Ukraine: More Thoughts and Comments

March 3, 2014

Some more thoughts on the Ukraine:

1. There are claims that there was a Russian "invasion" of the Crimea. I have yet to see any evidence that there are more Russian troops, other than those regularly stationed on the Crimea, involved. Sure the Kiev coup-government claimed that dozens of huge Russian transport planes landed but how come that there is not even one picture of them available? To me it seems that the troops usually stationed on Crimea, which include various Marine infantry and Marine special forces units ,who obviously also have the support of the population are quite sufficient to secure the island. No shots were fired and the Russian navy, one might argue, is simply securing the larger perimeters of its bases.

2. The Europeans, unlike the U.S. do not want make much hassle about the Russian move. Britain is against financial sanctions on Russian politicians and oligarchs because their money feeds the City of London. Forty percent of the oil and gas used in the EU is coming from Russia. No one will sanction that stream. For the German industry Russia is one of the biggest foreign markets. Other then some symbolic "We are miffed" sanction will not be done.

While Merkel and other EU politicians seems to want to calm the situation down the White House feels domestic political pressure to do more of "something". That is likely why we see this "leak" in today's New York Times:

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday that after speaking with Mr. Putin she was not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call said. “In another world,” she said.

This does not sound like typically Merkel but rather strange for her. I doubt that she said that the way the "people briefed on the call" told it to the Times stenographer. It is rather an attempt to discredit Merkel and to make it more difficult for her to find a solution with Russia outside of U.S. control. That interpretation would indeed fit with this bit from the same piece:

Working from the Oval Office over the weekend, wearing jeans and a scowl, [Obama] called several of his G-8 counterparts to “make sure everybody’s in lock step with what we’re doing and saying,” according to a top aide.

3. There is some hyperventilation about reactions in the Russian stock markets and the price of the ruble:

The stock market has been absolutely pummeled: as of the time that this piece was written (around 7:30 am on Monday the 3rd) the MICEX was down by 11.2% and the RTS was down by 12.8%. As the Financial Times noted, the sell-off did not spare the companies that function as bastions of the Russian state: Gazprom was down 10.7% and Sberbank was down by 9.8%.

The activity in the currency market might have been even worse. The ruble reached all-time lows against both the dollar and the euro, falling by 2.5% and 1.5% respectively.

First: Unlike the U.S. government the Russian government simply does not care about stock market numbers. There is a lot of volatility now because a lot of people want to make money out of it. But the stock prices will recover soon especially as oil prices, and thereby the profits of many big Russian companies, have risen. Besides that all stock markets in Europe are down 2-3% today. So what? Second: The Russian government and its central bank were already following a policy of devaluation of the ruble to help the local industry towards more exports. From late January:

Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev sounded an upbeat note about the decline that is likely only to spur ruble selling.

"I am not a proponent of stimulating the economy through an artificial weakening of the ruble," Ulyukayev told Moscow's Prime business news agency.

"But since what we have now is not an artificial but a natural weakening … then why not enjoy its positive effects?" he asked.

"This will help improve the competitiveness of a range of industries," the economy minister stressed.

Today's downward move of the ruble will make the Kremlin more happy than concerned. "Western" analysts seem to not understand that ant are just following the anti-Russian propaganda line.

4. The very smart coup government in Kiev is doing what everyone on the Maidan demanded (not):

The office of President Oleksandr V. Turchynov announced the two appointments on Sunday of two billionaires — Sergei Taruta in Donetsk and Ihor Kolomoysky in Dnipropetrovsk — and more were reportedly under consideration for positions in the eastern regions.

The people in eastern Ukraine, who may already be inclined to rather go with Russia, will be very happy to now have Kiev friendly oligarchs ruling over them (not). This idiotic move plays right into the hand of the Russian strategy as announced by Medvedev today:

"Yes, the prestige of President (Viktor) Yanukovich is almost negligible but this does not nullify the fact that under the Constitution of Ukraine he is (still) the legitimate Head of State. If he is guilty before Ukraine carry out a procedure of impeachment in accordance with Ukraine's Constitution (Article 111) and put him on trial. All the rest is arbitrariness. A seizure of power. And this means that such a procedure will be utterly unstable and will end with a new coup, and a new bloodshed," Medvedev maintains.

