Protesters in Ukraine remind us of the priceless benefits of being EU members

[krimster2]

and ummm this one



please do not set off any easily made homemade explosives on these pipelines, because you would deprive GazProm/Moscow of their major revenue and that would lead to great hardship in the Russian financial oil-agarchy community and force Western Europe to secure their energy needs elsewhere.

[The Natural]

please do not set off any easily made homemade explosives on these pipelines, because you would deprive GazProm/Moscow of their major revenue and that would lead to great hardship in the Russian financial oil-agarchy community and force Western Europe to secure their energy needs elsewhere.

So now we see calls for terrorist attacks being made on this forum. Not only an offense within the RWD guidelines I'm sure, but also a criminal offense.
 
This post has been reported!

[JayH]

Post should stand--it is less extremist or provocative than to war mongering posts made by the ridiculous few here.
That said-- there is zero point in turning Ukraine into a battlefield . I would certainly move to secure every border possible-- with UN help for certain--- and then negotiate.
The fact is that economic sanctions will put pressure on Russian-- and most particularly on their leaders.
One key point that should be noted--these "loyal" Russians have moved huge slabs of wealth out of Russia-created escape routes for themselves-- take them away and see how long it takes to see  some reason here.
As I said--  freeze and potentially confiscate every Russian related asset possible all around the world-- let's see what that does.

[krimster2]

"...please do not[/b set off any easily made homemade explosives on these pipelines"

umm, that was the opposite of what you claimed, see the "NOT" there???  If you are opposed to what I said it means you're advocating terrorism and I will report you.

of course here in the USA sarcasm is not yet a crime...

[Ranetka]

As I said--  freeze and potentially confiscate every Russian related asset possible all around the world-- let's see what that does.

Yes! And let's start with members wives' here.....

[krimster2]

yes, if one day Russians landed troops on American soil, we should tell Americans, "don't resist, no point in turning America into a battlefield"
I will tell you plainly, what Chechens have done in Russia is a little splash of water compared to the Tsunami that's about to wash over Russia

[JohnDearGreen]

Yanukovych hoping to settle on planet Mars.  An additional $2 billion deposited in the Mars project on February 21 from unknown source, with hope of speeding up the project.   Unfortunately, departure not planned until 2022.

http://uareview.com/yanukovych-na-mars/


Yanukovych family fortune estimate at $12 billion, give or take a couple of billion.

http://finance.liga.net/economics/2014/2/26/news/37546.htm?utm_source=newsliganet&utm_medium=site&utm_term=top_block&utm_campaign=usability

[lordtiberius]

Fathertime,

I don't want to wade thru Justme100's drama so I am going to create our own thread, if you choose to participate, cool or not, not as cool but still cool, ok?

[lordtiberius]

Anyone disagree with the premise with that:

1) Putin should be removed from power

2) Russia should be partitioned

?

[JohnDearGreen]

Russia sets conditions for troop withdrawals
http://news.bigmir.net/ukraine/797494-Rossiya-postavila-Ykraine-ysloviya-dlya-otvoda-voisk

[JayH]

Anyone disagree with the premise with that:

1) Putin should be removed from power

2) Russia should be partitioned

?

The irony in Putin's expansionist actions is that it will prove to be the catalyst for the break up of Russian and what remains of the Soviet Union.
Worth noting is this move is as much about protecting and hiding the theft of assests of the Ukrainian people as anything else.The interests of the very few as opposed to the 97%.

[SANDRO43]

Anyone disagree with the premise with that:

1) Putin should be removed from power
2) Russia should be partitioned

Yes.

1) IINM, he was elected into his 2nd presidency - and polls show he enjoys wide national support.
2) How? What part of Russia should secede or be split off? Some part of the Caucasus?

Making silly posts has been a long, ongoing habit of yours .

[JayH]

Yes.

1) IINM, he was elected into his 2nd presidency - and polls show he enjoys wide national support.
.

