Take a look at the map above. Leaving all other considerations aside, it’s a mess. It’s worse than a mess, it’s a recipe for disaster. If any country could make a case for secession, the Ukraine would be it. (And then ask yourself if we are looking into America’s future given our continued Balkanization but that’s a story for another day).
Let’s leave all that aside for now. The fact remains that the legally elected president of that benighted country was overthrown by mob rule. True, he was corrupt. Just like his two, pro-Western predecessors. But that’s not the issue. The EU, the UN, and the US State Department all ratified his election as being open and fair. What we saw with the mobs (many of which were funded by George Soros) was nothing less than the violent overthrow of a legally elected government. There’s simply no other way to put that.
And let’s forget the Hitler analogies being thrown about. It actually cuts the other way. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and remember what almost happened in Bavaria in 1924, with the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler failed then but Svoboda and Pravy Sektor won. You know what? I’m not picking up a particularly gay-friendly vibe from these fascists. And I seriously doubt they’ll be staging revivals of Fiddler on the Roof in Kiev anytime soon. (If anything, they’ll be cheering at the end.)
Ironic, isn’t it? Victoria Nuland (nee Nudelman), who is neocon royalty (and yes, most neocons are Jewish) was seen recently directing traffic in the Ukraine, even going to the front lines and handing cookies to demonstrators. Yet according to those that know her, she was raised on stories of pogroms and the violence Ukrainian peasants visited on her family. What’s wrong with this picture? Kinda makes you wonder how accurate those old family stories really were.
Something doesn’t compute.
Color me cynical, but I don’t think we’re being told the whole story. What I do know though is that we don’t have a dog in this fight. Even some neocons who have waved the flag in war parties past (I’m thinking specifically of Col Dave Hunt on FOX, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage) are counselling restraint on our part.
Don’t get me wrong. What Putin did was unfortunate; I wish he hadn’t. But I also wish that we didn’t engage in useless and unnecessary bear-baiting by our idiotic State Department. (I guess our diplomats didn’t get the memo that we won the Cold War.) Given these provocations coupled with the cultural fractures that exist in the Ukraine, it was inevitable.
And let’s be real honest with ourselves: Vladimir has the West by the short and curlies. All he has to do is turn off the spigots and the Ukrainians and other Europeans start shivering during one of the worst winters on record. As far as Britain is concerned, Russian money is propping up the City of London. And as for us, our war effort in Afghanistan is maintained because our materiel crosses vast expanses of Russian territory.
We could of course flood the world with American oil and natural gas and drive down the price of these commodities, thereby hitting Russia where it really hurts but thanks to an administration that cares more about the Sierra Club instead of oil, that option is not presently viable.
Yup, he’s got us right where he wants us.
As for the Ukrainians, they better be careful about what they wish for regarding Europe. All they got to do is send a delegation to Greece and ask those people how they feel about the EU now. What the IMF gives with one hand the vulture capitalists take with the other. I have a feeling that they may regret casting their lots with the EU, especially if the acquisition of the Ukraine breaks that consortium of nations apart.
Time will tell.
Much to quibble with, but a few particular points:
Of course there is, because that is not an accurate summation of the events. Now, there is most certainly a current constitutional crisis in Ukraine, because Yanukovych fled without resigning and the parliamentary vote of February 22nd only had 328 votes to impeach him, where under the constitution 337 votes were technically required. This does pose a problem with legitimacy for the current interim government. However, 73% versus 75% causing a legitimacy crisis in a government with a still functioning parliamentary body and government ministries is quite a different thing from widespread violence, anarchy, mob rule and the intimation that a revolution has encompassed wholesale overthrow and national disarray.
One could ask: if Russia had Ukraine’s best intentions at heart, what would seem to make the most sense: using its influence to help defuse a legitimacy crisis by helping get 9 more votes in parliament, or launching a military invasion of the Ukraine. We know which one Putin picked! And, of course, the latter has directly complicated resolving the former. In dogespeak: such statecraft much propaganda so undiplomatic wow
Your essays could really benefit from more basic research before posting. Europe has higher than normal gas inventory because it’s been a mild winter there. North America has been colder than normal, but much of the rest of the globe has been warmer than normal.
Yes, Europe gets ~30% of its gas from Russia. But there is another edge to that sword: Russia has failed over the Putin era to diversify its economy, a greater and greater share of its economy is dependent on its energy exports. Russia playing extreme hardball with its energy exports is hazardous to its economic health, to put it mildly. As it stands, the fallout from the invasion even if nothing else ‘bad’ happens might be enough to tip the Russian economy into recession.
Propping up no, very lucrative yes. Although “Russian money” is perhaps not quite as accurate a summation as “Kremlin elite money”. You are correct that the UK government, regardless of who is in Number 10, will abandon pretty much any moral principals in deference to the City of London, however.
This statement is extremely flawed. America is currently in the middle of a boom in new oil development, but that presently is merely replacing years of previous decline, it’s only been in the past year or so that the US has flirted with being a technical net oil exporter again. And much of that has been due to reduced consumption and increased efficiency. How big that boom gets has less to do with who is in the White House and more to do with global demand and corresponding oil prices.
As for natural gas, the economics of natural gas do not work that way. “Flooding” the world market would pretty much involve something like the American government spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars annually on subsidizing LNG terminals and supertankers which are at at economic disadvantage to pipelines, especially at current prices. From a certain light, it almost comes across that you’re grousing that we don’t have a President Romney spending $50 billion a year on economic warfare subsiding gas for Europe to stick it to America’s “Number One Geopolitical Foe” instead of food stamps, or something. I suppose that way at least the Kremlin really could blame Western plots for Russian economic woes.
Again, rudimentary basic research would flag these issues in the proof stage.
Interesting rebuttal but wide of the mark. To throw statistics at a problem often causes one to overlook the facts on the ground. Let’s examine this one: winter hasn’t been as brutal for Europe as it has for North America (I’ll tke your word for it). What of it? The average European pays more for heating oil than does the average American. He also pays at least twice as much for gasoline as the average American. And guess what? there is no average European.
A Greek who pays $8/gal for gas is paying the same amount a German does but his per capita income is maybe half of the Germans. And so on.
Regarding a “constitutional crisis” because the President “fled before resigning.” OK, it’s his fault he didn’t stick around to get shot in the head? What’s your point. Using this logic, based on the Right Track/Wrong Track polling an overwhelming majority of Americans think we’re headed for the toilet. Does that give us the right to overthrow Obama via mob violence?
And now you respond with comments that don’t make any sense or appear related to my very specific criticisms. Let’s see:
One of my specific complaints was that you were completely incorrect about the “facts on the ground”.
You shouldn’t take my word for it. But, of course, it will literally take you a couple minutes to verify. The bigger problem is that it is inexcusable that didn’t already know this. It suggests that you are writing on this topic and expressing such strong opinions from a state of if not utter ignorance than outright incorrect understanding. The former implies a lack of self-awareness of your own lack of knowledge, which is dangerous. The latter suggests you have fallen into a trap of selective sources of your information that leave you worse than non-informed but outright misinformed. I can’t stress this enough: the state of the winter season in the region and the gas inventory levels of countries that receive supplies from Russia are factors which have been well covered in any serious comprehensive treatment of the current overall situation.
Aside from the small matter that the “facts on the ground” mean your assertion that Russia has the capacity to instantly send Ukraine and Europe into a deep freeze by turning off the taps in the middle of a “brutal” winter is totally incorrect?
The point is that there is a difference between a functioning governmental structure operating more or less as normal under a cloud from a constitutional crisis and literal mob rule and anarchy which generally involves things like the rotting corpses of former parliamentarians in alleyways. Remind me: exactly how many members of parliament or senior government ministers have been shot since Yanukovych fled?
From another forum:
“Maybe I posted something on this here, I don’t recall. For years Russia has supplied oil & gasoline to Europe via a pipeline system going through the Ukraine. Russia has quite a bit of oil and it has made a killing on selling these commodities. Russia has even used these commodities as economic/political tools against Europe. Well, the Ukraine (Surprise, Surprise!) has Natural Gas (NG). The Ukraine has been selling NG to Europe, Greece and others. Their LNG port for export is in Crimea. The Ukraine has discovered vast areas where NG can be found and sees Europe as a logical partner for it. Russia doesn’t want this to happen. Europe wants this to happen. The conversion of NG in Europe from Russia’s oil could be devastating to Russia’s oil business. And there you have it!”
It’s all about $$$ and will NG be made plentiful for Europe via the Ukraine or will Europe be held hostage to Russia’s oil?
Sam Ting, dat’s Nut Ting!
RE: “. . . dat’s Nut Ting!”
Few writers are as gifted at making a point as our beloved Bishop Tikhon (I say this, sincerely). For the entertainment value, alone, we should give him a “thumbs up!”
Gail,I”d give you a thumbs-up, but that would mean getting down with the Anonyms! I see you got eight of them so far. Not hard to guess who they are, though, I feel for sure that one of them is Heracleides Pompikos, no? Old Man Helga might be another…and so it goes!
George:
Finally, something we can agree on!
You said:
You are indeed incredibly cynical to use your God given freedom to speak out against those who are struggling to gain those same freedoms.
The fact is that Yanukovich and his cronies stole the entire liquid assets of he Ukrainian government (estimated a ~ 70 Billion dollars). When he reneged on the negotiated agreement with the opposition, he fled the country. The Rada voted him out of office because members of his own political party turned against him after his snipers killed 88 demonstrators in Kiyv.
Putin’s armed seizure of Crimea violated Russia’s written guarantee in the Budapest Agreement by which Ukraine surrendered its nuclear weapons.
While Putin’s “victorie” in Crimea and Georgia may be sweet now, in the end they will prove to be a deadly poison that destroys the Russian Federation. By using the “we are the protectors of Russians everwhere” argument to legitimize the illegal invasion and seizure of other copuntries’ territory, Putin has established a precedent that will come back to haunt the Russian nation in the future.
Within a few decades, by mid century at latest, the non ethnic Russian citizens of Russia (ne-Russkiye Rossiyanini) will outnumber the ethnic Russians. Already, the governments of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan have declared their own languages as the national language before Russian language in those Republics. They have also adopted language in their constitutions declaring their governments to be the protector of their peoples even outside the limits of their declared territory. ( parroting the tactics used by the Russians to justify its invasions in Georgia and Ukraine) The Russian government continues to fight an unending battle with jihadists in he North Caucasus – a fight they have been unable to win despite 20 years of conflict and massive human rights violations.
You may sing Putin’s praises now; but in the end the Russian people will curse him as the destroyer of their nation.
Here are two You Tube vises for your Russian speaking readers:
If at all possible you should watch them. I’m sure T- T- can translate them for you.
First is an eloquent defense of his nation by a Ukrainian soldier in Crimea.
http://youtu.be/-hhx0F0W510
Next is a video appeal by Russian general Vasili Vasilyevich Krutov calling for an end to the military action. Two important points General Krutov makes:
War is not a game.
A fratricidal war will be a catastrophe for BOTH countries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MHCj7HItOc
Next a response to the KBG propaganda:
U.S. Department of State – President Putin’s fiction: 10 false claims about Ukraine
13:50 06-03-2014
As Russia spins a false narrative to justify its illegal actions in Ukraine, the world has not seen such startling Russian fiction since Dostoyevsky wrote, “The formula ‘two plus two equals five’ is not without its attractions” , the U.S. Department of State said in a fact sheet titled “President Putin’s fiction: 10 false claims about Ukraine”.
“Below are 10 of President Vladimir Putin’s recent claims justifying Russian aggression in the Ukraine, followed by the facts that his assertions ignore or distort.
1. Mr. Putin says: Russian forces in Crimea are only acting to protect Russian military assets. It is “citizens’ defense groups,” not Russian forces, who have seized infrastructure and military facilities in Crimea.
The Facts: Strong evidence suggests that members of Russian security services are at the heart of the highly organized anti-Ukraine forces in Crimea. While these units wear uniforms without insignia, they drive vehicles with Russian military license plates and freely identify themselves as Russian security forces when asked by the international media and the Ukrainian military. Moreover, these individuals are armed with weapons not generally available to civilians.
2. Mr. Putin says: Russia’s actions fall within the scope of the 1997 Friendship Treaty between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
The Facts: The 1997 agreement requires Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, which have given them operational control of Crimea, are in clear violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
3. Mr. Putin says: The opposition failed to implement the February 21 agreement with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
The Facts: The February 21 agreement laid out a plan in which the Rada, or Parliament, would pass a bill to return Ukraine to its 2004 Constitution, thus returning the country to a constitutional system centered around its parliament. Under the terms of the agreement, Yanukovych was to sign the enacting legislation within 24 hours and bring the crisis to a peaceful conclusion. Yanukovych refused to keep his end of the bargain. Instead, he packed up his home and fled, leaving behind evidence of wide-scale corruption.
4. Mr. Putin says: Ukraine’s government is illegitimate. Yanukovych is still the legitimate leader of Ukraine.
The Facts: On March 4, President Putin himself acknowledged the reality that Yanukovych “has no political future.” After Yanukovych fled Ukraine, even his own Party of Regions turned against him, voting to confirm his withdrawal from office and to support the new government. Ukraine’s new government was approved by the democratically elected Ukrainian Parliament, with 371 votes – more than an 82% majority. The interim government of Ukraine is a government of the people, which will shepherd the country toward democratic elections on May 25th – elections that will allow all Ukrainians to have a voice in the future of their country.
5. Mr. Putin says: There is a humanitarian crisis and hundreds of thousands are fleeing Ukraine to Russia and seeking asylum.
