Posted on 12/08/2013 4:04:54 PM PST by Beave Meister
KIEV, Ukraine — Protesters in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, toppled the city’s main statue of Lenin on Sunday and then pounded it into chips with a sledgehammer as a crowd chanted and cheered. The destruction of the statue was a cathartic moment in the biggest day of demonstrations so far against President Viktor F. Yanukovich’s turn away from Europe.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians filled the streets of Kiev on Sunday, first to hear speeches and music and then to fan out and erect barricades in the district where government institutions have their headquarters.
Carrying blue-and-yellow Ukrainian and European Union flags, the teeming crowd filled Independence Square, where protests have steadily gained momentum since Mr. Yanukovich refused on Nov. 21 to sign trade and political agreements with the European Union. The square has been transformed by a vast and growing tent encampment, and demonstrators have occupied City Hall and other public buildings nearby. Thousands more people gathered in other cities across the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sad but true. I’m still happy for the Ukrainians. It’s rare to read good news anymore.
What do the people in the east say? There is a cultural and linguistic divide in Ukraine. Some want to be closer to Russia and others want to be closer to the West.
Of course if the eastern half of the country was absorbed by Russia, a rump Ukraine could survive in the EU. Otherwise there’s no short-term fix to the current crisis.
You weren’t kidding were you. They even dress it in drag for gay pride week.....................
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin_(Seattle)
The best answer is obvious. In the last 100 years, Ukraine was the brutalized and destroyed by BOTH the Russian soviets, and by the Germans and their allies.
Now the Russians want to control them, and so does the EU. The EU is just Germany 2.0. Neither side is interested in Ukraine except as a way to control gas pipelines.
The EU is not offering full EU membership, with open borders like the rest of the EU has. And the Russians do not want to give the EU control of those routes, and military position at their doorstep.
The Russians have good reason not to want NATO forces moved up to within 250 miles from Moscow, and to have NATO navies taking over their port in Sevastopol.
The answer is clearly for Ukraine to be a special case. After being brutally raped as a nation and mass murdered by both Germans and Russians, they deserve better than being centered in this new tug of war. Let them simultaneously be given EU and Russian Federation free trade status. And there should be a complete prohibition of the introduction of NATO status, or any expansion of the Russian navy base in Sevastopol.
You could sit back and watch. Ukraine would have no reason or need to split or riot.
They would become a hub of trade in that part of the world with a free trade zone status because businesses could trade freely between Russian and the EU only by going through Ukraine. As such a middleman, it would become a new Hong Kong or Switzerland, with the added joy of the hottest women on earth.
But of course, neither the new EU Reich, nor the Russians will permit this. They simply have no interest in what might be good for Ukraine.
Is it possible to entice some of the organizers to come over here and help out? We don’t seem to have enough cajones to do what is necessary to save our own republic.
I don’t joke about mass murderers like Lenin and his ilk.
Exactly. Viktor Yanukovych has no good reason to sign a deal with the EU.
Western Ukrainians would never vote for him and he cannot afford to lose his core supporters in his power base in the country’s Russian-speaking east that would result if Ukraine acceded to an EU partnership.
No politician is going to inflict pain on his constituents a year ahead of elections. And Ukraine has presidential elections due in 2015. Yanukovych and his supporters in the governing Party Of Regions figure they can ride out the current storm.
What they cannot do is be seen as weak before their own backers and in front of the western Ukraine opposition that largely hates their guts. I don’t see Ukraine joining the EU in the foreseeable future. My guess is Yanukovych will try to get a better deal from Moscow to prop up the Ukrainian economy enough to get re-elected in 2015. And his pro-Russia supporters will then express gratitude for dodging a bullet.
The Ukrainians do not want to be a puppet state of Russia (which they are under the "leadership" of Yanakovich, the twice convicted felon, Russian mafia "president" of the Ukraine), the Ukrainians want to be FREE. Free of Russia's control and free to associate with the West. This isthe last thing Russia and Yanakovich want.
It is important to remember that the reason why there are so many Russians presently living in the Ukraine is because Stalin. "Uncle Joe" uprooted and exiled multitudes of native Ukrainians to Siberia and other frozen Russian he'll holes and transplanted Soviet Russians in their place in order to consolidate his power and choice land holdings and they have been there ever since.