Both sides can play the coup game. There are pro-Russian demonstrations all over the eastern and southern Ukraine and there will soon be more of them. Occupation of government buildings will follow. The coup government dissolved the Berkut riot police and as now nothing to put up against demonstrators but some fascists gangs. Should those threaten Russia friendly demonstrators in eastern Ukraine Russia would have a good reason to intervene. But that again could ignite a bigger war:

The real and urgent issue now is what happens across the eastern and southern Ukraine, and it is essential that neither side initiates the use of force there. Any move by the new Ukrainian government or nationalist militias to overthrow elected local authorities and suppress anti-government demonstrations in these regions is likely to provoke a Russian military intervention. Any Russian military intervention in turn will compel the Ukrainian government and army (or at least its more nationalist factions) to fight.

The West must therefore urge restraint—not only from Moscow, but from Kiev as well. […] In the longer run, the only way to keep Ukraine together may be the introduction of a new federal constitution with much greater powers for the different regions.

Russia would win any fight against the coup government in Kiev and its military. The Ukrainian armed forces are not loyal to the government and anyway ill prepared for war. They are easy targets to hit. But fighting against fascist gangs would escalate into a guerrilla war. Russia could win that too but only at high costs. It should keep the Crimea and should try to find an agreement with the "west" that will keep the Ukraine, along these lines, mostly finlandized and neutral between two somewhat competing economic blocs.

Posted by b on March 3, 2014 at 15:16 UTC | Permalink

Comments

M.K. Bhadrakumar:
“Kerry [is]… being plain dishonest and unrealistic”, “Kerry can’t say there is no blood on his hands”, “Kerry is dishonest”, “Kerry’s threats … won’t wash”, “Kerry must be joking”, “Kerry is in a fantasyland”, “US has bitten more than it can chew”
Not looking good for Kerry…

Posted by: guest77 | Mar 4 2014 2:29 utc | 101

#94 guest77 “The Germans shot so many civilians in part because Soviet partisans deliberately provoked reprisals.” quote from snyder.
The Nazis committed a major massacre of citizens of the Lidice during WWII. This was blamed on the partisans who killed Rudolph Hydrich. It does not surprise me that this new rising star and professor of history at Yale repeats that story (given his take on the current Ukraine crisis). After all, the Germans made it very clear that they would kill 10 innocent citizens for every German soldier that was killed by the partisans. You know what? They carried out this policy in Italy, Yugoslavia, Czechoslavia and the Soviet Union. That was the choice given: if you resist occupation, then be guilty of war crimes. In any case, interesting quote from Snyder. He is one up and rising star in American academics and given his support for the fascists forces in Ukraine probably a new face in the Think Tank world that provides intellectuals for future US administrations.
Israel happens to be doing this today but their justification is more sophisticated: they blame Arab fighters of using their own families as shields in war against the Jews.

Posted by: ToivoS | Mar 4 2014 2:34 utc | 102

69) Obviously none of the sides care about legality. When was this “calling for help” done the last time? Must have been Afghanistan.
85) I suppose this is only done to brown people. The record of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan is not that good.
European media is beginning to talk solutions, so hopefully the new cold war can be avoided.
87) It was not the only famine in the Soviet Union. Bolschewiks knew nothing about farming.
84) Sorry, Russia has officially used the defense of “Russian speakers” as reason for its actions. With the same reasoning Turkey could defend “Turkic speakers” in the Russian Federation and Mexico “Spanish speakers” in the US.

Posted by: somebody | Mar 4 2014 2:38 utc | 103

” What is not a myth is that a serious famine swept the Ukraine in the early 30 and that at least 1.8 million peasants starved to death.”
Do you have any real evidence of this? In particular where does the figure 1.8 million come from?
“There is also little doubt that the mortality rate was so high because of inept and criminal actions by the Soviet government.”
What form did this ineptitude and criminality take? And to what extent was the Soviet government instrumental?
“These actions were part of the plan to collectivize the farms. The peasants rebelled and under “antihoarding” laws the communists seized their food stocks.”
How would the actions, that you suggest occurred, form part of the plan to collectivise the farms?
“What would normally have been a food shortage caused by bad weather turned into humanitarian catastrophe.”
Are there any eyewitness reports of this?
What you are doing, Toivo S @82, is repeating a very old piece of anti-communist propaganda which first took wing after the Nazi seizure of power, in February 1933, and has been promoted ever since, in a variety of forms, employing fake testimony and doctored photography, by fascist propagandists.
The facts appear to be fairly clear. There was a massive campaign of resistance,by the rural bourgeoisie, to the collectivisation of agriculture. The great majority of the peasants supported collectivisation because they benefited from it. The kulaks resisted because it threatened the privileged position that they had built up, through usury etc, during the real famine years of 1917-1922, the years in which foreign backed white armies, the German Army under Hoffman and guerrilla bands had reduced millions of people, all over Russia, to famine conditions. For a real famine in Ukraine look at these years. For real criminals look at the fourteen foreign governments responsible.
It needs to be added, of course, that the one area of Ukraine which was certainly not affected by Soviet government in 1932 was that area, which was part of Poland- the very area which today preaches anti-Russian neo-fascist politics, which in 1941 was ruled by Ukrainian fascists, under German patronage and which assiduously cultivates the myth which is largely rejected by the people who live in the areas said to have been affected.

