These are the results of a recent poll from Rating Group. 41% agree with Putin’s position, 55% disagree. Not bad, considering there’s now been a generation’s worth of state svidomy narratives.
But possibly the most startling result (and certainly one that I didn’t expect is there there’s essentially zero difference across age groups. 44% of 18-29 y/o’s agree to 42% of 60+ y/o’s, despite declining numbers of self-identifying Russians in younger age groups.
Otherwise, the regional and political party breakdowns are not surprising. Solid majorities in the South and East, amongst adherents of the UOC-MP, and the expected opposition parties (Opposition Bloc, Party of Shariy, etc.) consider Ukrainians and Russians to be one people. Even so, the fact that even in Western Ukraine, 22% agree with this, as do 10% of Greek-Catholics, 12% of nationalist Svoboda supporters, and 10% of European Solidarity voters, was mildly interesting; it is curious and significant that such people even exist.
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For people who think that Zelensky party supporters are pro-Russian, note that they cluster with the supporters of other pro-Western parties in considering Ukrainians and Russians to be not the same people. Tymoshenko voters are more likely to agree with Putin’s statement (they are almost evenly split).
In part this reflects acknowledgment of similarities and the fact that agreeing does not necessarily indicate support for any sort of unification. Would most Norse Scandinavians agree that they are one people who inhabit a shared historical and spiritual space? Probably. To take a more extreme example, I suspect that most Austrians and Swiss-Germans would agree that they are the same people as Germans, but few would want annexation by Germany.
Every country East or Southeast of Poland,
pretty much is the same people as Russia….
Since for the last 100 – 150 years, Russia (even before the commies)
were moving in, killing off the locals and replacing them with Russians….
For 50 years after WWII, they bred with the local women, leaving their spawn
in the countries…..
So much for Taras Kuzio:
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-russia-and-ukraine-are-likely-headed-escalation-their-war-189947
Unlike:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/07/18/getting-putin-intentions-wrong-again-on-russia-ukraine/
Maybe the Banderistos could dig these guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-Zlg1lERdA
Could Ukrainians be won over by propaganda films and TV shows of Ukrainians and Russians working together? Or would that just increase Svidomy by promoting Ukrainian identity?
No country that systematically discriminates against 25-30% of its population is a democracy or belongs in EU. We can quibble whether the Russian-leaning population in Ukraine is 15%, or 30%, or even 41%, that’s not the point. There are tens of millions of them, they have consistently voted against anti-Russia policies – last time for Zelensky. They are clearly a plurality in the south and east of Ukraine.
How the hell is the current treatment democratic? This is something that die-hard fanatics who are dreaming of creating a mono-ethnic Ukraine ignore at their own peril. EU couldn’t accept this. (The crazy Baltic example with similar numbers got into EU before this had much publicity, there will not be a repeat of that mistake.)
Kiev has a choice: a federal state with regional rights for minorities or an eventual collapse and disintegration. Or they can try a military dictatorship for a few years and see how well that goes. This is not complicated – it is the emotional manias and Washington self-serving use of Kiev that are making it complicated.
Wonder what the baseline numbers would be between any two contiguous Euro countries, asking natives only.
So 41% of Ukrainians think Russians are Khokhols..
No wonder positive relations between the two are impossible||
Who cares about what Ukrainiens think ? When West Germany annexed East Germany at the end of the cold war , they never asked East germans their opinion . They didn’t make a referendum.
The problem is that the center right retarded Putin government has no strategy on Ukraine, except waiting for it to collapse under economic problems.
Russia could retake Ukraine the same way North Korea could retake South Korea: Simply walking into a depopulated country and taking it over.
South Korea has a TFR of .82 and North Korea has a TFR near 2. Meaning that in 50-60 years, North Korea will be the only place where you can find young Koreans of fighting and breeding age. South Korea by that time will be a desolate industrial rust belt. Full of old people, robots and colonizers/immigrants.
The long nosed ones are already pushing for mass immigration into South Korea.
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1001194446/as-workforce-ages-south-korea-increasingly-depends-on-migrant-labor
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/28/south-korea-migrant-workers/
Ukraine is even worse off in relation to Russia. Russia has a 147-150 million people to Ukraine’s now…34 million?
The official Ukraine populationof 44 million is totally bogus. Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk all have about 5-5.7 million people. That’s effectively Russian land now. There are a further 4 million Ukrainians gasterbeiters in Russia and 2 million in Poland. Actual Ukrainian population is probably about 33-34 million.
Combine this with a low birth rate, collapsing economy and further ease of travel with the EU, its going to go down even lower.
Russia should abolish all visa requirements with Ukraine and grant them automatic residency. This would siphon a further 5-7 million people off over a decade.
Eventually, the Russians will be a position to simply walk in and take over Ukraine.
Though its possible Moscow won’t have to even wait that long.
The US has turned its back on Ukraine with the NS2 issue. It offered Ukraine a pitiful 50 million dollars in compensation for their 3 billion a year loss. They also backed away from a confrontation with Russia in the black sea.
The indicators are clear, DC is focusing its energy on the (perhaps phoney?) cold war with China. Without US support and ascension to the EU, Ukriane is looking at a future where it is a failed state with no budget and high debt.
Its likely Kiev will come crawling back to Putin soon enough and it will undergo a Belarus style process of slow annexation. Lukashenko refused rejoining with Russia as well but the CIA coup attempt in Minsk forced him to bend the knee to Putin.
Rus’d.com
The same thoughts applied to the majorities in the 14 rebel colonies (Bermuda didn’t make it), Canada, Australia, New Zealand. They still wanted Home Rule or more.
Ukrainians are genetically probably the same people as Southern Russians. Ukraine and the whole Russian steppe was for centuries dominated by savage Turko-Mongolic tribes. There were the pechengs, then the Mongol Golden horde and after that the Crimean Khanate and the Ashtrakhan khanate and Nogai horde.
These lands were very lightly populated as the slavs had mostly been killed or driven off or simply left due to them being in a constant state of war and anarchy.
The Russians later conquered the whole territory and resettled them with ethnic Russians. The “Ukrainian” people were mostly located in Western Ukraine that was ruled by the Polish commonwealth. Most ”ukrainains ” today are probably descended from Russian colonists in the region and have now gained a different accent of Russian.
The story of Russia and Ukraine is a lot like that of Germany and Brandenburg-Prussia. The prussian lands were originally slavic but conquered by the HRE and settled by German colonists. Germany however ended up losing all those lands to Poland just like Russia has lost all its hard fought gains in Ukraine.
In any case, there’s very little genetic difference between Russians, Poles,Ukrainians or Czechs. They are roughly interchangeable. Perhaps Northern Russians have a stronger Finno-Ugric mixture and are a bit smarter and have more blonde hair/blue eyes.
The ideal scenario for Eastern Europe would be if Russia were to reconquer Belarus and Ukraine and become a superpower again. Then it could form a Slavic EU, or SU that incorporates all other slavic peoples, western and southern. From what I hear, slavic languages are similar enough that a Russian and Pole can mostly understand each other.
Then it could lead a new civilization pole. It could preserve eastern Europe from Anglo-Jewish domination from the west, Islamic aggression from the South and Chinese imperialism from the east.
Someone should inform the Spaniards and the Balts about this rule. Perhaps French, also.
There are about 35 million people in Ukraine. If the Russian-leaning percentage is 25% (the most likely amount) that is a little under 9 million people.
Honesty is hard.
Ukraine can choose to integrate with the West or with Russia. Democracy means that it moves in the direction with the 75%, not with the 25%. Democracy doesn’t provide 25% with veto power over what the 75% wants.
Zelensky supporters consider Russians and Ukrainians to be separate people.
That doesn’t mean much when there are numerous parties.
This is not what keeps Ukraine out of EU lol.
Russians-Ukrainians are more “fluid” than Balts and Russians. The Russians in Lviv, for example, are mostly Ukrainian-speaking now.
Of course pro-Soviets and pro-Russians have Ukraine’s best interest at heart. It’s in Ukraine’s best interest for the most corrupt and crime-ridden part of the country, about 25% of the population (40% if Donbas is returned, hopefully it isn’t), to have veto power over with whom Ukraine chooses to integrate. Funny that Slovakia’s Hungarian minority was never given veto power over whether Slovakia could leave union with Hungary. Do you consider that to have been undemocratic?
Nonsense. In 1600 the population of Ukraine was higher than that of Sweden.
Nonsense. Largescale Russian settlement did not begin until the 19th century. As a result, parts of the south and east were about 30% Russians.
Most of Ukraine was once part of the PLC, not just the western part.
Again nonsense.
They were a single country until 1945……
Didn’t matter either way….
WG ended up with a good portion of Easts population within a couple years of
Russia leaving anyways….
Catalonia, Basques and Galicia have autonomy within Spain – look it up so you don’t look like a moron. I mentioned that Latvia-Estonia do it and shouldn’t, small countries that snuck into EU during more blase times. I am not sure what you mean by France, you probably don’t know either, you are just trying to obfuscate.
Really? Is that official now? That would be a catastrophic drop from 45 million. CIA World Factbook says that there are 43.7 million and 29.6% are Russian speakers (July 2021). Even if you subtract Crimea-Donbas it would still be more than 10 million. Honesty is indeed hard for you.
And do tell us what is keeping Ukraine out of EU? Is it just one thing or is the situation inside Ukraine with suppressing tens of millions a part of it?
It was in 1918 and it was decided at Versailles after Hungary lost in WWI. A very different process that nobody claimed was democratic. If Ukraine wants to defeat Russia in a war, call a peace conference and redo all in its favour, let them do it. But in normal times claiming to be a democracy it doesn’t work that way.
Coincidentally, I left a reply for AP towards the end of Open Thread #158 regarding this new information:
I’m not sure about Ukrainians wanting any sort of “union with Russia”, but a large minority of them feel that they and Russians comprise one nationality, up to 41% feel this way. Of course feelings on this issue diverge depending on what region you look at. The majority, 55%, don’t feel this way. A bad hangover from the soviet and pre-soviet periods, or just a reflection of things as they are? Personally, I think its a reflection of how ignorant many Ukrainians are about their own history.
https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/news-57985426
Hey AK, you totally forgot about the 55% 🙂
How many Ukrainians think that Ukrainians and Poles are the same people?
As for much of your gist, every post-Soviet Russian government concurs.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/07/18/getting-putin-intentions-wrong-again-on-russia-ukraine/
Excerpt –
But do they consider themselves Prince Andre Bolkonsky Russians, genius Boris Spassky Russians, globo-homo pussy riot Russians or based Anatoly Karlin Russians?
Poll missing critical information!
We were discussing discrimination and democracy in the EU, not simply “autonomy.” Figure out what happened to a democratic locally elected government and movement in Catalunia recently.
Figure out what has been going on with the people of Corsica and Britanny along with their languages.
A clue:
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which obliges signatory states to recognize minority and regional languages, was signed by France in 1999 but has not been ratified. On 27 October 2015, the Senate rejected a draft constitutional law ratifying the charter
In the late 20th century, the French government considered incorporating the independent Breton-language immersion schools (called Diwan) into the state education system. This action was blocked by the French Constitutional Council based on the 1994 amendment to the Constitution that establishes French as the language of the republic. Therefore, no other language may be used as a language of instruction in state schools. The Toubon Law implemented the amendment, asserting that French is the language of public education
Ukraine’s new laws are actually softer than those of France.
Did you know that France, like the Baltic Republics, is a member of the EU?
Subtract Crimea (2 million) and the Donbas Republics (4 million) from 44 million and you have 38 million. 25% of that is less than 10 million. Now subtract the people who have left (several million) and you are down to about 35 million.
How nice of you to repeat your lie. We have gone from 9 million or so (actual number) to “tens of millions.” (Beckow’s claim)
Honesty is indeed very hard for you.
I recall that someone lost the Cold War. Do you? Apparently you weren’t even aware that France is a member of the EU, after all.
Loss of Cold war meant that colonists were stuck in the Baltics, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, etc.
The poll mentioned not nationality but people (narod). As I wrote in my other post, this could be construed in a way that is comparable to, say, Swedes, Danes and Norwegians all agreeing they are one (Norse, Scandinavian) people occupying a similar place with similar religion, etc. While not all people would view the question this way, some would. This is why even 10% of Galicians said yes. If Poles were added to this poll they might get a few percentage, though the religious part would be a divider.
You are construing a lot of things, kind of scraping the bottom for any scraps of dignity you have left.
You have explained to us that Catalonia is not an autonomous province of Spain – it is, they were just denied full independence, I told you to look it up so you don’t look like a moron, but you don’t listen – that the French are assh.les – they can be, you can’t do math, and believe WWI and Versailles were somehow the same as the end of communism. Weird stuff.
“Cold war” was called that because it was not a war, there was no fighting, there were no winners or losers in a conventional sense, and no peace conference. Your insane demand that Russians should be ethnically cleansed borders on criminal incitement in EU. And why only Russians, why not Jews, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Latvians – they were all communists, weren’t they? You are very infantile with a silly uneducated-American misunderstanding of the world. This is not going to go well for you, look up how the last Habsburg ended up.
You were caught lying in some of the silliest ways possible, so you naturally speak of dignity.
I have not.
Honesty is hard for you.
A made the false claim that in the EU, only the Baltics discriminate against national minorities, don’t allow minority languages, etc.
I showed that France does too.
Apparently you didn’t know that France is in the EU? Or is it yet another example of honesty being hard for you.
You wrote that “tens of millions” of pro-Russian people in Ukraine were discriminated against. So a minimum of 20 million.
There are officially about 38 million people in Ukraine (without Donbas and Crimea). Around 25% of Ukrainians are pro-Russian. That’s not even 10 million. It’s less than half of what you claimed.
You can’t do math (should you ask some American Latinos to teach you?)?
Or is it yet another example of honesty being hard for you?
LOL. The collapse of the USSR was a loss in an unconventional sense, right?
Never demanded that, but we all know honesty is very hard for you.
There is a clear pattern here: the more desperate you become, the greater the number of falsehoods in your posts. It’s kind of funny.
From lies to personal attacks and attacks against Americans. Not the right one, coming from a Slovak though:
Mean PISA scores, 2018:
USA whites: 521
USA Hispanics: 470
Slovak Republic: 469
https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Steve-Sailer-4-PISA-2018-1.png
People are not stupid like your chola math geniuses (right) living in the slums of El Paso, you said that Russians were ‘stuck in Ukraine as colonists‘ strongly implying that anything done to them is ok, just like in the Baltic states. In other words, ethnic cleansing. Those are not EU values and you will never be even in EU with that way of thinking.
You intentionally misstated the situation in Catalonia. You are lowering the number of people in Ukraine to prove your autistic point that “9 million” is less than 10 million. If Ukraine indeed has only 35 million (US govt disagrees) it would be a loss of almost 15 million people or 30% since independence. That speaks for itself. (By the way the number who consider Ukies-Russians as one is 41% – read AK’s post.)
You try to walk back or muddy up the clear implication of what you said and that is pathetic. At least own up to it. You will lose anyway, you may as well keep some dignity.
Don’t know about those in particular, but Latinos in general are better academically than are the people of Slovakia in general. You are a perfect example with you own math skills. You think 25% of 38 million is at least 20 million, lol.
Were they not stuck in Ukraine (and the Baltics, and much of Central Asia) as colonists?
Where did I claim colonists ought to be ethnically cleansed? I am not a bloodthirsty Czech or a Slovak, I don’t think like you do with your Germans. Even though rule from Moscow was much deadlier for Ukraine than rule from Vienna or Berlin was for your people. I am much more humane, I don’t seek to punish regular people for such crimes.
But Ukraine certainly isn’t obligated to use Russian as a state language. It would be well within the norms of the EU not to do so. After all, France does not allow the teaching of actual native languages in French state schools.
Anyways, since Putin stated Ukrainians are a type of Russian, perhaps by his logic those kids are all being taught a type of Russian anyways, so it is fine.
I’m not lowering the number of people in Ukraine. I didn’t grab Crimea or remove Donbas. I am not Putin.
44 million minus 2 million in Crimea and ~4 million in Donbas equals 38 million. If you don’t believe me, ask a nearby Mexican, who knows math better than you do.
You claimed not 10 million but “tens of millions.” More than once, so it was not a typo.
Another example of honesty being hard for you.
Is reading hard for you? He pointed out that even 10% of hardcore anti-Russian nationalists agreed to that.