The Facts: To date, there is absolutely no evidence of a humanitarian crisis. Nor is there evidence of a flood of asylum-seekers fleeing Ukraine for Russia. International organizations on the ground have investigated by talking with Ukrainian border guards, who also refuted these claims. Independent journalists observing the border have also reported no such flood of refugees.
6. Mr. Putin says: Ethnic Russians are under threat.
The Facts: Outside of Russian press and Russian state television, there are no credible reports of any ethnic Russians being under threat. The new Ukrainian government placed a priority on peace and reconciliation from the outset. President Oleksandr Turchynov refused to sign legislation limiting the use of the Russian language at regional level. Ethnic Russians and Russian speakers have filed petitions attesting that their communities have not experienced threats. Furthermore, since the new government was established, calm has returned to Kyiv. There has been no surge in crime, no looting, and no retribution against political opponents.
7. Mr. Putin says: Russian bases are under threat.
The Facts: Russian military facilities were and remain secure, and the new Ukrainian government has pledged to abide by all existing international agreements, including those covering Russian bases. It is Ukrainian bases in Crimea that are under threat from Russian military action.
8. Mr. Putin says: There have been mass attacks on churches and synagogues in southern and eastern Ukraine.
The Facts: Religious leaders in the country and international religious freedom advocates active in Ukraine have said there have been no incidents of attacks on churches. All of Ukraine’s church leaders, including representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, have expressed support for the new political leadership, calling for national unity and a period of healing. Jewish groups in southern and eastern Ukraine report that they have not seen an increase in anti-Semitic incidents.
9. Mr. Putin says: Kyiv is trying to destabilize Crimea.
The Facts: Ukraine’s interim government has acted with restraint and sought dialogue. Russian troops, on the other hand, have moved beyond their bases to seize political objectives and infrastructure in Crimea. The government in Kyiv immediately sent the former Chief of Defense to defuse the situation. Petro Poroshenko, the latest government emissary to pursue dialogue in Crimea, was prevented from entering the Crimean Rada.
10. Mr. Putin says: The Rada is under the influence of extremists or terrorists.
The Facts: The Rada is the most representative institution in Ukraine. Recent legislation has passed with large majorities, including from representatives of eastern Ukraine. Far-right wing ultranationalist groups, some of which were involved in open clashes with security forces during the EuroMaidan protests, are not represented in the Rada. There is no indication that the Ukrainian government would pursue discriminatory policies; on the contrary, they have publicly stated exactly the opposite”.
Rating: -1 (from 9 votes)
I don’d dispute Yanukovich’s sticky fingers at all. Unfortunately for your case, Yulia Timoshenko, a predecessor of Yanukovich and a darling of the West is presently eating off of tin plates in the hoosegow because of her own tremendous corruption.
For now, I’ll take on point #9 because: Ukraine has no “interim government.”
Point #10, I’ll concede that Rada is “representive” and that the “Far Right” is not represented within it, unfortunately Right Sektor and Svoboda were the actual guys that overthrew the government. They ain’t going away and if Rada doesn’t give them any power, then there’ll be hell to pay.
“Timoshenko…is presently eating off of tin plates in the hoosegow because of her own tremendous corruption.”
Actually George, Timoshenko has been inexplicably released from prison and is presently in Germany, where she is seeking medical treatment, although she has promised to seek re-election as Ukrainian president. Just goes to show there is no justice or rule of law under the new Ukrainian government.
I believe she was just recently released. She still was as corrupt as all get-out.
A few weeks ago in actual fact.
But, yes, what about the corruption conviction?
I believe it was in the vicinity of US$180 million.
But I doubt the Ukrainians will re-elect her, in which case they have some sense.
Timoshenko was involved with oil deals between Russia & the Ukraine before she was in any political role. It was convenient for Russia and their puppet in the Ukraine to use “corruption” as a means to unseat her. There was never any proof!
You pretty much nailed it George, nitpicking aside. An agreement was made, the duly elected president was driven out, and now they’re pleading democracy. Disgusting. Also, you are right on the basic dynamic behind the European and US (lack of) response. Germany has already poo-pooed talk of kicking Russia out of the G8. Europe in general seems to want to downplay sanctions but they and the US may get a little bolder when Russia admits Crimea to the Russian Federation.
Neither we nor the Europeans have much leverage to do anything with all the Russian money in Europe, the energy situation and the proximity of Ukraine to the RF. Don’t take my word for it or anybody else’s. Just watch what the Germans and Brits do.
As for Russia’s role, yes, they “invaded” Crimea where they have military installations and the population is predominantly Russian speaking. Rumor was that the unmarked paramilitary are mercs the Russians had previously hired as extra security for the bases, but who knows, they could be Russian military of some sort. Six of one, half dozen the other.
Yes, the Ukrainian parliament did pass a law revoking Russian as an official language in Russian areas of the country but it did not go into effect. No, Russo-Ukrainians did not know what fate they would enjoy under a “government” where Svoboda members hold four major offices. Yes, significant numbers of military and police in Eastern Ukraine are defecting to local governments, especially in Crimea.
Now, what seems to be developing and what I’m looking for is this: In a little over a week, Crimea will have its referendum. The vote will be to join Russia. The Duma will approve and will receive the Crimea back. Then the fun begins, if not before. What Russia is interested in seeing is what portion of Eastern Ukraine may wish to follow. Could be none, could be a little, could be a lot. There’s a certain wave mentality that sometimes takes hold. Or some regions may simply want to remain autonomous within Ukraine.
The best thing would be for the country to split along “ethnic”-linguistic lines into East and West Ukraine with Eastern Ukraine becoming an ally of Russia with economic and military interdependence and Western Ukraine going its own way however it chooses. Don’t know if that will happen though; depends on how wise the Eastern Ukrainians are. That would solve everyone’s problems. The Western Ukrainians could become the new red-headed stepchildren of the EU over time if they are ever allowed in past the lobby. Russia would have its friendly “near abroad” in the form of Eastern Ukraine. No more political seesaw in a God-awfully designed country.
Misha, I forgot to mention that both Gerhard Schroeder and Nicolas Sarkozy are major executives in Gazprom. Think of it, the former Chancellor of Germany and President of France are carrying serious water for Russia.
George,
Here’s a little piece about the fascist elements in the Ukrainian “government”. Whatever you think about socialists, they’re quite handy at rooting out fascists.
http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/whos.html
The State Department may want to revisit some of their assertions. Yanukovich was driven from office. At least one of his entourage was wounded and his family was also threatened. Blaming him for not fulfilling his end takes a staggering amount of gall. It’s like the old joke about chutzpah:
“What is “chutzpah? A man who murders his parents begs the court for mercy on account of being an orphan.”
Chutzpah.
You can chalk the State Department’s list right up there with their explanation of Benghazi and their expertise at (mis)translating one simple word of English into Russian (“пере[за]грузка”).
OK, this is driving me crazy. Hopefully some Orthodox (or soon-to-be or eventually-will-be Orthodox) brothers and sisters can put this to rest.
Is this country all over the news these days called Ukraine, or the Ukraine? I always thought it was simply Ukraine, period. No “the” needed. It’s not called “the France,” or “the Canada,” or “the Indonesia.” It’s France. Canada. Indonesia.
Why is Ukraine special or different? Why do some newscasters, pundits, politicians who think they know what they are talking about — why do these people refer to Ukraine as “the Ukraine?” Is there a reason that Ukraine gets this special distinction?
Thank you in advance.
Engaged Observer,
Let me take a crack at it. Historically in English, the country now called Ukraine has often been referred to as “the Ukraine”. In fact, this was actually the normal or more common way to refer to it before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In the mid-1990’s, the Ukrainian government asked . . . well, pretty much the world, to drop the “the”. Thus, the more politically correct form is to omit the article. The reasoning behind this was that the “the” implied that Ukraine was part of some greater entity, not independent.
And this in fact, historically, was the case. Before the Soviet period, eastern and central Ukraine really never had much of an existence distinct from the Russian Empire and before that it was the heart of the East Slavs, Kievan Rus’. Western Ukraine had been part of the Polish Lithuanian state. Lviv was Lembourg, for example. It was emptied of Poles and Germans by the Bolsheviks during the Stalinist period and then of Jews during the Nazi invasion in World War II.
The origin of the distinction requires a tour through etymology. In Russian, the prefix “u” can signify movement outward. “Krai” refers to a territory. Thus, in old Russian, “ukraina” means something like “outer lying territory” or, more smoothly, “frontier”. Just as in English we normally say “on the frontier” not “in the frontier”, in Russian one would say “on the Ukraine” [i.e., “on the Frontier”] (“на Украине”). But Russian has no articles (no words for “a”, “an” or “the”). So the distinction was preserved in English by referring to Ukraine as “the Ukraine”; i.e. “the Frontier”.
This became politically controversial much like using the generic “he” for an unspecified hypothetical person became controversial. Earlier, it implied nothing negative or positive or even that the hypothetical person was male or female. Now,if you use “he” consistently, you will be poo-pooed for sexism. Similarly now, in academia and certain other circles, if you use “the” Ukraine, you will be “corrected”.
Thank you all for your replies and input into this matter. Ukraine it is.
I find linguistics fascinating. Had no idea that the Russian and Ukrainian languages have no articles (no words for “a,” “an,” or “the”).
This certainly explains how some native Russians or Ukrainians whom I have met speak in English, frequently omitting the indefinite or definite article (such as: “I am hungry and need to get sandwich” or “I have to go to bathroom”).
Eo,
It’s difficult for them. Not having articles (Latin also had no articles, Greek has definite ones but not indefinite), the usage is mystifying to them. You can formulate some particular rules or at least guides about usage but some of it is simply idiomatic; i.e., you “just have to know”, as in having heard a particular expression spoken many times.
The closest counterpart for Americans learning Russian might be the system of verbal aspect. Actions are perceived as complete or incomplete. Sometimes it is obvious. Sometimes you just guess and don’t really know until you’ve spent years speaking the language.
Oh, thanks for the etymological lesson! Very interesting, indeed.
“Ukraine” means “borderland,” so when the definite article is added, it suggests that the speaker is referring to the borderland or frontier area of Russia. In a sense, it makes “ukraine” a common noun, rather than a proper noun as it would be if a sovereign nation were intended, and this is why Ukrainians find this usage offensive. It’s comical to hear neo-con supporters of a NATO/EU/Western enslaved Ukraine as “the Ukraine,” thereby undermining their own argument and showing their ignorance of the area by speaking of it as a Russian border area.
It’s just “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine”. This article explains why “the” is affixed sometimes. http://www.infoukes.com/faq/the_ukraine/
In Russian “ukraine” (no definite article) means borderlands. The most likely explanation for the English usage ‘the Ukraine’ is that it was used to designate the Ukrainian region/province of Imperial Russia (cf. “the Mid West”, “the Palatinate”, “the border counties”, “the maritime provinces”, “the Badlands” etc.), and after 1922 survived to refer to “the” Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine. Since the modern state is self-designated ‘Ukraine’, ‘the Ukraine’ is now archaic, if not redundant.
This article is a total bullshit, biased and indeed, cynical. Why don’t we then call the American Revolutionary War a putsch?
Yanukovich was a Russian puppet, a traitor of the Ukrainian nation, indeed corrupt. having appropriated from the Ukrainian Treasury billions of greenbacks. Hitler was also elected in fair elections and by the people; did this make him just, a nobleman or messiah? I bet the author of this scribble is on Putler’s payroll. No resemblance to Orthodox Christianity, just pure chauvinistic mumbo jumbo!
The reason we don’t call the American for Independence a “putsch” is because we won. Taking your logic to the next step, I suppose you’ll be supporting the Crimeans and the Eastern Ukrainians who want to secede from the Polonized Western Ukraine?
“The Polonized Western Ukraine”. How about the “Unionized Northern Confederacy”?
Maybe I should complain about the “Normanized Anglo-Saxon Kingdom”….
Is there a special pleasure one gets in the savoring of these ancient resentments and grievances?
Let the dead past bury its dead.
yes, the Ukraine really is a part of Poland. Kiev’s mistake was going for Byzantines instead of Latins
George is dead on correct about “the Polonized Western Ukraine”. It was under Polish rule for quite awhile and up until the thirties had quite a few Poles and Germans living there. Moreover, Ukrainian itself, despite being categorized as an East Slavic language, really has the most intelligibility with Polish as a result of Polish influence in the language. For me, speaking passable Russian, it is easier to understand written Serbian than modern Ukrainian.
The problem is that Ukraine, or “the Ukraine”, is really a region inhabited by different peoples and not a nation. If there were a dominant group, that would be ok since there would be a national direction, despite dissent. Ukraine has only vacillation and conflict, not consensus. This should and is being corrected as we speak.
In fact, the western third of the Ukraine belongs by right to Poland. It was taken from them by Stalin.
“In fact, the western third of the Ukraine belongs by right to Poland. It was taken from them by Stalin.”
No, most of it was usurped by the Poles. But you are right, and I point it out often, Ukraine has to thank Stalin and the Soviet Union for its restoration (the Czars got it during WWI, but didn’t hold it). The Ukrainians legally formed their West Ukraine People’s Republic there during WWI.
George Michalopulos says:
“In fact, the western third of the Ukraine belongs by right to Poland. It was taken from them by Stalin.”
Like h**l it does.
http://www.pudkarpatskarus.eu/
The Kings of Galicia claimed the title of “King of Russia and Duke/Prince of Volodymyr(-in-Volhynia)”
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Kingdom_of_Galicia_Volhynia_Rus%27_Ukraine_1245_1349.jpg
Halych-Volhynia served the same role for Ukraine that Vladimir-Suzdal did for Russia.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Muscovy_1390_1525.png
Ukraine belongs to Poland as much as Russia belongs to Mongolia (which played the role in shaping Russian destinay that Poland did in Ukraine’s). IOW not.
