ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

Here's an article on the Russian economy from last December, before this Ukraine business hit the fan:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2013/12/23/russias-economy-is-decelerating-sharply-but-its-still-close-to-full-employment/

It looks like GDP growth has been stagnating for the past few quarters.

Well there is an election coming up so I wouldnt be surprised if they tap the reserve in tandem

SPR’s maximum drawdown capability is 4.4 mmbpd, vs. global liquids production of 91 mmbpd. A drawdown might cut $20 off the global price, but Siberian oil is relatively cheap to produce ($25/bbl all-in costs), and the U.S. would only have to buy it back at $150+ / bbl from 2016 forward. It would be financially reckless for us and ineffectual given strong Russian emotional ties to Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

"We need to destroy this foreign invader," Krutov said. "We have among these spies Russian military, professionals with long experience in all sorts of conflicts."

Asked if another ultimatum would be given to those who had seized buildings, Krutov said that would be "too humanitarian."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/15/ukrainian-troops-anti-terrorist-operation-kiev

Bloomberg is reporting the acting Ukrainian government as saying that Russian air troops are in Kramatorsk but it's not clear whether they mean they're claiming troops have actually come over the border in the last few hours or that the people who have been holding buildings for the last few days are Russian army.

Doesn't sound like it's going to plan:

At least three armoured personal carriers that were driven in to the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk had been under the control of Ukrainian armed forces earlier on Wednesday, Reuters photographers said.

A soldier manning one of the troop carriers now under the control of pro-Russian separatists identified himself to Reuters as being a member of Ukraine's 25th paratrooper division from Dnipropetrovsk.

He said: "All the soldiers and the officers are here. We are all boys who won't shoot our own people."

Alec Luhn, who's doing some good work for The Guardian, is worth following:

https://twitter.com/ASLuhn

does ukraine have any desire or ability to police their borders with russia? i assume they are and have been remarkably porous, given how many russian agents/military/etc. have seemingly taken part in (not to say led) the uprisings in the East.

I suppose a closed border would just play into Putin's story even more--he could even more confidently say an invasion was for "humanitarian" purposes.

i would not want to be the Ukrainian head of state right now.

There is 2000km of land border so it would be tough to police it effectively. Most of the claims about Russian ppl recently arrived in East Ukraine suggest they have come up from Crimea though.

is it wrong that when I see pictures of "pro-russian" crowds in eastern ukranian cities I react with contempt? I don't know them any better than I do the protestors from earlier this year in Kiev. many of them are no doubt motivated by the some of the same general hopes and fears. maybe the Euro-American media has just trained me good, but I look at the photos and I can't help sneering-- I get this feeling that the people have bought the Big Lie hook, line, and sinker... and that to a great extent they represent a geriatric class nostalgic for the USSR. that they have allowed themselves to get all whipped up by a bunch of agents provocateurs. it's easier to "Other" them than the Kiev protesters, somehow. even though I know in part that many if not most are just hoping that closer ties w/ (or annexation to) russia will mean a higher standard of living, something we should all be able to relate to.

That's more or less in line with what most people in the west are thinking, I reckon.

For the most part they are just concerned about jobs and pensions and feel they have no reason to trust a nationalist government that overthrew the one 95% of them voted for, particularly when it's rolling towards them with tanks. Idk, the willingness of unarmed civilians to take on the military / paramilitaries, be they Ukrainians braving snipers in Kyiv or Russians of all ages taking to the streets to stare down tanks in Kramatorsk, is impressive whoever you sympathise with.

but who are "they"? what portion of the people of eastern Ukraine can they claim to represent?

I broadly agree with your last comment though I'd add that given that they are effectively bolstered by the russian military, their confidence and bravery might be mitigated a bit.

What proportion of the Ukrainian people (or even the people of Kyiv) did the Maidan protesters represent? It's not possible to know in either case. It's hard to take a defensible position that one set of protests is more legitimate or more morally defensible.

It's equally hard to justify a belief that an acting government whose representatives are talking about addressing the protests by 'annihilating terrorists' is any more defensible than the shamed one it replaced.

yeah, I'm in agreement with you on nearly all counts. I'm troubled by my own reactions. like i said, a strong one is a sense that this is a revolt of the geriatric (so many of those on the "front lines" in photos are little old ladies in babushkas). which even in theory shouldn't be any less valid than a revolt of the young. I suppose I'm just guilty of ageism.

There was just a US supported coup to remove the democratically elected president most in the Ukrainean east voted for. I think your contempt is misplaced.

um, that's simplifying things a bit, don't you think?