About 25% of Ukrainians vote for pro-Russian political parties. That’s the number who can be considered pro-Russian.
A great reply AP, something that I can count on from you on a regular basis. If you need any attestation as to the math skills of Mexicans, I can whole heartedly say that they can be quite up to the task – I work for one and am amazed at his math and computer skills. I’m not too bad either, I used to run actuarial calculations for DB plans. But perhaps my biggest accomplishment in the math arena was when I scored the very highest score on a statistics final in graduate school, but I digress. 🙂
Larger than stated numbers at pro-OUN/UPA demos in Kiev:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210727-thousands-march-in-support-of-ukraine-s-russia-backed-church
Ancient. How great is the number (if any) of newly created (over the last 30 years) defined benefit plans?
Imagine trying to use ‘math’ to disargue narrative based statements & then claim you’re not autistic.
Is this why Ukraine is ruled by Jews?
It would make sense for the Verbally Inclined to rule, and the Autistics to then run calculations
On why this is the best for Scythian, Hunnic, Aryan Ukraina||
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
In the real world it was the opposite–Russian women coming over as teachers, doctors, or just on a holiday “bred” with the local men, and then either remained there or raised the kids back in Russia.
Russia was THE multiculti place way before it was cool.
https://s00.yaplakal.com/pics/pics_original/9/6/4/14994469.jpg
https://imgpile.com/images/NH0h44.jpg
Money talks. Ukraine can almost taste the overflowing buckets of gold from the EU and its citizens want the right to work there. People like to claim that the west offered ‘freedom’, but the truth is that it was money that was the greatest lure, but everyone knew that the only way to get that money was to chant, “FREEEEEDOM”.
Imagine being so dumb you think basic numeracy is a sign of autism.
Imagine having had ancestors so weak that they lost their entire empire to an Anglo-led force of half their size:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gujrat
50,000 Sikhs were defeated by 25,000 or so troops.
Meanwhile, it took 100,000s Anglo-led troops to defeat 50,000 Boers.
Is it the lack of beef in the diet that makes your people so weak?
The chad slav vs the virgin polack
Well, Switzerland was also multicultural way before it was cool. But this is multiculturalism in a different sense
What’s your point, Mickey?
Aint it funny how “money” and “freedom” often go so well together?
Several points, not necessarily in the order of importance.
Did our host not post a map showing that there was a large swath of territory running through the Ukraine and Russia (not only but the rest does not matter in this context) with genetically very similar if not outright almost same population?
Can not find the source but is it not around ca 40% of Ukrainians who have relatives in Russia meaning that these are indeed the same people as family members are Ukrainian and Russian?
New Russia (called so for a reason) and some other parts of the Ukraine were in essence Russian lands ‘gifted’ by the Bolsheviks / Soviets.
Before that large parts of the Ukraine were part of the Russian empire for a long time anyway.
That said one should not deny a separate identity to those Ukrainians who wish to have one. The problem though is that some of them, not infrequently using coercive means, want to impose such on their countrymen who have different ideas about what it means to be Ukrainian.
Which brings up another point, namely that the moustachioed Georgian is one of the key figures in the troubles Ukrainian – Russian relations are experiencing at present. His policies resulted in a famine, which while not unique to Ukraine (it affected large parts of the Soviet Union) is now used by Svido types to hammer at Russia. Even more importantly the said Svidos were in essence ‘given’ Ukraine by him when he took Galicia / Eastern Malopolska from Poland (BTW in a way saving the latter a lot of trouble). It was a poisoned pill for Ukraine and Ukr-Rus relations, Karma for taking what is not yours and an illustration of what it means to bite more than one can chew.
More recently on the whole Ukrainian issue Putin was a day late and a Dollar short. Similarly as with NS2 though in that case he was saved from the effects of earlier blunders by later developments which however do not retrospectively make those blunders in any way less blundering.
Interestingly enough when he stood firm the Ukrainians I mean the West which in turn means primarily the US backed down – how is implementing the decree about Crimea’s reintegration going?
Maybe the US will ditch the Svidos because of having more ‘fun’ with China, focus on Latin America or become busy destabilizing some other parts of the world, maybe the West will simply stop giving loans because … because they decide to stop or whatever. Yet should this happen (do not say it is impossible, just look at NS2) it will for the most part not be due to Putin’s strategy but the US (rest of the West) whims.
Now the US and the rest of the West as well as the Svidos made a lot of miscalculations of their own, but that is material for another comment.
Nice try. The proportion of Ukrainians who wish their country to be absorbed by Russia is <5%. Get over it.
Populated primarily by Ukrainians.
Again, lands that were overwhelmingly populated by Ukrainians. Although Stalin was quite an evil man, he had enough foresight to help put together lands that were primarily populated by Ukrainians. He probably was smart enough to be able to add 2 + 2 = 4 too.
It’d be banned by the government if it was popular.
Photos of women probably will help accentuate and clarify this point 🙂
Who cares about what Ukrainiens think ? When West Germany annexed East Germany at the end of the cold war , they never asked East germans their opinion . They didn’t make a referendum.
All the major political parties competing in the eastern lander in 1989-90 favored reunification, the post-communists excepted. A supermajority of legislators ratified the treaties which provided for reunification.
Aint it funny how freedom is being slashed across the western world right in front of our eyes? BTW money is starting to get slashed too – you will owe nothing and like it. Right now one can still hit the jackpot due to a combination of such things as exchange rates and differences in purchasing power i.e. the same amount of Euros can buy you an order of magnitude more if instead in the UE you spend it in Ukr. How long will it last is anyone’s guess.
The only way for Ukraine to maintain the country glued was to follow the Spanish model granting cultural and language rights to minorities. Spain was mostly successful containing Catalan, Galician and Basque populations with the model of autonomies. Generalissimo Franco tried to suppress the Catalan language and failed miserably. And, without a doubt, he was far smarter than Porky and Mr. Ze. The post-2014 Ukraine regime, on the contrary, decided to impose a forced Ukrainization to the large south-east minority. This was a recipe for the disaster because the logic result was the fulfillment of the civilizational fracture-line predicted by Samuel Huntington long time ago. It is too late now to try to glue a fractured country. The fracture already happened.
Ironically, Zvidos and Russia have convergent interests in depopulating the south-east. The first ones think that, by trashing and depopulating Novorossiya, can accelerate the forced Ukrainization; while the Russia government use this region of source of Russkiy population to partially compensate Russian demographic problems. The likely end for that region will be something like a chaotic Mad Max world. Hardly a successful outcome.
Throw some good natalist propaganda in there, and it would be a perfectly serviceable for domestic consumption in Russian Fed. So, you guarantee your money’s worth that way.
I think there are ways around distribution obstacles. Maybe, it would be hard to get a mass audience through technical means, but if you include PSAs at the end of the show about sharing and how to share, and if the show was good, I think that would mitigate it.
Maybe, I am wrong, but I think Ukrainians and Belarussians could be “bought” for cheap. That Russians can give them greater status (though perhaps not money) than the EU is willing to accord them, but it might be that it is impossible for Russia to buy the elite, that the cost would be too unreasonable. And that is the core problem.
Do you think that taking regions where a minority may have local majority is really a good idea? Especially from an Ukrainian POV?
New Russia would have been hardly populated by ‘Little Russians’ or anyone else but remained Дике Поле if it was not for Russians and the Russian Empire. BTW many of the ‘Little Russians’ there were colonists too.
Rusins and Svidos of the Lvovian café type differed greatly on a great many things, their attitude towards Russia for example.
For reasons I have described in my post (no need to repeat myself, everyone can read it up) this was not ‘smart’ but had long time negative effects for Ukraine and Russia, meaning it was rather stupid on Stalin’s behalf, though yes, it was VERY GOOD for the Svidos and I have written that too.
The “Rusyns” in Transcarpathia are very comfortable within their Ukrainian skins. As you may or may not know, at one time all Ukrainians in that neighborhood (Galicians, Volhynians and Bukovinians) were also known as Rusyns too. Ukrainianization was a natural historical process for all of these people. Last that I checked, of the 1,200,000 inhabitants of Zakarpatska oblast, fully 1,000,000 identify themselves as being Ukrainians. Of the 10,000 that identify in some form with their Rusyn past, most if not all of the Rusyn svidomists are older unemployed sovoks who work for Russian or Hungarian think tanks. I hear that the vodka flows freely at their “conventions”. 🙂
Yet still the masses of the disgruntled emigrants of the world chose to move to the US? I say, watch where the footsteps lead to, rather than the inflamed words on a computer screen, if you want to know where the really best places to live on the planet are located.
A man who wasn’t even Russian……
Hitler wasn’t actually German…
Napoleon wasn’t French…..
Many English Kings weren’t from British Stock (Viking/French)…..
We all see where that led countries to….
Hard to see Obama/Harris as American,
They both spent much of their teens (impressionable) years in another country…..
“New Russia” was already sparsely populated by Ukrainians in the southern steppe area. Where do you think that the Zaporozhian Hoste was located? Similarly, in the Eastern part of the country, including Donbas, all of the major cities there were originally settled by Ukrainian Cossacks in smaller “stanitsas”. Check your history books more thoroughly.
That hardly invalidates my points, especially that the ‘natural’ processes were greatly helped along by the Soviets and nowadays by coercive measures which is as ‘natural’ as GMO. Still I have no beef with Ukrainians as such but with things I have already outlined in my previous comments – again I do not fancy being Pete re-Pete.
Again that does not invalidate my points. If I were born dirt poor in Latin America I might have taken the chance to get up north since I would have nothing to lose. Similarly if I were born dirt poor in Africa or the Middle East western Europe could be the thing. However the good God was kind enough to spare me birth in poverty. He did not bring me to the world in a very rich environment either (I hardly blame him for that) but well off enough. In addition having travelled I have also formed my opinion on a lot of places and the ones nominally richer are not necessarily the best ones for everyday life. Enough said, I have to get back to earning my daily bread. Have a nice day.
Sparsely is the keyword here. Plus I thought that you were above patronizing comments. History books are also clear thanks to whom the wild steppe was claimed for civilization. Have a pleasant day.
Populated about 70% by Ukrainians, taken by Russian due to Ukrainian efforts also, not some sort of “gift.”
This part is true. Of course an earlier example of greed, taking what is not yours, and poison pill was annexing Ukrainian lands in the 18th century. That gave Russia the poison pill of creatures like Trotsky who did far more damage to the Russian people than did any Galicians.
That isn’t saying much. The Kingdom of Sweden had about 760,000 people back then. It has about 10.4 million people now.
If Ottomans hadn’t been held in check by PLC (which included Ukrainians) Russia would never have been in a position to take those lands. (see for example Battle of Khotyn:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khotyn_(1621)
Ukrainians were involved in taking those lands for Russia. It was not a “gift.”
As Ottomans receded either PLC or Hapsburgs would have expanded there. Russia wasn’t needed to tame those lands. It was just around at the time. You really think the Tatars or Turks would have managed to hold onto those empty fertile lands forever?
You are right. The point is that those lands (Left and Right Banks plus Galicia) weren’t unpopulated empty space. They had around 1.5 to 2 million people. Around 1/4 of the population of the PLC.
All in all, this shows that enough of the people would tolerate Russian domination/unification if it is managed in a near enough timeline and Russia continues to improve. Much easier if they believe (sensibly so) they are the same people, separated by Mongolian Overlordship centuries ago.
The gradual China process is a good start, and maybe if chaos ensues at any point, annexation and expansion of the more accepting areas. The rest can be left for the Neo-Hapsburgs or Europa Gesselleschaft.
Not necessarily. I suspect, for example, that many Serbs consider Bosnians and Croats to be be same people as them – they are just twisted and treasonous Serbs. You think this would make them accept Croat or Bosniak rule?
I think at least some, such as the 10% of hardline anti-Russian Svoboda Party supporters who view Ukrainians and Russians as the same people, have a similar sentiment. And many more have a softer version, that does not imply openness for a union.
No, they were not. Russians have lived there for hundreds of years – since 18th century. E.g. Latvia had 12% Russian population in 1910. Do some research. Unless you redefine colonists as anyone who is descended from anyone who moved somewhere hundred years ago, you are simply wrong – if you do that you are a colonist himself, so why don’t you pack up and leave wherever it is that you reside?
Don’t try the fake humanity posture. There is nothing human about calling a large part of your population colonists and demanding that they change their identity or leave. Bretagne notwithstanding, EU rules on this are very clear. Look at Swedes in Finland, Magyars in Romania or Slovakia, etc…it is simply not acceptable to deny others’ identity or suggest that they leave. You know it, so stop in your autistic way pretending that the current Kiev ethnic policies are within EU norms.
Kiev will go down eventually and the misguided nationalists (like you and Hack) will regret the stupid, self-defeating things they have done in the last few years. You cannot win this one. You can delay the collapse or hope for a miracle (nuclear war, anyone?), but the strategic situation for the Central-Western Ukrainians ruling Kiev is very dire. Not a single Westerner will die to make your dreams come true. There will be no EU and no Nato. There will less aid, and less money from transit, there will be no economic miracle. You can stretch it out and go out with a whimper, or you can go out with a bang.
Then you can engage with the lovely cholas that you seem to like so much, what are they on average, 155 cm? stupid like squash, living in squalor – but I hear some are lording over Mr. Hack now. That is your new America, I can see why you try to escape into a made-up world of Ukraine. You are kind of stuck either way.
Polish rightoids jointly targeted by America and Germany. Illiberal countries in Europe are unacceptable.
Will ukrainian “patriots” be next?
Andrew Korybko:
https://oneworld.press/?module=articles&action=view&id=2139
You asked a different question from the one posed to you.
Yes, it was well understood that Biden is soft on Merkel and Putin, to the detriment of the countries between Germany and Russia.
Oh, your statement at the beginning was definitely correct and on the money as far as reasons people who are “anti-X” would still identify as the same people.
With that basis, it makes the later state campaign to absorb them (whatever the mechanisms) easier than if they were and (almost as importantly) visualized themselves as radically different. Even if a reasonable minority is actively against it, the majority will be co-opted over time. This is true in regards to Ukrainian policy on its non-“Ukrainian” (as in strictly self identifying as such) population as well. The Serbians did, under Yugoslavia, and currently do to an extent under the current Bosnian state. Autonomy is not the same as independence. This still has to be backed with a successful State with good security and a strong economy, otherwise, much like with Scandinavia, the whole place splits.
Ha ha, brutal statement on the Serbocroats. By treason, is this a reference to the Hapsburgs, Ottomans, or ’90s Yugoslav collapse free for all (in regards to the Serbs), something else, or just more a cultural thing?
Germans were in Czechoslovakia, Romania, etc even longer. So? Empires collapse, colonists are left behind.
You ethnically cleansed the ones on your territory. I don’t share your disgusting level of brutality. Let the ones in Ukraine stay, but the state won’t provide schools in their language.
Projection. Just because you are fake and find honesty to be very hard does not mean that others are like you.
You stopped talking about “tens of millions”
of pro-Russians in Ukraine. Why didn’t you repeat your lie for the third (or fourth?) time?
Like highest wages in their post-Soviet history, free travel West, own Church, etc.
The fact that pro-Russian parties have not seen a significant improvement in their ratings suggests that people in Ukraine don’t have the regrets about turning westward that a Sovok foreigner like you has.
If American Latinos are “stupid as squash” what does that make your people, who perform even worse on standardized tests than they do?
A policy used not just by the peripheral Baltics but by France itself is certainly well within EU norms. Or have you not figured out yet that France is a member of the EU? A Latino could have taught you that.
And note that Ukraine’s policies are softer than France’s.
People who think of others as inferior or twisted versions of themselves might not mind ruling over them, but would certainly object to being ruled by them.
This is a great point. It illustrates that, to achieve a voluntary reunification of Russia & Ukraine, all that needs to happen is getting an overwhelming majority of Ukrainian politicos convinced that their personal interests are better served by reunification of Russia & Ukraine. Ukraine will become part of Russia faster than you can say “Bogdan Khmelnitsky.”
This poll is yet another illustration that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is essentially a political conflict and not an ethnic one. And politics can turn on a dime, especially in Ukraine.
This poll you’re touting demonstrates that the majority in the Ukraine conceives of themselves as a people apart. There was no analogous sentiment in the east German lander, who prior to 1949 did not form a distinct subset of the larger Germanophone tapestry. You seem to fancy the views of the east German public were never adduced. They were.