As for the Carpatho-Russians/Rusyn/Ruthenians, that’s another matter entirely. One that Ukrainian chauvinists treat like they complain Russian chauvinists treat them.
“The problem is that Ukraine, or “the Ukraine”, is really a region inhabited by different peoples and not a nation.”
‘fraid not. It is a nation, although a beleaguered one, and one who has grown too big to be swallowed even by the Russian bear.
It is multi-ethnic, but then so is the Russian Federation. It also has a dominant ethnicity, namely Ukrainian-in blue here.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/UkraineNativeLanguagesCensus2001detailed.PNG
The correction going on right now is the Ukrainian chauvinists and the Russophile Ukrainians slugging it out.
‘fraid so.
The slugfest you mention is exactly my point. The language and political orientation are the key things and that is what has caused them to look alternately East and West over the last few elections. The maps regarding ethnic differences (“Ukrainian” v. “Russian”) aren’t particularly important divorced from particular indicators like language, religion, etc. Racially there’s not really a difference. Culturally it’s a spectrum. Language and religion are a bit clearer. But you might ask yourself this: Beyond self identification (today, as opposed to how one might feel tomorrow), what makes one “ethnic Ukrainian” as opposed to “ethnic Russian”?
Saying it is a nation is technically correct in the sense that for a stretch of about 22 years it had internationally recognized borders. But that is about it.
“The language and political orientation are the key things and that is what has caused them to look alternately East and West over the last few elections… Language and religion are a bit clearer. But you might ask yourself this: Beyond self identification (today, as opposed to how one might feel tomorrow), what makes one “ethnic Ukrainian” as opposed to “ethnic Russian”?”
Nationality is always an issue of self identification.
Only the present borders are 22 years (actually, 60 years-remember, Ukraine always had its own UN representative). Ukraine having a border goes back much further, with the Kievan Voivodship and the Ruthenian Lands under Poland-Lithuania and the Zaporozhian Cossak Hetmanate. But, as you hinted, the religious distinction cemented it after Met. St. Peter Movila, who gathered the Rus’ under PL rule into an Ukrainian identity (ironic, as he was Romanian) centered on Kiev. Even when annexed to Russia and to the Patriarchate of Moscow, it remained the “Metropolitanate of Kiev, Galicia and All Little Rus’,” and the recension of Church Slavonic remained distinct (actually, Moscow adopted Kiev’s redaction), as did the language, something codified around the same time as Russian was asserting itself from Church Slavonic.
And so they remain orientated to Kiev, and not Moscow (a thing that distinguishes the Carpatho-Russians from the Ukrainians, btw, whom the Ukrainians treat as they complain the Russian treat them) and long ago reached a critical mass that neither Czarist Russification nor Soviet Centralization over three centuries could dissolve. The genie can’t be put back into the bottle.
What distinguishes an “ethnic Ukrainian” from “an ethnic Russian”? Not being Ukrainian, I hesitate to define it for them. I do know, however, that the historical evidence shows that the ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians have been able to make the distinction for three centuries.
Isa,
The thing is, the present borders are not the past borders. Part was sometimes Poland, part was sometimes Russia, part was Ukraine but the Ukrainian borders varied. It was a republic within the USSR, but that was more like being a state in America. They got three seats in the UN not because they voted differently. Moscow decided the votes.
Moreover, the situation regarding self-identification has also always been in flux. In Western Ukraine, for example, in the early Soviet period the Soviet officials would go to areas and ask them what language they spoke. They would simply say “the local language”. It was sometimes literally a spectrum of dialects. I’ve seen the maps with lines that look like geographical surveys not indicating height but rather the prevalence of Ukrainian terms or Rusyn terms or whatever in usage. Among Christians, there were places where there was not any firm distinction even between ethnic Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, etc. With Jews it was a bit clearer. The “Ukrainian” language itself is really a mix of East Slavic Ukrainian and West Slavic Polish. There’s a recent book out on this by the historian Kate Brown titled Biography of No Place.
The Soviets eventually just imposed a nationality on each person or family and then proceeded to divide up land for each ethnicity and promote socialism as a manifestation within ethnic culture. Then Stalin decided half of them were traitors and either killed or exiled them. Then the invading Germans used all the detailed records of ethnicity to locate and liquidate the Jewish segment of the population.
Rough little neighborhood to live in. It’s always been a mess.
“The thing is, the present borders are not the past borders.”
Yes, I’m aware of that. According to the Imperial Russian, Austrian and Hungarian authorities, these were the borders of the Ukrainians/”Little Russians” (a term that originated, btw, not in the statecraft of Moscow, but in the Notitia episcopatum of Constantinople)/Ruthenians:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Ukrainians_en.svg
“Moreover, the situation regarding self-identification has also always been in flux. In Western Ukraine, for example, in the early Soviet period the Soviet officials would go to areas and ask them what language they spoke. They would simply say “the local language”. It was sometimes literally a spectrum of dialects.”
Yes, I’m aware of the problem. The Czar’s census in 1897, however, found that spectrum of dialects even in the Far East:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Ukrainian_in_Russian_Empire_1897.png
Hence “Green Ukraine” there. The authorities knew of the distinction enough to ban the Ukrainian literary standard, and the Ukrainians knew enough to evade the ban by various means and use their own language. That is, Ukrainian.
“The Soviets eventually just imposed a nationality on each person or family and then proceeded to divide up land for each ethnicity and promote socialism as a manifestation within ethnic culture.”
The Czar was busy trying to snuff out the Ukrainian nationality long before Lenin’s train ride. The policy of Korenization was adopted because of the Ukrainian nationalism already there-they had managed to set up a Ukrainian state for a few years (whose government in exile came to Kiev in 1991 to hand over its claims to the newly independent Ukrainian state).
“It was a republic within the USSR, but that was more like being a state in America. They got three seats in the UN not because they voted differently. Moscow decided the votes.”
The question was not how independent it was, but whether it had any borders. The independence of Ukraine’s Hetman in the 17th century, where under the Treaty of Hadiach
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BaDJLbW_zPs/TOK0E-7PFRI/AAAAAAAAA88/Ykhk4Gk9HY4/s1600/Ruthenia.png
or the Treaty of Pereyaslav
http://newkubanmuseum.com/Media/Default/MapsFlagsGallery/Ukrainian_Cossack_state_Zaporizhian_Host_1649_1653.jpg
(btw, I don’t cotton to this “Tsardom of Moscovy” crap: it was the Kingdom of Russia then)
it did, in fact, have borders. As, for that matter, do US states-the US courts have plenty of cases enforcing them.
But all that said, Crimea isn’t really within them. Now, if it was a question of the Kuban, Ukraine might have a case…
I’m not sure what if anything we’re arguing about. I agree Ukraine has had borders, just not consistent ones. Also, I agree that there is a Ukrainian language, deeply Polonized, with various dialects, some of which are bucking for language status themselves.
Now, after all of the above stuff, let’s examine what I first wrote above:
“The problem is that Ukraine, or “the Ukraine”, is really a region inhabited by different peoples and not a nation. If there were a dominant group, that would be ok since there would be a national direction, despite dissent. Ukraine has only vacillation and conflict, not consensus. This should and is being corrected as we speak.”
It should be clear that this is true. One of the “peoples” that inhabit Ukraine are the Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians. Another of these “peoples” is the Russian speaking “Ukrainians”, many of whom, depending on their political musings on that day, might just as easily identify as another of these “peoples”, Russian speaking Russians living in Ukraine. Add in Tatars, Rusyns and other groups as well as the hodge podge overlay of Orthodox-oid churches, Uniates and Islam.
No group is dominant. We can discern this from the electoral history of the country. Hopefully, at the end of this little dustup, that part of Eastern Ukraine which identifies more with Russia will have separated and then there definitely will be a dominant group in the Western part of Ukraine – – and peace, and/or fascism, or decadent Western liberalism or whatever the h^ll they think they want on any given day.
Don’t forget Misha, according to the map, there are millions of Russian-speaking Ukrainians as well.
Kinda makes you wonder what got into the heads of the revolutionaries when the first law they passed was to outlaw Russian as a national language.
Comparing this map-the approval of the Ukrainian referendum “yes” vote for independence
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Ukr_Referendum_1991.png
with these
http://www.ukrainianvancouver.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2009-copy-600×420.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Official_Russian_language_support_in_Ukraine.PNG
use of Ukrainian in schools
http://ukrainetrek.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ukrainian-language-in-schools.gif
one can see that a lot of Russians and Russian speaking Ukrainians/Surzhyk speakers voted for independence. Even in Crimea, the only place where the “yes” vote fell under 50% of all eligible voters, still won.
What I don’t want Russia to do is repeat its mistakes when the Czar took Galicia-which even he admitted, in an apology where he first used the term “Ukrainian.” Russian chauvinism isn’t the cure for Svoboda, nor is division a recipe for anything but perpetual war, cold or hot.
“Kinda makes you wonder what got into the heads of the revolutionaries when the first law they passed was to outlaw Russian as a national language.”
Worse-what it outlawed was not Russian as a national language, but using anything but Ukrainian as a local language.
Should have left well enough alone. Even the Russians in Ukraine were happy enough in the status que ante.
Unstable identities.
At most, I think Russia will take Crimea (done, as a practical matter) and whatever parts of Eastern Ukraine wish to secede or become autonomous. Kiev isn’t helping itself at all in that area. I can’t imagine why Russia would want the poorest most hostile region of the country, a big chunk of which was taken from the territory of Poland at the beginning of WWII.
“Unstable identities.”
Whose?
“I can’t imagine why Russia would want the poorest most hostile region of the country, a big chunk of which was taken from the territory of Poland at the beginning of WWII.”
It has wanted it for at least two centuries. Maybe you should ask Russia about its obsession.
“’Unstable identities.’
Whose?”
Russian speaking Ukrainians in the East of the country. First they’re peachy keen in Ukraine, now they reject the purported central government and are raising Russian flags on buildings.
And while it is true that historically, in the pre-democratic period, Russia has wanted this little problem child (Western Ukraine), now I don’t think they have any reason to covet it. Hostile people, European aspirations, not the economic engine of the country.
Let em live off Europe’s tit if they want feminism and gay marriage.
Misha:“’Unstable identities.’
Isa: “Whose?”
Misha: “Russian speaking Ukrainians in the East of the country. First they’re peachy keen in Ukraine, now they reject the purported central government and are raising Russian flags on buildings.”
Seems a stable answer to an unstable (and illegal) government. There’s no reason why they should accept Svoboda and its Russophobia.
A colleague of mine, a Armenian Jew who grew up in Kiev said “I hope it doesn’t come to killing, because that would be not brothers killing each other, but killing yourself”-she was referring to Russians and Ukrainians, not Russophobe Ukrainans and Russophile Ukrainians.
Moscow would be mistaken to think that the Kremlin follows the flag in this instance. Russian and Russophile Ukrainians are just reaffirming-in face of Svoboda denial-their affinity to the Russians.
Btw, the Ukrainian Orthodox in the Western Ukraine outnumber the UGCC outside of the latters Troika of Lviv-Ternopil-Ivano-Frankivsk, and in fact is the dominant Church in the other Western oblasts, even having a majority in Khmelnytskyi. Only in the UGCC stronghold are the uncanonical Orthodox strong, leaving the Ukrainian Orthodox with a near majority in the West, just as in the East.
UGCC
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/uk/0/00/Greekcatholic2010.PNG
Orthodox (Ukrainian and uncanonical)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/uk/d/dc/Allortodox2010.PNG
UOC
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/uk/f/f9/Ortodoxmp2010.PNG
Then there is that Westernmost corner of Ukraine, Zakarpatia, where they still look past Kiev to Moscow.
There is a Ukrainian nation within the big ethnic mixture that is the Ukrainian state, just as there are the Sioux, Apache, Navajo, etc., Nations within THE U.S. There were, of course, disadvantages to calling oneself “Russian” or even “Little Russian” under Polish or Austro-Hungarian governments ruling the Ukrainians. And there were definite advantages to calling oneself Ukrainian under the same governments. If they called themselves “Russians” they risked the kind of treatment we gave to our Japanese Americans during WWII: if they called themselves ‘Ukrainians”, thereby sticking their fingers into Imperial Russian eyes, they were semi-heroes.
“The reason we don’t call the American for Independence a “putsch” is because we won.”
This is true, George.
The victors get to write the official history!
CNN and BBC have very recently had a major attack of candor.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/07/opinion/putin-western-hypocrosy/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/bbc-now-admits-armed-nazis-led-revolution-kiev-ukraine/
this can be shown on the map, who and what is driving this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Svoboda-2012.png
Notice the concentration in the Unitate oblasts. I wonder, has Major Archbishop, er, “Patriarch” Shevchuk spoken on Svoboda?
For those who don’t read Ukrainian, the chart also shows that Svoboda got almost 25% of the votes of the Diaspora.
To go with the map:
Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-Reflection, Dialogue
edited by Andrii Krawchuk, Thomas Bremer
http://books.google.com/books?id=jDTFAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA134&dq=%22the+highest+level+of+isolationism+and+xenophobia+was+demonstrated+by+Greek+Catholic+respondents.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2N4fU9H0A4WQyAHlwoDIDA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20highest%20level%20of%20isolationism%20and%20xenophobia%20was%20demonstrated%20by%20Greek%20Catholic%20respondents.%22&f=false
Attached below is a legal analysis from the BBC (hardly bastion of “Neo-Con politics) demonstrating that he Russian invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory violates international law and Russia’s treaty obligations.