Posted by: bevin | Mar 4 2014 2:42 utc | 104

“After all, the Germans made it very clear that they would kill 10 innocent citizens for every German soldier that was killed by the partisans. You know what? They carried out this policy in Italy, Yugoslavia, Czechoslavia and the Soviet Union.” @101
This is fairly standard counter insurgency practice. The US certainly practised it in the Phillipines. It was also their practice in Vietnam, and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is Israel’s avowed policy in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories.
Then there was France in Algeria, Britain in Malaya and Kenya and the list goes on.
This is not to justify these tactics, merely to point out that this “rising star” among historians, one of the aspiring Grande Horizontales of the oldest profession in the Academy, is simply re-iterating an argument that imperialists have made since Empire began. The next step is to say that by being ruthless they save the lives of hundreds more who otherwise might be tempted to rebel.

Posted by: bevin | Mar 4 2014 2:59 utc | 105

Well all the top communist liars are out in force, denying the facts of genocide with all the gusto their little dishonest bigoted blacks hearts can muster.
One of the communist clowns even mentions the fact that Bolsheviks outlawed antisemitism, but neglects to mention that they immediately went and murdered members of another religion, The Orthodox Religion.
Bertrand Russell called Russia under the Bolsheviks “A tranny of americanised Jews, where no vestige of liberty in thought or deed remains”
You chaps would have fit right in there

Posted by: hahahaha | Mar 4 2014 3:02 utc | 106

@somebody I really don’t think you have many points there at all.
The Russian intervention into Afghanistan may have been a mistake, but it isn’t a mistake it can said to have been lonely in making. And your attempt to hang them with the same rope so often used on the United States (accusing them of not caring for “brown people” doesn’t really hold water). After all, many of the troops going in to the country with the Red Army – Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks – were from the immediate regions.
As for your philosophical point about wether countries can defend their countrymen and women across borders – I really think you have to look at the people the Russians are dealing with. And after all, they have not fired a shot and don’t show any sign of intending to. At this point, they are little more than peacekeepers.

Posted by: guest77 | Mar 4 2014 3:08 utc | 107

the galicians, bevin, the partners in crime
bevin, old friend, they do not want to hear what is clear to someone of our generation, that our breath is owed to the courage of the soviet union. i have always in some way been in their debt. i am unashamed of saying that
i am heartily tired of the russophobia dressed up in all sorts of garments, conquest & service were highly paid pieces of shit who knowing fabricated their ‘histories’, gladly that is something that in its cast majority shoah scholarship has stayed very far from except for a few notable examples who are so openly ideological, like the state of israel itself, it dishonors both jewish memory & jewish history. there is a rigor that began with the remarkable raul hilberg (who we would not have liked outside the work – he was a republican) but in his work he showed the shallowness of much of western historical scholarship & i did not find it odd that he in his last years defended norman finklestein with great energy
& he would not keep quite about the sionists, given that the vast majority of eastern jewry were bundists & zionism really was no more than a sect, their role in the judenrats, while he understood the judenrats position he analysed them very harshly indeed because of holland for example, where their role is shameful – the poor, the really poor jewry of the shtetl had no defenders except the communists
i am tired of reading eroticised version of the great generalship of the germa,s when the reality is that their generals were masters real masters, including the young jewish general who died in prussia, – mt favorite amongst them all is rokossovski who had been imprisoned for some time & had been beatenso badly that he required new steel teeth & this deft master strategis said in his memoris that for him stalin was god, & he is not a man to throw words around, he wrote this in the 60’s when it was not fashinable not even in moscow to say that but he wanted to speak the truth, – i am bery ill & i reread the great scotish historian john erickson & his landmark studies, that history forgot, on purpose, the road to stalingrad & the road to berlin & his doctoral work on the soviet general staff of the 20’s & 30’s, chris bellamys’ ansolure war makes the point over & over again, he speaks of him as the only leader of that time who could prioritise, stalin made the decision to move industry to the urals in the first half hour
now that we have his diaries, the famous mental breakdown of stalin never happened, it is a complete fiction like everything else from a to z
the west still has so much invested in its hatred of the russian people & i know putin is no lenin but he is a guarantor of a multipolar world & with the americans as mad as they have ever been – it is absolutely necessary that the people & their leadership be defended
especially against fascist scum & their allies

Posted by: remembererringgiap | Mar 4 2014 3:11 utc | 108

there is a reason oscar wilde called anti semitism the socialism of the stupid

Posted by: remembererringgiap | Mar 4 2014 3:15 utc | 109

@105 This is silly. Are we going to play the “who killed more of who” game again?
Because if we are, you US/UK boys really don’t stand a chance. Even if I gave you Snyder’s calculations, you’d run out of “Soviet-made corpses” before I even got through Vietnam.
The only thing the capitalist west exceeds more than murder is hypocrisy. That much is sure.

