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Ukraine Open Thread 2024-119
Only for news & views directly related to the war in Ukraine. The current open thread for other issues is here.
These effects of the war are too rarely mentioned:
Two years of war have impoverished many Ukrainians – Economist
In 2023 Ukraine’s GDP was 72% of what it was in 2021. Millions have either lost their jobs, or had their pay cut by struggling employers. But walk around any of the big cities set back from the frontlines and today you would hardly know there was a war on. Last month a huge new bookshop opened a few minutes’ walk from where the volunteers of Sant’Egidio, a Rome-based charity, distribute their food. Shops, businesses, cafés and restaurants are packed and plenty of people are driving fancy cars.
However, the war has tipped many into poverty, especially those who were hard-pressed before, and above all those whose homes and livelihoods have been lost. A World Bank survey last November found that 9% of Ukrainians had run out of food at some point in the previous 30 days. In March, according to the Centre for Economic Strategy, a think-tank in Kyiv, 23% were in a state of food insecurity. Some 14% were unemployed.
Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.
A few Relevant, historical insightful observations
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If you wonder how the world could stumble into World War III much as it did into World War I a century ago all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire U.S. political/media structure over Ukraine where a false narrative of white hats vs. black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason.
The original lie behind Official Washington’s latest “group think” was that Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated the crisis in Ukraine as part of some diabolical scheme to reclaim the territory of the defunct Soviet Union, including Estonia and other Baltic states. Though not a shred of U.S. intelligence supported this scenario, all the “smart people” of Washington just “knew” it to be true.
-Robert Parry: Who’s Telling the ‘Big Lie’ on Ukraine? Sept. 2, 2014
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/08/robert-parry-whos-telling-the-big-lie-on-ukraine/
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Quotes about the “Big Lie” approach (older, not yet censored page)
https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Big_lie&oldid=3085641
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On February 23rd, Ilia Kyva, a member of the Ukrainian parliament… posted on Telegram that Zelenskyy has accumulated more than $1.2 billion US dollars during the first two and half years of his presidency, stored in multiple accounts at Dresdner Bank Lateinamerika in Costa Rica, saying: “Regular replenishment in ragged tranches of $12 to $35 million comes through various channels, such as from Rinat Akhmetov and Viktor Pinchuk through First Union Bank and Deutsche Bank, as well as Ihor Kolomoyskyi from his Geneva accounts at Banque Nationale de Paris,” Kyva posted on his Telegram channel, saying: “Every president and his team, after his tenure, walked away as dollar billionaires, and Zelenskyy… was no exception, just in his case, no one will let him just walk away.” Kyva says that the movement of such funds would be impossible without the assent of the German and French authorities and he vows to prosecute Zelenskyy. Kyva also claims that Zelenskyy bought a villa in Miami for $34 million, as well as several sets of jewelry for $5.6 million.
– Alexandra Bruce Yes, Really,LewRockwell.com, March 5, 2022
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/no_author/ukrainian-president-zelenskyy-yes-really/
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It is enlightening to see how pugnacious the U.S. establishment… as been in dealing with the Ukraine crisis. The crisis arguably began when the Yanukovich government rejected an EU bailout program in favor of one offered by Russia. The mainstream media (MSM) have virtually suppressed the fact that the EU proposal was not only less generous than the one offered by Russia, but that, whereas the Russian plan did not preclude further Ukrainian deals with the EU, the EU plan would have required a cut-off of further Russian arrangements. And whereas the Russian deal had no military clauses, that of the EU required that Ukraine affiliate with NATO. Insofar as the MSM dealt with this set of offers, they not only suppressed the exclusionary and militarized character of the EU offer, they tended to view the Russian deal as an improper use of economic leverage, “bludgeoning,” but the EU proposal was “constructive and reasonable” (Ed., NYT, November 20, 2014).
– Edward S. Herman https://zcomm.org/zmagazine/war-is-our-business-and-business-looks-good/ War is Our Business and Business Looks Good, ”Z Magazine” (28 June 2014)
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Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.
– George F. Kennan, “Foreword to ‘The Pathology of Power'” by Norman Cousins (Norton, 1987)
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It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival. War is obsolete. It could never have been done before. Only ten years ago… technology reached the point where it could be done. Since then the invisible technological-capability revolution has made it ever easier so to do.
It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry… With the highest aeronautical and engineering facilities of the world redirected from weaponry to livingry production, all humanity would have the option of becoming enduringly successful.
All previous revolutions have been political—in them the have-not majority has attempted revengefully to pull down the economically advantaged minority. If realized, this historically greatest design revolution will joyously elevate all humanity to unprecedented heights.
– Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path 1981
https://archive.org/details/LIBRORBuckminsterFullerCriticalPath
Posted by: Toby C | Apr 23 2024 3:39 utc | 75
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