We need to remember the scripture which teaches: “lawlessness is sin.” I John 3:4
Analysis: Why Russia’s Crimea move fails legal test
Soldiers in Russian uniforms – without insignia – are blockading Ukrainian military installations in Crimea
Continue reading the main story
Ukraine crisis
The Russian parliament says Crimea can become Russian territory if that is what the region’s people decide they want in a referendum set for 16 March.
Here Marc Weller, Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge, examines the legal issues raised by Russia’s intervention in Crimea. The territory became part of Soviet Ukraine in 1954 and remained Ukrainian after the Soviet collapse in 1991.
Russia has clearly and unambiguously recognised Ukraine and its present borders. This was confirmed in:
The Alma Ata Declaration of December 1991, which consigned the Soviet Union to history,
The Budapest memorandum of 1994, offering security guarantees to Ukraine in exchange for removing nuclear weapons from its territory
The 1997 agreement on the stationing of the Black Sea fleet in Crimean ports.
The 1997 agreement, extended for an additional 25 years in 2010, authorises the presence of Russian ships in Crimean harbours, along with the presence of a large military infrastructure, including training grounds, artillery ranges and other installations. However, major movements of Russian forces require consultation with the Ukrainian authorities and the agreed force levels cannot be increased unilaterally.
Contrary to these obligations, Russia has augmented its forces in Crimea without the consent the Ukraine. It has deployed them outside of the agreed bases, taking control over key installations, such as airports, and encircling Ukrainian units.
Russia’s actions have created space for the pro-Russian local authorities in Crimea to displace the lawful public authorities of Ukraine. Legally, this clearly amounts to a significant act of intervention – indeed, as Russian military units are involved, it is a case of armed intervention.
Armed aggression?
Does the mere presence of a foreign armed force without the consent of the local sovereign also violate the international prohibition of the use of force, if no shot is fired?
According to a UN definition of 1974, the use of foreign armed forces on the territory of a state in contravention of the agreement governing that presence amounts to aggression. Still, under present conditions an “armed attack”, which is the trigger point in the UN Charter for the application of the right to self-defence, has probably not yet occurred.
Initially, President Vladimir Putin obtained authority from Russia’s upper house of parliament to use force to protect ethnic Russians in Crimea. He subsequently indicated that the use of force for humanitarian purposes or in defence of Russian assets had not yet occurred. It might become necessary in the future.
For now, Russia claims – unpersuasively – that its regular forces are not involved in the present stand-off, and that it does not control the local militias supposedly responsible for it.
Moscow’s claim to be able to protect its minorities abroad lacks substance. It would be the duty of Ukraine, in the first instance, to protect all of its citizens from the purported threats.
President Putin’s aides insist that local – not Russian – forces are involved in the current Crimea stand-off
Protecting ‘Russians’
When Hungary sought to strengthen its ties with ethnic Hungarian minorities living in neighbouring states, this was strongly resisted by the Council of Europe and other legal bodies.
Russia went even further in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where pro-Moscow separatists opposed Georgian rule. Russia simply handed out passports to ethnic Russians, and later purported to rescue its own citizens from Georgian aggression. This ploy represents a misuse of the doctrine of “rescue of nationals abroad”.
That rescue doctrine does not cover foreigners declared nationals principally for the purpose of rescuing them forcibly. Moreover, it would only facilitate moving them back to their purported homeland – Russia. It would not justify occupation of parts of a neighbouring state.
Moscow cannot rely on the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, either. Under that doctrine, a state may intervene exceptionally in circumstances of grave humanitarian emergency in order to save an entire population whose very survival is threatened. There is no evidence of such a situation at present.
Were such a situation to arise, it would be the result of the intervention that has already taken place. Moreover, a state intervening for genuine humanitarian purposes would not be entitled to cause a change in the status of the territory concerned.
Invited in?
“Russia’s argument that President Yanukovych was unlawfully deposed is not persuasive”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also waved a letter in front of the UN Security Council, claiming that the ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had requested an armed intervention.
However, once Mr Yanukovych had lost effective control over events in the country, he could no longer authorise intervention. Russia’s argument that he was unlawfully deposed is not persuasive in this context. While he was not removed through the lengthy process of impeachment, provided for in the Ukrainian constitution, he was nevertheless unanimously disowned by parliament. He could no longer claim to represent the true sovereign of Ukraine, the people.
Similarly, the new Crimean regional authority, whose request for intervention was also invoked by Russia, lacks the legal power to take such a step.
Rather than using further aggressive force, Russia may now seek to tempt the Ukrainian authorities to make the first move. It would then assert the right to defend its troops and ethnic kin. So the Ukrainian authorities are well advised to exercise extreme caution.
As the fate of South Ossetia and Abkhazia demonstrated in 2008, any attempt to solve the issue militarily may well end in Ukraine losing Crimea permanently.
‘Divorce at gunpoint’
The autonomous Crimean territory may indeed be legally entitled to argue for a change in its status. However, according to international precedent, it cannot simply secede unilaterally, even if that wish is supported by the local population in a referendum.
Instead, it would need to engage in genuine discussion about a possible separation with the central authorities in Kiev. Alternatives, such as enhanced autonomy, would need to be explored.
International practice generally seeks to accommodate separatist demands within the existing territorial boundaries.
Moreover, international law does not recognise a divorce at gunpoint. Crimea cannot proceed with a possible secession or even incorporation into Russia while Moscow holds sway on the ground.
In this way the situation differs from Nato’s armed action in Kosovo in 1999. The Kosovo Albanians were exposed to extreme repression and subsequently forced expulsion by Serb forces.
Nato intervened for genuine humanitarian purposes. It did not occupy the territory in consequence of its humanitarian intervention. Instead, the UN administered Kosovo for some eight years, creating a neutral environment in which its future could be addressed. Kosovo did eventually gain independence, based on the settlement proposed by UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari.
‘Frozen’ conflicts
“Moscow should not be rewarded for its heavy-handed action”
Of course, incorporation into Russia cannot happen unless the Kremlin agrees to it. Moscow may be content with the new status quo, which would add Crimea to the list of “frozen” conflicts in Eastern Europe. That way, Moscow would avoid being accused of more direct aggression.
For two decades, Russia has supported Trans-Dniester, which has virtually separated from Moldova, and Nagorno-Karabakh, which declared independence from Azerbaijan following an intervention by Armenia.
To address this threat, the West will need to offer a package of measures that would enable the Kremlin to release its grip on Crimea without losing face.
The idea of an agreed settlement will seem odious to some. After all, Moscow should not be rewarded for its heavy-handed action. And the historical record is not good.
The EU-sponsored peace plan for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, negotiated by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in August 2008, amounted to little more than ratification of the results of Russia’s invasion of the two Georgian provinces. Both entities declared independence and have remained under Moscow’s tutelage since.
However, it is that very example which makes it imperative to achieve a genuine settlement. Unless an agreed formula for the withdrawal of Russian forces to their bases in Crimea is found, the Ukrainian government will find it very difficult to regain sovereign control over the territory.
Agreeing a settlement
Kiev also needs the co-operation of Russia to maintain stability in other parts of eastern and southern Ukraine. If Moscow stokes the flames of anti-Ukrainian sentiments throughout eastern Ukraine, civil war is on the cards.
A Kiev-Moscow settlement would include:
An agreed mechanism to prevent incidents between the opposing forces in Crimea, and to control radical groups on both sides, involving the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE);
A commitment by Ukraine to continue applying the agreement on stationing of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, matched by a Russian resumption of compliance, including withdrawal of extra troops and return to barracks;
A guarantee by Ukraine that it will not touch the existing language rights for Russian-speakers – instead, a commitment to enhance and entrench the rights of all minorities in Ukraine;
A joint Russia-Ukraine commission to protect the Russian Orthodox heritage in Ukraine;
An agreement to apply some key elements of the transition deal that was agreed on 21 February, the day before former President Yanukovych fled Ukraine. Kiev would reconsider the wisdom of offering places in the interim government to ultra-nationalists. Instead, the interim government would be fully inclusive;
A review of the constitution, in line with the transition deal, to address the overwhelming presidential powers and consider boosting the autonomous status of Crimea and granting more self-rule to parts of eastern Ukraine;
Effective guarantees for holding free and fair early elections, offering equal chances to all parties and communities.
Most of these steps would not be major concessions on the part of the Ukrainian government. Instead, they represent the standard measures adopted in the wake of ethnic conflict or even civil war.
It may be the only way for the Kiev authorities to save their country.
Marc Weller is Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge and has been an adviser in a large number of international peace negotiations.
“However, once Mr Yanukovych had lost effective control over events in the country, he could no longer authorise intervention. Russia’s argument that he was unlawfully deposed is not persuasive in this context. While he was not removed through the lengthy process of impeachment, provided for in the Ukrainian constitution, he was nevertheless unanimously disowned by parliament. He could no longer claim to represent the true sovereign of Ukraine, the people.”
This is an outright bald faced lie with no support whatsoever. It is simply someone’s thoughts and rationalizations designed to get to a particular result. All coups create similar conditions. There is nothing democratic about the present Ukrainian “government”. It is nothing more and nothing less than disgruntled EU wannabees from the western regions of the country who do not represent the country as a whole, propelled to power by neo-Nazi thugs, embraced by the West as were the Syrian jihadists for geopolitical reasons.
The rest of it is just lies and bs.
Exactly. A bunch of Neo-Nazis take over while masses are drunk of Westoxification, in their stupor dreaming that just joining the West and all its problems of corruption (which seem not to have gone away under West leaning administrations) would magically disappear.
Svoboda wants to blame Russia-which it confuses with the Soviet Union-for all its ills to absolve Ukraine and Ukrainians of any responsibility. Rather ironic, given that without Stalin, they would all be speaking Polish.
Isa, your statement is an outright calumny: ” … without Stalin, they would all be speaking Polish.” Rather, without Stalin and his artificial famine, there’d be millions more Ukrainians. By the way, yesterday, March 9, 2014, was the 200th Birthday anniversary of Taras Shevchenko, the great Ukrainian poet. Also, UNESCO already designated the year 2014 as “The Year of Shevchenko.’ Americans and Canadians of Ukrainian heritage are marking the event everywhere with festivals, concerts, and public readings, My oldest and dearest Orthodox friends were Ukrainians from Western (or Russian) Ukraine. They were equally opposed to aborption by Polonification and Russification. They were DPs, and hard-workers who came here dirt poor and enjoyed success. They were also devout Orthodox. One of them, Lida, was the niece of an Orthodox priest in East Ukraine who was shot at the altar by Russian communist soldiers. She and her friends spoke fluent Polish and fluent Russian, but almost never did so, although some of them had posed as Polish in German DP camps so the “Allies” wouldn’t turn them over to the Soviets for ‘repatriation (gulag or death).. They were all musical, singers, and also well-read. I remember how I (still a Lutheran) was shocked when my turn came to bring everyone’s coffee to our ‘Stammtisch’ in the Wayne State University student union lunchroom and learned that they didn’t take milk or cream in their coffee because it was WEDNESDAY.! Imagine, going through the war, imprisonment, the camps, and immigration into THE U.S. but observing strictly the Orthodox fasting restrictions! My closest friend among them, Lidia Korol (of now blessed memory), married another, Peter Kytasty, brother of Gregory Kytasty of the famous Ukrainian bandurist orchestra. Oh, Lidia, Peter, Irene, Valentina..those were the days. i remember contacting Lida through a Ukrainian I met by chance decades later. She conveyed back to me ‘Lida was glad to learn you had finally become Orthodox and found peace, but doesn’t understand what you are doing in the RUSSIAN Church!” (At the time, there were no Ukrainian or even Greek Orthodox chaplains in the U.S. Air Force, so my entry into the Orthodox Church was through a Russian Orthodox chaplain, Fr. Peter Zolnerowich (Russian Metropolia) at Lackland AFB where I had just been commissioned.
Isa, “westoxification” is a poison word. My dear and devout Ukrainian friends were not poisoned or intoxicated: they just preferred association with Americans and other non-Russians based on their own experiences of both. If a Ukrainian prefers Shevchenko, Shakespeare, and Schiller to Pushkin. Esenin, and Gumilev, this is not reprehensible in any way and certainly not a sign of your ‘westoxification.’
Your Grace, I’m a man of the West myself, and a proud one. Even Easterners love Shakespeare and Schiller. (And a lot of Western young people love Dostoevsky.) I just don’t believe that we live in “the West” anymore. I’m sorry but Miley Cyrus twerking, Madonna and Britney Spears French-kissing, gummint-schooled children learning to put condoms on cucumbers, Kwanzaa, tax-funded racial grievance groups like La Raza, and plummeting educational and moral standards are not part of “the West” that I remember. Our anti-Christianity is horrible.
I wonder what the Bard and the Three B’s would think about the Western Canon today.