Note, the result of Russia’s gamesmanship has been to cost the Russophile segment of the Ukrainian electorate to decline by about 40%. Actual unionist sentiment isn’t more prevalent than that for a Romanov restoration. (While we’re at it, It polled a great deal better in White Russia a generation ago than it does now). They’re just not that into you and it’s not a constructive program.
I like the idea that Ukraine should have a look at what other countries felt the need to do when they recovered democracy and Beckow is certainly right that the EU has traditionally paid a lot of attention to discrimination and minority issues. But I think that the Spanish model of autonomic administration has been a failure.
On the one hand, they didn’t want to make it obvious that they were granting special priviliges to Catalans and Basques (Galician loyalty was never in question) in order to placate secessionist sentiments so they created a totally unnecessary “autonomic state” with 17 different autonomic administrations, one for each Spanish region. This has evolved into a mess of redundant bureaucracies, regulations and legislative bodies that are now pretty much impossible to undo, by their own inertia.
On the other hand, this didn’t really do anything to quell separatist feelings where they mattered. Basques and Catalans have used their autonomy to promote nationalism through media and education and to replace Spanish with their languages in all spheres. More people are now separatist in the Basque Country and Catalonia than they were before they got autonomy. Catalans recently miscalculated and thought that the situation was already rife for total independence.
Perhaps even worse for the Spaniards, new nationalist sentiments have flourished in regions where none existed before. It’s quite painful to look something up in Wikipedia and see that the article has been translated (in all likelihood with public money) to made-up languages like Aragones or Asturiano.
With all that said, I’m not really sure what Ukraine should do with its Russophone or pro-Russian population. I think that I’ve stopped caring and anything is fine by me as long as they don’t kill each other and don’t try to involve the rest of the world in their problems.
The one thing that Spain did do right with regards to its centrifugal problems was join the Common Market-EU. Now Basques and Catalans must very seriously think if formal independence (they already have a de facto quasi-independence) is worth severing ties with the EU where they are deeply ingrained. Perhaps that’s a fail-proof recommendation for Ukraine: try to become prosperous and stable.
A not so good situation there:
https://twitter.com/27khv/status/1420760776655003654
I wanted to know what prompted you to ask such a question? Over a four year period I was responsible in helping to establish 25 new plans. They’re still being created, but for much smaller business units than in the past.
Once again:
How great is the number (if any) of newly created (over the last 30 years) defined benefit plans?
Yes but times change. As we saw, the EU was unable to even pressure Ukraine against shelling its own civilians. I think that nowadays Ukraine is more likely to get in trouble with the EU for the treatment of its LGBTQ people than for the treatment of its Russophone population.
As for Bretagne, I don’t know what’s going on there but the French, Jacobin as they continue being, do allow parents to send children to Basque schools, where they not only learn Basque but are taught in Basque.
My current employer is doing pretty well for himself. I’m glad that I’ve associated with him. He’s a lot smarter than a lot of dumb white racists that I’ve known. I suppose in backwoods Slovakia all you see are dumb hicks who inherit all sorts of stupid ideas and stereotypes. You never did let me know whether you attended that Rusyn/Ukrainian festival in Svidnik? 🙂
I don’t know. Why is this so important to you?
False. A law was recently passed (opposed by Macron) to allow such schools to be created, but in May 2021 France’s constitutional court eliminated the possibility of such schools.
https://www.connexionfrance.com/Mag/Language/French-court-blocks-historic-local-languages-law-repealed-by-the-highest-constitutional-authority-in-France
The law gave schools – at all levels – the possibility of “immersive teaching” in a regional language, meaning they would be permitted to offer teaching in a specific regional language for the majority of the school day.
It also ensured parents would be able to give their children traditional names that have diacritics – accents or marks added to letters to change their pronunciation – not found in the French language.
These are the two elements of the law that have been blocked by France’s Constitutional Council, in a decision handed down on May 21.
https://www.elnacional.cat/en/politics/french-constitutional-court-overturns-linguistic-immersion-law_612419_102.html
The French Constitutional Court has overturned two central articles of the new law that protects and promotes the country’s minoritized regional languages, such as Catalan, Basque, Corsican and Breton. This law, known as the Molac law, after the Breton MP who promoted it, Paul Molac, was passed on April 8th in the French National Assembly by 247 votes in favour and 76 against.
Following the proposal’s passage into law, a total of 60 French deputies, all from president Emmanuel Macron’s party took an appeal against the innovative law to the Constitutional Court in Paris.
Now, this institution has ruled as unconstitutional the new law’s Article 4, which includes the possibility of language immersion in schools in the so-called regional languages, and Article 9, which allows people to spell their names and surnames using forms that do not exist in French.
:::::::::::::::
Classes in regional languages are permitted, but the majority of the school day is in French. No immersion in regional languages permitted in France. Ukraine also permits some Russian classes, though the primary language is Ukrainian.
Ukraine still allows primary schools to be run mostly in regional languages. It doesn’t seem like this is allowed in France. So France is more restrictive than Ukraine.
I did not. We are currently ruled by some sort of a C-19 cult; they wear facial coverings, stick themselves with needles (repeatedly) and talk about the end of the world coming soon. So I stay away, cultists are not my cup of tea, no matter what their ethnicity. But countryside is great, it has never been better.
Saying that cholos are short and dumb is indeed a stereotype, but like all stereotypes it is based on years of observation. You will get a few exceptions, but as it is most of US (definitely the southwest) will soon be barely distinguishable from your average Central America sh..thole. They also have some good neighbourhoods and some smart people, yet other that some culinary and erotic attractions they don’t have much to offer. Remember that oasis never spreads, the desert does – if you live in a nice oasis you are living on a borrowed time.
EU muddles through, they say one thing on public (actually, not much) and are completely different in private. All the things we discuss here are openly discussed in the backrooms, but nobody wants to touch it in public because they like the buffet-train. The moment things change, they will all massively claim that they were against any discrimination of Russians all along. It is a typical time-serving bureaucracy.
Kiev and AP are making a mistake assuming that they have active support – they don’t, everybody is along for a ride. But nobody wants more of these issues inside EU. French are ass..holes at home, but in an arrogant French fashion they don’t think others have a right to the same. Today, LGBTQY are expected, and people with career in mind always do what is expected of them. Don’t assume that their heart is in it. They have no principles or beliefs, they are paid not to.
They were not colonists, Germans lived in Czechia since 13th century, they were very much natives. Then in WWII they attempted to exterminate or expel the majority Czech population, managed to kill tens of thousands and were expelled after 1945. It was a result of Germans starting an aggressive war, committing genocide, and losing the war. Simple consequences. I suggested that you and Kiev can start the same process against the Russians and see how it goes, maybe you will prevail and get to do what you want. But probably not, and just like the Germans after WWII you will pay a terrible price. Your so-called humanity is a cover for your fear – you know that you would lose so you spout silly, humanity slogans.
Regarding numbers: if Ukraine has 38-40 million people and 41% think of themselves as being the same as Russians, you get above 10 million who cannot be Russia-haters. You can play autistic games and subtract Donbas (why, where are they going?), or the 3 million working in Russia, or the self-hating Ukie-Russians nationalists (who the f..k is that?), you still get 10 million people. Is it 20 million? Possibly, but unless you let people freely express who they are, this is pointless – you hide behind your autism because you lost the argument. By the way, we in EU know very well who lives in Ukraine and what kind of a can of worms they would be inside EU. You will never be in EU.
I don’t know what it is with your Pissa chola obsession, almost a fetish, let it go. They are short, fat and quite stupid – they wouldn’t last a minute as anything other than cleaning ladies in my part of the world, we know how little they can do. Unfortunately for them we also have enough Rusins and Ukrainians clamouring to do that work, and they are generally both taller and smarter (and a lot prettier). Too bad for the cholas, so El Paso it is. I think the weather suits them better there.
No, you are wrong.
I received all my primary education at a Basque school (ikastola) and we used to visit ikastolas on the French side of the border. At the time ikastolas on the French side had more freedom than on ours but now the opposite is true.
I hope that you won’t pretend to know more than me about Basque schools just because you just happened to find some news article discussing a minor point of your argument with Beckow but unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about it and I won’t be too surprised if you actually choose to go that route.
Ikastolas in France have been teaching in Basque since 1969: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaska
To quote:
Seaska est le nom de la fédération des ikastola, écoles immersives en langue basque dans le Pays basque français.
…/…
1969 : Sous l’impulsion d’Argitxu Noblia, la première école immersive en langue basque fut créée en 1969 à Arcangues. 5 élèves sont scolarisés, et Libe Goñi est la première enseignante
These are private schools. We weren’t talking about them. Ukraine doesn’t ban private schools either. But in Ukraine all state schools must be Ukrainian, as in France all public schools must be French.
No, I just don’t change the topic like you do, to paint a false picture. We started discussing public government schools and you brought in private ones, as if to prove something, when all you have shown is your mendacity.
As I posted earlier:
“Therefore, no other language may be used as a language of instruction in state schools. The Toubon Law implemented the amendment, asserting that French is the language of public education”
Ukraine will stand as it is.
Donbass will slowly join Russia. Economy will be based on agriculture, money send home from abroad, some outsourcing, mining and some heavy industries. I can make prediction, that Ukraine would reach 75% of Polish standard of living in 5-10 years. This meme, that Ukraine would collapse is cope. Western Ukraine would benefit more, because they be better hooked to West economy. East Ukraine will decline with loose of Russian market.
I do not understand, why so many emotions. Ukrainians choose different path for themselves. They might have sympathy for Russia, but I would not read too much into it. For God Sake, many of them went to war in order to separate Ukraine from Russia. Russia act as some burnt ex-wife.
Ukraine would not join EU in 10-15 years, but there would be more and more integration. They might joint EU market, synchronize legislation, etc.
Russia need to focus on own problems and economy. Also, what will happen after Putin is gone.
Oh!
Looking back, I realize now I completely misread that portion. Apologies, and yes, I see it now.
They may at first, but then over time, even this goes away. The Tatars and Musulmans once looked down upon Russians. The only reason the larger portion of them broke away was (much like with Ukraine), tragically (and almost comically) poor decision making in the 20th-century. The same could be said for the Russians under a permanent Mongolian Empire. If it’s like that with people so alien to one another (ignoring millenia of contact), it’s not a great leap to ruling over those temporarily apart in mindset.
Again, a vocal minority can be subsumed, crushed, or ignored, so long as the majority are bought in, and they often enough are. Ukraine is not facing great internal opposition in its current homogenizing program because the most loud minority have been split off, and the majority are complacent enough with things as they are. This can be true in the reverse, too.
I’m not sure if China and Dai Nam are a good comparison, though. I feel Canton and Northern China would be more apt. Different, but the same. A good state can keep them together easily.
That is one scenario, countries, people, even broke companies go on for a long time. But you are missing the point: the question is whether Ukraine has made the right strategic choices? They staged a revolution to:
Results are in after 7 years:
– there will be no EU membership (half-ass charity really doesn’t count)
– corruption and oligarchs run Ukraine, same or worse than before
– living standards have stagnated in spite of massive Western aid in billions – debts have exploded.
To say that they will go on is like saying that the sun will rise tomorrow. Sure it will, but what was the circus all about? Not evaluating the results is rather infantile.
Russia will also go on, they have the resources, weapons and thanks to Western idiocy a newly acquired asabiyah. Putin matters less and less, the policies will go on.
I can tell you that in 2014 and 2016, growth of the Cash Balance DB plan was exhibiting phenomenal growth of between 12% -15%, year over year. This is much higher than the growth of new401(k) plans:
https://www.cashbalancedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/NationalCashBalanceResearchReport2018.pdf
I’m pretty sure that the Covid year hasn’t been good for growth. It’s not too late, however, for you to set-up your own one, for your own rental/collection agency, Mickey? Seriously! 🙂
And you have the audacity to try and put down the US and Mexico? Neither country has put forth such Draconian measures as what you describe going on in Slovakia? Plenty of oasis in Mexico and in other parts of Central and South America. You really do sound like a stilted individual who probably should stay put in backwoods Slovakia. Let me get this straight, the cultists are not allowing you to visit places within Slovakia? Somehow, I can’t imagine the Rusyns going around dressed in masks and attacking people with syringes at one of their own festivals? 🙂
Who is “we”? I wasn’t even talking to you before you said that my statement was “false”. I was talking to Beckow.
And where has it been established that the discussion on the languages that France allows children to be educated in refers only to public establishments?
I don’t even know if all French ikastolas are private. In Spain certainly not. But this is what you said that is “false”:
And now, realizing that it is true and, not surprisingly at all, I was right and you were wrong on this particular subject, invent arbitrary norms for the boundaries of some imaginary discussion that “we” were all having.
So sadly, I didn’t misjudge you. You didn’t try to drag me into a debate about who knows more about Basque schools, as I predicted, but you couldn’t help yourself and immediately resorted to uncalled for insults. It seems to be stronger than you. As I said, there’s nothing I can do about your psychological problems. If you don’t mind lowering yourself in front of the blog readers, why should I?
The discussion involving Beckow was about Ukraine ending public schools in the Russian language and how this supposedly went against EU norms. I pointed out that France also bans state schools in non-French languages. You chose to state that there are Basque schools in France (the implication being that France is not like Ukraine in this case and that my claim about France was mistaken). But those Basque schools were private schools, therefore having nothing to do with the discussion of Ukraine’s ban on Russian schools which only pertains to state schools. Ukraine allows private schools in Russian, English, Korean or whatever languages.
See above. The discussion in this comment section has been about Ukraine supposedly going against EU norms by only having state schools in the one state language.
I was right that Ukraine. like France, only allows state schools in the state language. You brought up private schools and dishonestly implied that their existence somehow contradict what I wrote.
Well, people like you and Beckow can’t help yourselves.
Her prefers gypsies to Latinos, to each his own.
Imagine being Ukrainian & thinking a religion is a people.
Imagine naming one battle when I could just post BLM to yeet on American Whites.
You’re a doctor, I’m a soldier.
Stop comparing masculinity, just fix my dick after I’m done with your wife (She gave me HIV)||
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
No, you don’t understand it correctly. We have C-19 cultists in charge and wise people stay away from them because they are fools. Svidnik is too far east, I seldom go there. C-19 has impacted most of the world, I am guessing a 3-year run like most manias.
As everywhere, the rules are largely ignored. It is a comedia buffa, an intermezzo. Arguing with fools is pointless. One sees bizarre things about US and Mexico too, I know that on the ground it is more normal. Your affinity for Latinos is touching although misplaced. Try to visualize waking up and living in one of those countries – because that is more or less where US is heading within a generation or two. With an added benefit of Anglo homo-gender pathology. Not a pretty picture.
Does Ukraine allow students who have been taught in Korean at school get an official Ukrainian primary and secondary education certificate??
France has spent over half a century now granting children who were taught in Basque their French primary and, later on, secondary (lycée) education diplomas.
I suspect that you’re not only adding arbitrary limits to what was discussed above but are also confused about what a school being private means, which is bizarre for a US citizen. Lots of people, including myself, completed our state-mandated education at private schools. No idea what you think the form of ownership of a school implies.
BTW, I think that lycées in France are state-funded but that is your tangent discussion, not mine.
They weren’t native, they were settlers who arrived and colonized those territories in medieval times.
And Russians under the Moscow government killed millions of Ukrainians. But we are far kinder to Russians than Czechs were towards Germans who were far milder to Czechs.
Repeating a lie does not make it true. I lack your malice and your bloodthirsty nature. I do not wish to do to the Russians what you did to the Germans. Nor would I want to pay anyone else to exterminate them, as Slovaks paid the Nazis to exterminate the Slovak Jews.
You can insist all you want, but I am not a sneaky bloodthirsty would-be murderer. I am not like your grandparents’ generation. But thanks for confessing that for you, humanity is a cover for fear. Good to know.
Who mentioned “Russia-haters?” 10% of the violently anti-Russian Svoboda Party members answered that Ukrainians and Russians belonged to one people. So some of that 41% are certainly Russia-haters. But we were not discussing the Russia-hating extremists.
Let’s come back to your dishonest claim: “We can quibble whether the Russian-leaning population in Ukraine is 15%, or 30%, or even 41%, that’s not the point. There are tens of millions of them, they have consistently voted against anti-Russia policies ”
You claimed at least 20 million Ukrainians are “Russian-leaning” and consistently vote against anti-Russian policies. Well, the pro-Russian parties get about 25% of the vote (I am being generous, in the first round of the last presidential elections the two pro-Russian candidates collectively got about 17%). It’s not even 10 million, which is much less than the 20 million you claimed.