No one voted for  him to be  Czar of Ukraine.

[SANDRO43]

No one voted for  him to be  Czar of Ukraine.

No, but that was not LT's question.

[lordtiberius]

No, but that was not LT's question.

Tell you what brahtok.  If you want to do an LT hate thread, split it off and feel free.  If you have a substantive disagreement jump in.  If not, STFU.  Jus' sayin.  THANX!

[SANDRO43]

Tell you what brahtok.

Unfamiliar with the word .

If you want to do an LT hate thread, split it off and feel free.

What makes you think you're entitled to hate ?

If you have a substantive disagreement jump in.

I think I did .

If not, STFU.  Jus' sayin.  THANX!

Sorry, you're not entiled to dictate who speaks and clams up here .

[cc3]

You are so out of touch !! Being murdered, it is already happening! just you don't see it, are you in Ukraine now seeing what is going on?

Are you?

[JayH]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-crisis-canada-u-s-tell-russia-to-withdraw-forces-1.2556228
UPDATED
Ukraine crisis: Canada, U.S. tell Russia to withdraw forces
Harper and Obama call Russian reach into Crimea a 'breach of international law'
 Russian President Vladimir Putin wrested control of the Ukrainian Black Sea region of Crimea from Kyiv on Saturday, citing a threat to Russian citizens and servicemen of the Russian Black Sea fleet based there. (David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters)



UPDATED
Canada recalls Russian ambassador, pulls out of G8 process
Obama tells Putin to withdraw forces from Ukraine
Ukraine asks UN council to stop Russian 'aggression'
Canadians advised to leave Crimea 'while it is safe to do so'
Canada recalled its ambassador from Moscow Saturday and suspended its engagement in preparations for the G8 Summit, currently planned for Sochi, in a move condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin's military intervention in Ukraine.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper convened a meeting of Cabinet Ministers this afternoon and spoke with U.S. President Barack Obama to discuss the tense atmosphere in Ukraine.

"Canada recognizes the legitimacy of the Government of Ukraine," Harper said in a statement. "Ukraine's sovereign territory must be respected and the Ukrainian people must be free to determine their own future. We call on President Putin to immediately withdraw his forces to their bases and refrain from further provocative and dangerous actions."

Obama on Saturday called on Putin to de-escalate the situation by pulling his forces back to bases in the country's Crimean region and to refrain from interfering elsewhere in the former Soviet satellite.

Obama personally delivered the message to Putin during a 90-minute telephone conversation, the White House said late Saturday.

The request from Obama and Harper appeared to go unheeded as the Kremlin said Putin, in turn, emphasized the existence of real threats to the life and health of Russian citizens living in Ukraine and that Russia has the right to protect its interests there.

Can Russia keep its hands off Ukraine?
Ukraine in crisis: Key facts, major developments
Live blog: Ukraine's deadly crisis
Russian troops took over Crimea after the Russian parliament on Saturday granted Putin authority to send them in.

Ukraine's newly installed government was powerless to react to the swarm of Russian troops.

"President Obama expressed his deep concern over Russia's clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity," the White House said in a statement that called the action "a breach of international law."

"The United States condemns Russia's military intervention into Ukrainian territory," the White House said.

Obama and Harper also discussed the situation with French President Francois Hollande.

The leaders agreed to coordinate closely, including bilaterally, and through appropriate international organizations. They also pledged to work together on a package of support and assistance to help Ukraine as it pursues reforms and stabilizes its economy.

Wounded supporters of Ukraine's new government are seen after clashes with pro-Russian protesters in central Kharkiv March . Pro-Russia activists clashed with supporters of the new Ukrainian government in and tried to seize the regional governor's headquarters, Interfax news agency said.
1 of 22
The UN Security Council also on Saturday held an open meeting on the growing crisis in Ukraine. After meeting behind closed doors, the council agreed to hold an open, televised meeting despite objections from permanent member Russia.

