ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

but maybe there iwll be some sort of miracle transformation.

VS.

http://alumni.imsa.edu/~data/images/autographs/yankovic.jpg

Powell warned "there will be consequences" for the United States' relationship with Ukraine as a result of the developments in the former Soviet bloc nation.

Powell spoke shortly after election officials in Ukraine declared that Kremlin-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych won the election over opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko. The announcement raised fears of violence in Kiev, where tens of thousands of demonstrators have been demanding that the results be overturned.

orange is a wicked colour

argh i was reafing baout the ddrug they think was used on him, it is something with "chlor" in the name, and accelerates acne to a massive extent or something.

I mean, until they turn 30 and immediately turn super-dumpy

i really wanna go to kiev

2006?

There are no reports the death is linked to Mr Yanukovych's defeat by opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in Sunday's presidential poll re-run.

Yeah, right.

http://www.eyecandyforthebrokenhearted.com/ukraine.jpg

nice pics of timoshenko. whats with the c.17th thing? is this some ukrainian nationalism schtick? national dress a gogo?

A Stratfor note today:

---

Ukraine made a radical policy adjustment on Thursday by essentially ending its bid for NATO membership. The move, which would have been unthinkable as recently as a month ago, probably resulted from external forces, namely Russia. Ukraine’s abrupt departure from its long-standing bid indicates the ominous involvement of Moscow. In its effort to maintain its security buffer, Russia probably employed its FSB security services.

Economic tools can include fostering closer integration, raising or lowering barriers to trade, embargoing another country, threatening to undermine a country’s financial stability by mass sales of its currency, or by simply shelling out cash. In the case of Ukraine –- and by extension, Western Europe –- Russia frequently has employed natural gas cutoffs.

Political tools are varied, and focus on finding political weak spots for later manipulation. The options include promoting closer integration among citizens with a common heritage found in both of the countries in question. These ties can then be manipulated later. For example, one country can threaten to intervene in the other to protect an allied ethnic group from alleged discrimination. Russia could employ this tactic in relation to ethnic Russians living in Ukraine.

Military tools to influence another state’s behavior include the threat of invasion, conspicuously aiming weapons — anything from artillery to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)— at the other country, or providing military assistance to the government or the opposition groups in the other country. Russia’s Feb. 12 threat to aim ICBMs at foreign forces that might deploy in Ukraine falls in this category.

The 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia’s subsequent loss of influence in its near abroad and in the West laid the foundation for Russia’s current geopolitical trajectory. Russia’s resurgence under President Vladimir Putin has involved a strong effort to regain the influence, respect and national security it believes it is due. Moscow’s desire is especially keen given previous Russian humiliations — particularly those suffered by the government of the late Boris Yeltsin, when the West encroached on what Russia perceives as its prerogatives. Russia, however, lacks many of the tools the Soviet Union had at its disposal for compelling other countries’ behavior. This complicates Putin’s effort to satisfy the Russian geopolitical imperative of establishing hegemony in its near abroad.

The Russian resurgence took a potentially fatal hit over Kosovo’s Feb. 18 secession from Serbia. This was an issue of minor importance to the United States and most Western European countries, but a major threat to Russia’s effort to demonstrate its return to major power status. For Russia and Putin to survive the Kosovo insult, retribution elsewhere in the Russian near abroad was expected — namely in the Caucasus, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states.

Ukraine’s dramatic about-face on NATO comes in the context of Kosovar independence. Ukraine’s pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko — who came to power in his country’s 2004 Orange Revolution — was clamoring as recently as a month ago for NATO membership, despite a lukewarm reception from the alliance. Rumor has it that Yushchenko’s sudden change at the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels occurred after the Russian president literally ordered him to withdraw Ukraine’s NATO bid, probably reminding him of the aforementioned Russian economic leverage over Ukraine.

Putin likely did not rely on economic coercion alone, however, and we can assume the FSB helped change Ukraine’s mind on NATO. The FSB is quite good at pressuring individuals using threats, intimidation, enticements and even sophisticated assassinations. Yushchenko knows the capabilities of the secret service underworld well, having barely survived a poisoning while seeking office in 2004.

