland, the Baltics and Hungary.

Originally Posted by Hanna

I don't like these accusations sometimes coming from Russian media about various ex Soviet republics inhabitants being nazis and fascists etc. Doesn't seem fair or reasonable to bring up events from the War... So I thought it was exaggerated and rather irritating that they'd sink so low as to bring this up.

*Morpheus mode on*
What if I told you, that most of ex Soviet republics were led to independence by nationalists and millions of Russians who were unlucky to stay there suffered from it?
*Morpheus mode off*
Western regions of Ukraine are quite special. Their population always distanced themselves from the eastern half. When it began and why is long story spanning over two hundred years. When the nazi came there, they were met with flowers. One of the reasons for that was the propaganda nazi used to spread in attacked regions posing themselves as liberators. Many of the "collaborationists" formed an army led by Stepan Bandera (not for long actually) and showed even more brutality than their patrons and paid dearly for their treachery later. Nowadays there is a social group of people, who consider themselves their descendants and believe that their grandpas were fighting not for the nazis but against communism (and Soviet "jewish government"). Today they proudly wear nazi symbols and build plans to get their revenge. They may not be actual nazis (yet they retain the nazi hate towards Hebrew), but to us, Russians, everybody who wears that is considered a threat, so our journalists don't hesitate to call them "nazis" as well.

Originally Posted by Hanna

I used to think it might be nice if Ukraine joined the EU, or got closely involved. But now, after seeing this type of situation I actually don't want it. I certainly don't want my tax money to fund a bunch of Nazis and people who behave like they are puppets on a string and seem to completely lack perspective politically.

A bunch of Nazis? Like these in Estonia?
Сбор ветеранов войск СС в Эстонии (Annual SS veteran meeting in Estonia)

Originally Posted by DrBaldhead

*Morpheus mode on*
What if I told you, that most of ex Soviet republics were led to independence by nationalists and millions of Russians who were unlucky to stay there suffered from it?

Hm... I know in the Baltic states they brought in people of Baltic origin who grew up in the USA, Germany and Scandinavia to run the country....

And I read a rather funny article in a Swedish paper a few years ago, by a tourist to Tallinn who was pretty shocked to discover that our innocent darlings across the Baltic sea have parades in the honour of Nazi ideals. On EU territory! And I saw some pretty serious Nazi graffiti in Riga.

I thought this was a small and very confused minority who turned to this type of history and ideals as a counter-reaction to everything that the USSR stood for. I grew up in the shadow of fingerpointing about whose parents or grandparents were or weren't a Nazi, who might have collaborated or supported them and I just don't like endless mulling over the events in the war.

However, as your picture points out, it's quite a different thing if a modern person takes a conscious decision to praise nazi ideals.

I might be mixing up Eastern European history - but I really thought the Ukranians were mostly communist partisans during the war, or drafted into the Red Army... Could have sworn it came up in school history. Or maybe I am mixing it up with elsewhere in the USSR, or Eastern Europe.

*Morpheus mode off*
Western regions of Ukraine are quite special. Their population always distanced themselves from the eastern half. When it began and why is long story spanning over two hundred years. When the nazi came there, they were met with flowers. One of the reasons for that was the propaganda nazi used to spread in attacked regions posing themselves as liberators. Many of the "collaborationists" formed an army led by Stepan Bandera (not for long actually) and showed even more brutality than their patrons and paid dearly for their treachery later. Nowadays there is a social group of people, who consider themselves their descendants and believe that their grandpas were fighting not for the nazis but against communism (and Soviet "jewish government"). Today they proudly wear nazi symbols and build plans to get their revenge. They may not be actual nazis (yet they retain the nazi hate towards Hebrew), but to us, Russians, everybody who wears that is considered a threat, so our journalists don't hesitate to call them "nazis" as well.

Haha Morfpheus. ok! Thanks for this interesting info. I didn't know that about Ukraine. I only heard about the partisans.

A lot of the Ukrainian Jews left the country though, i.e. to Israel and North America, right? I thought maybe almost all? And are those Jews who remain concerned about being Jewish? I met people from the ex USSR who were all or partially Jewish and all of them were radically atheist. I was in Odessa which has a reputation for being "Jewish", but I didn't see any sign of Jewish life at all, apart from some American Hasidic Jews speaking English. But I guess whatever Jews are left in Ukraine lean more towards Russia then, than with these nationalists?

Originally Posted by DrBaldhead

A bunch of Nazis? Like these in Estonia?
Сбор ветеранов войск СС в Эстонии (Annual SS veteran meeting in Estonia)

[/QUOTE]
Yes, well if it's old people I don't care. I guess all those who lived through the war need to talk about it sometimes, with others who had a similar experience. Not defending them and I don't like it, but it's not my business. And most people in Germany and Austria have pictures of their older relatives in Nazi uniforms etc. People didn't know, they just followed the prevailing ideology like sheep.... I think we can all relate to that....!

It's when they bring it out TODAY, with modern people and start whitewashing Nazism that it's disturbing. Today we know the facts. People in the 1930s- 1940s did not have the full picture.

I actually have some relatives from Estonia. There were several brothers. Two were just farmers, but one was better educated and worked for the Nazis during the war. Funnily enough, another brother who was much younger than the others, was a socialist or communist, pro-USSR. It's a long story, but the brother who worked for the Nazis had a big part of his life destroyed because of it, even though he managed to leave Estonia before the USSR picked him up. He was such a drunk that he didn't live to see Estonia as an independent nation. All but one of the brothers left the country in connection with the USSR annexation.

The more I read about Ukraine, the more I think, just split the country and be done with it!
Ukraine is new as a nation state anyway, it's not like it's a country that's been around for centuries.
Maybe just admit that the borders of the Ukrainian SSR did not actually reflect the real borders of Ukraina and a mistake was made in the general chaos of '92-'93.

See my previous comment. I mean, it can't continue like this! It's been over 20 years since the USSR, and Ukraine still hasn't found its feet as a country. Everyone and their dog is trying to exploit and manipulate Ukraine.

For example, in Belarus it's working better even though the "Belarussian" identity isn't really rooted in most people and a lot of them weren't even born there. Also in the Baltic states, and even Moldova, I think. With the current borders and population it might be unrealistic to make a go of it, in Ukraine.

Sorry I am ranting about this, I really care, seriously, I think it's very tragic and I want Ukrainians to have a better future with stability and prosperity, and without being manipulated or exploited.

Originally Posted by Hanna

The more I read about this, the more I think, just split the country and be done with it.

We lost a great politician in you!

Originally Posted by Ramil

We lost a great politician in you!

haha, well you know me....

A lot of my "views" about the ex USSR area is actually based on info I picked up in this forum, by asking people and just reading info from people who take the time to explain local history and their own perspective.

Is it offensive to Ukrainian citizens to suggest that it's worth considering splitting up the country?


I am thinking that both sides would be quite relieved to get rid of the other. Or is it more complex?
Biggest challenge I guess, would be how and where to split. They'd have to ask for help for impartial assistance with that, and it might be another reason for a big conflict.


One other thing: All the while I was in Ukraine I didn't notice anyone speaking Ukrainian - I was in Odessa and Kiev. I was listening out for it but nobody spoke it. Yet practically all written info was in Ukrainian.which was problematic for me, and not what I had expected. It seems to me that the language issue can be a big problem if they are again going to revert to forcing Ukrainian on people who don't want it.


Edit: Apparently the new temporary prime minister has said that any threats against the sovereign territory of Ukraine is unacceptable. I guess that means that even having a public discussion about splitting the country is out.