Ukraine has accused Russia of "a military invasion and occupation" of strategic points in the Crimean peninsula.

Ukraine is asking the other four permanent council members — the U.S., Britain, France and China — for help in stopping Russia's "aggression."

The newly installed government in Kyiv was powerless to react to the swift takeover of Crimea by Russian troops already in Ukraine and more flown in, aided by pro-Russian Ukrainian groups.

The explicit reference to the use of troops escalated days of conflict between the two countries, which started when Ukraine's pro-Russian president was pushed out by a protest movement of people who wanted closer ties to the European Union.

"I'm submitting a request for using the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine pending the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country," Putin said in his request sent to parliament.

Putin's call came as pro-Russian demonstrations broke out in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east, where protesters raised Russian flags and clashed with supporters of the new Ukrainian government.

Russia's upper house also recommended that Moscow recall its ambassador from Washington over Obama's comments.

Ukraine had already accused Russia on Friday of a "military invasion and occupation" of the Crimea peninsula, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk called on Moscow "to recall their forces, and to return them to their stations," according to the Interfax news agency. "Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine."

Russian military in Ukraine

Aurel Braun told CBC News on Sunday that the new government in Ukraine was doing well "in the face of Russian threats." Braun is a visiting professor of strategic studies and conflict resolution from Harvard University and an expert on Eastern Europe.

"Mr. Putin spent $50 billion to buy international goodwill," said Braun in reference to the recent Olympics. "[Now] Russia is disintegrating into an international bully."

Unofficially, thousands of Russian troops and military vehicles have been taking up positions in Crimea in recent days.

Armed men described as Russian troops took control of key airports and a communications centre in Crimea on Friday.

Ukraine's population is divided in loyalties between Russia and Europe, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the European Union while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support. Crimea is mainly Russian-speaking.

Russia Ukraine Crimea Balaklava
Russian troops block access to the Ukrainian coast guard base in Balaklava, a small coastal town near Sevastopol. The poster reads: "A country's border is sacred and inviolable." (Susan Ormiston/CBC)

Crimea's prime minister, Sergei Aksyonov, declared that the armed forces, the police, the national security service and border guards in the region will answer only to his orders.

Defence Minister Igor Tenyukh on Saturday told a cabinet meeting that 6,000 Russian troops have been sent to the peninsula, in violation of the law. He added Russia has about 80 military vehicles stationed in various areas of Crimea.

[cc3]

Perhaps it is time for the Map of Russia and Europe to change a little bit, maybe with a minimum of bloodshed this time.

Fathertime!

Heartily agree, Ft! While you are so accepting of changing the Map of Russia, let's return Kaliningrad to Germany, Finnish Karelia and Vyborg to Finland, the Kuril Islands and southern Sakhalin Island to Japan.

[JayH]

One of the most dissappointing aspects of the events in the Crimea that it will have consumed the fledgling Governments energy and time at a stage when all the effort should have been able to be directed into improving the lot of everyday Ukrainians.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ukraine-asks-imf-for-help-as-new-leaders-find-coffers-empty-1.2553833

Ukraine asks IMF for help as new leaders find coffers empty
Troubled country requires as much as $15B to keep operating this year
CBC News Posted: Feb 27, 2014 2:02 PM ET Last Updated: Feb 27, 2014 3:34 PM ET

New prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk speaks to lawmakers during a session at the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv on Thursday. He has appealed for help to the IMF and says 37 billion euros are missing from state coffers.
New prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk speaks to lawmakers during a session at the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv on Thursday. He has appealed for help to the IMF and says 37 billion euros are missing from state coffers. (Sergei Chuzavkov/ Associated Press)


Ukraine may default on debt, rating agency warns
The International Monetary Fund says it will consider Ukraine's call for financial help and will send a fact-finding team to Kyiv to assess its financial needs.

Ukraine's new leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has accused ousted president Viktor Yanukovich of stripping state coffers.