Russia and the FSB probably decided that bringing the existing Ukrainian leadership in line would be easier than introducing a new leadership, allowing Moscow to avoid the pitfalls of Ukrainian politics. Given the lukewarm reception to Ukraine’s membership bid, Kiev could simply have let its application fall by the wayside. Instead, it made an active policy reversal. Compelling Yushenko’s U-turn on Ukraine’s NATO bid thus represents a significant Russian achievement, one that others — particularly Georgia — will observe closely.

The willingness of right-wing analysts to suggest that personal threats by the FSB against the Ukrainian government were probably behind the policy change, while completely omitting to mention the saleient fact that Gazprom did in fact cut gas supplies to Ukraine beginning on Monday and only restored full flows on Thursday... well, you're smart guys I'm sure Stratfor, but don't pretend you have less of a policy agenda than Putin does.

I imagine anybody writing about Russia who doesn't themselves work for the Kremlin is likely to have on about fifteen tinfoil hats as regards the FSB/GRU apparatus, and with perfectly understandable reason

it has come to...trebuchets

http://rt.com/news/ukraine-clashes-kiev-molotov-907/

can someone with more geopolitical smarts explain what's happening to me?

the american MSM seems to painting this as a peaceful-freedom-fighters vs. entrenched-corrupt-government thing, but I get the feeling it's more complicated. for one thing reading the foreign press tells me that some ultra- right-wing groups (whose nationalist distaste for Russia apparently trumps reservations they might have about the EU) with a distinctly anti-Semitic bent (and some soft-right groups who have connections to the ultra-rightists) are taking an increasingly visible (and increasingly violent) role in the Kiev protests.

but you know, I don't really know anything about all this. so 'splain me.

some discussion here - Rolling European Politics Thread

maybe this will help: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/anne-applebaum-ukrainian-smears-and-stereotypes/2014/02/20/450b8d62-9a72-11e3-b88d-f36c07223d88_story.html

the protesters are fascists trying to impose the EU on a country that doesn't want it

xpost

i think that washington post thing is a little pollyanna-ish (pollyanish?) about the nature of the protest movement(s), it's true.

but i honestly don't know what to read/who to believe.

I'll break it down as i see it.

Yanukovich indicated that he wanted to sign a provisional agreement with the EU to liberalise trade relations. He's not on good terms with Putin and Russia's decision to keep charging Ukraine high fees for gas (which is partly Ukraine's fault for reasons i won't go into) has wrecked the Ukrainian economy. He took the view that opening up Ukraine to the EU would have some short term difficulties (cheap EU products competing with domestic Ukrainian goods, etc) but it was worth it for the potential long term gains. The EU prevaricated over exactly what was on offer, didn't give a clear indication that full membership could be on the cards in the future and wasn't willing to provide financial assistance to help compensate for short-term hardship.

At the same time, Russia did what Russia always does. They said that if you don't want to have a special relationship (in this case preferring the EU over a post-Soviet trade agreement) then you can't expect special favours. Russia started imposing the kind of border checks on Ukrainian traffic into Russia that Poland always has on the other border and stopped giving Ukrainian companies preference on government contracts over Indian, Chinese, etc firms. Ukraine's eastern side is economically reliant on Russia and trade income went down by about 30% over the course of two or three months.

Ukraine also owes Russia a stack of cash for gas it hasn't paid for. The Ukrainian government was very close to defaulting until Russia offered to defer billions of dollars worth of loans in return for signing their trade agreement. Yanukovich didn't really have much of a choice other than accepting.

