ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

i thought we had a new ukraine thread

Seemed slightly disrespectful to the victims of the air crash to use that one to catalogue the ongoing farce.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday hailed pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine as “insurgents” battling an army that he likened to Nazi invaders during World War II, and the Ukrainian government raised the prospect of joining NATO as it seeks help in repelling what it calls an outright Russian military invasion of its territory.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-calls-on-pro-russian-separatists-to-release-trapped-ukrainian-soldiers/2014/08/29/a580cb28-e6a7-4ea0-b6f4-e6ffea0162b5_story.html?hpid=z1

certainly seems like NATO is clamoring for ukraine to join ><

what a great idea.

If nothing else, it gives Ukraine another bargaining chip to offer up as part of a negotiated settlement with Russia.

Donetsk and Lugansk leaders are now setting out what they would see as acceptable concessions from Kyiv, rather than talking about independence (a certain amount of autonomy, protection of the Russian language, etc). It seems likely that the Donetsk leader will also take part in the next round of peace talks in Minsk - for the first time. Could be very positive signs.

The Defense Minister Valeriy Heletei has apparently said that the "anti-terrorist operation is over" and 'Russia has lost', though it's not clear whether anything has changed on the ground.

I've booked to go to Kyiv for a few days next month and it'll be interesting to get a sense of what's going on politically. Criticism of Poroshenko for failing to deliver on election promises has already started.

My folks on the ground (young educated ethnic Russians who are pro-Europe) are despairing and wishing Putin would fuck off so they can stop being on the same side as some really gross fascists.

Whether the actual fascists on Maidan made them more or less certain of this, I don’t know, but hearing it gave body to something the sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko had said to me in Kiev: ‘It was the liberals’ tolerance of the nationalists on Maidan that led to this. If they had rejected them right away, things might have turned out differently. It might have led to the collapse of Maidan. It might even have meant that Yanukovych remained president. But at least there would have been peace.’

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n17/keith-gessen/why-not-kill-them-all

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told a European official that he could “take Kiev in two weeks” if he wanted to, adding a new dimension to the tensions building in Ukraine as Russian forces become more involved in the fighting there.

The Gessen piece is probably the best thing i've read about this so far.

Ishchenko is probably right but, practically speaking, i'm not sure how a protest movement with no weapons, no leaders and no collective objectives could have rejected a well-drilled, well-financed and well-armed fascist element, particularly given the latter's willingness to attack other pro-Maidan groups. The far-right were taking their own action - occupying buildings, attacking police, threatening politicians, etc - and i'm not sure that any of the liberal protesters could have done much about it, short of all packing up and going home. There was an EU deal on the table which would have meant a unity government and early elections but it was rejected outright by the fascists and it's tough to see how it could have succeeded with just the liberal backing.

To some extent, a fairly straight line can be drawn from the perceived need to pander to the nationalist right when Yanukovich fell to elements of the separatist reaction to the need to utilise openly fascist militia like Azov when the regular Ukrainian army refused to kill their own people. At what point that could have been stopped will probably be argued for decades.

There are two fairly worrying elements for the future, one of which Gessen picks up on. The first is what happens when, as is almost inevitable, the war ends in compromise and you have thousands of far-right activists who have killed and risked their lives for an ethnically pure Ukraine free of Russian and Jewish elements coming back home to a government that looks almost exactly the same as Yuschchenko's and a deeper economic crisis.

The second is, as Gessen mentions, the open contempt Ukrainian (and Russian) liberals have for the rest of their countries. To what extent can you have a 'liberal' future when so many of the liberals look on poor Ukrainians and Russians as backwards peasants whose opinions (and in some cases, lives) are worth less than theirs? It's pretty common to hear people in Kyiv, Moscow and St Petersburg suggest that civilisation effectively stops about 20km from their city limits. It's those unloved provincials that Putin is now aggressively courting.

Up next on RT...

Did we establish whether you had actually ever been to Ukraine?

yes and yes, you shill.

I've explained any number of times that i was broadly sympathetic to the aims of the Maidan movement, to the extent that they were trying to replace a violent and corrupt oligarchy with a liberal, democratic government of the people. I've also explained a number of times that i am broadly hostile to Putin's current direction. None of that changes the facts on the ground though.

Anyway, "permanent ceasefire" agreed.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/03/uk-ukraine-crisis-ceasefire-idUKKBN0GY0NW20140903

Great piece by Gessen.

"Permanent ceasefire" apparently a Twitter mistake:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/03/ukraine-russia-reach-ceasefire-agreement-kiev

yes and yes, you shill.

― Three Word Username, Wednesday, 3 September 2014 09:29 (2 hours ago)

sv displays greater interpretive charity towards russia than is perhaps necessary but this is cheap shit

So was his question to me. I responded in kind.

I don't think SV is a Russian propagandist but even if he is too favorable towards Moscow party line -- who cares? ILX needs more variety of opinion, not less. If you disagree w/ a particular point he makes or something he wrote, respond directly to that instead of impugning his motivations. imho ilx needs more conservatives, colonialists, regime apologists... we're way overstocked on Western liberalism.

think the problem is more with jerky knees than the direction of the kick

Why would we need more wrong opinions?

if not bc those differing povs might provide insights + ideas that are inaccessible to those w/ the "right opinions," then bc conversation in an echo chamber is far less interesting + productive than reasonable arguments.