Posted by: guest77 | Mar 4 2014 3:19 utc | 110

Whats so pathetic about the crusty old communist dinosaurs is the ability to deny one genocide, the Ukrainian one, and then immediately afterward almost literally drooling on themselves while fetishising another genocide.
But that second genocide was jewish and therefore “important” while the other one was “not jewish” and often supervised in the main by people that were jewish, therefore it must be labelled “never happened” by the black hearted liars and holocaust fetishists

Posted by: hahaha | Mar 4 2014 3:22 utc | 111

109 oh you lot are doing a fine line in hypocrisy today.
Bucket loads of it on this page alone

Posted by: hahaha | Mar 4 2014 3:25 utc | 112

@remembererringgiap, thank you for this history.
And take care. I can’t count the times I have heard people here talk about you dearly.

Posted by: guest77 | Mar 4 2014 3:26 utc | 113

108
but oscar wilde never visited bolshevik russia, and neither did you
Bertrand Russell, on the other hand, did

Posted by: hahahaha | Mar 4 2014 3:29 utc | 114

@113 So did Will Rogers. And he didn’t have too many bad things to say about it. Of course, he wasn’t an English aristocrat so there’s that.

Posted by: guest77 | Mar 4 2014 3:30 utc | 115

Your mr rodgers clearly wasn’t too observent either

Posted by: mr rodgers | Mar 4 2014 3:32 utc | 116

Referencing finkelstein was tres ironic- like you have not understood a word he said on the subject
Finkelstein speaks of the holocaust and how it has become an industry and in some ways a religion
The crusty communist treats the holocaust exactly like a religion getting all emotional as he praises the high priests who helped make it into an industry and a religion

Posted by: hahaha | Mar 4 2014 3:37 utc | 117

And naturally like all rabid fundamentalist religious fanatics he attacks any that might point out that other genocides have occurred, because that might threaten the marketshare of his chosen religion

Posted by: hahaha | Mar 4 2014 3:41 utc | 118

@112
thank you, vraiment

Posted by: remembererringgiap | Mar 4 2014 4:06 utc | 119

guest 77
we are lucky to have b’s fine analysis & even when i am not capable of writing i want people to read b & the people like you who teach & take time to do so

Posted by: remembererringgiap | Mar 4 2014 4:14 utc | 120

Sometimes it’s important to remember that all govts are ongoing criminal enterprises, populated at the top by psychopaths. What’s amazing to me is, W was identified by his mother as a psychopath when he was 5 years old, and O had to attain the presidency before we discovered he was a psychopath. ALL govts are ongoing criminal enterprises because that’s where the easy money can be stolen. If the laws need to be changed to steal the people’s money – no problem, the psychopaths are good at that. All politics is about money – one of the reasons most politicians talk blah, blah, blah, god, gays, guns, blah, blah is solely for ‘misdirection’, the stage magician’s trick.

Posted by: okie farmer | Mar 4 2014 4:33 utc | 121

Strange and perhaps no coincidence
Three other blogs I frequent are having daily harassments from “SOMEBODY” and on one blog everyone cheered in unison when the shit-stirrer was finally banned from comments.

Posted by: anonymous | Mar 4 2014 4:45 utc | 122

r’giap, nice to see you posting again. Health & happiness to you.

Posted by: ben | Mar 4 2014 4:59 utc | 123

From RT: http://rt.com/news/churkin-unsc-russia-ukraine-683/

Posted by: ben | Mar 4 2014 5:02 utc | 124

There is only one honest solution to this stand-off: Give Ukrainians what they wish for (be careful what you wish for!); a new government but obviously not EU and Nato membership unless you want another Greece and to further antagonize Russia, and allow the autonomous region of Crimea to secede because no doubt especially given the chaos manufactured in Ukraine by radical fascists and foreign efforts the people of Crimea will secede if given half the chance. It’s a chance they deserve and the world deserves peace and the EU deserves to recover economic stability after the sacrifices they’ve made. Don’t throw away this opportunity on behalf of U.S. hubris, another U.S. foreign policy blunder and self-righteous nonsense.
The answer is just too easy and crystal clear. GIVE BOTH SIDES WHAT THEY WANT, and then leave them be.