This went down very badly with a wide range of people, from EU-minded liberals to hardline neo-Fascists and ended up highlighting deep political, regional and ethnic splits in the country that go back decades. Bear in mind that Stalin was responsible for starving millions of Ukrainian peasants and Ukrainian nationalists later collaborated with the Nazis to murder hundreds of thousands of Russians and Jewish people. Western Ukraine remains strongly nationalist - both in the soft sense of wanting to make sure that the country is free of Russian control and in the less soft 'Mein Kampf displayed in bookshop windows' sense. The nationalists are not all violent right-wing extremists, as the Russian press would like to have it, but some of them certainly are. On the other hand, lots of the East of the country, and Crimea, retain a strong Russian identity.

There is no unified protest movement. Some are hardline nationalists, some are liberals, some want to be part of the EU, some want to be free of Russian control, some want to split the country in two, some want to unite it. There are a million positions in between each. The protests are also equally about the economy. Ukraine has been in a massive slump for several years, partly as a result of the oil situation, and people are sick of it.

They're also sick of corrupt, criminal politicians. Pretty much everyone who has held a political post in Ukraine since independence is a corrupt criminal, though, so Yanukovich is not unique in that regard. There's a chance that Klitchko might be different though which is why a lot of people are uniting behind him.

that's the sanest, most even thing i've read about the situation since i stopped listening to the BBC pretending to be impartial

I think that's about right, although the geographic split being talked about doesn't seem to be working out so much in reality -- my Ukrainian pals are all Russian-speaking Easterners, and are supporters of the protests. Yanukovich is also widely considered to be the worst of a bunch of idiots -- this is an "enough is enough" moment in many ways. There are neo-fascists in the protest movement, but I have seen no sources that are not Russian-friendly that suggest that they are the majority or growing, and there sure as hell are neo-fascists in Yanukovich's troops as well. There are agents provocateurs at work as well. For the people on the ground this is primarily and simply anti-government protest, but of course there is far more going on than just the people on the ground.

in the context you folks describe the way the west (esp. US) is dealing w/ this is kind of embarrassing.

we all know john mccain is an idiot, but appearing with some of the right-wing protest groups and calling for "freedom" was one of his more embarrassingly credulous photo ops.

what about those folks that briefly came into power after the "orange revolution"? my understanding was that they were both crooks _and_ victims of political show trials.

The elite political class in Ukraine is a disaster -- the lack of a central strong figure leading the protests is both a result of and a reaction to that.

Yes, Yushchenko (who was president) is a minor crook, his son is a fairly major one. Tymoshenko (who was Prime Minister) stole several billion dollars worth of gas from Russia while people on both sides of the border were dying in poverty. Her reinvention as a St Joan figure is laughable.

Yushchenko and Yanukovich were both PM under Leonid Kuchma, the journalist-murdering crim who was Ukraine's first independent President, so the idea of a major political difference between the two is somewhat overstated.

Ukraine is generally though of as more corrupt than Nigeria. All politicians are required to state their income on electoral forms. There was one election in the mid-2000s where every single candidate but one claimed that their only source of income was their government salary of £5,000 - £13,000. All had BMWs, plush Kyiv apartments and massive country dachas. The one candidate who didn't claim to be living off his stipend ran with the campaign tagline "i'm too rich to need to be corrupt!". He didn't win.

Much of Ukraine's economy is carved up between a small number of oligarch factions and they bankroll everything. Some are pro-Tymoshenko, some are pro-Yanukovich. Quite a few are in favour of EU membership as they think it'll stop future governments from trying to reclaim the money they've stolen, some are against it as they think it'll prevent them from stealing more.

The oligarchs tend to be worse than the politicians. Ukraine' richest man, Rinat Akhmetov (who's more famous as Chairman of Shakhtar Donetsk), for example, was a prominent member of the Donbass Mafia and acquired most of his wealth when his boss (and former Chairman of Shakhtar) died in a bomb attack at a football match.

The only place that quote is appearing as you've shared it is in a few random tweets.

Welcome back tho, glad you've enjoyed the rest.

HUh I wasn't banned was I? That's incredible, it must have just coincided with a period where I decided bot to post for a few weeks!