Only 20% of Ukrainians want Ukraine to integrate with the Eurasian Customs Union:
https://www.iri.org/resource/iri-poll-ukraine-finds-continued-support-european-integration-against-backdrop-covid-19
So where are your “tens of millions” of Russian-leaning people in Ukraine?
Yes, honesty is indeed very hard for you.
2/3 of Donbas is no longer part of Ukraine. Neither is all of Crimea. Those people don’t vote in Ukrainian elections anymore, and most of them have Russian passports by now.
Even under Yanukovich, before relations between Ukraine and Russia soured further, the pro-Russian parties got about 30% of the vote outside Crimea and Donbas (it was actually under 10 million votes even including Crimea and Donbas).
I didn’t lose or win any “argument.”
You just demonstrated your difficulty with honesty, as usual. You claimed there were tens of millions of Russia-leaning people in Ukraine; you were wrong. You claimed that Ukraine’s policies towards Russians within its borders were beyond EU norms; you were also wrong. Core EU member France has even harsher policies, after all.
Korean I don’t know (why not?) but private schools do get certification:
https://aleksios.kiev.ua/?lang=en
This one mentions Russian being taught from 1st to 11th grade.
Ukrainian lawmaker confirms that language law doesn’t apply to private schools:
https://112.international/ukraine-top-news/whats-the-fate-of-russian-language-schools-in-ukraine-47741.html
“In addition, private schools might study even in Korean, however, they should learn Ukrainian at the level of the required standards, so that the children can pass exams in Ukrainian.”
No, the discussion clearly involved Ukraine allegedly operating outside EU norms by discriminating against non-Ukrainians, such as by only allowing state schools to be operated in the Ukrainian language. The fact that France also only allows state schools to be in the sole national language (French) proves that this claim about Ukraine was false.
You chose to bring up Basque schools, but since they are private schools they have nothing to do with the discussion.
Are you, or are you trying to obfuscate?
I’ve often given serious thought to moving and retiring to Costa Rica. A friend of mine already made the move there about 20 years ago, and loves living there. There are many great places to live in Costa Rica, do some research on the wonderful towns of Escuzo or Grecia (my friend lives in neither of these two places.). You try to act very cosmopolitan and worldly, but in fact betray a somewhat parochial character. Probably you acquired this persona after living for most (if not all) of your life in Slovakia?
International rankings for how many “titled” chess players (men and women both) a country has. Russia, 33,000 points. (#1 in world) Ukraine, with about 1/3 of the population: 11,000 points (#4 in the world). So, they are strikingly similar in this respect. To what degree this can be extrapolated, I am not qualified to interpret; but my guess is that it can be, to some degree.
While Russia isnt exactly all sunshine, Ukraine will, due to Maidan, become perpetually economically scorched earth that is to absorb and misdirect Russian resources better spent elsewhere.
This zone of scorched earth is to protect the “actual western fortresses” in Poland and Romania.
In a way, it was a (short term) clever ploy, rather the scorching their own land, the west has scorched the area to an extant belonging to one of its “adversaries”.
Long term, Russia is now a permanent adversary, and other multi polar regional powers such as Turkey, Pakistan or Indonesia will take the lesson of Maidan, that the US is completely willing to regime change a country that cooperates with it, that wished (even under Yanukovich) to increase cooperation, that posed no threat whatsorever to the USA and that the USA formally promised to not regime change in the Budapest memorandum.
It would be peak irony if this even applies to Poland, although thats a some
Ukraine will never join the EU, same as Turkey will never join it but for somewhat different reasons.
Due to the association agreement, the EU fulfilled its goal of expanding its jurisidction further east (de jure, Ukraine is now a colony, as the EU controls its jurisdiction without Ukrainian input. For the record, no medieval vasall would have meekly accepted such intrusions from their overlords.) at relatively minimal cost. Ukraine has nothing to negotiate with to actually gain access to EU subsidy funds etc.
The west invested 5-10 billion into propaganda, the Russians several times that amount into economic aid. Ukraine opted to be dazzled, and Maidan Ukraine essentially wants to kill or subjugate those who are probably smarter then itself in terms of being capable of understanding international treaties. Maidan Ukraine essentially has to kill and subjugate them because their arguements are incredibly poor. One of the funny little timebombs is that Maidan nuked Ukraines chances of ever getting access to EU subvention money.
Anatoly Karlin:
Why do you allow such low-level, mendacious and teenage like filth that is exhibited in comment #93 to stand? No warnings, nothing? I’d let this sick Sikh loose, and allow him to continue his rampage somewhere else.
I’ve never been to Costa Rica, but a Polish couple I know visit it almost yearly and insist it is one of the most charming places anywhere. They insist it compares well to Spain which they also enjoy.
This is, actually, an accurate description of what has happened to Donbas and to a much milder extent other regions of eastern Ukraine. Lviv and Kiev meanwhile are doing fine post Maidan.
Also, Russia is doing great. Moscow may be the most successful large city in the world. I’m not sure what you mean by “isn’t exactly all sunshine.”
There is a lot of „might have beens”
In the ideal (or close to it) world the Rus would have been able to repulse the Mongol – Tatar invasion, avoid subjugation and division. Had that happened … but history took another path.
PLC held the Turks and Tatars in check and Cossacks had their part in this too – no quarrel here. However equating Cossacks with the Ruthenian / Rusin population and / or modern Ukrainians especially of the Svido variety is too much of a stretch in my books, particularly the latter.
You raise several points, however much of it is in the “could have been” category. The PLC could not have declined the way it did. Alternatively the Turks and Tatars could have had their great warlord and moderniser and prevailed. The Habsburgs might have been removed or on the contrary rose even higher than they were at their peak. Had either happened Kiev might have been a Polish, Turkish or German city. Would that have been better and what effect would that have had on the development of the Rusin / Ruthenia / Ukrainian people – that is IMO too much going in the direction of alternative history.
As things happened in reality it was the Russian empire which bought – yes purchased for money – Kiev from the PLC. Yes Cossacks were involved and “Little Russian” settlers too yet without the driving force of the Russian empire as the entity that dealt with the Turkish – Tatar problem those (and other) settlers could not have settle those lands.
Last but not least the Bolsheviks and Soviets were very generous when drawing Soviet Ukraine’s borders. Such can be called gifting and hence a gift.
Imagine tolerating ‘ethnic intimidation’ and views in line with domestic extremists, while having problem with some inane sexual banter.
How very christian of you,
https://www.unz.com/estriker/new-fbi-initiative-will-put-hate-crime-quotas-on-local-law-enforcement/
At least you pronounce Sikh right. 🙂
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
Rus had permanently divided about 100 years prior to the Mongolian invasion; it was bitter, Kiev was brutally sacked by the proto-Muscovites, and later stormed by the Galicians, it’s last rulers before the Mongols came. The Rus princes often enlisted non-Rus allies against each other. Moreover there was no trend toward reconsolidation when the Mongols arrived. Instead Rus was evolving into three discrete power bases: Galicia, Novgorod, and Vladimir-Suzdal.
The time when Rus was some kind of unified state was pretty brief – maybe 250 years (and this doesn’t include dynastic wars and short-term disunity). Russia was under the Mongols almost as long as that.
They weren’t much of a stretch though. Turkey was indeed declining, and anyone around would have picked up the pieces. It just happened to have been Russia. If PLC hadn’t been partitioned it would have been them instead, they were right there. It’s not like Russia forced the Ottoman decline (indeed the Polish king Sobieski at Vienna had played a critical role in the turning point).
See above.
Not really, they excluded significant chunks of Ukrainian-inhabited territory. Addition of Galicia can be thought of as a reward for Ukrainian participation in World War II (3 million or so Ukrainians fought in the Red Army). Crimea was not exactly a gift – it served to dilute the Ukrainians and counterbalance the Galicians. If the Soviets had added another oblast or two populated with Russians as a “gift” Ukraine would have been another Belarus. If the Soviets had added most of southern Russia, Ukraine probably would not have even become independent.
Can be good to revive the I’m friends with racists from all over meme.
Rightoids are ADD + Autism, and after 2-3 years in power go Bix Nood we Gonna Conquer the Galaxy
Leftoids are about the same, so I don’t collect their tears in a seperate cup.
Neither is going to save civ, btw. They’re feminists (Sado-Masochists, SAD)
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
I’ve enjoyed visiting Costa Rica, but I can’t imagine someone who has actually driven around there comparing it to Spain. The nice parts of Costa Rica are nice, and it has an abundance of natural beauty, and it’s cheap and the default attitude of the people is very mellow and friendly (“pura vida”), but it’s still a Latin American country. The default vibe of the place, outside very tourist/ex-pat/posh areas, is still dilapidated and slummy. Crime is low by Latin American standards, but not by developed country standards. Is there any place in Spain that looks like this (slum outside San Jose)?
https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/the-rustcolored-roofs-of-the-slums-of-san-jose-costa-rica-picture-id174466233?s=612×612
Have your Polish friends visited Costa Rica during the pandemic period? I’m at least two years overdo for a visit, but the government there is putting up roadblocks for incoming visitors, and my friend who lives there is a bit of a “cultist”.
It’s indeed a beautiful country with a lot of space to work out any wandering tropical adventures that you’ve ever dreamt about. I’m sure your kids would love it, not so sure about the Mrs. She’d have to be an “outdoor” sort of person to enjoy it, not all women are… I’ve never had to stay much at any hotels etc, for I stay with friends. If you ever decide to go, I can give you a much fuller detailed opinion of where to go and what to do. The touristy spa accommodations in the Arenal area are quite nice though -highly recommended!
https://exp.cdn-hotels.com/hotels/3000000/2310000/2307400/2307339/a2a21d7a_z.jpg?impolicy=fcrop&w=1000&h=666&q=medium
The Spring Resort, Arenal
I’ve stayed at a neighboring clean motel for $30 a night that included breakfast, and then for $20 a day took advantage of all the amenities at this beautiful spa, where fees ranged from $300 – $600+/night. Of course, I was always on the lookout for belligerent mestizos and Sikhs, lurking behind the beautiful shrubs and trees. 🙂
My friends weren’t in the slums though. And the nice and safe areas are numerous and expansive enough that one doesn’t feel like in a cage there (unlike in South Africa). But I haven’t been there yet…
Costa Rica has a much higher homicide rate (about 11.3/100,000) than Spain of course. If Costa Rica were an American state, only Louisiana would have a higher homicide rate.
I couldn’t see your photo, as it wouldn’t appear? Anyway, most big cities in the world do have some awful slum areas. I’ve spent some time within a poorer neighborhood in San Jose, and still felt rather safe. You do have to be careful wherever you travel these days. Just past the outskirts of the quaint town/suburb of Corona in northeastern San Jose, hiking by a beautiful stream, I did see some shanty houses, now that was an eye opener for me. But this was way out in the country already, and not more than 5-6 such ready made “cottages”. I do recall a young teenage girl peering out of the door of one such shanty, sadness and loneliness in her eyes.
If they’re not too bad, slums can be fascinating places. The chaos and color can lend an extraordinary vibrancy.
In the modern world, our living conditions tend to be too sterile, clean, and soulless. We have no connection to earthiness, to grime, to real life.
The explosion in allergies and autoimmune diseases are likely at least partly caused by our disconnection from dirt and earthiness – I was reading allergies particularly afflict rich liberal areas.
I suspect the epidemic of mental disease, depression, anxiety also comes from our isolation in sterile castles and our disconnection from life and dirt.
We in the modern, rich countries are too comfortable and life too convenient. Not only does that make life boring and vaguely anxious and unsatisfying, it leads to dysfunction and disease.
Of course, some slums are truly awful. But many slums are just called that from the perspective of the sterile, antiseptic modern conditions we are supposed to love but hate.
Nassim Taleb says the rich hate living in their mansions – and what we all crave is some small, human scale, cramped apartment or house in a vibrant community and not some empty, vast, lonely palace.
It might seem inconceivable to you that someone can post a comment on AK’s blog without paying much attention to what you have been discussing with someone else before but if you don’t want to look autistic, you should get used to the idea.
I really don’t have any opinion on how Ukraine’s education laws compare with France’s wrt minority languages.
I know that in France a sizeable amount of Basque children (the majority in multiple localities) are educated in their native language up to college level but I haven’t been following the news about the new Ukrainian education laws so how can I have any opinion on that subject?
The other problem is that France does not have anything remotely comparable to the amount of Russian speakers in Ukraine so any comparison between both countries is moot anyway.
I hope that they’re not trying to stamp out the Russian language form their education system because I wouldn’t be surprised if Russian is actually the most spoken language in Ukraine. A friend of mine from Central Ukraine was recently telling me that she sometimes felt uncomfortable when one of her parents talked to her in Ukrainian. I could relate to this because in all bilingual families, especially in diglossic environments, there is usually a preferred language of everyday communication.
Where I do have an opinion is on the outlawing of separatist and Communist organizations in Ukraine. Even if France, the most centralist country of the EU, regional separatist parties are legal and they regularly take part in elections with all normality. As for the Communists, they even formed part of the French government. I don’t see how Ukraine banning people from trying to change the constitutional order through peaceful means can be compatible with EU standards.
When I spent time in a poorer neighborhood in San Jose, Costa Rica, I slept a couple of nights in a large house of relatives of a friend of mine. The home was quite tidy, even had a nice hardwood china cabinet and matching dining room table and chairs. We had a great time, partying there late into the night. The owner had a good job working for Coca Cola as a driver and had a steady paycheck. The bedroom where I slept was quaint, and although the bedsheet on the bed was clean, it was very old. A good portion of it was disintegrating due to age. Have you ever seen a bedsheet so old that it was disintegrating due to its age? I slept great though and woke up refreshed and energized.
You’re right. I read somewhere that some studies were done that helped explain why residents of poorer neighborhood in the US had fewer casualties during the great Spanish flue, than those that lived in more affluent areas. The researchers concluded, especially for the children, that their immunity levels were stronger because they played more in the dirt and probably washed themselves up less frequently and thoroughly. Truth or fiction?
Do you believe Europeans are innately superior to others? Are those who do still Christians?
Do you find fighting racism ‘belligerent’ and are you more interested in tone policing than progress?
As I understand, you are a bachelor pensioner in his 80’s. So you find white supremacists inoffensive?
https://twitter.com/JDKnox4/status/1417680823525036035?s=20
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
Weird, I double-checked that link when I posted it and it worked but now it’s broken — maybe that site is watching for traffic from sources of thoughtcrime? But it was just some standard shanties with rusted corrugated steel roofs.
I don’t really disagree, but I think in the US or Western Europe when you see poor areas, people either live in slummy brutalist tenements that were decently if inhumanly constructed but are some decades old, or in once-decent but old houses or manufactured homes/trailers. In Costa Rica, the crappy housing is still basically standard Latin American shanties that were very crappy even when new and that you wouldn’t be allowed to build in the US or Europe. Also, your average Costa Rican town just has a very dilapidated feel on its main streets. Sort of dirty, not very good construction. I’ve driven through plenty of forgotten, failing rural American towns, and usually their main streets still look better than your average Costa Rican town.
Anyway, I mean to communicate that Costa Rica is good, I like Costa Rica and Costa Ricans, I wouldn’t even dismiss the possibility of one day living in Costa Rica, but some people get carried away talking it up. I’ll admit it was overhyped to me before I got there, presented as being basically like being in America or Europe, and as soon as I got outside the airport, my reaction was, “Oh. This is Latin America.”
NO.
I don’t know.
I’m most interested in everybody just getting along, and trying to avoid bloodshed wherever possible.
I’m not in my 80’s and I do find a lot of white supremacists to indeed be offensive. You do realize that most white supremacists would consider a Sikh to be a priori a darker skinned or Asian phenotype, somebody to be shunned and avoided, even though you might consider yourself to be white Aryan? I’ve seen Turkic/Uzbeks, that probably are much paler in color than the average Sikh referred to in the US by whites as “sand niggers”. Disgusting verbiage. 🙁
In Russia, you would most probably be referred to as a “чорная жопа”.
I fell in love with the place immediately. It was, and is, the only tropical country I’ve ever travelled to, and as you mentioned the natural beauty is spectacular. I’ve mostly stayed in areas that were good areas, meant for upper middle class folks who had some money or were well employed .