Posted by: kalithea | Mar 4 2014 5:21 utc | 125

bevin #103 writes: There was a massive campaign of resistance,by the rural bourgeoisie, to the collectivisation of agriculture. The great majority of the peasants supported collectivisation because they benefited from it. The kulaks resisted because it threatened the privileged position that they had built up, through usury etc,
What you call the rural bourgeoisie happened to be the more successful farmers. These were the farmers that also happened to be the most productive. Collectivization may have been popular with the less productive peasants but the net result was to strip rural Russia (not just Ukraine) of its most productive farmers. Before WWI the Ukraine was considered the breadbasket of Europe. After collectivization the Soviet Union was forced to import wheat from North America for the next 5 decades. There was something incredibly inefficient about that Soviet system and I believe that was key to its collapse in 1989.

Posted by: ToivoS | Mar 4 2014 5:56 utc | 126

Why do people have to dig up ancient history and resurrect past grudges to justify their point of view? Everyone should return to the present. What we have today, in the present is a standoff and an opportunity to give two peoples who now seriously mistrust each other: the people of Ukraine and the people of Crimea what they want. Ukrainians want the government they illegally imposed and the ethnic Russians of Crimea want secession which is not an outrageous request without precedent. These people will never trust the government illegally imposed on them in Kiev. They are fearful with good reason that they will suffer under this imposed government; they are fearful that this government will bring the country to the brink of disaster and it sure looks like its clueless, and most importantly, they’re fearful that this government will impose changes that will diminish the rights of ethnic Russians.
The U.S. has no right to dictate what the people of Crimea want and neither does the illegit government imposed on Crimea in Kiev and if Crimea seeks protection by Russian forces already stationed there, good on them. There are radicals who would like nothing better than to stage explosive, violent incidents in Crimea as they did in Kiev.
The EU is inching back from recession. Aside from these two peoples I mentioned, what happens in this stand-off affects the EU and Russia much more than it affects the U.S. The U.S. has no business or right to call the shots in this situation, especially, since it has meddled one too many times with disastrous consequences. The U.S. has zero moral authority and has been so wrong, so misguided, so INSANE in its foreign policy judgment that it should be sidelined completely on this issue, because all it does is ramp up the tension with rants from old, crazy Senators and the bald-faced lying mainstream media. There are no U.S. interests in this crisis except to incite further instability and create imbalance in global power to America’s imperial advantage. It’s always about American greed for control and power.
The U.S. is on a delusional mission to conquer and Americanize the entire world! Someone needs to tear this out-of-control imperialistic monolith off its gilded pedestal once and for all.

Posted by: kalithea | Mar 4 2014 6:47 utc | 127

#126 kalithea You are right, this is not the history channel, but somehow that history keeps on creeping in. These ancient events keeps on popping up because the right wing forces in the Ukraine keep up on bringing up the holdomor, Bandera and his gangs and oppression of the Crimean Tatars. But also you seem to think that the issue is a dispute between the Crimeans and the Ukrainians. Nope that is not what is going on right now. The issue is between those citizens whose first language is Russian and those that speak Ukrainian. Can’t explain the problem without a little history but the fact is that the Crimea is one of twelve Ukrainian provinces whose native tongue is Russian. They are also going to insist on autonomy from the Ukrainian majority country.

Posted by: ToivoS | Mar 4 2014 7:07 utc | 128

106) Look, let’s face it, Russia is an empire and it used all the colonial tricks out there known from the Osman Empire, from the French, the English and they might have invented some of their own. So yes they were resettling people, yes they played off the natives, yes, they used Siberian slave labour, yes, they colonised and yes, people got massacred when they did not fit in with political plans.
And yes, they won the war against Hitler and industrialized and modernized themselves to a super power within twenty years under the conditions of close to continuous warfare and with a secular, anti nationalist ideology that gave a chance to everybody (Stalin came from Georgia, Breschnev from Eastern Ukraine).
Putinism is about new Russian hegemony and you can find it a good idea as that would also mean pacification, but its ideology and the writing of its own heroic history should bear a critical look. The same critical look Timothy Snyder deserves, who, with others, is funded to write the basis of a counter narrative, which is used to reenact fascist Eastern Europe movements, to bring back German Fascist warfare into the fold of accepted normality (of course it was colonial warfare used many times in Asia and Africa by colonial powers, with a “superior race” ideology that justified it) and thereby reenact the national movements the Germans had used as proxies (and are used as proxies by US/Europe to prevent Russian hegemony)
If we treat history like that we will never learn from it.