Lib war hero of Ilx
Lib war hero of Ilx
Lib war hero of Ilx

Rip Van Winkle type scenario, xpost

bot to post

lol

the same shit about Ukraine being the forever-war Israel of Europe the diminutive cokehead has talking for a while now. There should be a thread for it!

Yes, on a different message board.

Must be incredible to have as much power as Zelensky does.

It's a very powerful sort of coke

If you don't feel any solidarity at all with the working-classes of Ukraine who are getting busified and used as disposable material by the corrupt Kyiv regime then this is your thread. But at least acknowledge what the wretched diminutive cokehead is actually doing and saying on the big stage, lads.

Anyways I've said my piece and I'm off.

No sympathy for the Russians being fed into the same meat grinder for even less reason?

WB Calzino but who gives a fuck if he does coke or not, good grief

I give a fuck because I live in a country that is decimating disabled benefits whilst pouring billions in that corrupt shithole. That he's such a decadent little cunt adds to my irritation tbh.

xpost These guys

https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-560w,f_auto,q_auto:best/ap/e9c576d5-ce77-4550-99a4-c4b05cd1b676.jpg

and also it's not just *random tweets* he literally is a pro-genocide Zionist and he literally is supplying material and diplomatic assistance to an illegal war that is targeting schools and residential areas and killing masses of people in Lebanon and Iran.

Wow. Good thing Putin invaded to rid us of this menace.

He's always been totally aligned with the elite West on this. It's shit but nobody here really spends much time praising him either.

I mean he doesn't exactly have a lot of room to operate in, agreed tho don't really remember anyone here ever praising him or commenting on him much at all, until recently.

I haven't seen that quote, but Ukraine has sent anti-drone military advisors to the ME: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/18/over-200-ukrainian-military-experts-in-gulf-region-to-counter-irans-drones. BBC has this story too

Zelensky has supported Israel consistently for years though: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/19/palestinians-in-ukraine-decry-double-standard-as-kyiv-supports-israel

so he's against countries being invaded by genocidal aggressors but he also supports genocidal aggression.

^^^

this is your brain on Western pro-imperial liberalism

Can you think of a reason why that might be? Even one you morally disagree with.

Look I'm going to walk away without getting gattling gunned by fp's and agree to disagree with you, because I honestly don't hate you all. Apart from the boring US president whoever poster who just posts boring as fuck flip comments all the time and has fuck all original to say about anything!

Mutual

xp

fuck me, it's the The Moral Maze Time!

welcome back calzino

xpost maybe some more radio 4 would help to calm your fury on these matters - or perhaps a political podcast?

something general about politics that covers all sides, maybe with an MP or similarly experienced figures presenting it

calzino, fwiw I actually think bringing the perspective of asking what the real end goal of supporting Ukraine is, whether war profiteering is one of or the primary motivation for various involved parties, how this connects to other western imperialists projects, etc. -- those are all good questions to ask imo, and it is extremely easy to lapse into thinking like a western lib if you were educated in the west, I have to check myself on it all the time.

The thing I most object to is what others called you out on: it rankles me to see anyone sneering at "ILX" as if the hivemind is real and not a silly metaphor. Not that "ILX" is perfect (obvs there are posters here who drive me nuts too, but I'm sure I'm one of them for someone out there) but this place is an archaic relic of early internet tech with a few dozen posters, none of whose opinions have any practical effect on the world and who rarely reach a consensus on anything at all. Posting like you know better than *everyone* else is just always going to piss people off

thanks a considered answer rob and criticism accepted. I'm a bit of an excitable self-righteous cunt at times.

To LG (supercilious reply guy) finish your shit novel off, poshboy!

OTM on both counts xp

It’s not a surprise that Ukraine is massively opposed to the government that has been supplying Russia with a lot of the the drone technology, missiles and artillery shells they has been using for the last four years. The only reason anyone is asking Ukraine for guidance is they’re so used to taking down Shahed drones.

Also not exactly true to say that Ukraine has been in lock-step with Israel diplomatically. Still strongly in favour of an independent Palestinian state, voted for the ICJ investigation into the Israeli occupation, donated food supplies to Palestine during the war, etc. There are points at which their interests overlap, but that’s also true of Russia’s very close ties to Israel.