Ukraine tensions escalate as armed men seize Crimea government HQ
Ukraine may default on debt, rating agency warns

The former economy minister Yatsenyuk told parliament 37 billion euros ($56 billion) of credit had "disappeared" and that the economy was on the “brink of collapse.”

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said her organization received a request for aid from Ukraine.

 "We are also discussing with all our international partners — bilateral and multilateral — how best to help Ukraine at this critical moment in its history,” Lagarde said Thursday. The World Bank and EU may be among the partners she would consult.

It was the first statement from the IMF on Ukraine since the political crisis intensified last week.

IMF christine Lagard
Managing director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde says she's sending a fact-finding team to Ukraine to assess its economic situation. (Rob Griffith/Associated Press)

[krimster2]

Dear Ukrainians and friends of our community and all those who value and respect notion of sovereignty,

We call on you to join us for a peaceful protest to express your concern with the aggressive invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
The negative propaganda spread by the Russian government caused substantial artificial rift within the Ukrainian society which resulted in needless calls for separatism. While official declaration of the use of force in Ukraine came from Putin today, it has now been a few days that unmarked military vehicles, helicopters and armed man have been steadily arriving to the streets of the Crimean and Eastern Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian flags have been removed from city and regional council buildings and Russian flags have been erected.

The harsh reality is that Russia has declared war on Ukraine. A war that nor Ukrainian nor Russian people need.

Please join us to say NO to WAR, say NO to Putin's blatant disregard for the pledges made in December of 1994 as part of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances
). United States of America, United Kingdom and Russia have to fulfill their promise to respect the integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.

The world is watching!

Please don't stand aside yourself and watch the injustice happen!!!

P.S. have something to say to Putin, Russia or the world? - put it on a poster and bring along.

Ukrainian American Cultural Club of Houston
Pokrova Ukrainian Church of Houston
Ukrainian National Women's League of America, branch 118
"Ridna Shkola" Ukrainian School of Houston
Ukrainian American Society of Texas

Russian Consulate Houston
1333 West Loop South, Suite 1300, Houston, Texas

[lordtiberius]

Nothing in Florida

http://www.russianembassy.org/page/russian-consulates-in-the-u-s

[JayH]

Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda
Timothy Snyder


From Moscow to London to New York, the Ukrainian revolution has been seen through a haze of propaganda. Russian leaders and the Russian press have insisted that Ukrainian protesters were right-wing extremists and then that their victory was a coup. Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, used the same clichés after a visit with the Russian president at Sochi. After his regime was overturned, he maintained he had been ousted by “right-wing thugs,” a claim echoed by the armed men who seized control of airports and government buildings in the southern Ukrainian district of Crimea on Friday

Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul’s newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d’état.

In fact, it was a classic popular revolution. It began with an unmistakably reactionary regime. A leader sought to gather all power, political as well as financial, in his own hands. This leader came to power in democratic elections, to be sure, but then altered the system from within. For example, the leader had been a common criminal: a rapist and a thief. He found a judge who was willing to misplace documents related to his case. That judge then became the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were no constitutional objections, subsequently, when the leader asserted ever more power for his presidency.

In power, this leader, this president, remained a thief, but now on a grand, perhaps even unsurpassed, scale. Throughout his country millions of small businessmen and businesswomen found it impossible to keep their firms afloat, thanks to the arbitrary demands of tax authorities. Their profits were taken by the state, and the autonomy that those profits might have given them were denied. Workers in the factories and mines had no means whatsoever of expression their own distress, since any attempt at a strike or even at labor organization would simply have led to their dismissal.

The country, Ukraine, was in effect an oligarchy, where much of the wealth was in the hands of people who could fit in one elevator. But even this sort of pluralism, the presence of more than one very rich person, was too much for the leader, Viktor Yanukovych. He wanted to be not only the president but the oligarch-in-chief. His son, a dentist, was suddenly one of the wealthiest men in Europe. Tens of billions of dollars simply disappeared from the state budget. Yanukovych built for himself a series of extravagant homes, perhaps the ugliest in architectural history.