$ 5 billion dollars spent on regime change, and we don't even get the whole country.

ok, you just seem glib now. i was trying not to be glib, so I won't get sucked in.

Look, the U.S. government has had a policy for 22 years: Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power..

It's changed a bit, in the Bush years it also became about playing a dominant role in central Eurasia, from Ukraine through Georgia, Kazakhstan and our wonderful ally Uzbekistan. A new objective is preventing link-ups between emerging East and South Asian powers and Europe. It's no longer the The Great Game. Now its The Grand Chessboard. The Russians play it too.

Its just sucks to be a pawn.

Tbf, if I had survived Hitler and Stalin and spent 50 years in a factory while raising kids and doing all the housework before some clown from the IMF came along to tell me I had to spend my twilight years living on $2.50 a day, there's a fair chance I'd be protesting too. Irrespective of which side you take, Ukrainian grandmothers are awesome and deserve our support. Xps

sanpaku otm afaict

yes of course its an oversimplification to boil a regime change with grassroots support down to the people who drove it, and funded it, and ensured the chips fell favorably--but it's the kind of simplifying that ultimately makes the most sense of conditions on the ground.

I'd love to read some good journalism on that, if you can point me somewhere (that isn't naked capitalism or jacobin).

the stuff i had been reading suggested that while america and EU certainly favored a gov't that would be amendable to "integration" (i.e. a typical IMF program of austerity measures, etc.), and certain wealthy americans with an interest in ukraine helped to fund a number of protest groups, that you couldn't chalk up the protests and their aftermath to the not-so-invisible hand of the West, much less America in particular.

but obviously i have no idea what is true and what isn't.

i guess the most obvious thing is that people on both sides of ukraine have serious legit grievances, whether with prior governments or the current one or likely both -- and those are being alternately manipulated, amplified, run roughshod over, etc. by larger powers that don't give a shit about them. i'm allergic to the notion of "equivalence" though so I don't mean this observation to be a kind of final word.

and i guess i'm like john mccain in that i find the rhetoric of freedom/civil society/anti-corruption/etc. being used by the kiev protestors to express their grievances more immediately alluring than that used by those in the east, which--at least as it reaches the American and Western European media, which is an important point--seems to be largely a rhetoric of ethnic nationalism. when i say i'm like john mccain this is not meant to be flattering to me btw.

There are a couple of different layers to the onion. Aside from active participation, the West has been crucial in setting the scene.

The first element is the move to circle Russia with amenable allies - as in Georgia - creating or emphasising the split between pro-Russian and pro-Western groups. Ukraine is definitely part of that plan and the US has been pushing the idea of NATO membership for a number of years. It's extremely divisive in Ukraine and has served to exacerbate the natural fault-lines in the country.

The EU did something similar with its shoddy offer of limited economic integration. Ukraine was explicitly told that taking the offer meant refusing all similar agreements with Russia in the future. The idea of Ukraine being open to both east and west was nixed - a line was drawn and people were told to choose which side they wanted to stand on. You could either have good relations with Europe or good relations with Russia but not both. Russia is pretty much just as guilty of doing this, by the way.

So when people took to the streets to protests against a fairly unpopular government that had broadly decided to stay on the Russian side of the line, the main tool to attack them with was their unwillingness to align with the EU and NATO. When they toppled the government and installed their own, that sent a hugely divisive message to the rest of the country.

USAID and various other American groups (like Soros's foundation) have been active in promoting anti-government groups for a long time, not just in Ukraine but across the region, but it is an oversimplification to say that they are the primary cause of dissent / revolt. Arguably, the US was far more involved in the Orange Revolution (including extensive work on 'branding') but that was, at the same time, a much bigger and more organic popular uprising than the recent protests.

Mark Ames and Yasha Levine have been covering this stuff for years and their work at Pando and The Exile, is an excellent primer.

I think there's a bit of broader context, which is that post-Soviet breakup, the former satellites almost without exception couldn't get away from Russia's embrace and into the arms of the West fast enough. So it seems like Ukraine is fairly unique in even being divided on the question.

I'd question that. Belarus is a staunch ally of Russia. Moldova has very close ties. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have large Russian populations and close economic / cultural ties. Armenia has a pretty cordial relationship with Moscow too these days.

The only ones that have been actively hostile as a state policy are Estonia and Georgia. Lithuania and Latvia are obviously much more closely aligned with Europe than Russia but aren't as vehement.

I'm not saying they're all vehemently opposed to Russia. Just that there was pretty much a stampede into the arms of the West post-breakup. I'm thinking more of states like Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, etc. Most are now members of NATO, EU, etc. I think it's pretty blinkered to put this all down to CIA involvement or something sinister.