The 5-6 shanties that I mentioned above were, however, the real thing. Cardboard, metal, plastic and whatever that could be found all formed together to provide shelter. I have traveled through larger areas in Mexico city by overland subway where I could see large urban areas that included shanties and other sub-human environs for human living. I wouldn’t be foolish enough or in any hurry to take a nice leisurely stroll through any of these neighborhoods, escorted by a local or not. 🙁
https://twitter.com/sulkalmakh/status/1413508315506610176?s=21
Aryas have unshorn hair & weapons, w/o = eunuch and manhood/Dharma > phenotype.
Slavs have always been friendly, and Id agree in avoiding loss of civilians & livestock.
https://twitter.com/Kharagket/status/1105167528882589698?s=20
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
It wasn’t exactly an obscure point, and if you choose to enter a discussion with zero knowledge of context the fault is yours for any misunderstanding.
Not in state schools, only in private ones. The link you provided stated that only “over 4,000 students” were in the schools:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaska
It references to this article:
https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/education/seaska-depasse-les-4000-eleves-pour-cette-rentree-2019-2020-1567699004
Apparently 4,000 is a record high number of students. That’s not many.
Maybe there are other Basque private networks with additional students, who knows?
One reason why there are fewer such speakers is French language policy, which existed also while France was a member of the EU. Speakers of the Breton language Breton declined from 1 million speakers in 1950 to only 200,000 today – unlike Russian, this language is sadly on the road to extinction, an event occurring while France is a core member of the EU. Apparently in the 19th century 39% of France spoke Occitan languages, in 1993 it was down to 7%. Much of the disappearance occurred prior to the EU, but it has continued while France has been an EU member.
What France has been doing as a core EU member is far more serious than Ukraine’s actions. The Russian language will still survive and thrive if Ukraine’s Russians eventually became Ukrainian-speaking.
Coming back to Beckow’s point – thus, it isn’t only the Baltic Republics who pursue such policies in the EU, France does too. So Ukraine’s laws limiting Russian schools to primary grades and in secondary schools content to 20% of the school day are within European norms.
As for Ukraine’s Russian speakers – many Russian-speakers support Ukrainianization. It’s not a big deal in Ukraine, probably in part because it is easy for Russians to learn, unlike Estonian.
Here is a poll:
http://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=960&t=10&page=1
66.5% of Ukrainians support the language law, 19.8% oppose it.
49.7% of Ukraine’s Russian-speakers support the language law. 34.4% oppose it.
Communist Party killed millions of Ukrainians last century. Nothing wrong with this genocidal organization being banned in the country that had been its killing-ground. France did not have such a situation. In the specific context of military conflict in the Southeast, banning separatist parties is reasonable (otherwise I don’t think it should be).
Look, I’m not a racist and don’t have a problem with you, your people or your religion. Like I say, “live and let live”.
From what I know of your people and history, you are certainly a vibrant and interesting specimen. I don’t however, understand why you personally appear at this website usually trying to promote your warlike nature and all the pictures of swords and horsemen?
I haven’t seen sheets quite so threadbare, but I’ve stayed on very basic accomodations in my time traveling in Asia.
Fact is, there is a certain charm in worn abd old things. We’re so used to surrounding ourselves with gleaming, new, modern junk – but that has no character. We recognize that faded jeans and old houses have aracter, but so does old furniture, old bedding, etc.
I once read a book about how Time is an artist – it’s so true. A patina of age lends almost anything beauty.
Everyone is so afraid of “poverty” – but true poverty doesn’t exist anymore. People don’t realize how comfortably you can live today in “poverty” – even live better, surrounded by more charm and character.
Realizing this would go a long way towards freeing us from our mental chains and our fear of authority. It’s the first step. Years of travelling in areas where you couldn’t get a nice modern hotel if you wanted to made me wake up one day and realize – I’m happy here!
As for allergies and dirt, I think its true for mental resilience as well. Along with allergies, rich liberals have a culture of maximizing safety and survival – they are hysterical about danger and death. This leads to mental disorders that are analogous to autoimmune disease – crippling anxiety, experiences foregone, life not lived.
A tragedy.
You have cherry-picked a EU country with one of the most repressive language laws and are trying to claim that that is the “EU norm”. No, that’s not the norm. France itself is beyond EU norms in this regard. Take a look at the map of countries that have signed and ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. As you can see, even Ukraine has ratified it, while France has not.
It’s ridiculous that, while most people in Kiev are speaking Russian in daily life, there are no Russian schools there. Russian is so widely spoken in Ukraine that it really should have some kind of official status: a second state language, or a regional language, or something like that. Of course, Ukraine has the right to promote the use of the Ukrainian language, but it should not be done by essentially outlawing the language that is a native language of so many Ukrainian citizens.
France is the second largest and second most important EU member, so yes, if France follows the policy, it is well within the norm rather than some kind of outlier.
It’s not ridiculous when the majority of people in Kiev (including therefore most of the Russian speakers) want it that way. Many Russian-speakers in laces like Kiev speak Russian because that is what comes easiest, but they consider it a patriotic duty to support such language policies. For many of them Ukrainian is the language of their grandparents, or of village cousins.
According to whom? Ukraine’s voters, or random internet commenters? If Ukraine’s people didn’t want that, they would have voted for parties that opposed it. But only ~25% of Ukraine’s voters do so.
I agree with much of what you say. In the US, it seems, that a lot of upper middle class and rich folk aspire to what I call the “Ethan-Allan” style of furniture décor. In its prim and proper exposition, this style is often so very perfect and monotone, that it quickly sinks into a very boring repertoire. Give me Bohemian eclectic (perhaps just a bit toned down) any day of the week. 🙂
https://cdn.decorilla.com/online-decorating/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/bohemian-sitting-room.jpg
Now here’s a comfortable and fun living space
https://cdn.decorilla.com/online-decorating/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/bohemian-design-peacock-chair-6.jpg
It doesn’t need to be real expensive either. I like the idea of bringing the outdoors indoors by the use of exotic house plants. The house in this photos is probably quite expensive, but you can use these sorts of ideas in a less expensive home. In my own home, I devote a lot of space to bookshelves and books (very old fashioned by today’s standards, but books are my passion.).
Care to explain how you came up with this figure?
590,000 Ukrainians were killed in WW1. This figure includes both military and civilian deaths, from both Russian and Austro-Hungarian sides. Most of these were from the Russian side, of course, so we can describe these deaths as “Austro-Hungarians and allies killing Ukrainians”.
15,000 Ukrainians fighting in Petliura’s forces were killed during the Russian Civil War. 875,818 Soviets were killed. How many of them were Ukrainians, I don’t know, so let’s assume 20% for 175,164. 911,000 Whites were killed. Again, I don’t know how many of them were Ukrainians, but surely a smaller proportion than in the Red Army, so let’s assume 10% for 91,100. These deaths can be described as “pro-Soviet Russians and Ukrainians, pro-Empire Russians and Ukrainians, and pro-independence Ukrainians all killing each other”.
Next, ~1,350,000 residents of Ukrainian SSR died of hunger during the 1933 Soviet famine (the total number of victims of this famine was 2,500,000):
The food requisitions teams in Ukrainian SSR were staffed by… (drumroll)… Ukrainians and Jews. So it was “overzealous careerist Ukrainians and Jews killing Ukrainian peasants by taking all their food” (which was against Stalin’s directives, by the way), not Russians. Of course, the ultimate responsibility for the famine lies with Stalin. He knew how often famines were occuring in the Russian Empire and, as an all-powerful ruler of the Soviet Union, ostensibly founded to serve workers and peasants, should have created sufficient grain reserves to prevent new famines. An obvious socialist thing to do, and he didn’t do it. Further, he should have foreseen how the excesses in food requisitions could result in deaths and should have double-checked and triple-checked that only the surpluses were requisited, and he didn’t do it. Only months later, when he started receiving the death numbers, he realized what was going on. Criminal negligence that resulted in millions dying horrible deaths. Stalin was, of course, Georgian, not Russian.
Next, 8,789 West Ukrainian prisoners were killed by NKVD as the Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. As NKVD was staffed by all nationalities, we can describe this as “Russians and Ukrainians killing Ukrainians”.
Next, 1,377,400 pro-Soviet Ukrainians fighting in the ranks of the Red Army were killed by Germans and their allies. Pro-Reich/pro-independence Ukrainians didn’t really take part in the regular battles, so we can describe these deaths as “Germans killing Ukrainians”.
Next, 1,500,000–1,600,000 Jewish residents of the Ukrainian SSR were killed by Ukrainian Auxiliary Police forces staffed by pro-Reich/pro-independence Ukrainians (who later joined UPA).
Next, 155,000 pro-independence Ukrainian rebels (OUN) were killed by the Red Army and, after the war, NKVD. We can describe these deaths as “pro-independence militant Ukrainians killed by Russiand and pro-Soviet Ukrainians”.
And that’s it. From then on, the population of Ukrainian SSR steadily grew, from 36,905,000 in 1950 to the absolute peak of 52,244,100 in 1993; afterwards, the population of independent Ukraine steadily declined, to 45,426,249 in 2014. In 2015, the population sharply declined to 42,929,298 due to Crimea voting to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation (Crimean MPs were coerced by Russian armed forces to vote for holding the referendum; the referendum was illegal according to Ukrainian laws; Russian armed forces guarded polling stations, preventing Ukrainian law enforcement from shutting down the illegal referendum). Ukrainian population then continued to decline, to 41,902,416 in 2020. Some experts believe that the real population of Ukraine is much lower, as low as 35,000,000 (estimated from production of bread), as Ukraine has not had a census in 20 years. Of course, the decline in Ukraine’s population doesn’t mean that these Ukrainians were killed, rather, they migrated to other countries.
So there you have it: a total of 15,000 + 8,789 + 155,000 = 178,789 pro-independence Ukrainians killed by Russians and anti-independence Ukrainians over the course of the 20th century. Not “millions”, as you claim. Millions were killed by: (1) Stalin failing to create grain reserves to prevent famines and properly organize food requisitions after the 1933 famine has started, (2) Germans, (3) pro-independence Ukrainians (if one considers Ukrainian Jews to be Ukrainians).
Thanks for supplying the Soviet claims.
Actual number of dead from famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933 was around 3 million (all USSR was around 6 million).
https://web.archive.org/web/20080320010655/http://lj.streamclub.ru/history/tragedy.html
Soviet regime was ruled by Moscow. It came to Ukraine thanks to an invasion from Moscow. Within Ukraine, at least in the 1920s and 1930s it was mostly run by Russian and Jews and Latvians. Orders came from Moscow. The ones implementing the directives were mostly urban people – in Ukraine, this meant a few Ukrainians but also a lot of Russians and Jews. One of my grandparents was from a famine-stricken area in Ukraine at that time it was urban Russian-speakers.
I do not blame Russians ccollectively for this; the Bolsheviks seized power by force, the Russian people didn’t choose them and they too were victims. But it was a Moscow government, of non-Ukrainians.
It is not about resorts and gated communities. What I was describing is the slow latin-americanization of US with the shanty towns, lower incomes, dumber population, shorter less interesting people, etc…Even in Central America you can avoid it by hiding in a resort, but that is not an argument – it kind of proves the opposite.
I am not a cosmopolitan in any sense of that term, I have no idea where you would get that impression. I am very local, almost parochial, and think long-term – in generations. I am familiar with the world due to academia and business. In particular, I know US Southwest well, e.g. Texas. So you cannot pull wool over my eyes, like any reasonable observer I can see what is going on there.
You have decided to like it, the choloization (basically a mestizo culture), the growing filth and squalor. You see the good parts, there always are some good parts. But in the long run you and your descendants will become that – they will be living like mestizos in a mestizo society. Hiding from it is irrelevant. That is the reality that you should address: is it right to replace US culture with this already existing elsewhere Latin culture? Is it beneficial? What are we losing by doing it? That is the question and not whether one can chill with mamasitas on Costarican beaches. (I could, but that is my shallow side.)
You are right and thank you for the summary numbers. There is an almost insane emotional need to hate Russians among some here – no matter how they try to constantly deny it. So they will exaggerate the numbers, or simply ignore them. The problems of Ukraine are largely caused by Ukrainians and Jews living there with the usual small contribution by surrounding nations, Russians, Poles, Germans. Let’s not forget the Romanians who did quite a genocide number in Odessa during WWII – it was theirs ‘occupied territory’.
Ok, that’s one way to describe it. But isn’t every change of borders against law when it happens? Then there is Kosovo. How can anyone in the West talk about ‘illegal’ change of borders after what they did in Kosovo? There has to be some minimal consistency otherwise we are just shouting abuse at each other.
AP, come on. People should speak what ever they want. These are small things which hinder Ukrainian development. Focus on other things.
There are quite worse fates for the US, alas, as South Africa might suggest. The Castizo Murica is one of the more merciful fates.
This is hardly surprising. The first capital of Russian civilization, in the early Middle Ages, was Kiev, center of the Rus empire. I’m actually surprised the number of Ukrainians claiming this heritage is only 41%.
Lol, Beckow endorsing someone’s numbers is not a good thing for that person’s claims.
Like Soviet rule wasn’t brought to Ukraine by an army from outside Ukraine.
S2’s approach towards German concentration camps: there were Jewish kapos and Ukrainian guards. Thus Auschwitz was a German-Jewish-Ukrainian killing of Jews.
Czechs collaborated extensively with their German overlords:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership
Thus, all Nazi crimes against Czechs were actually Germans and Czechs killing Czechs.
Moreover, Ukraine’s local Jewish Bolsheviks (such as Trotsky) tended to be Russian-speakers from Russian-speaking urban outposts.
Etc.
Beckow can’t help himself but dishonestly exaggerate numbers even in that case. America’s future is Castizo, not Mestizo. And with a better-functioning Anglo framework rather than an Iberian one. So overall not much like Mexico or Central America.
It was a Novgorod Prince Oleg who moved his locale from Novgorod to Kiev at the time that the Rus period is typically chronicled.
On your point about not claiming that heritage, not doing so suggests something different from what Putin said about Russia and Ukraine – the same that Zelensky said back in 2014.
No one is hindering them form speaking hat they want in private or with each other. Most Ukrainian voters don’t want the Ukrainian state to have state schools in Russian and the state follows those policies.
Most Ukrainian voters don’t want the Ukrainian state to have state schools in Russian and the state follows those policies.
Schooling is not a public good as economists understand the term. It’s a fee-for-service activity which arises naturally on the open market. The utility of provision by public agency is that you can establish a consumption baseline for the whole population, and roughly similar devotion of resources to each segment of the population. You can and should limit state provision of primary and secondary schooling to odd-lots clientele and have ordinary schooling provided by philanthropic bodies funded by vouchers issued by local governments. In so doing, you can let parental sovereignty prevail in these matters. Quality control can be provided by subject-specific, age-specific, track-specific examinations administered by the government. Given the balance of language preferences favored in and among the population, it’s gratuitously discourteous to insist that these examinations be composed and administered only in Ukrainian. (The same observation would apply in White Russia, Latvia, and Estonia, with the qualification that it’s proper to insist Russophones in Latvia and Estonia pass proficiency tests in the local tongue).
You’re talking about hypothetical scenarios and probably have apocalyptic visions ingrained in your head fueled by seeing how the Roma community lives in Slovakia. Mexicans are not Roma people!
I actually live in a neighborhood that you’re so afraid of seeing develop. When I first moved here 20 years ago it was about 10% – 15% Mexican, and today the Mexican element has grown to somewhere in the 20% – 30% range. Phoenix is a little bit different (than say in the Midwest) because within a large neighborhood you can find enclaves of homes representing different socio-economic classes. I live in a middle-middle class enclave, whereas just two city blocks south is an enclave with homes up to 2 million dollar in cost that sit on very large lots, and to the east smaller less expensive homes, definitely peopled by a lot of Mexicans. One element that unites the whole neighborhood, is that its clean and very well kept up. Pride of home ownership is evident everywhere. I purchased my home 20 years ago for 110k,and today it could be sold for 300k. There are no gangs in my neighborhood, everybody minds their own business and is busy, with folks taking care of their yards and homes. Why don’t I sell my home, make a tidy profit and move elsewhere? I’ve thought about it, but why? It’s really a great neighborhood, full of the same sunshine that you’d find in affluent Paradise Valley and North Scottsdale. My property taxes were raised for the first time to just over $1,000 last year. Now where are you going to find that?
https://ssl.cdn-redfin.com/photo/86/bigphoto/343/6199343_0.jpg
Here’s a home from my very enclave that recently sold for 550,000. My home has a very similar size and dimensions, perhaps its jumped way up in value too? Wouldn’t be surprised if one of those nasty “cholos” purchased it. 🙂
I don’t say that the Spanish model is perfect and without problems. I know what happened with ETA and the Catalonian independency movement. But Spain was quite able to digest these tensions. The path chosen by the post-2014 Svido-regime is opposite to the Spanish model. Franco tried to suppress the Catalan language and failed. Logically, the Ukrainian regime (by far more incompetent than Franco’s regime) will fail to suppress the Russian language, which is spoken by half the population of the current-borders country (that’s former-Ukraine minus Crimea and minus liberated areas of Donbass).