A villa at Mezhyhirya, an out-of-town estate of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych north of Kiev
It is hard to have all of the power and all of the money at the same time, because power comes from the state, and the state has to have a budget. If a leader steals so much from the people that the state goes bankrupt, then his power is diminished. Yanukovych actually faced this problem last year. And so, despite everything, he became vulnerable, in a very curious way. He needed someone to finance the immediate debts of the Ukrainian state so that his regime would not fall along with it.

Struggling to pay his debts last year, the Ukrainian leader had two options. The first was to begin trade cooperation with the European Union. No doubt an association agreement with the EU would have opened the way for loans. But it also would have meant the risk of the application of the rule of law within Ukraine. The other alternative was to take money from another authoritarian regime, the great neighbor to the east, the Russian Federation.

In December of last year, the leader of this neighboring authoritarian regime, Vladimir Putin, offered a deal. From Russia’s hard currency reserves accumulated by the sale of hydrocarbons he was willing to offer a loan of $15 billion, and lower the price of natural gas from Russia. Putin had a couple of little preoccupations, however.

The first was the gay conspiracy. This was a subject that had dominated Russian propaganda throughout last year but which had been essentially absent from Ukraine. Perhaps Ukraine could join in? Yes indeed: the Ukrainian prime minister began to explain to his population that Ukraine could not have closer cooperation with Europe, since the EU was interested chiefly in gay marriage.

Putin’s second preoccupation was something called Eurasia. This was and is Putin’s proposed rival to the European Union, a club of dictatorships meant to include Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Again, perhaps Ukraine could join? Yanukovych hesitated here, seeing the trap—the subordination of Ukraine of course meant his own subordination—but he did allow himself to be jollied along toward the necessary policies. He began to act like a proper dictator. He began to kill his own people in significant numbers. He bloodied his hands, making him an unlikely future partner for the European Union.

Enter a lonely, courageous Ukrainian rebel, a leading investigative journalist. A dark-skinned journalist who gets racially profiled by the regime. And a Muslim. And an Afghan. This is Mustafa Nayem, the man who started the revolution. Using social media, he called students and other young people to rally on the main square of Kiev in support of a European choice for Ukraine. That square is called the Maidan, which by the way is an Arab word. During the first few days of the protests the students called it the Euromaidan. Russian propaganda called it, predictably enough, the Gayeuromaidan.

When riot police were sent to beat the students, who came to defend them? More “Afghans,” but “Afghans” of a very different sort: Ukrainian veterans of the Soviet Red Army, men who had been sent to invade Afghanistan during after the Soviet invasion of that country in 1979. These men came to defend “their children,” as they called the students. But they were also defending a protest initiated by a man born in Kabul at the very time they were fighting their way toward it.

In December the crowds grew larger. By the end of the year, millions of people had taken part in protests, all over the country. Journalists were beaten. Individual activists were abducted. Some of them were tortured. Dozens disappeared and have not yet been found. As the New Year began the protests broadened. Muslims from southern Ukraine marched in large numbers. Representatives of the large Kiev Jewish community were prominently represented. Some of the most important organizers were Jews. The telephone hotline that people called to seek missing relatives was established by gay activists (people who have experience with hotlines). Some of the hospital guards who tried to stop the police from abducting the wounded were young feminists.

In all of these ways, the “decadent” West, as Russia’s foreign minister put it, was present. Yes, there were some Jews, and there were some gays, in this revolution. And this was exploited by both the Russian and Ukrainian regimes in their internal propaganda. The Russian press presented the protest as part of a larger gay conspiracy. The Ukrainian regime instructed its riot police that the opposition was led by a larger Jewish conspiracy. Meanwhile, both regimes informed the outside world that the protestors were Nazis. Almost nobody in the West seemed to notice this contradiction.