Absolutely, but none of those countries have a large Russian population or a recent history of being part of the same country as Russia. There was also a much clearer path to European integration on the table.

The countries that you mention were aggressively courted by NATO as a way of containing Russian influence but also very receptive, for the most part.

a view from the right

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/04/15/sadist-versus-narcissist/#more-36053

One reason why Putin has made a special effort to humiliate the president is that his profilers may have pegged Obama as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. Putin the secret policeman must be thinking: how do you get a narcissist to melt down? Answer: by personally and publicly shaming him, thereby provoking a narcissistic rage.

That rage can take either of two forms: a reckless act or a withdrawal into a fantasy in which the narcissist remains invincible in some universe of his own.

Either would suit Putin. Ironically Ronan Farrow and Obama’s supporters may be doing an unwitting service by stoking Obama’s ego thereby calming him down. The question is whether they can flatter him enough to prevent a Putin-induced meltdown. So far, so good, except for odd little squeals from Obama calling Russia a “regional power”. But Putin may have only begun to twist in the knife. It’s sadist versus narcissist.

Too bad it couldn’t have been between Putin and Ronald Reagan. Or Tuco and Walter White.

Hmm, lots of high-school level insults without a single substantive suggestion of what we should be doing differently. Not surprising.

possibly interesting development from Geneva:

Summary of Lavrov's speech:

All squares and buildings currently occupied will be freed.

Protesters will be given amnesty.

Only legitimate government groups will have arms.

Ukraine and Russia will collaborate with OSCE.

A paper has been circulated to regions of the Ukraine outlining these points that will then be followed up.

?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/04/17/jews-ordered-to-register-in-east-ukraine/7816951/

Xp, Brilliantly played by Putin if this carries on the ground.

The threat of separatism is far more useful than actually having to integrate more breakaway regions into Russia, with all the international condemnation that would bring.

Russia gets to look reasonable and statesmanlike in dampening the crisis, drawing attention away from Crimea.

Ukraine gets to regain a measure of control of the East and a perfect excuse to clear out the remaining Maidan protesters / disarm right-wing militias.

The leaflets don't fit into the Donbass narrative of protecting Jewish Ukrainians from the neo-Nazi government so are a little suspect on that front.

this is all from twitter, but, apparently kerry just mentioned that jewish registry order. aaaand the ADL just questioned its authenticity. great.

as soon as i saw it people on twitter were questioning it as a hoax; i was surprised to see kerry speak on it directly

Some more background here:

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/04/17/3428041/someone-is-ordering-eastern-ukraines-jews-to-register-with-separatist-group/

It looks like the flyers were handed out but the groups named have flatly denied anything to do with them and suggested it's an attempt to stir up trouble.

https://twitter.com/lindseyhilsum/status/456827209354063872 & tweets following -- addresses these claims

The leaflets don't fit into the Donbass narrative of protecting Jewish Ukrainians from the neo-Nazi government so are a little suspect on that front.

― Yuri Bashment (ShariVari), Thursday, April 17, 2014 5:40 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eso

Article drawing an unfavorable comparison between the US diplomatic corps and Russia's:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/russias-diplomats-are-better-than-ours-105773_full.html#.U1AZ11ukqQi

Excellent piece. It's baffling how little importance the US places on diplomatic appointments.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117415/relax-ukraine-not-ordering-its-jews-register

^^^ sort of obnoxious "everyone relax" but good to point out as yet there's literally only been this flyer no one is taking credit for

Excellent piece. It's baffling how little importance the US places on diplomatic appointments.

I guess to play devil's advocate one could argue that traditional diplomatic posts, such as ambassadorships, are somewhat of a relic in an era of instantaneous world-wide communication. In the days when it could take days or weeks for instructions from the home capital to reach a foreign capital it was of course essential to have a highly skilled ambassador representing the home country. Nowadays, the position could be argued to be of fairly minor importance.

Not sure I agree with that. Most countries still place a great deal of importance on face-to-face meetings between senior officials. It's an old-fashioned business and videoconferencing or whatever is not going to take the place of the traditional meeting and the handshake anytime soon.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/04/surprise-deal-reached-ukraine-crisis-201441718346462987.html

lol, isn't he in the Rubberbandits?

Most countries still place a great deal of importance on face-to-face meetings between senior officials.

Sure, but for that you have air travel. I don't usually hear about high-level meetings these days being conducted with ambassadors. It seems like ambassadors are mostly used for representing the state on formal occasions and in other antiquated bits of political theater, such as summoning the ambassador for a dressing down to display displeasure.

Just found out that my sister is going to Ukraine next month to be an election observer. Somewhat jealous that she's going!