Russian was spoken by slightly more than half of the previous-borders country but by less than half of the current-borders country. I’d guess it’s roughly 60/40. Around 95% of people in the oblasts that were annexed in 1939-1945 speak Ukrainian (there are pockets of Russian-speakers in Lviv and Uzhhorod – their kids are assimilating). This territory alone is about 10 million people or 25% of the country. In the rest of the country, rural areas (as far east as Kharkiv oblast and as far south as Kherson oblast) speak Ukrainian while cities speak Russian, though not exclusively – Kiev is about 10% to 15% Ukrainian-speaking, one regularly hears the Ukrainian language on its streets from time to time. Right Bank oblast centers such as Vynnytsia are around half Ukrainian and half Russian speaking.
There is an assumption by some pro-Russians that the percentage of Russian-speakers equals the percentage of people who are somehow being discriminated against in Ukraine -i.e., that Ukraine is unstable because it is “forcing” Ukrainian upon half the country or this constitutes a form of suppression. In reality, nearly half of Ukraine’s Russian-speakers (such as most of Kiev’s Russian-speaking residents) support the language laws, as does most of the Ukrainian-speaking majority. About 20% to 25% don’t like it.
Well said, S2. And it’s Ukrainian that would be the second language, not Russian.
Yes, I also suspect that Ukraine won’t be able to make all its citizens switch from Russian to Ukrainian, hard though they try.
Generally speaking, I think that the problem in that country is that too many people seem to still be living in the 30s-40s of the past century. During the Catalan secession attempt a group of paramilitaries armed to their teeth (from the Azov Battalion, if I’m not mistaken) found it their duty to send a video clip to Spanish media offering their help to fight the secessionists. It was quite embarrassing to watch. Neither the Catalans nor even the Spaniards had any intention of going to a military conflict. I doubt any Spaniard felt comforted by this bizarre display of solidarity from a neo-fascist group.
Instead of making pointless comparisons with France, Ukrainians could look at more similar countries with a successful history of peaceful coexistence, like Belgium for example. In Belgium they also have similar numbers of citizens speaking two different languages and one of them (French) being spoken in a much larger neighboring country. Whatever the Belgians have done to coexist, not without some difficulties, inside the same country seems worthy of emulation, although if I were a Fleming, I would possibly be on the separatist camp.
It sure would be nice, but nigh impossible in today’s environment. It’s hard to coexist with a neighbor that sneaks into your backyard and rips off territory and then supports “separatists” in other territories. Or with a neighboring leader that insists that “Ukraine is not a country” and now that Ukrainians are not a separate people but one and the same as Russians? Where else in the world do you see this kind of behavior? Where else in the world would you see this kind of behavior countenanced by the country under attack? I know that you probably think that this situation is all Ukraine’s fault..but it’s not.
Sorry for replying only now but you know, real life obligations.
What you wrote, namely that the Rus was divided, could not reunite and not fend off the Tatar-Mongol horde sort of proves my original point. BTW keep in mind, that division was the thing in Medieval Europe. Germany was and remained so for a very long time, similarly the Polish Kingdom which however managed to reunite. But in case of Rus it was as it was no in small part due to the Tatar-Mongols. Enough said about that.
Thanks for remaindering the readership about King Sobieski’s role in putting a check to the Turkish advance. However, since you were entertaining alternatives one might as well put forward the notion that the Ottomans would not have been stopped or had recovered. Discarding such because it does not fit with the “in alternative history the Ukrainians would have expanded anyway” thesis is dishonest. Because they might have recovered and Kiev could be a Turkish or Tatar city nowadays, especially that the PLC was about to decline for a number of reasons too numerous to discuss here. Which brings on the next point: fortunately, at least for the future of the Ukraine and its people, the Russian Empire stepped in.
It is not that it “just happened to be Russia”. The fact that it was the Russian Empire (let it be Russia for short) which was the one that did the Tatars and Turks in what became the Ukraine was crucial for the development of the Ruthenia / Little Russian / Rusin / Ukrainian (pick your choice) people and their expansion. Again it was Russian as the driving force there much to the benefit of their aforementioned brethren. An alternative history Polish or Hapsburg expansion (especially the former) might not have been that good for the Ruthenia / Little Russian / Rusin / Ukrainians especially if history up to that point is anything to go by. So yes, the Russians were the benefactors of their “Little Russian” brethren and that big time.
Moving on to the other points you raised. Inclusion of Eastern Malopolska / Galicia was not some sort of reword for the Ukrainians effort on the Soviet side in WWII. Keep in mind the timeline. It was grabbed by Stalin in 1939 when he was playing the hyena or vulture to Hitler. Of course either way that does not in any way invalidate the point that long term it was in effect “giving” the Ukraine to the “best” of the Lvovian café “super Svido” the “only real and true Ukrainians” with the results we are unfortunately seeing today.
As for the Crimea it was “given” by Khrushchev when he had one of his Ukrainist bouts. The spasms and whims of that guy were costly for the Soviet Union and its various peoples this just being one example of a “poisoned seed” the current conflict being its fruit. But then again there are reasons the Soviet Union is no more and many decisions of its leaders are among them.
FFS, we have the “spectacle” of your autistic cretinism having no knowledge of an issue, seeking to waste further time by inventing instantaneous BS on the issue and randomly copying the first thing you see on Wikipedia…… now we have this nonsense :
Sikhs we’re well noted for being extremely strong, brave and notoriously good soldiers you demented imbecile – that’s why the British incorporated so many of them into their armies. Again its just you randomly BS-ing on something you know nothing about. Compare the renowned Sikhs with the cowardly, women and children murdering UPA/OUN scum – where the highest amount of “respect” shown by the Nazis towards them was allowing them to play dead corpses in late WW2 propaganda films. Note that the Sikhs do actually fight – not willfully prostitute themselves as rejects of Austrians/jews/poles and even Romanians for 400 years like Galician ukrop freaks have done, with no resistance at all.
One of the British Kings even had his coronation ceremony in India – not only a huge sign of respect but probably a proof of how much British were worried about Indian resistance.
LMAO-even the most empty-headed bimbos know you can’t compare sizes in armies when there is such a disparity in firepower. Seriously Karlin, you can’t see what’s wrong with this wacko? Does anybody think like me that’s it’s blatant this clown thinks Boers are native African tribe as Zulus, based on how he is making these retarded statements?
Because, unlike a fantasist like you, I have an international passport – I know that Afrikaaners/ Boers are built like trucks. They were also from the the most advanced European countries and had European weapons with 200 year advantage of living at high altitude – making any comparison with anglo-Sikh wars ( 100 years before) painfully idiotic.
Going back to the size of the army – Boers were living on the most desired land there probably has ever been in history you idiot – huge levels of gold and other resources. With Jews often falsely accused of starting wars, the Boer wars are unique in that Jews were definitely responsible for creating this one. The size of the British army reflects not only on the critical importance to the British Empire and world finance of securing this land, it also reflects on the fact they are fighting on the “High veld” – it requires significant engineering skill and size of army to cross that distance with supplies and weapons, upto that significant altitude, in lands with no road network in place at the time to secure such a large area of land. Knowing a large number of soldiers are going to struggle to fight at altitude is also a critical issue you dimwit.
I know there’s the digging up the black sea Khokhol myths – any fictitious Russian – “Ukrainian” wars you are currently BS-editing on Wikipedia? LMAO
Belgium has a sclerotic and needlessly rococo political order. If there’s one occidental country which would benefit from a velvet divorce it’s Belgium. Canada is another country which would benefit from that.
He conflates two issues. Co-existence of people on different ends of the cultural spectrum in the Ukraine might be enhanced by decentralization – e.g. devolving decision making on a half-dozen coarse regional administration and selectively replacing state provision with household choice among private providers. (You still have to adjudicate disputes over what is to be the language of the military and the language of the civil service in each part of the country, as well as under what circumstances government employees will be expected to pass language proficiency tests). Co-existence of the Ukraine and Russia can be had by Russia leaving the Ukraine in peace, something it has for seven years been disinclined to do; you’re seeing the excuses for that policy on these boards.
As for the Crimea it was “given” by Khrushchev when he had one of his Ukrainist bouts. The spasms and whims of that guy were costly for the Soviet Union and its various peoples this just being one example of a “poisoned seed” the current conflict being its fruit. But then again there are reasons the Soviet Union is no more and many decisions of its leaders are among them.
Khruschev’s spasms and whims were often manifestations of the kernel of decency you can find in the most inclement circumstances. He was beneficial to Soviet Russia and to the world.
You need slaves in that equation somewhere. Western livelihoods have never been egalitarian.
Moscow or at least the Golden Ring, Moscow came late, was colonized from Kiev at the beginning of the Medieval Warm Period. There were always Rus in Western and Central Ukraine. The dialects diverged when the northerners became part of the post Mongol power structures. The Great Russians indeed colonized the Don Valley, as you say. The previous population included Little Russians as far to the North East as Saratov where they still live and Finns of different kinds who seem to have been there first.
Indeed, if a country is over a civilizational fault line, the only realistic way to keep it united is to avoid imposition of one culture over the other one. Belgium managed to function as a country over the Germanic-Romanic borderline while Canada is, so far, functioning quite OK. But I don´t see Anglo-Canadians trying to erase the French language from Quebec. Trying to erase Russian from the historic Novorossiya is a Svido dream doomed to fail. Anyway, they can keep trying if they want. The logic result will be the widening of the fault-line.
Sure, but Germany was united far longer prior to its disunion. Also, the Rus state involved Scandinavian Rus conquering a bunch of geographically distant Slavic tribes. These guys did not even become Slavicised for about a century at least (maybe around 1000 – Vladimir lived in exile in Norse lands and seized the throne with Norse troops, he couldn’t have been fully Slavicized), and then the whole project fell apart permanently around 1150. They provided the people whom they ruled with the name “Rus” and with the Greek faith that they forced upon them. It was somewhat of an ephemeral entity.
Well, the point is that the PLC had kept the Ottomans in check in that part of the world when the Ottomans had been at the peak of their power. But then the PLC fell apart right before they could take advantage as the Ottoman declined, and Russia was there to pick up the pieces. They piggybacked on the efforts of the PLC, which included proto-Ukrainians.
There was settlement in the south but Ukrainians did relatively better within the PLC and within Austria than within the Russian Empire.
Ukrainian lands in the 16th-17th centuries under PLC were better educated than Russian lands (you have to extrapolate the line to the 17th century):
https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/historical-numeracy-russia-poland-ukraine.png
18th century Right Bank was another story, for various reasons.
There was a brain drain of better educated Ukrainians into Russia when the Left Bank was annexed. Russian rule meant expansion of serfdom under Catherine. Ukraine became a backwater.
Under Hapsburgs, serfdom was eliminated earlier. Galicians achieved full literacy of students by 1910. Hapsburg Galicia was richer than Russia overall (and the Balkans, and Portugal)*, never mind the Ukrainian lands next door. With the exception of urban places like St. Petersburg or Moscow (and fore some reason Yaroslavl), Galicians under the Hapsburgs were the most educated East Slavic population.
Rule by Moscow resulted in ethnic Ukrainian settlement of the Black Sea coast, which probably would have been inevitable anyways. Otherwise it wasn’t good for Ukraine. But it was good for Russia, so Russians will want to convince Ukrainians otherwise.
*In 1890 the per capita product, in 2010 dollars, for Galicia was $1,947. It was higher than that of Portugal ($1,789), Bulgaria ($1,670), Greece ($1,550), Russia ($1,550), and Serbia ($1,295)
Post-Soviet Ukraine in the 1990s had a lower nominal per capita product than Galicia in 1890!
Or lose the places on the other side of the fault line. This was Crimea and Donbas. It’s done. The test was 2014 – any region that really wanted to leave had the opportunity to do so, because Ukraine had no army or real central authority. Looks like ethnicity has meant more than language; Crimea and urban Donbas left, Kharkiv stayed (Kharkiv is about 70% ethnic Ukrainian, versus 48% in Donetsk).
Russian-speaking Kiev is happy where it is. As is Dnipropetrovsk, etc. Even Kharkiv and Odessa seem to be satisfied.
Correction: Kharkiv is 63% Ukrainian, versus 48% in Donetsk (Kharkiv oblast is 70% Ukrainian).
The game is not over as far as Svidos try to impose their “culture” over the population of Novorosiya. While the game stated much earlier, in 2014 it just surfaced. Indeed, the non-disintegration game is not over even in Spain, a country far richer and stable than Ukraine. Franco’s failed attempt to erase the Catalan language should be a warning shot to Svidos. But they are too dumb to learn and it seems they will keep trying to erase the Russian language. A successful completion of this project seems to have likelihood much lower than the one of trying so erase the Catalan from Spain. Anyway, Svidos have right to try,… and face the consequences.
The wishful thinking is very strong in you. The population of remaining so-called Novorossiya is mostly ethnic Ukrainian and mostly supports the nationalization project. Most of the soldiers keeping the separatists at bay in Donbas are from places like Dnipropetrovsk. Even the ultranationalists out there such as Azov and Right Sector are locals to that region.
As I wrote, 2014 was the test. No one was there to stop secession, if there was a mass wish for it. There was, in Crimea and to a lesser but real extent in urban Donbas. The attempt to recreate Donetsk in majority-Ukrainian Odessa and Kharkiv went nowhere. In Odessa it was crushed not by Galicians but by fellow “Novorossiyans.”
Putin is not a wishful thinker like you. He knew where he was really wanted.
Would Kharkiv resist a Russian invasion and occupation as bitterly as would Kiev? Most likely not. But does that mean that Kharkiv, Odessa or Dnipropetrovsk would choose Moscow over Kiev? No. Donetsk and Crimea would, and did. When given the chance, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Odessa did not.
All three of the latter cities have solid ethnic Ukrainian majorities. Donetsk and Crimea do not.
Do you think this is a coincidence?
Imagine believing that a Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainian in Dnipropetrovsk belongs to a different nation than his Ukrainian-speaking cousin in the village, or than a Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainian in Kiev, as a Catalonian belongs to a different nation than a Castillian Spaniard.
If you were an Englishman, you would think that any minute now the English-speaking people of Dublin will insist that their region rejoins the UK.
2014 proved that the real dividing line in Ukraine was ethnic, not linguistic. No matter how desperately you wish.
Probably, But the schools will remain Ukrainian-language even if the people who support the schools being Ukrainian-language will speak Russian amongst themselves.
Attitudes towards language policies:
http://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=960&page=1&t=10
Support is softer in the East, but still the East supports it more than opposes (55% support in East, vs. 78% support in the West).
Poll about geopolitical orientation of Ukrainians:
http://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=1054&page=1
Integration with EU is favored over integration Russia in western, central, southern, and eastern Ukraine. In the West, Center and South, the EU is the most popular choice. In the East, EU barely beats Eurasia but the majority prefers neither (26% EU, 24% Eurasia, 40% neither).
So EU orientation doesn’t really split Ukraine. Some regions favor it more strongly than others, but all of them are on board.
And support for EU integration/rejection of Eurasia is stable in Ukraine over time:
http://www.kiis.com.ua/materials/pr/20211807_geopolitics/6ukr.jpg
NATO membership OTOH wins only in the West and Center. But in the South it is within a few percentage points. The South includes both Dnipropetrovsk and Odessa; I suspect NATO loses in Odessa but wins in Dnipropetrovsk. But it may win among the youth in Odessa.
Only the East is definitely opposed to NATO. I suppose this (unlike language policy, unlike EU integration) could be a wedge issue, not splitting away the South, but the East. However formal NATO membership is not really going to happen any time soon, realistically. So Ukraine can peacefully pursue EU integration and Ukrainianization while NATO is off the table.
