Huge pro-EU rally grips Ukraine

[Catfish]

Go there and see the real thing, and see how we are being led by the nose, by the Media? Who would want to see the truth...

[Dmitry Markov]

Originally Posted by Susexx

Come visit in Crimea, ask the residents. Learn a lot and without news of a "zombie box" (TV)

That's exactly what I wanted to write! If You ever happen to visit Crimea and talk to locals then thoughts of "people who were forced to vote" or "in fact they've voted the other way" would just be gone. People just saw what was happening in Kiev and didn't want that mess to happen in their cities.

I'll give you another insight:
For example, my friend's parents live in Mariupol, Donetsk Region (or People's Republic of Donetsk depending on point of view). In May they had a vote for independence from Kiev. Guy's parents voted for independence as vast majority of their neighbours did, being sure that Russia will openly support them, and won't let Kiev's forces to enter their region not to say the city (They had some point in that knowing that at the moment Putin had a permission from Federation Council to use military force in Ukraine). Now they hardly ever talk to their son being sure that Russia has betrayed them allowing Kiev to occupate Mariupol and not helping openly. They think it's not fair that we helped Crimea and didn't help Donbass. They think they are living under occupation by Kiev and we left them under fire and if only our troops entered Donbass in May straight after their referendum, it could prevent all that bloodshed we can see now. That's their point.

[August]

Originally Posted by Dmitry Markov

If You ever happen to visit Crimea and talk to locals

Dmitry the only locals left are Russians. All the Ukrainian speakers and the Crimean Tartars, some 12% of the population according to the article below, have been driven out.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easte...014/03/ukraine

[Susexx]

Originally Posted by August

Dmitry the only locals left are Russians. All the Ukrainian speakers and the Crimean Tartars, some 12% of the population according to the article below, have been driven out.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easte...014/03/ukraine

Left those who wanted to leave. The Ukrainian government has always (except the USSR) said that all the troubles of Russian blame.

[Dmitry Markov]

Originally Posted by August

Dmitry the only locals left are Russians. All the Ukrainian speakers and the Crimean Tartars, some 12% of the population according to the article below, have been driven out.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easte...014/03/ukraine

Thanks for interesting reading - in search for info on Crimea the author went to Lvov (!) , found the only Tatar radical he(or she - the article is anonymous)could reach there, and makes unapproved statements about mass migration.
Again - if you are interested in inter-ethnic relationship in Crimea, you better go there, visit Yalta, Koktebel, Sevastopol and then Tatar villages, talk to locals - either Tatars or Russians or Ukrainian. Yes there are people who don't like Crimea to be Russian again and who moved to Ukraine ( families of Ukrainian officers who didn't join Russian service for example) but western media tend to exaggerate their amount.

[August]

Originally Posted by Dmitry Markov

... but western media tend to exaggerate their amount.

And Russian media tend to minimize their amount. Bottom line here is that the Russians have managed to carve off a piece of another country and they are obviously working to take more of it. In both cases there will be people forced to abandon what had been their homes.

[Skybird]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...706-druck.html

A - longer - narrative documentary on the events 2010 to winter 2013 that led to the splitting of the Ukraine. The story being told last but not least is that of a massive failing of German foreign policy due to

a clash of two different foreign policy cultures.

Also, massive ignorance for the Russian to-be-expected reactions and the Russian interests as well as a good dose of arrogance were used to create this unneeded drama.

One should have seen Ukraine as a bridge between Europe and Russia, instead of forcing it to choose for Europe over Russia. One can argue in holy ideals or principles of Western and Central Ukrainians wanting to be associated with the EU (and one wonders what weighs heavier here: the idealistic undertone - or the promise of huge amounts of foreign tax money being channeled to the Ukraine) for as long as one wants: it does not change the facts of reality. And the facts of reality are that Russia has vital own-interests that must try to prevent the Ukraine turning all-West.

This to recognise is where the EU and Berlin have failed miserably. And Washington? Traditionally anti-Russian for the sake of being anti-Russian, probably from all beginning on saw the Ukraine as an opportunity to once again push borders towards Russia and move alliances closer to its borderposts.

That Russia would not just sit on the side fence and watch it, could have been forseen. But Germany and the EU chosed to deliberately not wanting to see it from Russia's point of view.

