About Ukraine • Hacker News Board

Re: About Ukraine

#51

Post by a8da6b0c91d » Fri, Jan 31, 2014, 4:44 PM UTC

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #36

claudius wrote: post #3

Why is dividing the country peacefully apparently out of question? It seems to have worked somewhat decently for the Czech and Slovac republics.

Czechs and Slovaks are two distinct "tribes". The fact that they existed together as one nation in the first place was somewhat arbitrary. That said, the fact that they were split again into two nations was somewhat arbitrary as well, not everyone was in favor of that, not by a long shot.

The Slovaks were sort of reluctantly dragged into the union by the Czechs in the first place. The Slovaks were much more Catholic and traditionalist and quite comfortable with the Austro Hungarians.

Re: About Ukraine

#52

Post by malkung » Fri, Jan 31, 2014, 4:46 PM UTC

11001 wrote: post #20

Here is an ELI5 version of what's going on in Ukraine: Ukraine doesn't have any money, it needs to borrow it. It can ask the west, but the west gives back a list of conditions to be satisfied (human rights, economical, etc) that are incredibly hard for the governmnet to achieve given deeply rooted corruption on all levels. There is another source for the money: Russia (which, despite some westerners' beliefs, is a ve…

Ok, it's well-meaning EU vs. corrupt Russia. Culturally, Ukraine seems to be much closer to Russia than to EU. So I think the end result will be similar to what happened with Arabic Spring revolutions, when the West hoped to see Western standards of democracy implanted into foreign cultures that could not possibly adhere to them (although they declared so initially). So I doubt very much that after the association with EU Ukraine will resemble even Poland or Hungary - in terms of economy or levels of corruption. I guess EU realizes that, too, and it's all about geopolitical games with Russia, after all.

Re: About Ukraine

#53

Post by a8da6b0c91d » Fri, Jan 31, 2014, 4:46 PM UTC

apaprocki wrote: post #12

empthought wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is because there aren't two distinct nationalities in play here. Even the Russian-speaking Ukrainians do not want to rejoin Russia; they would prefer to be Ukrainian. The situation is much closer to the situation in the United States than to those in other central and eastern European cold war countries. While there are strong regional divisions between Democrats and Republicans -- divisions that are roote…

I agree. This is probably the best way to relate the situation to someone in the US. No one would take you seriously here if you proposed splitting "blue" states into a separate country and proposing a split there seems equally far fetched.

Splitting up the United States is a perfectly reasonable idea and a lot of people take it seriously.

http://www.moreright.net/splitting-apart-the-united-states

Re: About Ukraine

#54

Post by dmytrish » Fri, Jan 31, 2014, 4:48 PM UTC

shitgoose wrote: post #34

empthought wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is because there aren't two distinct nationalities in play here. Even the Russian-speaking Ukrainians do not want to rejoin Russia; they would prefer to be Ukrainian. The situation is much closer to the situation in the United States than to those in other central and eastern European cold war countries. While there are strong regional divisions between Democrats and Republicans -- divisions that are roote…

I believe that Crimea (peninsula in Black Sea) wouldn't mind to go back to Russia since it has never been historically a Ukrainian territory. East of Ukraine may not be keen on becoming Russian, but sure as hell they don't want to be ruled by Western Ukraine. Differences between East and West of Ukraine run deep and go far beyond political preferences. West sees East as scum. Period. For example, when Western protest…

East also sees West as a land of rural people who do plumbing/maid work in Europe for food and are wicked nationalists/Nazis.

The titushki you mentioned are not shamed just because they're from Eastern Ukraine, but of what they did in Kiev for government money (beatings/vandalism to discriminate Maidan).

So I have to admit that there are some deep cultural differences, indeed. But when I try to imagine two Ukraines, there are so many questions (where to put the border - in any place it would tear apart close regions, there's no clear border, it's a huge gradual gradient from West to East) that I see no feasible answer.

Re: About Ukraine

#55

Post by clockworkelf » Fri, Jan 31, 2014, 4:53 PM UTC

This is a 'color revolution' instigated by George Soros' Open Society Foundation and other Western-backed foundations, plain and simple. Soros has been quite open about his intentions to more or less flip this country.

Re: About Ukraine

#56

Post by dmytrish » Fri, Jan 31, 2014, 4:58 PM UTC

empthought wrote: post #9

One other interesting fact about Ukraine: their national hero ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko ) is a poet.

