This is not a revolution. The political type of society is not going to change. The rioters are not supported by the population.
Revolution in Kiev
181–190 of 377 posts
Re: Revolution in Kiev
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those commenters have very justified disdain. They want Ukraine to join European union. and the fate of Ukraine will be pretty grim in that case. My (not only mine's, actually) conclusion is based on experience of former Baltic USSR republics and former states from the Socialist block, including Bulgaria, Slovakia, etc. Never mind that burning car tires means producing benzopirenes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzo…
I come from one of your "former Baltic USSR republics" (actually a country with a long history before being occupied by soviet Russia). I saw the changes from gaining freedom from Russian occupation and joining the EU with my own eyes. We gained so much from EU, I don't know were to start. Financially: we got a lot of our infrastructure built with EU funds (roads, etc.), if you see anything modernized even in the rem…
Half the Latvia left to UK. Others to follow.
Re: Revolution in Kiev
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those commenters have very justified disdain. They want Ukraine to join European union. and the fate of Ukraine will be pretty grim in that case. My (not only mine's, actually) conclusion is based on experience of former Baltic USSR republics and former states from the Socialist block, including Bulgaria, Slovakia, etc. Never mind that burning car tires means producing benzopirenes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzo…
FYI, Baltic states and ex-ussr-satellites are doing great in EU. Sure we still got a long way to go. But current state is good enough. Well, at least 10x better than Ukraine, Belorussia and other ex-ussr states that stayed together with Russia. Many Russians/Ukrainians/Belorussians come to ex-ussr-now-eu for shopping and medical procedures. Why? Stuff is cheaper and better quality here in Lithuania. And salaries are…
And that is why so many of you go abroad to work?
Re: Revolution in Kiev
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Protesters want Yanukovych to go away. They do not want to stay him as president. Power-sharing agreement is a bluff. I do not understand your connection of neo-nazi symbols with Oleh Tyahnybok and Svoboda party. If someone wears something why do you apply it to this party? Also UPA never collaborated with Nazis. They fought against communists and nazis at the same time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurge…
From the Wikipedia link you citrd: "In autumn 1943 some detachments of the UPA attempted to find rapprochement with the Germans. Although doing so was condemned by an OUN/UPA order from November 25, 1943, these actions did not end.[58] In early 1944 UPA forces in several Western regions engaged in cooperation with the German Wehrmacht, Waffen SS, SiPo and SD."
UPA is very controversial - it was responsible for mass murdering whole villages during WW2 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_... )
> The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943 when a senior UPA commander, Dmytro Klyachkivsky, ordered the liquidation of the entire male Polish population between 16 and 60 years of age.[7][8][9] Despite this, most of the victims were women and children.
That's one reason Poles (while we fully support independent democratic Ukraine and it's partnership with EU) feel very uncomfortable supporting people that call themselves UPA continuators. Ukrainians have the right to choose their heroes, and Poles want Ukraine to be independent (geopoliticaly we like the fact that we have very small border Russia very much, also Ukrainians have similiar culture and language). But if they want people to support them fully they could do well abandoning the UPA symoblism.
Re: Revolution in Kiev
#185I feel like this kind of thing (the various Arab Spring uprisings, the Ukrainian revolution, &c ) is very well served by the cacophony of amateur/citizen journalism that flows out of an individual event. Sure, at the time, it's incredibly noisy, because there's so much primary source material being created, with such incredible depth and nuance. Once people start to be able to assemble a comprehensive understanding o…
A lot of what seems to be grassroots could be aided, and perhaps even orchestrated, by sophisticated groups with a political agenda, e.g. the CIA. It would only take around 10-20 bloggers to create the illusion that the majority people in the country felt a certain way. EDIT: and nowadays, they wouldn't just blog, they would post to Reddit, and maybe even HN.
The CIA is a poor example. The motivation isn't there, it's not really their style, and they are rather incompetent. More importantly, if it were an American plot of some kind, the US news media wouldn't be ignoring it, they'd be going on and on about a Ukrainian Democratic Revolution etc. etc. To orchestrate something like this and not hook it up with massive Western support would be futile.
Re: Revolution in Kiev
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
The protesters are manipulated into thinking that joining EU and getting rid of Yanukovich is somehow the first step to prosperity... And the blogosphere is manipulated into buying this as some kind of completely spontaneous grass roots movement. Sure people want change.. But this is bankrolled elsewhere.. I bet it wasn't that expensive either.
> Bankrolled by who? EU? US? Who? And do you have any evidence? It's naive to ask for evidence in such issues. As if they put out official statements and bank account transactions. These kind of things are exposed years or even decades after the fact. That said, we do have evidence and hard facts for similar sponsoring of other "orange revolutions" and under-the-table deals in the past 2 decades. It's a constant pres…
You seem to be reluctant for changes. Ok, protesters against Yanukovych try to at least _revert_ the situation back to the one before Yanukovych.
People have democratically elected Yanukovch in hope that he will be the next "Kouchma" (second president of Ukraine), who grew up Yanukovych politically. But the difference between Kouchma and Yanukovuch started to frighten people with every new Yanukovych step from the moment of his inauguration. The part of Ukraine that voted for Yanukovych is now also shocked. It is Yanukovych who changed the situation and brought awful changes.
Re: Revolution in Kiev
#187Did anyone else notice how refreshing this kind of reporting feels after being used to what the mainstream media feeds us? This story is low-key, trying to present all aspects, trying to stay objective -- it's been a long time since I read something like this from a journalist.
Note, he wrote story in English to make it repostable in western internets, so to influence public opinion in necessary way, namely, "people came out against Yanukovich".
You know, kinda push our western friends to intervene.
Re: Revolution in Kiev
#188Man, the amount of disdain people have for protesters in the comments to this story is really shocking. I do not exactly understand where it's coming from. Yanukovych is a corrupt petty thief and rapist, turned politician, who has very close ties with Russia, and is stealing from the Ukrainian people through corruption. He rigged an election in 2004 and only massive riots prevented him from coming into power then by…
While I sympathize with the protesters, the disdain you speak of should surprise no one.
First, Yanukovich won the last election when his opponents were in power. I think this is a good enough indicator that he has lots of supporters.
Second, the Ukrainians went through all of this already in 2004 and apparently nothing particularly good came out of it. The country is in the same place it was 10 years ago and Yanukovich can hardly be held responsible for that.
Just to add a personal anecdote... I've met a random Ukrainian couple while vacationing recently. They didn't speak Russian at all, so most definitely not from the east or other pro-russia kind of Ukrainians. And when asked about this uprising they expressed complete and utter apathy. They had zero hopes for their lives to improve regardless of the outcome.
Re: Revolution in Kiev
#189A lot of things and links here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/
A fixed cam view of a part of maidan, online 24/7 so far: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/euromajdan/pop-out
and last, but not least:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/press-club There are of course many more feeds and videos, but you will find them all in the above subreddit (in /r/europe and /r/worldnews, too)
Re: Revolution in Kiev
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gun ownership I Ukraine is pretty restrictive: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/ukraine . Given these events it is probably a good thing otherwise a lot more people would be dead now.
You are aware of the fact that strict gun laws don't mean no guns? Your own link shows there are 3 million guns in Ukraine. If there's a need, some of them - probably hundreds of them - would find their way to the hostilities. But I'm not sure there is the will to escalate the situation this far. Because then the next step is using the army and heavy weaponry, and that means civil war and massive casualties. No one r…
> If there's a need, some of them - probably hundreds of them - would find their way to the hostilities.
Everything will end very quickly if real guns pop up.
To the disappointment of protesters.