The Ukrainians want to be free from Russian dominance and control! THAT is why they finally tore down that disputable statue of the tyrant Lenin in Kiev.
>>>As someone who was there in the Ukrain and Kiev for the entire Orange Revolution, this event is an earth shattering, cathartic moment for the people of the Ukraine. This statue is centrally located in down town Kiev, right off of Krishatic street, the main thoroughfare in the capital. They destroyed this statue and pulvarized it into dust because it was one of the last remaining symbols and vestiges of RUSSIAN/Soviet oppression. The overwhelming majority of Ukrainians want no part of Russia: the government that systematically brutalized them and starved MILLIONS of their citizens to death on purpose.
The Ukrainians do not want to be a puppet state of Russia (which they are under the “leadership” of Yanakovich, the twice convicted felon, Russian mafia “president” of the Ukraine), the Ukrainians want to be FREE. Free of Russia’s control and free to associate with the West. This isthe last thing Russia and Yanakovich want.
It is important to remember that the reason why there are so many Russians presently living in the Ukraine is because Stalin. “Uncle Joe” uprooted and exiled multitudes of native Ukrainians to Siberia and other frozen Russian he’ll holes and transplanted Soviet Russians in their place in order to consolidate his power and choice land holdings and they have been there ever since.
The Ukrainians want to be free from Russian dominance and control! THAT is why they finally tore down that disputable statue of the tyrant Lenin in Kiev.<<<
It is clear that you have listened only one side there.
Most of the Russians aren’t in the Ukraine “because of Stalin”. They are there because of a Soviet premier Khruschev (an ethnic Ukrainian) who incorporated a portion of Russian territories making East and South of Ukraine back to 1954. Needles to say these territories were populated by Russians and it is not surprising if they don’t want to disappear there. To make things worse, Western or historic Ukrainian part of Ukraine is a black hole in terms of economy. 4 is 5 dollars are made in the East by Russian-associated labor and enterprise. At the same time 4 in 5 of their hard earned dollars are spent in the West but in hasn’t generated any growth there, just more hunger from Western Ukrainians for freebies and mansions in Florida for their leaders. That is why you won’t see many ‘Ossies’ protesting in Kiev. They are busy working to support their families, political class in Kiev and Western Ukrainians who prefer rioting to hard working to get what they want.
Hecky Durn.
Yup. Ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian are looked down upon by Western Ukrainians as country bumpkins and they resent the notion they are less loyal to the country because their mother tongue is Russian.
All they see are slights and resentment of them from the west Ukraine and the gulf between Lvov and Donetsk is wide and the demonstrations show only one side of the picture. The west wants to cut them off from their Russian market and that’s a deal-breaker for them. I don’t see the EU partnership going anywhere for that reason.
And would the West compensate Ukraine if it made a clean break with Russia? Every one knows that’s not going to happen and the Russian east would bear the brunt of EU imposed economic policies the hardest. Where is the incentive for them to oust the current government? It isn’t there and there’s been no love lost between the two sides of Ukraine since it became independent in 1991.
IMO, both Russian and EU alliance has their pros and cons for Ukraine.
EU deals has it’s political benefits but hurts the economy, Russian deal hurts Ukrainian political position but useful for economy.
It is a question of priorities.
The most immediate result of the EU deal will be a drain in workforce leaving for the Europe and a flood of European products to Ukrainian market - a flood domestic businesses won’t survive. I guess national leadership knows it full well and for that reason they’ve opted for Russians.
You are pushing a meme that does not exist any longer if it ever did
Ukrainians have self identified as Ukrainians and Re on a nationalist track. They don’t like Russians not least because of the Holodomor. They want a trade agreement with the EU not to join
You are both right. You have probably never interacted with groups goldstategop talking about.
Indeed, Ukrainians has their self identity for sure, but it doesn’t mean that about half of them aren’t leaning towards Russia.
Also the majority of whose who want their trade agreement with EU are actually hoping for easing of traveling regime with EU to leave for Germany.
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