A very accurate summation of the political and cultural situation within Ukraine today. As I’ve been reading your comments here for years now, I would say that this comment summarizes a lot of your thoughts about Ukraine and 2014 based on meticulous research. Good job!
No surprise:
https://www.rt.com/russia/530888-xenophobic-caricatures-ukrainian-artist/
Belgium should have remained under Hapsburg rule.
I could have hardly asked for a more eloquent validation of my point above that Ukraine has little to fear from the West with regards to its treatment of Russian speakers.
I wonder if they think that publishing that kind of cartoons is also compatible with EU norms. Most likely they just don’t care. If they can get away with bombing civilian areas, why should they?
One cartoon depicts three specific politicians as cockroaches (not “Russian-speakers” as a group), another shows an old out of touch lady avoiding Ukrainian-language tv – the message seems to be, don’t be like an old Soviet lady, watch Ukrainian language television. Nothing particularly wrong with that. The third one depicts a specific corrupt politician as a cockroach, with no mention of Jews. This one could be problematic, because the politician has stereotypically Jewish features.
Congratulations on aping the woke whiners, rt.
This cartoon simply shows that Russia is the sun of the Svido solar system. Without the hated gravity center the whole Svido system of ideologies collapses, simply because it is defined as “opposite to”. As a foundation to build a national identity is quite fragile because is based in negative values. This, in turn explain the passive-aggressive behavior of Svidomites and insecurities they continuously show when they try to explain “we are not”, “we oppose”, “we confront”, … That’s what Anatoly label as “fake and gay nationality”.
My intent is to highlight the snowflake woke hypocrisy of RFE/RL, which inaccurately highlights similarly presented depictions from the perspective of Russian and Serb nationalists/patriots.
Wokeness or hypocrisy aside, I found the second caricature pretty distasteful. Poor old people should be left alone to enjoy what remains of their lives as they can, obviously in their own language. And it seems clearly directed at a specific segment of the Ukrainian population.
In the parts of the EU I am familiar with, which is quite a few, you can hear disparaging comments about neighboring populations and, in fact, I was raised in a very xenophobic environment but this is basically done in private. I can’t imagine stuff like that caricature published in the media nowadays there. More for decency than for legal reasons, I think.
Interesting fantasy. Remind me of Russian superiority to the West?
Mal (further up this thread) and you have motivated me to give a detailed reply to such behavior as it pertains to Russia’s Olympic participation in Tokyo under the ROC designation.
You work between Russian and English, perhaps among more than that. Would like to call your attention to the automated translation built into globalresearch.ca. It would extend the reach of every writer at Unz. Looks like it is integrated in such a way that you could do the same rather easily.
This from one Golden Bear to another. Golden for no more than another year or two the way they are going.
There are still people who think that? Maybe this is spread by people to the right of Zelensky? But they are vying for votes with his party and cannot be taken seriously.
Zelensky is certainly distancing himself away more and more from Russian and specifically Putler’s ideology and vision for a unified “Russian world”. During a recent TV interview he spoke nostalgically about his youthful experiences of spending his summer’s in Crimea. He went on to state:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/DFD6/production/_119720375_48b3425e-d844-4164-ae3f-baa0548aa96a.jpg
Is Zelensky more Svidomyj than Dontsov or even Bandera?
https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/news-58068583
You can’t have a functional “democracy” (whatever that means anymore) if the various populations in its sub-cultures don’t agree on fundamental things.
When somewhere between 1/4 and half of your people disagree with the rest on something as fundamental as Ukraine’s relationship with Russia, the restive minority/plurality isn’t “participating” in democracy, it’s simply being oppressed by the majority.
Democratic votes work best for things like “tax rate – 20% or 23%?” or “where should we locate the airport?” They’re not good at fundamental issues like “should Ukraine align with Poland and the Rainbow Empire or Russia?”
The minority(ish) who want Russian affiliation largely reject the culture of the Rainbow Empire and will never rest easy within it – and vice-versa.
A permanent Fifth Column is toxic for any nation.
Sure. This is why it is good for Ukraine that all the territories with majority pro-Russian populations have left.
As for the rest of the pro-Russians – they are about 25% of Ukraine not almost half (it was almost half before , mostly in the East and South, but embedded within a majority pro-Ukrainian population in those regions. All regions of current Ukraine prefer EU over Eurasia and support Ukrainianization. The only thing dividing current Ukraine is NATO membership (see my other post), but that’s not on the table.
He’s more of an opportunist, given what he said back in 2014 and what he campaigned on when compared to his rival Poroshenko.
Kyiv has enjoyed a real estate boom fueled by the refugees from Crimea and Donbass. I think we got the cream of the crop – those who remain in the People’s Republic’s and Crimea probably are those who had Russian leanings or were attracted to the handouts by the Russian state.
Observing what has happened to the Russian occupied territories, Ukrainians whatever language they speak would almost all prefer the status quo over being under the thumb of either Russia or the West. Fear of Putin is certainly overblown by the press, which largely echoes the press in the West. On the other hand, the fear and disdain for the Western agenda is very real. Ukrainians do not want gay-rights parades, asylum-seekers, or welfare sponges.
If Russia would simply refrain from meddling in its neighbors’ business I expect we would naturally gravitate toward a Russian point of view. Unfortunately, neither Russia nor the West seems inclined to simply leave us alone to make our own choices. Russia’s heavy-handed dealing with Ukraine over gas transit, agricultural imports, overflights and transit of trains from China has alienated we who should be natural partners and allies against the depravity of the West.
Absolutely no fault of svidos and those who’ve gravitated a bit towards them eh?
When somewhere between 1/4 and half of your people disagree with the rest on something as fundamental as Ukraine’s relationship with Russia, the restive minority/plurality isn’t “participating” in democracy, it’s simply being oppressed by the majority.
The answers to some questions are binary. A country has only one foreign policy. (And, no, you’re not oppressed if you dislike your country’s foreign policy).
What’s the “opportunity” for Zelensky? Playing third fiddle for a Western team that doesn’t even want to meet with him, or being ceremoniously welcomed back into the fold by Putler and the rest of the Big Brother club? I’ve always maintained that for Ukrainians and Ukraine a “non-alligned status” like that of Finland makes the most sense for everybody involved. Ukrainian Seibert is clearly echoing these very same sentiments:
If you don’t mind an unsolicited opinion from the peanut gallery, the EU is proving injurious to the civic vitality of its member countries and the Euro is positively malignant. A liberal trade regime is beneficial, but the benefits are commonly oversold. Wagers Ukraine’s economic underperformance is derived from inefficiencies derived from suboptimal laws, institutions, and incentives hampering intramural trade and investment.
The EU has serious flaws. For Ukraine it is still better to integrate with the EU and work closely with the EU’s conservative members such as Poland or the Baltics, than to be swamped by Russia within the Eurasian union. Unfortunately those are the only two options. The Poroshenko-Tymoshenko-Zelensky merry-go-round beats a Yanukovich despotism backed up by Russian tanks.
Unfortunately those are the only two options.
You’re a sovereign country. Switzerland and Norway have prospered without joining trade blocs, much less the EU’s intrusive organs. And for an economy as large and diversified as the Ukraine’s, currency pegs can and should be avoided. You can work with other countries issue by issue without putting yourself in a straightjacket.
You live in your own world. I don’t know what svidos are, and the Internet doesn’t tell me. Please tell me what you are talking about. I’ve only lived in Kyiv for 14 years without encountering that term.
Here in the real world, Ukraine is governed by the same sort of people who seem to be in charge everywhere. Corrupt, beholden to financial interests. Not interested in the will of the people except insofar as they must to stay in power.
But, government is a given. I don’t find ours much worse than the average. I’m freer here than I was in the USA.
That’s an example of the fantasy world where the Svidos live in. Had really Russia backed Yanukovich with tanks, the Maidan mob would had been erased in a few hours.
What Russia really did was to send a few thousand soldiers (without tanks) to Crimea in order to deter bloodthirsty Svidos to vandalize the peninsula. This, in turn, allowed to conduct a peaceful referendum to decide the return of Crimea to the Mother Country and to left the sad historic Ukrainian-period of Crimea behind.
It was previously discussed why Zelensky changed his tune on Ukraine’s relationship with Russia. People like him are still hoping that certain things will happen and are more likely if they keep pushing for such.
Based on your comment that I replied to, your world is no more reality based. Regarding that initial exchange:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/07/18/getting-putin-intentions-wrong-again-on-russia-ukraine/
Svido is short for svidomite – an uncomplimentary term for Ukrainian nationalists with an anti-Russian bent.
Part of Ukraine’s corruption stems from the nefarious people you mention getting rich off foreign aid.
Yes, the there’re certain limits in the US.
Great tabloid point for the Atlantic Council.
However, Yanukovych wasn’t backed by Russia tanks. Rather, Russia went along with the internationally brokered power sharing arrangement which the West and the Euromaidan crowd violated – followed by the elevation of nationalist anti-Russia advocates – thus leading to what transpired in Crimea and Donbass.
Switzerland is a well-established international banking center and Norway is a rich oil-state. Neither is really threatened by a neighbor.
Ukraine is a poor ex-Soviet country with a large neighbor who has a history of annexing it. The EU ties have been very good to Poland.
Projection. You have such fantasies. Unlike you, I would not make a claim as silly as that Yanukovich had Russian tanks backing him (there were rumors that he had a Russian security detail, though I am not sure about that), but thanks for showing how your mind interprets what is written. I’m not a Ukrainian version of Aedib who spouts nonsense like “Mad Max word” in half of Ukraine.
I simply pointed out that Russian rule would mean a Yanukovich despotism backed by Russian tanks. Obviously, Yanukovich was overthrown before this could become a reality. Lukashenko is heading in that direction:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/belarus-leader-would-not-hesitate-invite-russian-troops-if-needed-2021-07-30/
MOSCOW, July 30 (Reuters) – Belarus would not hesitate to invite Russian troops if needed, President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday, although he said there was no need for them now.
:::::::::::::::::
The messy electoral politics while integrating with the EU that Ukraine got instead, is better than being ruled by a Yanukovich despot (who is even worse than Lukashenko, because he is much more corrupt) backed by Russian tanks.
I didn’t say he was.
I said Ukraine’s fate, if not for the Poroshenko-Tymoshenko-Zelensky merry-go-round, would be a Yanukovich despotism backed up by Russian tanks.
Switzerland is a well-established international banking center and Norway is a rich oil-state. Neither is really threatened by a neighbor.
You don’t have to be either to prosper, and you’re better off without hypertrophied extractive industries or hypertrophied finance. The more balanced is your internal economy, the less trade dependent is your country. For all that, they’ve done well.
The EU ties have been very good to Poland.
OK
One can assess the ratio of Poland’s per capita product (ppp) to that of the United States over time and one can assess the Ukraine’s as well.
Poland:
1990: 0.258
1991: 0.243 (nadir)
2003: 0.31 (eve of EU admission)
2020: 0.54
Ukraine:
1990: 0.306
1999: 0.109 (nadir)
2020: 0.202
That ratio increased by 2% per year in Poland during the period running from 1991 to 2003 and 3.3% per year from 2003 to 2020. Consistent with your thesis. However, that ratio has increased by 3% per year in the Ukraine since 1999, absent any EU membership. (Sources of economic growth not apportioned).
The politicians to which you refer may have very sticky fingers. That having been said, net overseas development assistance as a share of gross national income in the Ukraine has since 2005 varied between 0.3% and 1.6%, with the 2019 inflow equaling 0.7% of GNI. They’re not a heavily aid dependent economy.
You make a good point. What do those figures look like in terms of the association agreement which involves a considerable level of integration, but not formal EU membership?
Also, Norway is part of the EEA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area
The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the Agreement on the European Economic Area, an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union’s single market to member states of the European Free Trade Association.[6] The EEA links the EU member states and three EFTA states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) into an internal market governed by the same basic rules. These rules aim to enable free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital within the European Single Market, including the freedom to choose residence in any country within this area. The EEA was established on 1 January 1994 upon entry into force of the EEA Agreement. The contracting parties are the EU, its member states, and Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.
Going back, you clearly suggest two options, which is inaccurate on the basis that Russian tanks didn’t back him, along with another point.
At this thread, Hack talked about the idea of Ukraine being like Finland. Prior to the coup against Yanukovych, Russia and he backed three way (Russia-Ukriane-West) talks on best handling the situation in Ukraine. The West refused this – instead thinking in zero sum terms.
Of possible interest, is this just released article:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/08/04/ukraine-and-the-long-game/
These rules aim to enable free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital
Trade in merchandise and non-factor services is all well and good. Movement of ‘persons’ has to be congruent with maintaining public order and salutary social development. Visitors, yes unless they’re fugitives; guest workers never; settlers, yes in small numbers if they can pass a language proficiency test. As for ‘capital’, foreign investment in extractive industries is associated with ‘export-enclave’ syndrome and should be regarded with suspicion; playing host to hot money is something it also might be prudent to avoid. Joining the EU, you lose control of your borders.
The two options inevitable options were a democratic Ukraine integrating with Europe, or a pro-Russian despot dependent on Russia and its military to stay in power. That is, to follow the path of its neighbors Poland, or Romania, or that of Belarus.
Finland is a member of the EU, but not of NATO.
Finland is also strategically not very important, small and on the periphery, the kind of country that has the luxury of being ignored most of the time. And Russians aren’t desperate to claim Helsinki as the “mother” of their cities.
Only someone who has not even visited Ukraine could write or believe the nonsensical image that the author presents about the country.
My point was that Norway is highly integrated with the EU and with no other bloc, although it is not a formal member of the EU. Ukraine would do well to pursue a similar position.
I’m going to suggest that the Ukraine would do well to pursue bilateral agreements which would diminish or reduce disadvantages to Ukrainian producers derived from the current trade regime in Europe. Anything beyond that is asking for trouble. EU institutions are the conduit through which the Peter Sutherlands of Europe act to damage the nations of Europe, especially the control of locals over public policy.
I don’t know there’s much you can do about your politico-military situation other than make the Ukraine a more unattractive place to attempt to conquer. That means spending 6% of your GDP on the military rather than 2%. Most disagreeable.
Well, Ukraine is also signing deals with China. But it borders both the EU and Russia so it is geographically bound to emphasize one of those two in its trade.
Agree about military spending. It’s at about 5% IIRC.
Back in France, where I live, people couldn’t believe the Ukros could be so stupid as to think that belonging to the EU would save them. The Western European populace know that the EU is a mechanism of capitalist extraction and nothing else.
Careful not to dislocate your shoulder when your arm snaps forward in the “Sieg Heil” salute…
Careful not to disassociate your brain cavity when presented with facts and opinions that contradict your bizarro views of Ukraine and the world! 🙂
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/a/uploads/original/3/35816/1669855-superboy068_08.jpg
It’s a gateway to NATO membership. Besides, even without NATO membership, EU members like the Baltic states have all exceeded Russia in nominal GDP per capita terms despite minimal mineral resources. Merely catching up with Russia would quintuple Ukraine’s GDP, bringing its military spending within striking distance of Russia’s. A nuclear deterrent might even be feasible, cost-wise.
Plenty of people from there (some who go back now and then) and others there who agree.
Let’s see you debunk that piece on a point by point basis.
Never minding the inaccurate characterization of the above, none of these two options have happened, with another available option to consider.
Of course Finland doesn’t have the same closeness to Russia as does Ukraine. Using Finland as an example underscores the benefit of having a multi-faceted approach, as opposed to misguided zero sum game stance.
It’s a gateway to NATO membership. Besides, even without NATO membership, EU members like the Baltic states have all exceeded Russia in nominal GDP per capita terms despite minimal mineral resources. Merely catching up with Russia would quintuple Ukraine’s GDP, bringing its military spending within striking distance of Russia’s. A nuclear deterrent might even be feasible, cost-wise.
It’s not a gateway to NATO membership unless the Brussels crew insists on it. Note, there’s formal NATO membership and there’s the reality, and Ukrainian politicians would have to ask themselves whether they get the force they need push comes to shove.
Mineral resources above and beyond a certain share of your domestic output are a mixed blessing pretty much everywhere. Geographers have been delineating the problems for decades.
Russia’s nominal GDP is > 10x that of the Ukraine’s and there’s no catching them.