Things to be learned from all this: it is a stupid thing to demand a rival/opponent to act stupidly and in violation of his own self-interest. The price of this is paid in the main by people living in the Ukraine, then mostly by the German economy who has losses in the high billions due to the sanctions while being epxetded to be Europe's paymaster nevertheless, and also the ordinary people in Russia facing mounting prices and shortages of consumer goods.

America is cheap off in all this. And due to it dominating the IMF sees the free bonus chance to force not necessarily "freedom and liberty" but its own views becoming realsisied in the future forming of the Ukraine.

[Catfish]

"One should have seen Ukraine as a bridge between Europe and Russia, instead of forcing it to choose for Europe over Russia."

"Also, massive ignorance for the Russian to-be-expected reactions and the Russian interests as well as a good dose of arrogance were used to create this unneeded drama."


THAT!

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Skybird

A - longer - narrative documentary on the events 2010 to winter 2013 that led to the splitting of the Ukraine. The story being told last but not least is that of a massive failing of German foreign policy

so it was all Germany's fault.

figures.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

so it was all Germany's fault.

figures.

No, not all, but being the one European nation with better relations to Russia than anyone else in Europe and with better trade with Russia than anyone else as well (I think), Germany shares its good and not small heap of the responsibility-pie. Brussel and Washington as well as the union of Eastern-European nations also have to accept their shares. Nobody cared for taking Russian interests serious.

Its like the essay says: Merkel made it a one principle-thing (ours, of course) by focussing on Tymochenko exclusively, and fading everything else out. And that had her missing reality by several lightyears.

The article also says that the EU personnel could not even imagine that somebody does not want to join their fantastic club. Another big mistake.

[Bilge_Rat]

I was being facetious. A lot of blame has been placed on the Vilnius agreement and yes, the negotiators were naive, but it does not look like Yanukovych was ever serious about signing the agreement.

Ukraine has major economic problems. Its economy was never reformed or modernised after independence. It is one of the poorest, most corrupt countries in Europe. It was kept propped up, partly by Russia, though cheap gas prices and imports of Ukrainian goods.

Yanukovych was talking to the EU, partly because his government was short of cash, partly because a sizable voting block wants closer ties with the EU.

Yanukovych would probably have signed the agreement if the EU gave him cash with no strings attached, but the EU/IMF, quite rightly, wanted economic/structural reforms. Yanukovych could never have agreed to these reforms, such as reducing corruption, since it would have undermined his own political base.

He probably would also have preferred not to sign a deal with Russia, since again there was opposition from western Ukrainians, but Russia did not ask for any structural refoms and gave him cash up front.

So no, the Vilnius agreement was not the cause of present situation, it was only one of many contributing factors.

[Catfish]

Regarding the title of this thread: We know now that there never was a "huge pro-EU rally gripping the Ukraine".

Radio voice of Russia, in german TV (Voice Berlin) .. ahem

But still interesting and unmasking interview with a german professor of economics with a calm, boring voice, and then some TNT behind it (in german):


Germany will not pay the Ukraine's debts, France can't, the EU will probably go haywire about it. Win-win for the US, but not for the british economic market in London.

I just wonder what the near-future western Ukraine will do with its eastern roots cut, if the promises of capitalism fail to be fulfilled.

[Oberon]

Not a great deal it can do really, it's like a plant being pulled out without the roots and expecting it to grow still. I guess, if the Kiev government wasn't as corrupt and incompetant as it's shaping up to be it could use the money that it's going to get to build up industry in the west, but I doubt that'll happen.

I do wonder how the war has been affecting things at Chernobyl, it's pretty far away from the frontlines (at the moment) so hopefully things won't have been affected and the New Safe Confinement will still be completed by next year.

[Catfish]

^The US has secretly invested 5 billion dollars in the last two months alone, into a pro-western Ukraine regime, maybe they are able to at least pay the concrete for the tchernobly sakophague with that

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Catfish

^The US has secretly invested 5 billion dollars in the last two months alone, into a pro-western Ukraine regime, maybe they are able to at least pay the concrete for the tchernobly sakophague with that

One could bloody hope so!

From what I've read, it's actually being built by the French, so make of that what you will.