On January 16, Yanukovych signed a series of laws that had been “passed” through parliament, entirely illegally, by a minority using only a show of hands. These laws, introduced by pro-Russian legislators and similar to Russian models, severely constrained the freedom of speech and assembly, making of millions of protesters “extremists” who could be imprisoned. Organizations that had financial contacts with the outside world, including Catholic and Jewish groups, were suddenly “foreign agents” and subject to immediate harassment.

After weeks of maintaining their calm in the face of repeated assaults by the riot police, some protesters now chose violence. Out of public view, people had been dying at the hands of the police for weeks. Now some of the protesters were killed by the regime in public. The first Ukrainian protester to be killed was an Armenian. The second to be killed was a Belarusian.

Then came the mass killings by the regime. On February 18 the Ukrainian parliament was supposed to consider a compromise that many observers believed was a first step away from bloody confrontation: a constitutional reform to return the state to parliamentary democracy. Instead, the riot police were unleashed in Kiev, this time armed not only with tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets, but also with live ammunition. The protesters fell back to the Maidan and defended it, the way revolutionaries do: with cobblestones, Molotov cocktails, and in the end their bare hands.

On February 20, an EU delegation was supposed to arrive to negotiate a truce. Instead, the regime orchestrated a bloodbath. The riot police fell back from some of the Maidan. When protesters followed, they were shot by snipers who had taken up positions on rooftops. Again and again people ran out to try to rescue the wounded, and again and again they were shot.


Gueorgui Pinkhassov/Magnum Photos
Protesters clashing with police in Kiev, Ukraine, February 2014
Who was killed? Dozens of people, in all about a hundred, most of them young men. Bohdan Solchanyk was a young lecturer at the Ukrainian Catholic University, a Ukrainian speaker from western Ukraine. He was shot and killed. Yevhen Kotlyov was an environmentalist from Kharkiv, a Russian speaker from eastern Ukraine. He was shot and killed. One of the people killed was a Russian citizen; a number of Russians had come to fight—most of them anarchists who had come to aid their Ukrainian anarchist comrades. At least two of those killed by the regime, and perhaps more, were Jews. One of those “Afghans,” Ukrainian veterans of the Red Army’s war in Afghanistan, was Jewish: Alexander Scherbatyuk. He was shot and killed by a sniper. Another of those killed was a Pole, a member of Ukraine’s Polish minority.

Has as it ever before happened that people associated with Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, Armenian, Polish, and Jewish culture have died in a revolution that was started by a Muslim? Can we who pride ourselves in our diversity and tolerance think of anything remotely similar in our own histories?

The people were victorious as a result of sheer physical courage. The EU foreign ministers who were supposed to be treated to a bloody spectacle saw something else: the successful defense of the Maidan. The horrifying massacre provoked a general sense of outrage, even among some of the people who had been Yanukovych’s allies. He did something he probably had not, when the day began, intended to do: he signed an agreement in which he promised not to use violence. His policemen understood, perhaps better than he, what this meant: the end of the regime. They melted away, and he ran for his life. Power shifted to parliament, where a new coalition of oppositionists and dissenters from Yanukovych’s party formed a majority. Reforms began, beginning with the constitution. Presidential elections were called for May.

Still, the propaganda continued. Yanukovych stopped somewhere to record a video message, in Russian, claiming that he was the victim of a Nazi coup. Russian leaders maintained that extremists had come to power, and that Russians in Ukraine were under threat. Although the constitutional transition is indeed debatable in the details, these charges of a right-wing coup are nonsense.

The Ukrainian far right did play an important part in the revolution. What it did, in going to the barricades, was to liberate itself from the regime of which it had been one of the bulwarks. One of the moral atrocities of the Yanukovych regime was to crush opposition from the center-right, and support opposition from the far right. By imprisoning his major opponents from the legal political parties, most famously Yulia Tymoshenko, Yanukovych was able to make of democracy a game in which he and the far right were the only players.