Per capita product of each of the Baltic states (whether measured in nominal terms or per purchasing power parity) exceeded that of Russia prior to when they joined the EU in 2004 and their advantage over Russia hasn’t changed much in the interim.
Correct, but since much of Ukraine’s military production is done domestically GDP PPP has significant relevance.
Poland and Romania eclipsed Russia after they joined the EU though. Ukraine has fallen so far behind that I don’t think it will come close to Russia for decades. 2014 should have happened in 1991. Imagine if Ukraine were free of Crimea and Donbas and their voters from the beginning? It wouldn’t have wavered between West and East and would have followed alongside the Baltics and Poland.
Correct, but since much of Ukraine’s military production is done domestically GDP PPP has significant relevance.
Poland and Romania eclipsed Russia after they joined the EU though. Ukraine has fallen so far behind that I don’t think it will come close to Russia for decades. 2014 should have happened in 1991. Imagine if Ukraine were free of Crimea and Donbas and their voters from the beginning? It wouldn’t have wavered between West and East and would have followed alongside the Baltics and Poland.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/08/04/ukraine-and-the-long-game/
http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/05/14/how-moscow-hijacked-the-history-of-kyivan-rus/
It is funny to see that Svidos write not only a fantasy history of Ukraine. They also pretend to rewrite the history of Russia according to their fantasies. I.e they label Russians as “Mongolized Finns” where in fact Subotai’s Mongols destroyed, pillaged and raped around Kiev, while Novgorod was saved from destruction. In fact many Svidos (Porky, for example) shows a Mongolic vibe. It is quite likely they have a higher percentage of Mongolization than Russia, but in their fantasy-world they are “Aryans”.
Note that Brit based NewsNow carries Euromaidan Press and StopFake, unlike the Strategic Culture Foundation.
Further details towards the end of this article:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/05/22/bbc-limits-and-related-censorship-on-russia-coverage/
About .7% of Russian paternal ancestry has East Asian origin:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2253976/
From the perspective of male ancestry, there are basically no differences between Ukrainians, Poles and southern-central Russians. Ukrainians are between Russians and Poles. Northern Russians, on the other hand, are a separate cluster – they can accurately be described as Slav-Finnic Mestizos:
https://i.imgur.com/26CjpFT.jpg
On that “map”, Galicians from Lviv are U4. While still well within the Ukrainian-Polish-Southern/Central Russian cluster, they are a bit apart from the others and in the direction of Germans. They are not close to Poles within that circle.
::::::::::::::::
Poroshenko is from Budjak, a region in extreme southern Ukraine that was heavily settled by Bulgarians and Gagauz (Christian Turkic people). He may have some distant Turkic ancestry.
Podcast on what Putin said about Russia-Ukraine:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/07/31/the-strategy-session-episode-27/
Poland and Romania eclipsed Russia after they joined the EU though.
Domestic product per capita in Roumania (in nominal terms and according to purchasing power parity) surpassed Russia’s in 2016. That in Poland has consistently exceeded Russia’s for more than 25 years.
Just to reiterate, Bela Belassa, who during his lifetime was an inveterate advocate of liberal trade regimes, admitted in his academic writing that the measure impact of trade liberalization on static welfare or economic dynamism was quite small. Mancur Olson in his writings for general audiences remarked on this and offered a hypothesis that the impact of trade regimes was to break up informal cartels among domestic producers. I’m out of the loop and do not know more current literature in this area. I think you should start with the assumption that the trade regime is a minor contributor to economic development, though perhaps more important than most for you as the Ukraine has a trade-dependent economy (the ratio of exports to nominal gdp is about 0.4, which is high).
Poland’s association agreement with the EU went into force in 1994, Romania’s in 1995. Since then, both have caught up to and surpassed Russia. The case of Romania is particularly striking because it was once much poorer than Russia.
Belarus chose to integrate with Russia rather than the EU. It never caught up to Russia and is far behind Poland and Romania.
Ukraine and Moldova integrated with neither until very recently. They are the poorest countries in Europe.
Roumania surpassed Russia in gdp per capita in 1999 (and was in this respect quite similar to Russia during the period running from 1995-1999). Again, Poland was already more affluent than Russia in 1994.
The Ukraine is among the poorest countries in Europe. It’s been satisfactorily dynamic since 1999, but suffered an absolute catastrophe during the period running from 1990 to 1999.
Again, studies of both the static and dynamic effects of trade liberalization do not show the magic you’re attributing to that sort of policy. They show modest improvement. White Russia is notable for its preference for central planning and state-owned enterprise, so I’m not seeing why you think their choice of trading partners is the salient factor in their economic trajectory.
It’s really not all that complicated to understand. Whomever you associate with will in the long haul effect your living standards, GDP etc; You hang around with winners, you’re likely to improve your station in life. Conversely, if you hang around with losers it’s bound to also effect your economic situation. EU or Russia?…Even Greece and Italy seem to always get out of whatever economic mess they find themselves in by their sheer association with the EU.
Translation:
EU realizes that’ll be taking too much of a hit by taking in Ukraine as well as Moldova as full fledged members.
Belarus is economically better off than Ukraine and Moldova.
It’s really not all that complicated to understand.
No shortage of empirical work on the benefits of foreign trade. The benefits are real and small. You want a satisfactory productive base, you build a matrix at home which provides the best environment for your entrepreneurial minority to build those businesses.
There’s a way to eliminate the expense of redundant regional and federal bureaucracies in Spain and elsewhere: where possible, get rid of the federal ones and let the regional ones handle those decisions and functions. In other words, more local autonomy, less federal interference, no need to pay for two largely overlapping agencies in each area of life.
Yes, full membership will require less corruption and a better economy. This will of course not be accomplished any time soon. And full membership may not even be necessary. A close association as enjoyed by Norway or by the post-Brexit UK may be just fine.
In terms of better to worse, it is EU>Eurasia>Neither
Since orienting towards and signing trade deals with the EU, Moldova and Ukraine have crept up towards Belarus. Ukraine now has higher wages than Belarus and Moldova is not far behind:
https://i.imgur.com/HjNDLrH.png
(not on this map, but Ukraine now surpasses all three of the Caucasian Republics also).
The increased wealth by Ukrainians in Ukraine is fairly obvious to people who have visited there or know people there. Ukrainians are engaging in more tourism than before, for example.
If Ukraine had gone for integration with the West right away in 1991, it would probably be somewhere between Poland and Romania today in terms of economy. Both of these countries were poorer than Russia in 1991 (as was Ukraine) but are richer than Russia now. But the poison pills of Crimea and Donbas prevented Ukraine from a full commitment towards Euro integration in 1991. Ukraine was left behind.
Conversely, if Ukraine would have gone for integration with Eurasia right away it would probably have been a slightly poorer version of Belarus (Ukraine’s position within the USSR). Galicia prevented this.
How exactly did Galicia accomplish this? I’ve often thought that Galicia’s overall role within Ukrainian national politics has been overblown.
Where did I state that Ukraine needs to be insular and not try to develop its foreign trade?
Galicia’s plus Volynia’s voters were enough to prevent a solidly Lukashenko-like trajectory under some Eastern boss. Without these western regions, Kiev would have been easily outnumbered. No Orange Revolution, solid Yanukovich rule from 2004. Probably not total Belarus as Kiev would have still had a voice (Donbas is like Belarus but central Ukraine is not) but Ukraine as it was, came close to joining Eurasia – without the West this would have been assured.
Without Crimea and Donbas, Ukraine’s pro-Russian population would not have been half but rather a third of the electorate. As in Latvia – not enough to stop the country as a whole from integrating with Europe.
At the time people were expressing that it was good that in 1991 Ukraine’s independence came smoothly with no territorial adjustments. This delay of the inevitable came with real economic costs that will take decades to ameliorate.
Where did I state you stated that?
Ukrainian exports account for about 40% of its nominal GDP. It’s a trade dependent economy. The point of dispute here is what would be the static welfare benefits or the benefit to economic dynamism of joining the EU as opposed to joining some trade bloc cooked up in Moscow or pursuing bilateral relations as a free actor? My suggestion is that joining the EU opens you up to all sorts of harassment from Brussels. As of now, they are requiring new members to adopt the Euro as their currency. See what happened to Greece. Inflexible currency pegs are a bad business (though I’ve been told a case can be made for them for small open economies; the Ukraine is not Barbados so that’s irrelevant). As for Russia, you want to operate as independently as you can manage because your interests are not Russia’s interests, even if you have no substrate of antagonism to Russia. (Some of the Russian nationalists here resent Ukraine as if it were the pretty girl who wouldn’t give them a date).
I don’t know of any Swiss who thinks they are one people with Germans. They are no more German than the Dutch are.
Russian yoke is preferable to the slow economic, cultural and demographic death dealt by joining the EU, NATO and the globo-homo community.
Georgians face a similar dilemma. Gay Pride Parades or Russian tanks. I’ll take the latter.
Kiev regime politicos at it yet again:
https://www.rt.com/sport/531468-ukraine-russia-mahuchikh-lasitskene-olympics/
Poland and Romania have done much better economically than Belarus. Cultural? Russification is more of a real danger than Germanization or whatever. Demographic? Belarus demographics are also bad, only marginally better, not much difference.
I sometimes think that the “free actor” role might be the best one for Ukraine to pursue. A kind of buffer zone between Russia and its Eurasian entanglements and the EU. Something on the order of a Norway or Finland. By renouncing nuclear weapons, Ukraine made it clear that it wished to pursue a peaceful, non-nuclear future. What did it get in return? Some of the signatories to the Budapest memorandum broke their promise. One got severely hammered by breaking its promises by long-lasting sanctions. “Hand off Ukraine” should have been achieved with even more stringent punishments for any transgressions. The buffer zone idea could payoff bigtime for Ukraine, being right in the middle of two large separate economic zones. As it is, being an official partner of the EU, and also a de facto member of NATO is already paying off for Ukraine. “Guns and butter” without the globohomo baggage, and without the Russian vassalage. .
Finland is a member of the EU.
While not formal member of the EU, Norway is closely tied to it through EEA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway%E2%80%93European_Union_relations
The EEA agreement grants Norway access to the EU’s single market. From the 23,000 EU laws currently in force,[9] the EEA has incorporated around 5,000 (in force)[10] meaning that Norway is subject to roughly 21% of EU laws. According to Norway’s Foreign Affairs (NOU 2012:2 p. 790, 795), from the legislative acts implemented from 1994 to 2010, 70% of EU directives and 17% of EU regulations in force in the EU in 2008 were in force in Norway in 2010.
Yes, but Finland is not a member of NATO. Perhaps the best situation for Ukraine, would be to keep its Association status with the EU, and reap its financial and trade benefits, but with a newly renegotiated Budapest Memorandum type treaty, with some teeth to it this time, renege on its NATO involvement and aspirations? I don’t know, however, whether Russia can be trusted to show any military restraint as regards to Ukraine, for as you’ve put it, it has this strange feeling that its destiny is somehow tied with “Kiev, the mother of Russian cities”. 🙁
Maybe Novgorod is the mother of Russian and Ukrainian cities, seeing how it was the locale of Oleg, before he moved to Kiev at the time when the historically utilized “Kievan Rus” (Rus) comes into play.
There’s also the stuff about democratic leaning Novgorod getting crushed by Moscow.
So, it all started in Novgorod, eh? Lots of pride in their history! 🙂
https://www.autostraddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/brightonbeachpride1.jpg
No room for any “Whites” at this parade.
You completely lost me on this one, which appears to be a photo in Brighton Beach – not Novgorod.
You’re obviously ok with Gay Pride Parades, gay marriage, feminism, and the slow decay of westernization. And the rape and plunder by big corps of any EU country.
Say what?
Isn’t Brighton Beach the last outpost of Russian civilization? My reference to the “Whites” refers to Deniken and his followers, which if I’m not mistaken, from which you’re directly descended?…I don’t see the white color anywhere on this rainbow colored flag? I’ll let you decide whether that’s good or bad. 🙂
Are these things central features of life in EU members Poland and Hungary?
This shows again that Russia is the center of gravity of the Svido “cultural” system. Hatred is a sick manifestation of love. In the other hand, the Ukrainian girl clearly defeated the Russian one in the beauty contest. She’s gorgeous.
I think that a new thread on “chad Batka vs soyboy Putlet” on dealing with Eurohypocrites is necessary. Luka learned very fast to use the refugees stick in order to punish Eurohypocrites for their support to the failed Juanita’s putsch. He’s not shy trying to flood Lithuania with Mideast refugees. While Eurocrats are whining about the refugees flow, he became a world-class troll laughing on their faces.
Given Russians’ obsession with Ukraine (many even consider it’s capital to be the mother of their own cities) it would seem that Ukraine is central to their universe. As is not uncommon for someone who has been jilted.
Sea Cliff, LI is more qualified than BB to be such. The latter is substantially (though not exclusively) Soviet and post-Soviet era Gessen-Vindman types.
Sure, boy, sure.
First Anniversary of the failed coup in Belarus
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/6972736.html
EU+NATO> mandatory Gay Pride Parades + gay marriage
No, but they will be eventually. Best proof is that they have to fight those very things shoved down their throats by CIA-funded NGOs.
I doubt the NGOs in question are CIA-funded. The sort of people who go to work for NGOs in this country would try to promote those things reflexively.
C’mon, why do you think Russia kicks out NGOs?
We were also told, many years ago, that Poland and Hungary would be flooded with Muslims eventually. Still waiting.
What percentage of your comments are devoted to Ukraine?
I don’t know about Poland or Hungary, but here they are Muslim (Arabic) tourists arriving in Ukraine in droves this summer. I thought that this was just the news of an overactive imagination when I first heard about this phenomena before I read this article. Give it a read, it’s most interesting, though I do understand the difference between tourists and emigrants:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/172FB/production/_119817949_capture.jpg
Not an uncommon menu in Western Ukraine?
https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/features-58120247
Interesting. Looks like a totally new phenomenon, caused by Western Europe being blocked by Covid. Seems like mostly well-off families with kids visiting from the Gulf States.
One of my cousins, from an oblast that borders Kiev oblast, was able to take his family to Dubai this year. He never would have been able to afford such a vacation 5 or 10 years ago.
It will only take a change of government to happen.
Because they’re pests. You don’t need CIA funding to be a pest.
CIA funding is handy. But get serious! NGOs are hotbeds of spies. On one hand, they get to subvert the target country with weaponized social engineering and on the other hand, it’s a good front for spying and black ops.
Of possible interest:
https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2021/08/08/the-ukrainian-language-is-unprofitable/
The fact that the author posted the well-known fake map of languages automatically tells us that he is ignorant, gullible, a fool, or some combination of those.
This was the clincher for me:
How can people actually write dribble like this and get away with it? I guess that Averko was impressed with this nonsensical article? 🙂
The opposite is happening. US ukraine thinks of Russia all the time in a negative light. It follows all the orders of its new master.
Look how it “voted” at the UN recently. It was the only “European” nation that voted that way.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/24/un-assembly-votes-to-call-for-end-to-us-embargo-on-cuba
Was everything said in that piece wrong? That piece made JRL unlike some more accurate ones. Here’s another:
https://www.rt.com/russia/531772-ukraine-language-corruption-certificates/
It’s really a very bad propagandistic piece written by obviously a Ukrainaphobe. I’ve never read anything written by even you that comes close to this one. I had to reread the whole stupid thing one more time and was really hard pressed to come up with something that was accurate that I could agre with. Here it is:
Neither do I, nor really stupid bloggers. I will not be reading this one a third time, Mickey. Sorry. 🙁
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/08/10/olympic-afterthoughts/
These threads serve as a kind of training workout. Have always supported good rock ’em, sock ’em point-counterpoint dialogue.
An example of stupid getting answered:
http://natyliesbaldwin.com/2021/08/no-ukraine-is-not-putins-taiwan/#comment-258327
There are world-class languages (English; Spanish; French), there are regional languages (German in central Europe; Russian in former USSR), there are national languages (Italian; Portuguese) and there are sub-national languages (Flemish, Ukrainian, Catalan). I think that Svidos, by banning Russian, try to move Ukrainian from the sub-national to the national league. I’m skeptical about their success.
Frequently Italian singers translate some of their wonderful songs to Spanish to accede to the bigger Spanish-speaking market because of the Italian market is not big enough. Plenty of examples about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYtdYslLY9I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5ygrHbq-9s
Rumor has it the big gothic-arched bridge linking two major New York boroughs can presently had cheap. And apparently Eurotrash get a special discount.