Ukraine Watch...

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Lord Beria3
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Ukraine Watch...

Post by Lord Beria3 »

Thought it might be a good idea to set-up a specific thread on the Ukraine crisis as it might morph into a more dangerous East versus West clash (or maybe not?).

A few critical perspectives on the crisis so far to challenge the Western-centric interpretation shown in our mainstream corporate media.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_As ... 40214.html
Western governments are jubilant over the fall of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, a Russian ally. They may be underestimating Vladimir Putin: Russia has the option to hasten Ukraine's slide into chaos and wait until the hapless European Union acquiesces to - if not begs for - Russian intervention.

That leaves the West with a limited number of choices. The first is to do nothing and watch the country spiral into chaos, with Russia as the eventual beneficiary. The second is to dig deep into its pockets and find US$20 billion or more to buy near-term popularity for a pro-Western government - an unlikely outcome. The third, and the most realistic, is to steer Ukraine towards a constitutional referendum including the option of partition.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02 ... a-f26.html
Attempts to set up a government by the Western-backed Ukrainian opposition forces that seized power in Saturday’s fascist putsch have collapsed amid rising demands for social attacks on the working class from Washington and the European Union (EU), and military tensions with Russia.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton left Kiev yesterday after two days of fruitless talks attempting to bring the different opposition parties together in a government. The putsch, cynically hailed by the Western media as a struggle for democracy, is proving to be an operation to forcibly install a filthy dictatorship of imperialist finance capital. Opposition officials estimated this week that Ukraine needs up to $35 billion to refinance its debts. However, the major international banks have effectively cut off credit to Ukraine, charging ruinously high interest rates that it cannot afford. Meanwhile, Russia has withdrawn its offer of $15 billion in aid after the putsch toppled Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych.

EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials are demanding austerity measures, such as deep cuts to state subsidies for consumer energy prices, in exchange for a $1or 2 billion payment to stave off immediate bankruptcy. Yanukovych rejected a planned association agreement with the EU entailing such cuts last autumn—the decision which led to the opposition protests against him—fearing that the cuts might lead to social upheavals that would bring down his regime.

Now, the pro-Western opposition, supported by gangs of fascist thugs from the Svoboda party and the neo-Nazi Right Sector group, is trying to push this reactionary, anti-democratic agenda through. Arseniy Yatsenyuk of billionaire oligarch Yulya Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party, whom Washington has identified as its preferred right-wing figurehead in Ukraine, called on the opposition to join government and do the banks’ bidding despite popular opposition. “This is about political responsibility. You know to be in this government is to commit political suicide, and we need to be very frank and open,” Yatsenyuk told reporters outside Parliament.
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biffvernon
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Post by biffvernon »

Dmitry Orlov's piece certainly deserves to be included in this topic:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014- ... er-ukraine
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nexus
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Post by nexus »

Yes- I meant to post that, but forgot- it's well worth a read.
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Post by Tarrel »

Agreed, and accurate. Technically, I suppose I am half Ukrainian. My Dad was from that part of Poland that is now the western half of Ukraine.

The history is a nightmare of border-changes, occupations, etc. The new "unity government" is going to have to pull off some tricky outreach to the Russian-leaning eastern part of the country to have any hope of salvaging Ukraine as a nation. My bet is early secession of Crimea to Russia, and an eventual split down the Dnieper River into two nation-states that will each rapidly lose their identity as they become absorbed into the CIS and EU respectively. This doesn't have to be too painful, as the geographical and political leanings already coincide.

It'll be interesting to see if anything happens in Belarus.
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biffvernon
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Post by biffvernon »

Now if only we didn't have nation states and borders....
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Post by UndercoverElephant »

biffvernon wrote:Now if only we didn't have nation states and borders....
...we'd be even more f****d, if that's possible.

There is no credible model of a world without nation states and borders. It's just a meaningless fantasy. Meaningless because if you try to put flesh on the bones of the fantasy, all you could actually create is a monster (i.e. something even more monstrous than currently exists).
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Post by Little John »

It all seems to be kicking off in Bosnia Herzegovina/Croatia as well. Since this was not part of the script and so there has not yet been time to co-opt the protests there into a Western European/US capitalist narrative, this is not being reported much yet on Western media.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/world ... ajevo.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/opini ... ajevo.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK7Vmn6kqb0
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Post by Tarrel »

Interim (?) Ukrainian Prime Minister to a BBC reporter this evening; "Welcome to hell!"
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PS_RalphW
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Post by PS_RalphW »

Separatists have taken a government building in the east . Russia says it will defend their right to self determination. Clearly Russia is keen to get the east back.
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Post by featherstick »

PS_RalphW wrote:Separatists have taken a government building in the east . Russia says it will defend their right to self determination. Clearly Russia is keen to get the east back.
It's the west, for Russia.

My feeling is that Ukraine should let Crimea go, impose a visa regime, charge for water, access and transport, and then get on with an EU Stabilisation and Accession Agreement. In 10 years the kids of the separatists now making trouble would be clamouring to be let back into Ukraine.
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PS_RalphW
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Post by PS_RalphW »

The Crimea has been fought over for millenia. It was part of USSR from 1921 to 1954, apart from being invaded by Germany who wanted to colonise it by kicking out the Slavs. The Russians colonised it by kicking out the Tartars. It currently hosts the Russian Black Sea fleet and I don't see Russia letting that be kicked out at any price.

We tend to forget how much mass eviction went on in the 20th century. We get all agitated by the eviction of the Palestinians, but it sending entire peoples into exile was routine.

I don't think anybody can claim Crimea as their ancestral home. I think we need to take the interests of the current locals into account. Ukraine in its current boundaries is a modern invention, and I don't see it lasting. Stirring up nationalism in a fractured nation is a short cut to bloody civil war.

We need a velvet revolution followed by a velvet divorce, but I fear the calibre of the current revolutionaries leaves a lot to be desired.
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Post by biffvernon »

National borders are often very temporary affairs.
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Mean Mr Mustard
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Post by Mean Mr Mustard »

biffvernon wrote:National borders are often very temporary affairs.
Ask any Pole...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territoria ... _of_Poland
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emordnilap
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Post by emordnilap »

Mean Mr Mustard wrote:
biffvernon wrote:National borders are often very temporary affairs.
Ask any Pole...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territoria ... _of_Poland
Brilliant animated gif there.
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Post by biffvernon »

Superb illustration of my point. :)

The equivalent piece on Ukraine lacks the animation but is similarly variegated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine
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