Posted by: somebody | Mar 4 2014 7:30 utc | 129

Once Kiev is liberated, the most important geopolitical task will be to prevent Lvov from having any political influence in Kiev, most importantly any veto power over Eurasian integration. One option is to make Banderastan an independent state and allowing it to enter into a economic association agreement with the new pro-Russian Ukraine.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Mar 4 2014 7:46 utc | 130

127) We don’t know what people in the Ukraine want. We know what the media sells to us.
US media is kind of letting the truth about the Kiev “government” trickle in though still sugar coating it

“The United States and the European Union would also have to approve it, which was putting additional pressure on us. Foreign ministers of Poland, France, and Germany, who were in Kyiv at the time, wanted us to wait at least 48 hours after the signing of our peace-deal with Yanukovych before taking any further steps,” says Yaroslav Ginka from the opposition UDAR party led by boxer-turned-politician Vitaliy Klitschko. “At the same time,” he continues: “we were feeling the growing frustration from protesters on the streets. The atmosphere among them was so tense that we knew there was no time for waiting left and they would storm the parliament building if something were not done as soon as possible.”
Three hours later, after Yanukovych refused to leave office, the Ukrainian parliament by an overwhelming majority voted to remove him from the post as the one who “has dissociated himself” by fleeing the capital. The ballot was passed with a constitutional majority and entered into force immediately.
…
Long gone are those times when the deputies of the Ukrainian parliament could just go with the flow and pass something if they wanted it. Right now all members of parliament are acting under strict supervision of their donors and sponsors,” he says, adding that real voting divisions in Ukraine’s parliament lie not across party lines, but across mostly pro-Yanukovych oligarch lines. “When we witnessed that historic vote to oust Yanukovych it was also a clear sign, that the biggest industrial and financial groups of Ukraine decided to overthrow the president and support the uprising instead. Without their green light it wouldn’t be possible at all.
…
He thinks that this is a very illustrative example of how even the legitimizing process for local revolution is being carried out by the same old system of political corruption. “I know that, they know that, so these people have no intentions to go home,” Dmytriy Lytvyn says to me spreading his hands in the middle of revolutionary Independence Square filled with thousands of protesters.
With over one hundred killed protesters, including 16 policemen and almost 300 still missing, Ukraine’s revolution is the bloodiest event in the country’s modern history since gaining independence from Russia in 1991.

So you now have Ukrainian “democracy” directed by fascist militias from a square.
“Language” is has never been a problem in Ukraine. Ukrainian is a mix of Russian grammar and the vocabulary of their neighbors.

Posted by: somebody | Mar 4 2014 7:52 utc | 131

Voice of Russia says Odessa, Nikolaev and Kherson want to join Crimea (in uniting with Russia).

Kherson, Nikolaev and Odessa declare their desire to join Crimea – official – 3 March 2014, 22:58

Russia now has two options:
– Novorossiya integrated into the Russian Federation.
– Rump Ukraine (without Calicia) joining the Eurasian Union.
What is needed now is “rolling referenda”, starting from East with one week between the regions. The question should be about joining the Eurasian Union. Kiev votes near the end. If Kiev votes for union, then rump Ukraine will join Eurasia. If only Novorossiya votes for union, it then it will eventually be integrated into the Russian Federation.
The fate of Crimea is still open. Last week it seemed clear it would join the Russian Federation direcly. My favorite source of Stalinist views, The American Conservative is saying it should say with the Ukraine to give Russia voting power. With Banderistan gone for good, I do not think that is necessary.

Why Russia Doesn’t Want Crimea

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Mar 4 2014 7:53 utc | 132

Weak china.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140304/188076576/China-Calls-for-Peaceful-Resolution-to-Ukraine-Crisis.html

Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 4 2014 8:19 utc | 133

#131
I guess I agree with the general view of this article. On the other hand, I don’t think russia is interested in ukraines territorial integrity at any cost. Quite the opposite, just imagine the eastern provinces either joinign russia or (more likely) declaring autonomy and associating closely to russia.
That would be a economically powerful eastern part with direct economic support (cheap gas and whatnot) while the western part is being sold away by Yats and the Goldman crew, with a fascist gang as police. Imho western ukraine would have a serious tendency to join back into their good relations to russia. So, if I were russia, this would be about the plan, I guess.