The reason I asked TWU whether he had been to Ukraine was, partly at least, in good faith as I had forgotten the answer. Knowing the answer, I'm a little surprised that someone as skilled in the art of reading social nuance when it comes to cataloguing the daily slights that come with being a white American guy in Austria hadn't picked up on some of the challenging opinions a lot of 'metropolitan liberal' Ukrainians and Russians have about compatriots who don't share the same class, educational, geographic and racial privileges that they do. Not that Ukrainian / Russian illiberalism is better, but it's a problem that does need to be addressed when looking at the political landscape of both countries.

Nakh is obviously correct in saying that I often come across as overly charitable to Russia, I think that's partly down to suspicions I have about the intentions of many of the people lined up against Putin (Poroshenko, Russian oligarchs, the US State Dept., etc) and partly because given the overwhelmingly negative coverage in the press a corrective element is often useful. It shouldn't really be taken as a ringing endorsement of someone who is, by most metrics, a terrible human being.

I did get accused of being part of an organised anti-Kremlin smear campaign for an article I wrote about gay Russian pop stars, if that helps.

concerning SV's last paragraph

The second is, as Gessen mentions, the open contempt Ukrainian (and Russian) liberals have for the rest of their countries. To what extent can you have a 'liberal' future when so many of the liberals look on poor Ukrainians and Russians as backwards peasants whose opinions (and in some cases, lives) are worth less than theirs? It's pretty common to hear people in Kyiv, Moscow and St Petersburg suggest that civilisation effectively stops about 20km from their city limits. It's those unloved provincials that Putin is now aggressively courting.

i'm not sure this phenomenon is unheard of in the states either. aren't all urban liberals dismissive of their rural peasant cousins? i've been led to believe this is true of tehran as well.

(which is to say - i'm not sure how pressing an issue that really is. or if it is pressing, it's pressing for a whole bunch of us)

Yes, although the areas of that are seen as appropriately cultured tend to extend beyond two or three cities. It's very similar to the red states / blue states issue in the US, albeit more extreme. Quite a few people are calling the new direction of Putin his "Nixon strategy" .

i guess it becomes more pressing if it starts to inform political violence

Yep. It informs political violence and what could, only slightly hyperbolically, be called 'economic violence'. The last time so-called western liberals were in power they sold all the state's assets to gangsters and dropped regional life expectancy by ten years. I am a corny western liberal and would be perfectly happy with everyone in Russian being a corny western liberal too but the tendency to align with oligarchies and buy into the IMF line at great cost to the poverty-stricken backwaters is a massive problem.

aren't all urban liberals dismissive of their rural peasant cousins?

My first reaction to this question was to bristle and cite myself as a sterling counterargument, but my second reaction, a blink later, was to realize that Portland, Oregon cannot remotely be compared to Moscow, Tehran, Paris, London, New York, Buenos Aires, Chicago, or the hundred other big cities this observation might apply to. I live in outer Hickville.

#notallurbanliberals

Why would we need more wrong opinions?

― Frederik B

fuckin brilliant observation tbf, come on ffs try harder than this

Thanks! And yeah, people, try harder to be right!

"someone as skilled in the art of reading social nuance when it comes to cataloguing the daily slights that come with being a white American guy in Austria"

Fuck you, asshole.

I am not talking about strawmen who fit your preconceptions, you insufferable weed, I am talking about friends of mine. Sorry if they do not fit in the confines what you think you know, you piece of shit.

"partly at least, in good faith"

Partly at least, I wish you no harm.

jesus

http://s-ak.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/terminal01/2010/4/16/17/enhanced-buzz-27355-1271453393-15.jpg

TWU crossing a fairly bright line here. Flagged post, fwiw.

Shouldn't really need to point out that observations based on ten years of visiting both countries for leisure and work, having numerous friends and colleagues in both countries who hold similar attitudes and which are broadly backed up by any number of western and Russian analysts (not least the Kremlin's own strategists who are counting on rural resentment to win votes) aren't specifically aimed at TWU's social circle, but there you go.

it should also go w/out saying that SV is one of ilx's best posters

I will try to code my contempt in clever witticisms in the future. That seems to be cool here.

xpost: if you were not saying that I am failing to recognize classist attitudes in my friends, than what were you saying other than "let's remember this is the silly white American who thinks he could ever experience anti-foreigner sentiment, ho ho ho"?

I'm saying that if you spent much time in either country outside of your specific friend group you would probably have picked up threads of classist sentiment pretty quickly. I hear it all the time, often from people who I get on extremely well with. It doesn't make them terrible people but it does present a real problem when Russian / Ukrainian liberalism in its current form is offered as a simple solution to the longstanding political problems of both countries and does feed into the othering of, for example, the people of Donetsk and Lugansk.

I will try to code my contempt in clever witticisms in the future.

Well, if this tactic helps you to avoid your calling other ilxors a piece of shit and telling them to go fuck themselves, I can get behind it, even if the witticisms aren't really all that clever.

TWU i still have no idea what your position on ukraine & russia is, even

we need a rolling russia thread next year i think. until then:
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s705no

I was not talking about everyone, nor was I presenting "Russian / Ukrainian liberalism" as a solution to everything. I simply find your "correctives" to be terribly reductivist, uncritically accepting of Euro-Leftist stereotypes, and more in line with the Putin spin than you have been willing to admit, so I am telling stories about a small (5-6) group of people I have regular contact with.

Your comment about "American in Austria", what was that, Mr. Good Faith?

goole -- my position is it's an awful shitstorm, that there are good and bad people who are interested in saving Ukraine as a nation with very little hope of success, and that Putin, whose intentions are not good, has taken advantage of the mess by pushing a lot of the European Left's anti-fascist buttons.

ok, clear enough