The only European country that you could reasonably say is unambiguously pro-Israel is probably Hungary, also the most unambiguously anti-Ukraine.

otm (both posts)

Sorry, you're right ShariVari, by "consistently" I meant "for a while now" not just since Israel attacked Iran (rather than "in lock step").

I'm sure you know more about this than I do -- I cannot pretend to have followed Ukraine very closely -- but I have to say "Still strongly in favour of an independent Palestinian state" is basically meaningless now, an easy position to take since there is no conceivable current reality in which that could take place and no one is really doing much of anything to stop Israel from foreclosing the possibility afaict.

Kyiv has also shifted its stance towards Palestine, with Zelenskyy publicly saying at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in 2024 that “Ukraine recognises two states, both Israel and Palestine, and will do everything it can to convince Israel to stop, to end this conflict and prevent the suffering of civilians”.

Genuine question: is there anything more to that than rhetoric? You mentioned food supplies, but the US donated food too -- I'm not that impressed I guess.

Yeah, he was making death threats towards Orban during a press conf other week. That says to me he's a very calm and thoughtful negotiator who will definitely be seeking some kind of peaceful solution to the quagmire. While he is helping Israel who are levelling buildings in Lebanon, using white phosphorous on civilians basically doing a Gaza 2. That's the friends he's trying to win right now, all attempts at sounding more 2 state liberal seem well in the past.

I actually agree with Rob, though felt more enthusiastic about that before the post that followed his, I have to say.

I don't have a problem with you, Calzino, I was just making a joke that you should listen to the Rest Is Politics.

sorry, I took it as more snide and personal than you obv meant it. But yes Campbell really should be executed, and his little Mi6 spook creep. One thing I learned recently was that Rory Stewart actually travelled to Iraq on his own money and then acquired about getting a colonial governor job there. Like he wasn't stationed there by military or secret services, he just travelled there because it was an opportunity for himn!

tbf Poshboy! is not a bad title for a novel

Russia have interests in Israel and are getting kit from Israel's biggest enemy to throw at Ukraine.

Ukraine have helped Palestinians who are being exterminated in Gaza, while now helping Israel against Iranian drones.

*exasperated lib podcast voice* what now?

tbf Poshboy! is not a bad title for a novel

It would work for my novel, which is finished btw, thanks for asking.

congrats! would read :)

take sides: morbius vs calzino

tbf one of them is dead

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-he-thinks-ukraine-conflict-is-coming-an-end-2026-05-09/

"I think that the matter is coming to an end," Putin told reporters of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two. He also said he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, and that his preferred negotiating partner would be Germany's former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Has he ever talked like this before? Seems like a big deal.

The fact that Putin wants to deal with Schroeder instead of Trump means something important has changed about Putin's view of what's strategically possible in regard to his own power and position when an armistice is concluded. One factor may be that he sees Trump's power as badly eroding as a result of the Iran War and his own security in jeopardy if he doesn't cut his losses and move on. I should stress that "may mean", but this does seem like a deeper shift than some new gimmick at the margins..

Means nothing, Schroeder's been Putin's pet poodle in Europe for years.

Nothing much has changed Russia is sticking to the line that there can be no meaningful negotiations until Ukraine withdraws from Ukrainian territory Russia has so far been unable to capture. Ukraine is not currently willing to do that.

Schröder holds no office and has been working for Russian firms - I would interpret this as trolling, the implication being he trusts no current German govt or indeed anyone in the EU to broker these negotiations. It's more about Europe than about Trump imo.

Thanks for informing me about Schroeder's cozy relationship with Russia. Presumably, if Putin rejects engaging with anyone other than Schroeder, then this is just another PR gimmick. If a reasonable counter-offer is extended and accepted, then starting talks could at least provide an avenue toward a ceasefire, which I think Ukraine would want, if was a real cessation, not just another bad faith mirage.

xp ah