Posted by: peter radiator | Mar 4 2014 8:29 utc | 134

Fun of globalization
Via google translate

We will be forced to go into other currencies , create your settlement payment system. We have excellent trade relations with our partners in the East and the South, and we will find a way to not only zeroed our financial dependence on the U.S. , but also of those sanctions will leave with a big advantage. Trying to announce sanctions against Russia will turn to the collapse of the U.S. financial system , which will entail termination of U.S. dominance in the global financial system. If sanctions are applied against state structures , we will be forced to actually recognize the impossibility of return of those loans that were given to the Russian structures by U.S. banks. After sanctions – a double-edged weapon, and if the United States were frozen our assets , that, accordingly , liabilities of our organizations in dollars will also be frozen. This means that our banks and businesses will not return to American partners loans

Posted by: somebody | Mar 4 2014 8:42 utc | 135

Western media live in a US-constructed propaganda-bubble.
Like Putin, Assad was also characterized as living in his own world when he spoke against the western narrative. That’s just one of the US psychological ruling-techniques.

Posted by: Alexander | Mar 4 2014 8:51 utc | 136

from german online-news “spiegel”:

9:36 Uhr, 4. März 2014
Bisher ist es in der Krim-Krise bei Drohgebärden geblieben. Sollten sich die Meldungen über die Warnschüsse auf dem Luftwaffenstützpunkt von Belbek bestätigen, wären es wohl die ersten Schüsse, die in diesem Konflikt gefallen sind.

Roughly translated:
Up to now it’s only gestures in this crimean crisis, but if the news about warning shots on belbek airbase should be confirmed, these would be the first shots fired in this conflict.
This sound SO MUCH like an ante-dated justification, that I take this as a strong indicator for western violence to come. The (probably, if confirmed, etc.) first shots will be the base of the western propaganda narrative.
Man, this is sick. It’s the worst of warmongering propaganda all over the place. 15 years ago I could never have imagined something like this (in terms of propaganda sheep control) happen in Germany.

Posted by: peter radiator | Mar 4 2014 8:53 utc | 137

peter raidator
I agree but its not only Germany but the whole western world, this is really propaganda but 95% of the westerners doesnt seems to understand that.

Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 4 2014 9:25 utc | 138

Apologies if this has been posted:
One could cite many other examples of US-led “interventions” based on, as Kerry termed them, “phony pretexts,” including the bombing and destruction of Yugoslavia, the continued merciless drone bombings of Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, as well as the vicious wars in Central America which, for decades, were supported by the United States in the name of “peace” and “stability”. At what point does the hypocrisy of the United States become too much to bear?
Of course, the fundamental question with regard to all these conflicts is the question of US interests. Were there Americans directly under threat by the Gaddafi government? Certainly not. Was the US Navy in danger of being seized by hostile forces in Somalia or Nicaragua? Of course not. Were the American people under threat from Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic? Undeniably no. And yet, somehow these “interventions” were deemed acceptable, but Russia’s attempt to protect its own people and military installations in the face of a clear and present danger is a crime and breach of international law?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/03/ukraine-intervention-and-americas-doublethink/

Posted by: okie farmer | Mar 4 2014 11:23 utc | 139

@#106:
Bertrand Russell (before he got the anti-nuke bug, not surprisingly after the Soviet Union got nukes of their own), was calling for ‘preventive’ nuclear war on the Soviet Union. Let me know if you want refs and I’ll dig em out.

Posted by: William Bowles | Mar 4 2014 11:55 utc | 140

@14: All I saw was French TV’s Oscars coverage, and I was treated to Oscar winner Jared Leto saying: “To all the dreamers out there around the world watching this tonight in places like Ukraine and Venezuela, I want to say we are here, and as you struggle to make your dreams happen and live the impossible, we are thinking of you tonight.” Yeah, but who’s “we”? And does he really think people in Ukraine and Venezuela watch the Oscars?

Posted by: Snake Arbusto | Mar 4 2014 11:57 utc | 141

139) Putin just gave an interview basically saying you break it you own it.
“It does not make sense what they do. Sometimes you feel like a laboratory rat they try things on.”
Another comment on the US style of diplomacy
“They tell them you are either with us or against us. And if countries do not follow the line, they make them pay.”

Posted by: somebody | Mar 4 2014 11:58 utc | 142

@141 astonishing as it is disgusting. But that’s trickle down propaganda. You think that asshole has a clue? Clearly not.

