Can we have a Ukraine/ Russia/ Crimea thread for dummies?

[chicaguapa]

In other words, could someone explain the situation in really simple terms please. I don't understand it but feel it's important and I should know what's going on.

And because DD(12) asked me this morning and I couldn't answer.

Revolution never ends well. This has been demonstrated so often it is axiomatic.

Perhaps you are right and Russia would have done better under Tsars. Maybe it could have crept slowly into democracy. No-one will ever know.

Not many would agree with you over France, which I think has worked well. 1986 brought great improvements in the Phillipines. I'm pretty sure that Romania is no worse off now than before.

BBC Newsnight report has just said that much of the police in Eastern Ukraine sides with the Russian protestors.

It looks like it may be difficult for the Kiev government to control what happens in the East.

Oxford professor has just said that only 20% of the South East support the Kiev government. He doesn't think Putin wants partition, just federation.

Professor said that in Crimea pensioners had their pensions doubled when Crimea became part of Russia.

The other , American, professor said that there is no appetite in the West to spend any money in Ukraine, to invest into standards of living for people in the East, nor would any money arrive in time for this crisis...

Yes, I agree. Why should we pay for Yats and his pals?
The Oxford professor said we should spend more. He seems to think that that might buy off the Russian supporters in the South and East. But unlike Yats, most people care about more important things than money.

^ That was referring to Newsnight.

It was also said that the Western governments could encourage the government to make concessions to Russia about NATO membership (rather non membership).

Separately, Yats in Kiev introduced a bill for the State of Emergency, but given policy is not their side and nor is the army (50% defected to Russia in Crimea), that would be a very dangerous destabilizing step.

Timoshenko made a speech that the Donetsk crisis could be resolved peacefully through "administrative reforms".

Police is not on their side (Yats government's)

I think Tymoshenko will win the presidency and I think that is what Putin wants. He can do deals with her because she is a politician whom cuts deals etc

I even think that the leaked tape if her talking about nuking the Russians may have been done deliberately in order for her to appear tough to some of the Western Ukrainian nationalists. But I think that really she will do deals with Putin and is the one he wants to win.

"Putin made it very clear that Moscow would like to see former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko become that country's next president. He alluded to this twice recently, using almost exactly the same wording each time and wistfully recalling their productive working relationship."

www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/putins-shrewd-endorsement-of-tymoshenko/495908.html

I think Putin is playing a long game and he will probably outsmart some of the more naive western politicos who don't really understand how things work in Ukraine.

only 20% of the South East support the Kiev government

It's interesting why we never hear statistics like this in mainstream media. That would call into question what kind of government we are supporting there.

It is obvious that the whole thing has been a propaganda operation. Our media were there reporting non-stop telling us about the peaceful Maidan protests, but now they have gone a bit quiet because the coup worked.

It is similar to the way that the BBC were reporting non-stop about the sarin attack in Syria as the push for an attack on Syria was ramped up, but as soon as it failed, we no longer heard much about Syria.

The Oxford professor said that Europe usually looks at the US for foreign policy, but it isn't obvious that the US have any policy in Ukraine.

He probably meant that the US were unwilling to put money where they mouth was.

The US pursued the covert Brzezinski doctrine, spent $5 Billion to destabilize and sway Ukraine to the EU and NATO relying on the Nazi Bandera nationalists in West Ukraine. They succeeded the regime change but didn't have a plan to sustain that regime in the South -East of the country. They are unwilling to buy out the South-East.

Yes, that's right. I don't think their heart is really in it. They must have known what Putin woud do over Crimea and they haven't been able to stop that.

I think they wanted to isolate Russia from the EU and so far they may have achieved that, but I am not sure how long that will last.

The declaration of the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and Poland of 31 March / or 1 April encourages Ukraine to pursue constitutional reforms as a precondition to association.

Foreign Minister of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier said folowing the meeting of EU ministers on 5 April that Ukraine is turning into a failed state:

"Russia could have no interest in “having a collapsing political system like Ukraine in its immediate neighbourhood”. Steinmeier said he hoped that Russia, by shaping its trade relations and energy prices appropriately, would help ensure that the Ukrainian economy could be kept alive."

"However, Ukraine itself must also lay the groundwork for receiving economic support, Steinmeier affirmed.

"If economic support is expected, it must be accompanied by active measures against corruption in Ukraine; it must be accompanied by a credible constitutional process; and it must be accompanied by moves to clear up the crimes of the past."

• sounds like constitutional process should involve federalisation.

"The investigation into who was responsible for the killings on the Maidan and in other major Ukrainian cities needed to be as transparent as possible, said Germany’s Foreign Minister. In this connection, Ukraine could take up the Council of Europe’s offer of help with investigating the crimes."

• this implies the EU wants the Right Sector involvement in shootings on the maidan to be investigated.

Why do you say "should involve federalisation?"

Is it in the text?

The papers relating to corruption and other organised crimes under the discredited former president, which were fished out of the lake of his palace, will I hope assist in investigation of these crimes. I hope and expect that the EU will assist in the control of future corruption.

"- this implies the EU wants the Right Sector involvement in shootings on the maidan to be investigated."

no, it implies that the EU wants responsibility for the shootings to be investigated, which is not the same thing.