Maybe some Ukrainians have been to Moscow nightclubs owned and populated by the Oligarchs and their hangers-on, and are aware of the tremendous H.I.V. and narcotics problems of toxic Russia? America today has no monopoly on the awful corruption of rich cities and their populaces. What’s different today are communications. Every American can behold and hear what was totally unaccessible yesteryear to any but the actual participants in moral corruption. They have only recently learned how widespread homosexuality is. We thought these were singular exceptions, just as many Russians, if they knew at all, thought that the homosexuality of such as Tschaikovsky and Gumilev, etc. was singularity. Of course, you, even at your advanced age never knew of nor experienced Berlin in the post WWI era, nor the antics of Westerners in the fleshpots of Macao, Shanghai, Havana, All Around the World. And there were no tvs or internets to show the outside world to you. You only knew what strait-laced spinsters and bachelors dared to tell you of the ‘outside’ world. They did a lot worse than play with cucumbers and the twerk in San Francisco, NewOrleans and many other American cities. Let’s not speak of child labor and the sexual abuse that went along with it either. The marriage ages would be just as shocking to us today as Islamic ones. Who is selling attractive young Russian and Eastern European women to be employed by Russian immigrant ‘biznizmen” in America? I’m sure the Shakespeare and the “Three Bs” would be shocked about the language of American English and by Jazz, Rock n’ Roll. What in the world would the Apostles think if they were suddently transported into the Altar in the Phanar? If there’s an electric organ in the place, they’d probably jump out of their skins. I suppose they might think that the richly-clothed Sadducees had finally won out, too. Is there something reprehensible about Kwanzaa? I’ve heard stories from those who had actually lived in pre-Castro Havana,and the entertainment provided Americans in the nightclubs there puts the antics of Madonna and Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus IN THE SHADE! That “toxification’ visited on Cubans (by non-foodstamps-owning Americans) is no more.
Of course you’re right, Your Grace. However the East Bloc Christians have suffered under 50+ years of savage atheistic indoctrination. It’s a wonder they have their heads screwed on straight.
What’s our excuse here in the remnants of what we call The West? Didn’t we have freedom and plenty? How many of us wanted or had to fear that crossing ourselves would assign us to the most menial jobs (if we were lucky)?
“Isa, your statement is an outright calumny: ” … without Stalin, they would all be speaking Polish.” Rather, without Stalin and his artificial famine, there’d be millions more Ukrainians. ”
That there would be, but in the West, the stronghold of the Ukrainian Nazis
http://www.geocurrents.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Svoboda_party_map_2006-2012.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Svoboda-2012.png
they would be speaking Polish.
” They were equally opposed to aborption by Polonification and Russification.”
But the Polish Second Republic, who ruled over them, was not. I’ve known a number of Orthodox who lived it.
“Isa, “westoxification” is a poison word.”
LOL. Truth in labeling.
“If a Ukrainian prefers Shevchenko, Shakespeare, and Schiller to Pushkin. Esenin, and Gumilev, this is not reprehensible in any way and certainly not a sign of your ‘westoxification.’”
Neither is their attachment to Mazepa, but that’s a different argument.
To say, again, that without Stalin, West Ukrainians would all be speaking Polish, is uncharacteristically gullible and even foolish, especially for Isa Almisry. The Polish government cannot succeed in getting ALL its own citizens, even today,,to speak Pollsh. Some speak Sorbish, Wendish, Kashubian, etc. for example. The authorities of the “Greek Catholic” Church in “L’viv”, would certainly stand in the way of such a measure. There is division among Ukrainians, Isa, even today, relative to the position of Mazeppa in the Ukrainian national pantheon. It’s all right to bring up this ‘different argument”,though!
Well, I think a lot of people here at Monomakhos speak sorbish. A few even speak Utter Sorbish! I won’t say it, though, as I think it inappropriate for one hiding under the cloak of anonymity to cast aspersions….
“The Polish government cannot succeed in getting ALL its own citizens, even today,,to speak Pollsh.”
It makes a good go at it, for instance what it did with its remaining Ukrainians, the ones they didn’t expel across the border: scatter then across the country, and away from their homes, Operation Vistula and all that.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Ukrainians_in_Poland_2002.PNG
It has largely succeeeded
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Languages_of_CE_Europe-3.PNG
Like I said, I’ve known a number non-Poles in the Second (and Third) Polish Republics (besides actually having been to Poland). Its language policies for a monolingual state haven’t changed from this, the decree (irionically in Ukrainian) declaring Polish the language of Volhynia in 1921:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/1921_Decree_on_Polish_as_state_language_in_Volyn_Voyvodeship.jpg
At 97.8% versus 2.2%, the non-Lechopones are a bit outnumbered in present day Poland.
And so, Your Grace, I “say, again, that without Stalin, West Ukrainians would all be speaking Polish.”
“The authorities of the “Greek Catholic” Church in “L’viv”, would certainly stand in the way of such a measure.”
Given the free hand that the Vatican-Warsaw concordant gave the Poles in dismantling the “Greek Catholic Church,” I’m sure they would relish the fight.
The Vatican didn’t let them become a Patriarchate? I thought they had done. English is the official language almost everywhere in the U.S. but many people speak other languages WITH IMPUNITY AS THEY DO IN POLAND. Many, many, by the way, West AND East Ukrainians CAN speak Polish and could and did so when Stalin was alive. Many former EAST Ukrainians, Isa, escaped repatriation from Germany to the Soviet Union after WWII by posing as Poles and speaking Polish most of the time. We Americans, like Latin Americans, think that being bilingual or multilingual is rare and/or abnormal. Bi- or multilingualism is not rare in Ukraine and never has been. The comment, ‘Without Stalin West Ukrainians would all be speaking Polish” shows ignorance. When you’re tempted to make such dogmatic pronouncements, take a deep breath and count to ten or twenty—whatever it takes.
“The comment, ‘Without Stalin West Ukrainians would all be speaking Polish” shows ignorance.”
Such a statement shows ignorance of the facts.
The Belorussians, for instance, Your Grace, were reclassified as “Belopoles,” and like the Ukrainians they saw their schools first forced to be bilingual in Polish to by the 1930’s becoming instruments of eliminating Ukrainian and Belorussian in favor of Polish.
When I was in Poland, it was illegal to have maps of Poland in anything but Polish.
“The Vatican didn’t let them become a Patriarchate? I thought they had done.”
No, the Vatican only lets its UGCC run free where the Vatican’s own access is restricted, e.g. Czarist and Soviet Russia, etc.
Isa, you proved me right. In spite of all the repressive measures you cited and claim to have observed first hand, you KNOW that Belorussians and Ukrainians continued to speak, read, and write in their own languages through all periods of oppression. In this they are as stout a people as the Persians, Turks (both of whom resisted speaking the language of the Qor’an), the Tibetans, the Wends, the Sorbs, the Kashubians. Some poorly educated Polish leaders and some poorly educated Russian leaders might imagine they could wipe out foreign speech and writing in the lands they rule, but they are only demonstrating an ignorance like that of anyone who avers; “Without Stalin West Ukrainians would all be speaking Polish.” Another point: In the event West Ukrainians were hypnotized into believing they could no longer speak Ukrainian, they very well might prefer to learn and speak German (with an Austrian accent, of course).
“Isa, you proved me right. In spite of all the repressive measures you cited and claim to have observed first hand, you KNOW that Belorussians and Ukrainians continued to speak, read, and write in their own languages through all periods of oppression. ”
I hear the same argument on the tolerance of Islam and the Turks, offering as proof the continued existence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, ignoring that that is in spite of the intolerance of Islam and the Turks, not because of an alleged tolerance thereof. So it seems we are dealing not only with an ignorance of the facts, but faulty logic as well.
The Polish Second Republic had less than a generation to implement its Polonization program before Stalin stopped it.
Belarussian is even worse off: it has gone from being the official language of the vast Grand Duchy of Lithuania
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Polska_1386_-_1434.png
to barely being spoken in Belarus (11.9%) itself.
“Another point: In the event West Ukrainians were hypnotized into believing they could no longer speak Ukrainian, they very well might prefer to learn and speak German (with an Austrian accent, of course).”
Under the Austrians, they were being forced into Polish.
“Without Stalin, they would all be speaking Polish….”
Quick, where is the Anglo-Caledonian Orthodox Church? There must be a small one someplace….no ancient axes to grind, no revanchists or irredentists, no memories of oppression or desire to return it in kind….even the Anglos and the Caledonians would agree where the border is.
Really getting an “education” here…..
🙂
Don’t be afraid, Timor!
http://britishorthodox.org/
?
!: Isa,
Tim wanted an “Anglo-Caledonian Orthodox Church”, I was merely assisting in the search. Being under the Copts is not my cup of tea, but to each his own. ; )
We Chalcedonian Caledonians are the true church of the British Isles; do not be deceived by these Non-Chalcedonian Caledonians!
Tim,
Can you say that three times really fast?
Did you ever hear the one about the Chalcedonian Caledonian and the Heterodox Hibernian?
Tim (and “Misha”) Are you old enough or expert enough to answer a related question for me? In the 40s there was a popular song which contained the line; “Caledonia! Caledonia! What makes your big head so hard?” Whose band was that? I keep thinking Lionel Hampton, but I just can’t be sure.
A sign of honesty, at last!
Timor, I believe there IS a Church calling itself Caledonian, etc. Orthodox and it may be headed by a Bishop Joseph Farrell originally of the Diocese of the South and of St Tikhon’s Seminary. Look him up!
Misha says: ” There is nothing democratic about the present Ukrainian “government”. It is nothing more and nothing less than disgruntled EU wannabees from the western regions of the country who do not represent the country as a whole, propelled to power by neo-Nazi thugs, embraced by the West as were the Syrian jihadists for geopolitical reasons.”
To grasp just how unrepresentative this ruling clique really is, consider the fact that the “President” is a Baptist pastor, and the “Prime Minister” is a Scientologist! Just how much more Western could these folks be? Only profound ignorance, or ideological blinders, could lead one to believe that this is “representative” of the aspirations of the Ukrainian people. (But Victoria Nuland likes them!)
I think the religious affiliations”Diogenes” mentioned show that the opposition to Russian hegemony is NOT a Vatican-Uniate-Fascist-Austro-Polish plot. Babtiss and Scientologists are not seen as stooges of ‘Westernization.” I think there are probably many more Russian Baptists than Ukrainian ones. They were a substantial presence in the USSR because they could practice their religion in closets and forests, not needing consecrated temples, antimensia, incense, wine and so on. As for Scientologists, those funny people are more lovers of galaxies than lovers of the West. What an idea!
George:
A couple of more points. You started this thread wit ha linguistic map of Ukraine. you might look up and publish a linguistic / ethic map of Russia. The Russian Federation incorporates over 100 different nationalities: most of them are not Slavic, most are not European, and most are not historically Christian.
This is why the very precedents set by Russia’s illegal invasions and occupations in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine will ultimately backfire. As Russia’s population declines and the minorities become an outright majority, these same precedents will be used to dismember the Russian Federation in a bloody upheaval. Putin one day will be seen as the man who sowed the seeds that led to Russia’s destruction.
As for Yanukovich, he is history. Even Putin has not received him. Yanukovich gave his press conference in a hotel lobby in Rostov on the Don in southern Russia. He has not even been allowed to come to Moscow. Yanukovich was voted out of office by the members of his own political party.! Trying to use Yanukovich as an excuse to invade Ukraine is a non-starter. Lavrov is just throwing out his usual bluster to see what will fly.
As for Ukraine of “the Ukraine”, the name of he country in both Russian and Ukrainian languages is “Ukraina”. Ther is no article in either language. Appending a ‘the’ before the name is a Britishism that implies a territory, rather than a nation. The Ukrainians really object to that, naturally.
You are correct hat the West may not has sufficient levers to stop Putin’s aggression; but Russia’s conquest will in the end prove to be a pyrrhic victory.
PS. If we are going to use historical argument, we might remember that Crimea belonged to the Ottoman Empire far longer than it did to either the Russian or the Soviet Empires. The actual indigenous people of Crimea are the Crimean Tatars, who have been terribly persecuted by both the Russian and the Soviet Empires.
Of course the question for those who are Christians is not how does this play out politically; but rather how do these invasions which have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands accord with the Divine Commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”?
The tragedy of our times is that we have forgotten God altogether. That is why you have these extensive discussions without any reference at all to the Gospel or the Law of God. Ands that, my friends, is the greatest damage from these unjust actions.
The reason I didn’t draw up a map of Russia is because your neocon overlords are caterwauling about the “invasion” of Ukraine. Too bad there was no invasion: the treaty between Ukraine and Russia allows the Russians to bring in up to 25,000 troops to its bases. Right now it has about 10,000. That means they can bring in another 15,000 without breaking the terms of the treaty.
This is incorrect:
Unless you are suggesting that the Russian bases on the Crimean peninsula somehow encompass…the entire peninsula. Because there are Russian forces outside of the Russian bases controlling the Crimea.
I also missed the part of the treaty that allows Russia to set up minefields on the Crimean border with the rest of Ukraine….
No, they don’t encompass the entire Crimean peninsula, but naval bases are vast and soldiers and/or marines are not confined to them.
Anyway, I don’t see the people of Crimea complaining to much. I have a feeling we won’t see the people of the Eastern Ukraine complaining too much in the very near future, either.
By all means show me a treaty agreement which stipulates troops at their foreign bases can go out armed on liberty and seize control of towns and restrict access to military facilities of their host country.
This is 2014. Propaganda has a problem in that there is generally a literal mountain of crowdsourced video and photographic intelligence that instantly makes dubious claims outright ridiculous.
The best response in the face of all available evidence to a claim that Russia has not actually invaded Crimea and does not have operational control of the peninsula is more or less: Aurora Borealis?
Indeed, they are so happy it appears that there is no need even offer the option of staying as part of the Ukraine in any referendum!
No doubt this would also involve massive troop movements and Russia gaining military control of said regions in something that Oscar Wilde would call “Invasion that dare not speak its name”
I suppose the good news is, if you take off that Russian patch on your uniform you are no longer Russian military. Just take off that wedding ring beforehand and you don’t have to confess adultery!
Well, too bad. Woodrow Wilson unleashed the evil of “self-determinism” as a condition for American involvement in WWI. It has been justified in the interim in many places since then. The Crimea will be just the most recent place.
As for the treaty between Ukraine and Russia, its particulars are all over the internet.