Posted by: guest77 | Mar 4 2014 12:22 utc | 143

r giap stay strong thx for yr comments better days will be

Posted by: Noirette | Mar 4 2014 13:26 utc | 144

to hear to comrade liars tell it, the communist leaders never hurt a fly, and if perchance they did actually happen to hurt a fly, well, . . . . then it must have been a Nazi fly
No other explanations are allowed

Posted by: LeftyNazis | Mar 4 2014 13:34 utc | 145

Why don’t you two left wing nazis f off and stop polluting the net with your pig-ingnorant hate filled droolings F-ing communazis- worse than the actual nazis Posted by: communazis | Mar 3, 2014 9:12:29 PM | 97

Is this person ‘communazis’ telling us all to eff off so that he can enjoy the comments section of a (presumably then quiescent) blog in solitary splendour? Because I’m sure we’re all communazis by his definition therefof.

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Mar 4 2014 15:06 utc | 146

Rowan Berkeley@147
Same troll, different name…

Posted by: Jim T | Mar 4 2014 15:40 utc | 147

Friends: ignore the trolls. Otherwise they will take over the blog, by publishing ever more extravagant libels.
rememberinggiap, thank you for your counsel. As to my contributions on this Ukrainian history question the invaluable link that you provided last week was the source of almost all I wrote. Except of course the errors.
Now Mr ToivoS:
“What you call the rural bourgeoisie happened to be the more successful farmers. These were the farmers that also happened to be the most productive.”
This identifies you, unfortunately, as just another uncritical reader of ruling class histories. The idea that big farmers, with capital and credit, are more productive than smallholders working the land intensively, for subsistence and the production of a small marketable surplus is one of the oldest justifications of imperialism. Ir first surfaced in a version justifying the theft of land from indigenous peoples and its conversion, often disastrously, into arable land for commodity production.
The kulaks were capitalist farmers intent on selling grain and meat to urban dwellers. At first, under the NEP, Bolsheviks encouraged this because it solved the problem of feeding the proletarians in the cities. The impulse to collectivise came largely from the small peasants-the great majority of the former serfs- who were being reduced to wage labourers, dispossessed of their small, hereditary holdings, by kulak usury and driven off the land.
They were the precise equivalents of the British poor who were cleared from the land by enclosures and other means of expropriation. In the end collectivisation didn’t work as well as was hoped, for a variety of reasons, but basically because the Bolsheviks who had degenerated from communism to positivist liberalism saw capitalist farming as “progress” over “feudal” smallholdings and reproduced, in state capitalist form, the large units, hierarchical management and rural proletarianisation that the sort of historians who inform you, told them led to increased productivity.
“Collectivization may have been popular with the less productive peasants but the net result was to strip rural Russia (not just Ukraine) of its most productive farmers. Before WWI the Ukraine was considered the breadbasket of Europe. After collectivization the Soviet Union was forced to import wheat from North America for the next 5 decades.”
Collectivisation took place in the thirties. Now, using your fingers if you like, count off the events characterising the following four decades, starting with 1940.
“There was something incredibly inefficient about that Soviet system and I believe that was key to its collapse in 1989.”
There is no doubt that the “soviet system” degenerated, usually in the direction of the prevalent capitalist system. As it became less sovietised, it lost the unique and vital contact with the people that is the essence of the “soviet” form. It became just like the west, not in every way, it still retained its ideological commitments to anti-colonialism and popular movements but practice diverged from theory as the constant necessity of dealing with capitalist sanctions and subversion (see b’s latest post on Bandera et al) transformed the system into a rigid hierarchical parody of bourgeois polity.
Nevertheless, in certain areas, such as scientific work, technological engineering and military endeavours the soviet practice of mobilising the entire population yielded impressive results. Not the least of which was the liberation of Europe and the, temporary it seems, scotching of the fascist threat. Or are you arguing that the Soviet war effort of 1941-45 was inefficient?

Posted by: bevin | Mar 4 2014 16:03 utc | 148

#133: Weak China? Not at all. Understand the diplomat-ese behind Beijing’s various statements.
Russia is in de facto control of Crimea & Putin says that force will only be the last resort – that is, Russia is not backing down and not ruled out military action. The `political solution’ urged by China is for the West to recognize that Russia holds the cards in the Ukraine face-off; they have to do it Russia’s way.
“ China believes that Russia can coordinate with other parties to push for the political settlement of the issue so as to safeguard regional and world peace and stability,” says China’s president.
Russia’s riposte to Washington’s threatened sanctions will be to end the use of greenbacks, ie, more ruble/yuan swaps in trading, hastening the end of American hegemony over the global financial system. `Distancing’ itself from Moscow ( an imperceptibly more neutral stance) means that China is not going along with any Western sanctions. US & EU cannot take punitive economic measures against Russia and China (the world’s largest trading nation) without serious damage to the “international community”,ie, themselves.

Posted by: nakedtothebone | Mar 5 2014 4:50 utc | 149

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