It's a common trait of Europe in XIX century: Pushkin in Russia, Adam Mickiewicz in Poland, Byron in England, Schiller/Goethe in Germany - they're all poets-heroes of the Romanticism Age - they all virtually determined their national cultures for decades. But I agree that Shevchenko's influence was much more profound for Ukraine than Pushkin's for Russia - maybe because the culture and language of Ukraine were the only its remnants at that time whereas Russia always had its state and its history, its army, bureaucracy and its own religion.

Re: About Ukraine

#57

Post by zzzcpan » Fri, Jan 31, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

kushti wrote: post #23

Why so much Ukraine on HN? Protests are happening almost everyday in some european country. No Thailand protests covered here. Why the hysteria about Ukraine here?

  > Why so much Ukraine on HN?

Maybe there are a lot of Ukrainians on HN. Considering that Ukraine has a lot of developers and internet access there is one of the fastest and cheapest in the world.

Re: About Ukraine

#58

Post by IgorPartola » Fri, Jan 31, 2014, 5:07 PM UTC

saganus wrote: post #48

vonmoltke wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thailand notwithstanding, are any of these other protests building improvised forts in the streets of a major city or taking over government buildings around the country? Edit: 001sky has the better, less flippant reason.

Well, it might not be the same, but in Mexico there are so called self-defense groups, that try to fight against organized crime. They are armed groups of civilians that took control of entire towns and their surrounding areas, to stop the cartels from doing as they please. They have gunfights with cartels and when they successfully drive them away, they pickup armored vehicles, guns and money, and everything else th…

What you describe is going on in Mexico sounds fascinating. Where can I read more about it?

Re: About Ukraine

#59

Post by dmytrish » Fri, Jan 31, 2014, 5:09 PM UTC

adwf wrote: post #6

claudius wrote: post #3

Why is dividing the country peacefully apparently out of question? It seems to have worked somewhat decently for the Czech and Slovac republics.

I think because the large majority of the wealth is in the south-eastern Russian-speaking section. From the article, it sounds like that is where all the coal and iron mines are. Not to mention the most productive farmland. The Russian-speaking section also encompasses the major ports of Odessa and Sevastopol. So a split down language lines would leave the Ukrainian segment landlocked and with a vastly weakened econo…

That was true about ten years ago and before. Now East has a very inefficient, power-hungry, noncompetitive economy that starts to eat more money for social subsidies than it produces (Yanukovych himself decided recently to make the "pride" of Donetsk regions, state-owned coal mines private because of their unprofitableness). Crimea has been always unprofitable even with its lucrative tourism industry. East views its post-soviet industry as asset whereas West often sees its as liability and drag to the burning need of industry modernization.

Re: About Ukraine

#60

Post by cLeEOGPw » Fri, Jan 31, 2014, 5:12 PM UTC

shitgoose wrote: post #47

cLeEOGPw wrote: post #13

One thing that wasn't mentioned in the article was about the reasoning behind Putin's customs union. Putin is very pro-Soviet Union. He wants to make customs union to make it resemble Soviet Union with Russia as the leader country and others (such as Belarus), former Soviet Union members as satellite countries. He also sees it, as mentioned in the article, as a counterweight to EU, which he views as a threat. So his…

Putin's longing for USSR is overrated. I don't believe he gives a rat's ass about USSR. Customs Union is a block on countries that have deeply integrated economies, common language (unofficially it is Russian) and common background. CU is just as natural and logical as, for example, European Coal and Steel Community formed after 2nd World War. Whether CU will evolve into political union, like EU is trying to do, is u…

> Putin's longing for USSR is overrated. I don't believe he gives a rat's ass about USSR.

I believe he gives quite a rat's ass about USSR. Remember that Putin saw USSR fall under his own eyes. He not only blames Gorbachev for the destruction for USSR, but basically considers him a traitor for things like not approving violence against occupied states during independence uprisings. Besides the sentiments for USSR, he also is aware that his political power is going to end in some, time, so he wants to be remembered for something big. And he believes that creating something that resembles USSR is that thing. That's why he cares so much about customs union and is willing to basically bribe other countries to join it despite lacking money for Russia itself. That's what happened with Armenia - he "bribed" the country by offering big loan and lower gas prices before it joined EU economic treaty, like Georgia, Moldova did. That's why he offered money for Ukraine in exchange not even for customs union, but just not signing EU economic treaty, which was already prepared and ratified by president of Ukraine.