” If we are going to use historical argument, we might remember that Crimea belonged to the Ottoman Empire far longer than it did to either the Russian or the Soviet Empires. The actual indigenous people of Crimea are the Crimean Tatars, who have been terribly persecuted by both the Russian and the Soviet Empires.”
Uh, no. The Crimean Tatars are as indigenous to the Crimea as much as the Turks are indigenous to Anatolia. IOW, not. They didn’t arise in the peninsula until 1441-even the Italians beat them there.
They were tributary to the Ottomans 1441–1774, when they fell under Russia rule, being annexed in 1783 to Russia, where it remained until 1954.
Before 1783, the Tartars joined the Ottomans in causing terrible havoc in Ukraine and Russia. What goes around comes around.
Before 1441, St. Vladimir of Kiev captured Cherson in Crimea (where he was baptized) in 989, and held until 1132, when the Tartar forbears the Cumans came in.
Before that, the Romans ruled.
Thanks once again, Isa!
Francis also shuts his eyes to the following:
THE U.S. or THE United States
THE Netherlands.
THE Philippines
THE Vatican
THE Hague
And the late modern habit of calling the Crimea ‘Crimea’ does not make it one whit ‘sovereign”.
It is those of little learning and understanding of the English definite article that felt that “The Ukraine” was not as sovereign-sounding as “Ukraine.” The same peoples hated to be called “Little Russians” and Moscovites “Great Russians,” while counter-intuitively calling themselves “The REAL Rus!” I don’t know what they make of “Greece” and “Great Greece” (Sicily, Southern italy, etc.)!
If I were to say, “I summered in the Argentine,” or “wintered in the Lebanon,’ would this be “dissing” Argentina or Lebanon?
Mr. Frost also likes to make synonyms of ‘nation’ and “state.” What an IDEA! Tell it to ***the*** Sioux Nation,right? (“Appending a ‘the’ before the name is a Britishism that implies a territory, rather than a nation.”)…
The Law has grown weak, the Gospel is unpracticed, the whole of the Scripture is ignored by you; the Prophets and every word of the Just have lost their power. Your wounds, my soul, have multiplied, and there is no physician to heal you.
St Andrew’s Canon, Ode 9, 3rd troparion
Are you quoting the Canon of St. Andrew to make a political statement or show disagreement? If so, that is sad and pathetic and you should be ashamed of yourself.
You people are way over analyzing this situation. It’s simple. The Ukraine wants to be progressive and economically independent (especially with NG) with Europe; Russia doesn’t want this. Russia is stifling the growth and economic independence of the Ukraine. It’s not complicated. Someone should eliminate Putin.
“You people are way over analyzing this situation. It’s simple. The Ukraine wants to be progressive and economically independent (especially with NG) with Europe; Russia doesn’t want this. Russia is stifling the growth and economic independence of the Ukraine. It’s not complicated.”
You analysis is simplistic.
Ukraine (no “the”) is in a civil war. Not Ukraine versus Russia. Ukrainian chauvinists versus Russophiles, both of whom are Ukrainians.
“Progressive and economically independent with Europe”? LOL. Worked great in Greece. Economically dependent on the EU-that cheap labor and those resources on the cheap have to come from somewhere, because the Wessies have a lifestyle to maintain.
Your right, it’s not complicated: Ukraine was going to go into another economic zone of tariffs etc., and Russia adjusted the export prices of gas etc. accordingly. If you are in the EU, you will pay EU prices for Russian gas.
The Ukrainians were smart enough to see that Russian economic assistance-and Russia was the only one offering it-didn’t come without strings. They are stricken with blindness, however, that there is a hook in that Western bait.
“Someone should eliminate Putin.”
You manning up for the job?
Btw, Rush Limbaugh came up with a great analysis of the US and Russia over Ukraine: it’s A.C.O.R.N. versus the KGB.
Please note: the same strategy Putin is using to annex Crimea, is the same strategy Pat. Bartholomew and the other old country patriarchs are using for having dioceses in North America. “We have to be there to serve and take care of OUR PEOPLE.” Well, this is based on the FALSE idea that there is a DIASPORA. There is NO diaspora in the U.S. Orthodox here have been here for generations and no one is returning to the “old country” except to visit. Therefore,ALL the Orthodox in North America should be members of a “local church” having no dependence on foreign bishops. All the Greek-Americans do not belong to Greece or the Pat. of Istanbul; all the Arab American Christians do not belong to Damascus; all the American Russians do not belong to Moscow; etc. These are lies designed to keep the Orthodox divided, not united and to spread a false foreign nationalism.
The political, social cultural mechanisms of building the beast, are sad and deplorable exercises of having to view sobering reality. It is not unintelligent, pointless, or un-warranted to do so, but a spiritual focus on the promise of the beatitude, the meek shall inherit the earth is also warranted, as it engages our spiritual life. We do not live by bread alone, but every Word that proceeds from the Mouth of God. The actions of the powerful and the reactions of those seeking to save themselves, but mostly materially are just sad. Should we wonder why the Christ was well acquainted with grief?
“The Ukraine wants to be progressive and economically independent (especially with NG) with Europe”
This is rather simplistic and reflects the biased approach of the Western media to this conflict.
Which Ukrainians want to be progressive? Which Ukrainians want closer ties with the West – all Ukrainians living in the current boundaries of Ukraine? What does it mean to be a Ukrainian? How is a Ukrainian defined? I’m sure if you ask a “Ukrainian” living in Uzhorod, Lviv, Kiev, and Kharkiv these questions you’d get a wide array of answers.
One of the major reasons Ukraine is not united on the front of forming an economic partnership with the EU is simply because it’s not united about what it thinks of itself.
http://www.ethnologue.com/country/UA/languages
Be sure to click on all the tabs.
Fascinating.
This is the best summary of events I’ve read so far:
http://nplusonemag.com/ukraine-putin-and-the-west
…and Henry Kissinger’s solution, whatever one thinks of him, is really the only practical one:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-to-settle-the-ukraine-crisis-start-at-the-end/2014/03/05/46dad868-a496-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html
“Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them.
Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia’s borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States.
The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709 , were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet — Russia’s means of projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia.
The truth is, I don’t want to have anything to do with what you are calling Christianity. It is not good enough for me. Obey the Vision, or not. You have been given fair warning.
Michael Kinsey wrote Obey the Vision, or not.
What is the Vision? If Putin is Gog and Russia is the land of Magog, then the crisis in the Ukraine may be one phase of Gog coalescing his power in the years before he joins with Persia (Iran) to attack Israel.
The people perish without a Vision. Love God, serve Him ALONE, live by His Word& not bread alone, Do not tempt God.To do this as the Christ did, is doing the Will of God.. There is no other vision that can match this.
Anytime there is a conflict in the world, esp. today, there is always an economic reason behind it. The Ukrainian issue did not pose a threat to Crimea nor the Russian fleet based there. Russia is taking over Crimea and beefing up forces there prob. for an invasion of the Ukraine. The world cannot trust Putin and since the ROC goes directly through his office, we will find more and more Russian operatives within the ROC and ROCOR.
It will be most sobering if that were to prove true. My definition of a “nation” would include that it is what you will fight for if it is invaded.
Of course there’s always an economic reason behind any conflict. That’s always the case.
I want to know what American citizens were doing instigating trouble. People like George Soros, Victoria Nuland, and others need to have their asses hauled before a Joint Congressional Committee and grilled. I’d also like them to have their citizenship stripped from them and placed in prison next to Jonathan Pollard and other traitors.
I think that after thorough questioning you’d find out what economic reasons were animating these malefactors.
George, your sentences; “Of course there’s always an economic reason behind any conflict. That’s always the case.” That is generic, boilerplate Marxism.
Not really. If anything, Marx was just making a historical assessment. He made a lot actually, at one time he was a sincere Christian and devoted to aristocratic form of governance.
Apologia pro vita Marxa?
Unrelated to this thread, but rare good news from Syria – 13 Orthodox nuns are released:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Mar-10/249780-kidnapped-nuns-harrowing-ordeal-ends.ashx#axzz2vWA5pwzX
“BEIRUT: Thirteen nuns were freed late Sunday by Syrian rebels in exchange for the release by Damascus of more than 150 Syrian women prisoners following Lebanese and Qatari mediation, officials said, putting an end to an ordeal that lasted more than three months and won world sympathy.
Officers from Lebanon’s General Security received the nuns on the outskirts of the Lebanese northeastern town of Arsal.
“Congratulations. The nuns are now in the custody of General Security and are on their way to Jdaidet Yabouss,” General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim told reporters late Sunday at the VIP Lounge in Jdaidet Yabouss, a Syrian border post near the frontier with Lebanon. Sitting next to him was Hussein Makhlouf, the governor of rural Damascus.
Upon her arrival at the Jdaidet Yabouss crossing after a journey that took nine hours, Mother Therese, one of the released nuns, thanked God and all those who negotiated their release for their safety before embracing Ibrahim.
One of the nuns was being carried by security personnel as she seemed too weak to walk on her own.
Another nun, Mother Agiah, said their captors had treated them well. “They were very kind and sweet,” she said. “They treated us well.”
Escorted by Lebanese Army vehicles, the convoy of cars carrying the 13 nuns and their three housemaids drove beneath torrential rains from Arsal to Jdaidet Yabouss in the early hours of Monday.
Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Atiyeh said the Qatari mediation succeeded in securing the freedom of the 13 Greek Orthodox nuns and their three helpers in exchange for the release of 153 Syrian women held in regime prisons.”
al-majd li-llaah!
GLORY TO GOD!
This little ditty pretty much says it all:
https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/the-immoral-principle-of-territorial-integrity/
Yeah, pretty much.
Column: Remembering the Crimean War
By David Lee McMullen, special to the Times
Friday, March 7, 2014 5:23pm
Charge of the Light Brigade, above, was painted by Richard Caton Woodville Jr. The charge was also immortalized in a poem by Tennyson that saluted the courage of the 11th Hussars.
Charge of the Light Brigade, above, was painted by Richard Caton Woodville Jr. The charge was also immortalized in a poem by Tennyson that saluted the courage of the 11th Hussars.
Given the current tug-of-war in Crimea, it is hard not to think about one of the most romanticized wars of the 19th century — the Crimean War. Fought during the 1850s, it pitted Imperial Russia against the forces of Great Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire.
The issues that brought about the conflict were Russia’s demand to protect Orthodox Christians within the Ottoman territories and a dispute between Russia and France over the rights of the Russian Orthodox versus Roman Catholics in the Holy Land.
But the underlying cause, as with most wars, was economic. In this case it was the growing competition among the empire-building nations of Europe, and involved Russia’s need for a warm-water port. As Russia began to push south, it came into conflict with the British in India and the Middle East, which explains why the British sided with the Ottomans. Interestingly, these same economic issues can be found intertwined in the current crisis.
The Crimean War lasted for more than two years, involved almost 2 million men and cost the lives of more than half a million. Fought in the decade before the American Civil War, the death toll was almost as high, over a shorter period of time.
Ultimately, Russia abandoned Sevastopol, sinking its own fleet as it departed. The war ended when Austria threatened to join the fight against the Russians, a decision that soured relations between the two countries and would push Austria into an alliance with Germany by the end of the century. The seeds of World War I were already beginning to grow.
Today the Crimean War is mostly forgotten, overshadowed by larger and more terrible conflicts. This is sad, because the war included some of the most memorable moments in the history of warfare.
There was the Battle of Balaclava, remembered today as “the valley of death” and commemorated by two of Britain’s most famous poets. There was also the courage and leadership of a young woman who went to Crimea not to take lives, but to save them.
After reading news accounts of the battle, Alfred, Lord Tennyson dashed off a poem that immortalized the courage of the 11th Hussars, the British light cavalry remembered for their suicidal charge against the Russian lines. That poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade, later made into a Hollywood movie, offers insight into the fate of the average soldier on far too many battlefields. As Tennyson noted, “Some one had blunder’d: theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.”
Years later, in his poem Tommy, slang for the common British soldier, Rudyard Kipling wrote about the Sutherland Highlanders, a small group of Scottish soldiers who withstood the assault of a much larger Russian cavalry unit at the same battle. For their courage, the Scots became known as the “Thin Red Line of ‘eroes,” a name that today is synonymous for a small force standing against overwhelming odds.
Finally, there is the memory of Florence Nightingale, who led a group of young women to the Crimea to tend wounded soldiers. There, because of her late-night rounds, she became known as “The Lady with the Lamp.” It was a time when more soldiers died from disease than battle.
In Crimea, she fought for better sanitary conditions, improvements that are credited with saving a great many lives in that war and the wars that followed. After the war she returned to London to establish the world’s first modern school of nursing and, most notably, inspired Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross.
While the Crimea may be an obscure corner of the world, and the Crimean War a forgotten folly of European imperialism, the nobility of these men and women, and the examples they offer, are worth remembering. Let’s hope the current crisis in Crimea will be resolved without another bloody war.
David Lee McMullen is a writer and historian at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, where he teaches about war and society. He wrote this exclusively for the Tampa Bay Times.
Column: Remembering the Crimean War 03/07/14 [Last modified: Friday, March 7, 2014 6:17pm]
© 2013 Tampa Bay Times
Your analysis of the relations between Germany, Austria and Russia is incomplete. Because Prussia did not support the British during the Crimean War, Russia sympathized with German unification under Prussian domination. However, after the unification, Bismarck arranged the League of Three Emperors between Germany, Austria and Russia. After Russia and Austria clashed over control over the Balkans, the Three Emperor’s League fell apart. In 1887 Bismarck negotiated an alliance called the Reinsurance treaty between Russia and Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm II made the mistake of failing to renew the alliance with Russia in 1890. In 1892, Russia signed an alliance with France, setting the stage for the 1st World War.