You will have heard the suggestion that prior to the flight of the discredited former president, the special police shot various people, having had an emergency shipment of arms from the FSB.

Last time Putin endorsed a candidate in Ukraine he was defeated. So maybe reverse psychology is at work?

Tymoshenko is behind in the opinion polls and had a cool reception when she arrived in Kiev at the height of the disturbances. I think she may find she has been eclipsed. Apart from the possible kiss of death from Putin, she suffers from her past involvement in various very corrupt governments, and perhaps from a perception that as a politician she 'does not work well with others'.

It may be that any vacuum left by Tymoshenko will be filled by the Right. It may well be that she will sense the Right coming up on her shoulder and will play to that particular section of the electorate in order to undercut the appeal of Svoboda and Right Sector. Their grassroots are all in the west. There is no point in any of them trying to get votes in the east, so there will be a lot of preaching to the choir in the election campaign.

I think opinion polls in the US have revealed that the US electorate has no appetite for foreign adventures. Iraq took a lot of the piss and vinegar out of the American public. It may well be that Brzezinski & Co will have their wings clipped somewhat by election imperatives and by Obama keeping an eye on legacy. He is way ahead on that score with the killing of Osama bin Laden and the popularity (after a long, hard road) of his healthcare reforms under his belt, but events in Libya and the way the political wind is blowing in Egypt may have put enough of a ding in his foreign policy legacy that he would prefer to err on the side of caution.

There is also the matter of the American deficit and the extent to which America is financially beholden to China, as well as all the issues that have been discussed on this thread (the future of the dollar, the mood of the American electorate if petrol prices rise close to $5 a gallon and food prices also rise -- he would be hitting natural Democrat voters where it hurts for a cause nobody really cares about, and hitting Wall Street where it hurts too, with little or no potential for a return on money soon enough to make a difference).

Here is an op ed by Ron Paul on the subject of American involvement in Ukraine. (Former presidential candidate, and darling of the American libertarian scene)

As a European, I see the state of Ukraine very much as a European issue.

The ideas of an old man in America, dating back thirty or forty years, do not hold much sway here.

The US has been to the fore in fomenting the revolution that overthrew Yanukovich and since the fall of the Soviet Union has been trying to expand NATO eastwards. The US chose Yanukovich's successor. It has has also imposed sanctions on Russian individuals.

The opinions of oldish men in America were behind all of this, and their preoccupations and opinions matter greatly. Brzezinski, originally a Pole, was born in Warsaw. His family came from an area of Polish Galicia that is now in Ukraine. He stated in an interview, "The extraordinary violence that was perpetrated against Poland did affect my perception of the world, and made me much more sensitive to the fact that a great deal of world politics is a fundamental struggle." (quoted in Wikipedia)

Likewise, Ron Paul, though somewhat out of the limelight nowadays, was one of the key figures in the rise of the tea party. As an opinion leader his thoughts have an impact, especially on the Republican anti-tax and anti-spending lobby.

A sampling of American public opinion on involvement in Ukrainefrom Pew Research. Opinion is against too much involvement.

American opinion on Russia -- the majority sees Russia as a problem but not an adversary.

American views of America's role in the world -- 'should mind its own business'; 'should get on with business'.

The opinions of old men in America might be of interest to some people in America.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Advisor born in Warsaw in 1928, and the father of Mark Brzezinski who is Obama’s Foreign Policy Advisor . He is very popular in Eastern Europe for conducting the US policy that won the cold war and defined the US foreign policy towards Russia after it.

Brzezinski, originally a Pole, was born in Warsaw. His family came from an area of Polish Galicia that is now in Ukraine. He stated in an interview, "The extraordinary violence that was perpetrated against Poland did affect my perception of the world, and made me much more sensitive to the fact that a great deal of world politics is a fundamental struggle."

The man who grew up on hatred and infused his poison not only in US foreign policy (as you would expect), but also in the young generations of East Europeans and Ukrainians long after the fall of USSR when the "fundamentals" for the ideological struggle were gone and only viceral racism and hatred kept the anti-Russian "struggle" going.

Instead of learning history, gerations of Ukrainians and Latvians (+ Estonians and Lituanians) since 1991 were fed on a nationalistic propaganda that hidden the Nazi crimes and the role of SS Galicia (and equivalent in Latvia) and the Bandera army of Nazi collaborators and painted them as national heros. The propaganda that selectively steers grievances from past history, repainting complex historic heritage of the empire and Soviet Union into straignt ethnic hatred against Russia, ommiting to highlight the role of the locals in implementing and upholding not only the Nazi genocide, but also the Stalin regime. [[http://balticworlds.com/ukraine%E2%80%99s-problematic-relationship-to-the-holocaust/ BOTH VICTIM AND PERPETRATOR
UKRAINE’S PROBLEMATIC RELATIONSHIP TO THE HOLOCAUST]]

As a result you get a generation of young educated people that put "kill the jews, kill the Russians" and "we are European now" in one sentence, as in the comments bellow this video

Before anyone comments I stand corrected, both 'Jews' and 'Russians' need a capital letter, - just typo.

The youtube user who loaded goat's link is a strange person who has loaded a number of interesting clips on various subjects.

Like goat, I have no way of identifying who the nutters are who have appended comments, or what country they live in.