The far right, a party called Svoboda, grew larger in these conditions, but never remotely large enough to pose a real challenge to the Yanukovych regime in democratic elections. In this arrangement Yanukovych could then tell gullible westerners that he was the alternative to the far right. In fact, Svoboda was a house opposition that, during the revolution, rebelled against its own leadership. Against the wishes of their leaders, the radical youth of Svoboda fought in considerable numbers, alongside of course people of completely different views. They fought and they took risks and they died, sometimes while trying to save others. In the post-revolutionary situation these young men will likely seek new leadership. The leader of Svoboda, according to opinion polls, has little popular support; if he chooses to run for president, which is unlikely, he will lose.

The radical alternative to Svoboda is Right Sector, a group of far-right organizations whose frankly admitted goal was not a European future but a national revolution against all foreign influences. In the long run, Right Sector is the group to watch. For the time being, its leaders have been very careful, in conversations with both Jews and Russians, to stress that their goal is political and not ethnic or racial. In the days after the revolution they have not caused violence or disorder. On the contrary, the subway runs in Kiev. The grotesque residences of Yanukovych are visited by tourists, but they are not looted. The main one is now being used as a base for archival research by investigative journalists.

The transitional authorities were not from the right, or even from the western part of Ukraine, where nationalism is more widespread. The speaker of the parliament and the acting president is a Baptist preacher from southeastern Ukraine. All of the power ministries, where of course any coup-plotter would plant his own people, were led by professionals and Russian speakers. The acting minister of internal affairs was half Armenian and half Russian. The acting minister of defense was of Roma origin.

The provisional authorities are now being supplanted by a new government, chosen by parliament, which is very similar in its general orientation. The new prime minister is a Russian-speaking conservative technocrat. Both of the major presidential candidates in the elections planned for May are Russian speakers. The likely next president, Vitali Klitschko, is the son of a general in the Soviet armed forces, best known in the West as the heavyweight champion boxer. He is a chess player and a Russian speaker. He does his best to speak Ukrainian. It does not come terribly naturally. He is not a Ukrainian nationalist.

As specialists in Russian and Ukrainian nationalism have been predicting for weeks, the claim that the Ukrainian revolution is a “nationalist coup,” as Yanukovych, in Russian exile, said on Friday, has become a pretext for Russian intervention. This now appears to be underway in the Crimea, where the Russian flag has been raised over the regional parliament and gunmen have occupied the airports. Meanwhile, Russia has put army battle groups on alert and sent naval cruisers from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

Whatever course the Russian intervention may take, it is not an attempt to stop a fascist coup, since nothing of the kind has taken place. What has taken place is a popular revolution, with all of the messiness, confusion, and opposition that entails. The young leaders of the Maidan, some of them radical leftists, have risked their lives to oppose a regime that represented, at an extreme, the inequalities that we criticize at home. They have an experience of revolution that we do not. Part of that experience, unfortunately, is that Westerners are provincial, gullible, and reactionary.

Thus far the new Ukrainian authorities have reacted with remarkable calm. It is entirely possible that a Russian attack on Ukraine will provoke a strong nationalist reaction: indeed, it would be rather surprising if it did not, since invasions have a way of bringing out the worst in people. If this is what does happen, we should see events for what they are: an entirely unprovoked attack by one nation upon the sovereign territory of another.

Insofar as we have accepted the presentation of the revolution as a fascist coup, we have delayed policies that might have stopped the killing earlier, and helped prepare the way for war. Insofar as we wish for peace and democracy, we are going to have to begin by getting the story right.

March 1, 2014, 11:15 a.m.

[lordtiberius]

Unfamiliar with the word .What makes you think you're entitled to hate ?I think I did .Sorry, you're not entiled to dictate who speaks and clams up here .

speak English

[lordtiberius]

The only way out is NATO involvement.  If Canada could send troops into Ukraine or if Canada were to asset its claims against Russia in the Artic, and activate the NATO clause, NATO would have to get involved and stop the spread of Putinism.