French secret service fear Russian cathedral a spying front
The French secret service has reportedly expressed alarm over plans for a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Paris, fearing it will be used by Moscow as a front for spies.
Henry Samuel in Paris 12:58AM BST 28 May 2010
The go-ahead for the onion-domed cathedral – the first to be built in the French capital in more than a century – by the Eiffel Tower was considered a brilliant diplomatic coup in Russia as at least two other countries were vying for the prized property by the Seine.
But it sparked deep reservations at the Quai d’Orsay, France’s foreign ministry, and the DCRI, its MI6, because the building is a stone’s throw from a sensitive diplomatic compound.
As well as housing France’s supreme magistrates’ council, the Palais de l’Alma – Napoleon III’s former stables – contains the Elysée postal service and above all, the 16 private apartments of top presidential aides. Chief among these is Jean-David Levitte, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s top diplomatic adviser, who wields more power than the foreign minister, as well as his chief of staff.
French counterespionage was particularly concerned, according to Le Nouvel Observateur, the weekly magazine, as Vladimir Kozhin, the Russian in charge of trying to buy the 8,400 square metre (90,400 sq foot) plot, is a former KGB agent. Mr Kozhin is head of the hugely powerful Kremlin property department, which has 50,000 employees, an empire of hotels and manages all state property, including Russian churches overseas.
French intelligence concerns were compounded by the fact that it had detected a significant rise in Russian spy activity since the election of President Sarkozy in 2007, reaching heights not seen since the mid-1980s.
Francois Hollande under pressure over Paris Russian Orthodox cathedral 11 Nov 2012
Mr Kozhin is a close associate of Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister and a former KGB officer, who was the property department’s number two in the 1990s.
Mr Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev are said to have considered the construction of the Paris cathedral a key step in regaining control over the Russian Diaspora and legitimising their administration, as well as a spectacular display of Russian power in western Europe.
Such was the importance of the acquisition that it was reportedly the first subject President Medvedev broached with his French counterpart in December at the Copenhagen climate summit.
According to several sources, after the conversation Mr Sarkozy immediately phoned his budget minister who a few days later summoned Mr Kozhin to his office. Ten days later when the various tenders for the plot were examined, Russia’s was top of the pile which included bids from Saudi Arabia and Canada – with an above-market offer of 70 million euros (£60 million).
The cathedral, which still needs final planning permission from Paris’ town hall, stands to be the first Russian monument built in Paris since the Alexander III bridge in 1896, and is due to be built within the next three years.
This occurred to me at some point:
It is my understanding that Nato does not admit new members if part of their territory is occupied by another country (presumably without some type of treaty or lease acknowledging permission).
If this is in fact the case, simply by acknowledging South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as well as the Crimea, as independent states and/or by annexation, Russia prevents Nato admission for Georgia and Ukraine unless Nato changes its rules (whereupon Russia can again change facts on the ground if need be) or the Western powers acknowledge these areas are no longer part of Georgia and Ukraine, respectively.
Although I still think that Eastern Ukraine is on the table, Russia may have already solved its most pressing problems with Georgia and Ukraine “just by being there”. That would certainly explain that howling sound emitted by the scorched cats.
Tim Bonner,
Nice post. Finally, something that is historically accurate. As someone who’s family roots are ethnically Russian but grew up in the Ukraine, I have to say that many of the posts here, particularly Mr. Frost’s, are just totally off base. Mr. Frost, please read a few Russian or Ukrainian newspapers. Or if you are pressed for time, just google the Crimea and 1959. Russians and Ukrainians have an extremely long and complicated history together. The reports about Putin annexing the Ukraine are grossly inaccurate. If anything, it is the Russian people who are making that decision. Don’t get me wrong, Putin is not a nice guy, but the situation in the Ukraine and particularly the Crimea, are larger than Putin. For the United States via Kerry, Obama and Clinton, to try and define this conflict as the “good guys” are the Ukrainians, and the “bad guys” are Putin and the Russians is incredibly naïve and stupid. I hardly think people like Yulia Timoshenko are the bastions of “good” unless you call the ripping off of millions of dollars is “good.” Again, all you need to do is do a google search on the gas queen. Like I said, it’s complicated.
Putin is a street thug, a mass murderer and a psychopath. His policies will eventually lead to the destruction of the Russian state. His short term victory will prove to be a long term catastrophe. His annexation of Crimea will hobble the Russian economy, already sliding into recession and will lose any remaining good will between Russia and the rest of the world. Even the communist leaders of China have condemned the occupation of Crimea.
Here are excerpts from a couple of recent articles on the subject:
Implications of the Crimean Issue for the North Caucasus
By: Valery Dzutsev
By proclaiming the right of ethnic Russians in Crimea to secede from Ukraine and join their ethnic brethren in Russia, Moscow is providing ethnically non-Russian regions with a justification for seceding from the Russian Federation itself. “National republics might raise the issue of independence only if Russia is very significantly weakened—that is, if the situation returns to what was in 1990s,” Russian expert Maksim Bratersky told the Gazeta.ru website. “Just as Crimea is raising the question of joining the Russian Federation at a time when the Ukrainian state is weak” (http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2014/03/06_a_5938745.shtml).
Russian actions aimed at stripping Ukraine of territory and based largely on ethnicity justify the same approach being applied to the Russian Federation itself. Hardly anyone expects foreign actors to start recognizing the non-Russian republics of Russia as independent states now. However, there will be little sympathy for Russia when and if its central government weakens and its peripheral regions, in particular the North Caucasus, start seeking secession.
Russia Puts Itself in Peril by Dismembering Ukraine
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 11 Issue: 45
March 10, 2014 05:55 PM Age: 3 days
By: Pavel K. Baev
One unique feature of the still surging crisis in Ukraine is the intensity of high-level communications between the key parties to it—which should have eliminated the possibility of misunderstanding, but apparently has not. Last Friday night (March 7), United States President Barack Obama had yet another hour-long conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin—and again failed to impress upon his counterpart that the West is serious about securing Ukraine’s territorial integrity (http://newsru.com/russia/07mar2014/phonecall.html). At every turn of the spiraling confrontation, Western leaders have been trying to leave Putin an opportunity to back off gracefully without losing too much face; and they are quite puzzled that their increasingly stern warnings are having the opposite effect, propelling Putin to take another step up the ladder of escalation (Kommersant-FM, March 7). Indeed, last Friday, the Russian parliament emphatically expressed support for the Crimean authorities’ decision to hold a local referendum on March 16 about whether the peninsula should secede from Ukraine and accede to the Russian Federation (http://lenta.ru/articles/2014/03/07/rewrite/).
Russia’s stubborn advance along the path of high risk and mounting costs might appear irrational, but in fact, it is driven by the logic of Putin’s maturing regime, which needs to find new sources of populism to maintain its legitimacy as economic stagnation cuts into the government’s ability to keep serving “free lunches” (Novaya Gazeta, March 5). Putin sought to make his ambitious Eurasian integration project into an ideological narrative that would add credibility to his enervating regime. But this led to his first mistake of blocking Ukraine’s long-prepared, though in the short term not particularly meaningful, associating agreement with the European Union. The explosion of public protests in Kyiv conjured the specter of a similar revolution at the Kremlin walls. Meanwhile, a fear of unpredictable swings in public mood (rooted in the shock experienced by one mid-career KGB operative stationed in the disobedient Dresden in November 1989) caused Putin’s second mistake of granting generous support to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Fierce clashes in Maidan brought Yanukovych down, but Putin saw in that breakdown of police power a plot orchestrated and sponsored by the West, and so made his third mistake of unleashing the full fury of state propaganda against the “extremist usurpers” (http://russ.ru/Mirovaya-povestka/Utro-vtorzheniya-zavtra).
This self-induced hysteria inspired the Kremlin’s compelling need to thwart the West’s malicious “conspiracy” in Ukraine and prompted Putin to order the deployment of a “limited contingent” into Crimea, which appeared to involve a minimal risk of violence and to generate maximum enthusiasm in Russia (http://lenta.ru/columns/2014/03/02/jump/). Both assessments were proven correct, but the expectation that such a determined move would encourage pro-Russian sentiments in eastern and southern Ukraine, where support for the Maidan protesters was respectively 8 percent and 20 percent, was completely false (http://www.levada.ru/03-03-2014/otnoshenie-zhitelei-ukrainy-i-rossii-k-sobytiyam-v-ukraine). Ukraine is deeply offended by the military intervention and is building resolve to stand firm against this violation of its sovereignty, re-discovering the feeling of national unity (http://grani.ru/opinion/portnikov/m.226309.html). The new government of Ukraine may be a random assemblage of odd characters (see EDM, March 5), but it seems to have risen to the challenge and is gaining both domestic authority and international recognition (see EDM, March 6), thus rendering Putin’s invectives about an “illegitimate coup” irrelevant.
One point that Putin internalized from his conversations with Western leaders was that the military intervention has destroyed all of Russia’s political levers for manipulating the internal divisions in Ukraine. So at a press-conference last Tuesday (March 4), he opted for blunt denials of any presence of Russian troops outside the naval base in Sevastopol (Novaya Gazeta, March 7). That attempt at re-defining the reality on the ground left Russian paratroopers patrolling Simferopol in a dubious status of “little green men,” but it could not change the position of the US, the EU or, for that matter, Turkey, who insist that any expression of “free will” by Crimea in the situation of de-facto military occupation has no credibility whatsoever. The barely camouflaged course to fast annexation of the Crimean peninsula unites in condemnation and rejection every stake-holder in the European security system—including such key Russian allies as Kazakhstan. And this puts Moscow’s pivotal Eurasian project in limbo (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 6).
Some Russian experts have started calculating how many billions of US dollars it would cost to transform Crimea into a subject of the Russian Federation—adding the sums to the losses from punishing economic sanctions that could be enforced by the EU (http://www.forbes.ru/mneniya-column/mir/251764-krym-tsena-imperializma). Russia is, indeed, so open to economic interactions with Europe that well-targeted sanctions could produce a sequence of crippling impacts, while Gazprom’s threats to turn off the flow of natural gas to and through Ukraine could expose the monopoly to an intolerable squeeze on sensitive assets of both a corporate and personal nature (http://www.gazeta.ru/business/2014/03/07/5939593.shtml).
The economy will deliver its punishment for Moscow’s policy of arrogant disregard of international norms of behavior, but it moves slowly and cannot check the self-propelled escalation of the crisis. The political mobilization in Russia around the nationalist anti-Western cause has proceeded so far that even tactically expedient back-pedaling becomes particularly difficult, as such moves open the space for doubt in the hyped-up society about whether the leaders know what they are doing. Putin’s confused narrative, particularly his reflections on US experiments in Ukraine—“as if with rats”—conducted without concern about the consequences for such rhetoric, betray his inability to comprehend what is really happening with Russia’s most important neighbor. Neither can he acknowledge that in the course of a few weeks his regime has evolved from a corrupt but “enlightened” autocracy to a police state where no dissent is tolerated and basic freedoms are severely curtailed (http://slon.ru/russia/gleb_pavlovskiy_eto_faktory_pereformatirovaniya_ne_prosto_vnutrenney_politiki_rossii_a_stroya_rossii-1067665.xhtml).
Russia has swiftly become a true “rogue state,” and the jingoist fervor does not give it pause to think about the repercussions of this status. As Putin rides the wave of aggressive “patriotism,” he cannot turn away from committing the gravest in his chain of mistakes—the annexation of Crimea. Ukraine is gathering energy and gaining support for resisting this outrageous dismembering, but Russia is sinking into a perilous crisis. In the disoriented society, the first reaction to international ostracism is defensive, and this gives the delusional regime more time to commit mistakes that could yet again push Russia beyond the brink of state failure.
Francis, everything you say may be true. I could however go tit for tat and talk about the kleptothugocracy that America is well on its way to becoming. In time, I will do so. For now however, I have a pithy, one-word answer to those who are caterwauling about the upcoming plebiscite in the Crimea:
And that word is: “Kosovo.”
George, apart from everything else, why are you so eager to be an apologist for Russian actions? Every time a criticism is raised, you attack some aspect of US policy or culture. Just what is the point? If there is merit to what the Russians are doing, then let’s hear the arguments about the merits. How is it an answer to jump to these other matters?
Is a plebiscite in Crimea within two weeks of an incursion a fine thing?
Tell us how you think this whole business is a good move for Russia, not how rotten everybody else is.
Good question, Tim. I could say it’s because I admire President Putin’s actions since taking power; things like throwing out the Harvard neocons who were plundering Russia during the 90s (which did real harm to real people), stabilizing the economy, overall liberalizing the public sector, etc. Just because the MSM says he’s an autocrat doesn’t mean that public discourse isn’t alive and well in Russia nowadays.
I also like the fact that he was instrumental in solving the Russian ecclesial schism, that he ordered the armed forces to stand down on Sept 11, 2001 so as not to provoke the US on that awful day, etc. I also like that he gets in the craw of the MSM and the Godless Western elites.
This does sound like cheerleading and it’s probably over the top at times. He’s no saint but then again Mr Frost gives us no proof for his ad hominem assertions that he’s a “thug and a murderer.”
My concerns about the depravity and degeneration of America and the West are real. The decadence being visited upon us will have worse effects on us because we have fallen from a higher plane than the former Soviet Empire (which had been hobbled by theomachists). They’ve had 70 years to sort themselves out and make their way under the most horrific conditions known to man. We’ve been insulated.
I’ll say more in time.
Now for your last two questions:
1. Yes, a plebiscite in Crimea is a good thing, if you believe in the concept of a people’s self-determination (one of Woodrow Wilson’s “14 Points”).
2. Yes, it’s a good move for Russia because it gives them back Crimea and two very good warm water ports.
George,
Austria. March 1938. Plebiscite. Anschluss (Template)
Crimea, March 2014. Plebiscite Anschluss.101.
Hitler came up with the depravity/degeneracy/decadence templates as well.
Putin’s ahead of us there, no?
Hitler-Putin, Same-old, same-old. Next we have to hear how much GOOD Putin has brought to Russia, no matter what else “they” say, right?
Of course, apart from the racist, genocidal maniac thing, the Lebensraum, the ambition to rule all of Europe and the world, the founding of the “1000 year empire”, the blueprint called “Mein Kampf”, etc., they’re the same guy (Putler lacks the cute little mustache though).
Quite so, but these “plebiscites” two weeks after one “marches in”– do they not have a very noxious odor about them? And the 95%+ yea votes?
I remember those old Soviet elections. Big turnout, 99% for the Party candidate!
I’ve run in a couple of local elections myself over the years (losing, fortunately), and my wife is a local elected official who has had landslides in 5 elections. These are usually defined as 55-60% to 40-45%. The fact is, in real elections, even if you are well-known, well-liked, well-endorsed, and “win big”, generally at least 40% of the people vote against you. If all that is true, and some real ex-con nutcase runs against you, he still gets about 25-30%
My point? 95% election results are totally phony. This is rather crude propaganda for the modern era.
why use Hitler’s template when we have the perfectly good one NATO gave: Kosovo?
None of Vovunya Putin’s actions imitated anything that transpired in Kosovo, ever. And the question; ‘why use Hitler’s template” should have been put to President Putin, not us habitues of Monomakhos!
Does anyone know how one could compare Crimea to Kosovo? Isa?
I think Crimea CAN be compared to Austria or Sudetenland, though.
Who would have imagined that there’d be so many Neville Chamberlains defending Putin today?
Oh, there is an aspect similar to Crimea: the Czechs demanded-and the vindictive and short-sighted Allies supported-that the borders be drawn according to the claims of the long dead (7 centuries plus) Přemyslid Czech dynasty. Never mind that the Přemyslids settled the area with Germans.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Sudetendeutsche.png
23.4% of the total population of Czechoslovakia-self determination be damned. There is the further comparison that the Czechs demanded the lands that the German Habsburg successors to the Přemyslids added to the Bohemian crown while they wore it. Much like Ukraine demanded the Crimea and West Ukraine added by the Soviets-but then the Ukrainian Khrushchev was involved in that, so I guess the comparison isn’t 100%. And Crimea did try to reattach itself to Russia during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, much like Deutschösterreich did with the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy, but was prevented by the ever vindictive and short-sighted allies-who after all had given a good chunk of it to Czechoslovakia to form the Sudetenland:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/GermanAustriaMap.png
helping themselves to a piece of the action in the process (again, like the EU and NATO were poising themselves to do in Ukraine). Of course, make a wound, infect it…then you shouldn’t complain when it erupts.
“the question; ‘why use Hitler’s template” should have been put to President Putin, not us habitues of Monomakhos!”
LOL. So Your Grace fights not only straw men, but straw presidents as well!
There is the difference that Putin didn’t bomb Ukraine into submission. And the Soviets never allowed the Ukrainian authorities let the non-Russians run amok in Crimea to drive the Russians out, unlike what the Croatian Slovene Tito did to the Serbs with the Albanians in Kosovo.
“Does anyone know how one could compare Crimea to Kosovo? Isa?”
Putin, and he isn’t the only one to make the comparison, Your Grace.
“Who would have imagined that there’d be so many Neville Chamberlains defending Putin today?”
Well Hussain is as incompetent as Chamberlain, and Senator Candidate (upgraded from Senator “Present”) did fight “W”-he’s not sensitive about his middle name-tooth and nail as Winston did Neville, but I’m not sure about all the details of interwar Britain: did Chamberlain’s liberal policies (yes, I’m aware that he ran as a Conservative, like Hussain ran like a “moderate”) bankrupt Britain and unilaterally disarm it, like Hussain has the US? Did Chamberlain make Britain a total laughingstock?
As for “peace for our time,” no one is claiming that. Some talking head was pointing out yesterday that with the loss of Crimea the Russophile parties in Ukraine have less voters in the upcoming election (true, but Yankukovych would have won anyway, without Crimea), ensuring Svoboda and its ilk winning in the upcoming election, creating a spiral of Putin having to intervene with a hostile government in Kiev. We’ll see if it gets that far-if the East participates in Svoboda’s election.
Your Grace would benefit from reading
https://www.monomakhos.com/ukraine-who-won-who-lost/
instead of engaging in ad hominem polemics.
One cannot wallow in ignorance and then complain about being surprised.
“None of Vovunya Putin’s actions imitated anything that transpired in Kosovo, ever.”
From Putin’s speech on the annexation of the Crimea:
http://rt.com/politics/official-word/vladimir-putin-crimea-address-658/
I repeat: “None of Vovunya Putin’s actions imitated anything that transpired in Kosovo, ever.” Isa Almisry let’s us know that Vovunya Putin HIMSELF believes they do. um, OK….That’s what I thought. I think he’s mistaken; moreover, that he is reaching. Isa has just repeated Putin’s delusion.
In comparing the lock-step defense of Putin’s actions in Crimea to the lock-step defense of Hitler’s actions re: Sudetenland as exemplified by Neville Chamberlain, one does not argue anything ad hominem, although the ad hominem charge is a staple of those who have had little training in logic or have forgotten it—kind of a “fall-back defense.”
“I repeat…”
You do seem inordinately found of mantras, Your Grace. And false analogies.
Again, Putin (and I) quote-Written Statement of the United States America of April 17, 2009, submitted to the same UN International Court in connection with the hearings on Kosovo:
Putin didn’t have to reach any further than that.
It occurs to me that the invasion of Czechoslovakia and annexation of the Sudetenland, and the annexation of Austria provided the templates not only for the thuggish annexation of Crimea, where the Ukrainian forces, like Christian sheep, laid down their arms, but that there are other precedents and templates for V. Putin’s thuggery: Saddah Hussein’s attempt to swallow up Kuwait whole, Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor; Morrocco’s annexation of Western Sahara, and Israel’s declaration of East Jerusalem being part of its capital.
Many are critical of President Obama’s actions or lack of actions relative to Crimea. Have we forgotten how handily and easily the thug, Putin, invaded Georgia and grabbed a couple of territories on President George W. Bush’s watch? Should that President be blamed for “losing” this or that state?
I would like to add something here. It is important to step back and look at the broad picture here. We have a pretty good idea of the Western picture. “The cause of Western Enlightenment liberalism must proceed.” This despite any consistent principle. The important thing is that “freedom” spread, “freedom” being measured according to the values of the EU.
Moscow has a totally different worldview. Russia has been repeatedly invaded by the West, Germans, Napoleon, etc. It refuses to be boxed in both economically and militarily. Russia sees the expansion of Nato into Central and Eastern Europe as Western aggression. Georgia was seen as an expeditionary campaign of the West. That effort was stymied.
Now, the West, through NGO’s, the media and open encouragement of Western political leaders decided to skew the Ukrainian political scene. They would not even stop at encouraging true fascists. In the end, even after an agreement was reached between the main parties, the West could not be trusted even to abide by that. With fascists at the forefront, the rioters took the government. They could not even muster enough votes for a lawful impeachment, not that it would have mattered with armed fascist thugs outside the building.
So, liars one and all, the West is now saying that the new “governemnt” of Ukraine must be respected.
No, it need not be. It is illegitimate. The government is vacant and the territory is up for grabs. If there was a representative of Ukrainian sovereignty, it was Yanukovich. But he’s not going to return. Essentially the country as it is currently consisted is not governable.
Now the West insists that it is governable if Russia and Eastern Ukrainians will just be so kind as to submit to an illegal coup perpetrated with the funding and encouragement of the West. All sorts of “plans” are being floated that would include Russia’s withdrawal from Crimea and security guarantees for Russian speaking Ukrainians, etc.
However, neither Russia nor the Eastern Ukrainians have any reason whatsoever to accept such guarantees or back down. The best result, whether the West likes or finds it acceptable or not, would be for Ukraine to be split along political lines and for the Eastern part to either join with Russia or become independent, the Western part to ally with the West if it desires. That would return stability and avoid further bloodshed.
Russia intends to implement this. We’ll see if they can.
The crisis is a clash of civilizations. Thus any number of traditional Orthodox can easily see the merit of Putin’s actions. The moral regimes of the two sides are constantly set in contradistinction.
The real question that Western Christians should be asking themselves is why are they beating the drums for the defeat of Russia and the EU-ization of Ukraine if the EU is committed to destroying the moral fabric of Christian civilization? Conservatives in this country are committing indirect suicide by supporting the spread of Western liberal values and political culture. It would be like entrepreneurs financing the international spread of Stalinism. Truly insane. But conservative Christians here do it in the name of patriotism. Yet our patriotic enterprise is to destroy Christian morality and the Christian social order wherever we find it.
Western Liberalism whether in its progressive or conservative variety is the enemy, not Russia.
http://www.humanevents.com/2014/03/14/dont-blame-putin-blame-russia/
http://rt.com/news/international-observers-crimea-referendum-190/
Preliminary reports by international observers indicate a free and fair referendum.
They were howling about the turnout. They didn’t seem to mind that just over half of Sevastapol and Crimea voted in the Ukraine independence referendum, which barely passed, and had less than half of the eligible voters casting a “yes” vote.
Then there is that little thing of overthrowing Constitutional authority in Kiev….
So, the religious authorities (if they could) should shut down Monomakhos when its search for transparency in matters ecclesiastical cuts too close to somebody’s bone, thus invoking the need for protection of Orthodoxy from “Western liberal values and political culture”?
Everything is questioned, and everything is going to be questioned, everywhere. If not yet everywhere, soon enough. So everybody is going to have to stand scrutiny. Including those who hold to the truth. Nothing is going to be able to stop this.
One good thing about it is that all are going to have to know where they stand, and whether they have the courage to stand.
“Putin is a street thug, a mass murderer and a psychopath.”
As is Francis Frost. Both statements are equally defensible, being false. Sticks and stones, Francis, . . .
“His policies will eventually lead to the destruction of the Russian state. His short term victory will prove to be a long term catastrophe. His annexation of Crimea will hobble the Russian economy, already sliding into recession and will lose any remaining good will between Russia and the rest of the world.”
This is nothing more than wishful thinking used as a verbal weapon. If Georgia blew over, the Russians have every reason to believe this too shall pass. Especially in light of the West’s conduct in numerous locales including the Balkans. For the West to criticize Russia in this incidence is complete, shameless hypocrisy and our leaders know it. This is simply a contest of geopolitical wills.
“Even the communist leaders of China have condemned the occupation of Crimea.”
China has not taken any firm position on the situation. They understand the unique relationship between Russia and Ukraine and made that clear early on. China is going to watch this one from the sidelines, though lobbying against sanctions against Russia. As a matter of practical consequences, China and India are supporting Russia at the moment:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/13/us-ukraine-crisis-china-idUSBREA2C0PB20140313
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/with-close-ties-to-russia-china-sets-a-cautious-tone-on-ukraine-crisis/
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/03/as_china_and_india_back_russia_ukraine_crisis_is_over.html
If Francis is livid and spouting his pathological hatred for Russia, Putin must be doing something right. Or perhaps that just means Francis is alive and kicking, like a wet nose and shiny coat? It has taken on a certain comic quality.
BTW, Russian troops are reportedly amassing along the border with Ukraine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/world/europe/ukraine.html
A Crimean referendum is set for Sunday. Lurch . . . sorry, John Kerry, set a “deadline”/”redline”/”flatline” or whatever for Monday after which the US will do something even more horrendous to Russia than freeze isolated bank accounts (after giving the holders weeks of warning to move the money). As I’ve mentioned here before, it seems to me that the RF is positioning itself to take advantage of any potential wave of Russophilia in Eastern Ukraine following the referendum. My guess is that this will be forthcoming but it’s hard to say what the practical consequences will be. It is possible, but by no means guaranteed, that Russia will acquire quite a bit of new real estate in the next couple of weeks.
However bad it gets for Kiev, they have only themselves and their Western NGO and political masters, as well as their own fascist front, to blame for this. Let us recall who Nuland wanted as Ukrainian president instead of Klitschko and who it was that waged the actual violent coup and spurned the agreement between the protesters/rioters and the Yanukovich government.
Also, and one dismisses this at their own peril, Putin is doing exactly what the vast majority of Russians want him to do:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/13/we-treat-him-like-hes-mad-but-vladimir-putins-popularity-has-just-hit-a-3-year-high/
Moreover, if you were to filter out non-Russian citizens of the RF (“rossiskiye” who are not “russkiye”), you would likely find that support among ethnic Russians within Russia is even higher, up in the 80’s. This is extraordinary popular in the RF.
Mr. Frost, your shrill, hysterical Russophobia is both tiresome and unbecoming to an Orthodox Christian. Give it a rest already.
Well, all you Russophiles should finally wake up! Putin is a KGB colonel using Communist tactics to control surrounding territories; he’s a thug. The ROC and ROCOR do nothing accept what is approved from his office. ROCOR and ANY ROC people in the U.S.A. should be suspect of spreading Russian Nationalism and may very well be operatives of a foreign govt. Thank God + Jonah’s agenda was thwarted to bring the OCA under the ROC/ROCOR. Let’s all finally get serious and quit looking to Istanbul, Moscow, Damascus, etc. for direction. The American Orthodox Church without ANY foreign intervention is the only answer for the future!