I have always loved falsifiable predictions. Let’s look at some that Ukrainian policians have made for Ukraine.
President Leonid Kravchuk, 1991: In 10 years, we will become the richest country in Europe. We will be a second France!
President Viktor Yushchenko, 2004: In 10 years, we will live like Poland!
Leader of the Opposition and Mayor of Kiev Vitaly Klitschko, 2013: In a year you won’t recognze Ukraine!
Ex-Head of Foreign Ministry Vladimir Ogryzko, 2013: “In 22 years Ukraine will be one of the leading countries of the civilized North Atlantic community. And in Europe there will be a Paris-Berlin-Warsaw-Kiev axis that will determine the fates of all other countries.”
Former Georgian President (wanted for crimes in Georgia) and Governor of Odessa Mikheil Saakashvili, June 2015: Ukraine is poorer than Moldova, previously the poorest country in Europe, is poreer than Armenia, Albania, Kosovo…
Former Georgian President (wanted for crimes in Georgia) and Governor of Odessa Mikheil Saakashvili, June 2015: In 20 years, we will return to Yanukovych-era living standards.
Ukraine’s Finance Minister and US Citizen Natalie Jaresko, August 2015: In 25 years, Ukraine’s GDP might reach Switzerland’s level.
Former Georgian President (wanted for crimes in Georgia) and Governor of Odessa Mikheil Saakashvili, September 2015: “Ukraine’s GDP has fallen from $184 billion to $115 billion, that is we have fallen close to Gabon’s level. With all due respect to Africa, Ukraine is Gabon.”
Forget about Khrantsiya. Forget even about Polan stronk. Ukraine is now Gabon with permafrost!
And I do apologize for my calumny against Gabon. As a cursory glance at IMF statistics shows, its GDP per capita is actually now about 3 times that of Ukraine.
And poor, unfortunate Switzerland – what an economic catastrophe Jaresko is forecasting for you! Are we really looking at a full Africanization of the Helvetic highlands as soon as 2040?? Even I’m not that pessimistic on the longterm effects of the current refugee crisis, but apparently Ukraine’s American Finance Minister is!
Though by then, even Africa might well be an improvement. As befits an oligarchic regime relying on Euro-Atlantic cargo cultists and iodine-deficient inbred stormfags for its support, it isn’t all that surprising to see Ukraine registerering as many polio cases as all of continental Africa combined in 2015.
Two children in southwestern Ukraine have been paralyzed by polio, the first outbreak of the disease in Europe since 2010, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, in a setback for a global eradication campaign.
The WHO said Ukraine had been at particular risk of an outbreak because of inadequate vaccination coverage. In 2014, only 50 percent of children were fully immunized against polio and other preventable diseases, it said.
The risk of further spread within the country is high, although the threat to nearby Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia is low, a WHO statement said.
Note that this is happening in the svidomy south-west of the country that is completely untouched by the war. The only region of the world where there are more polio cases is the tribal areas of Pakistan/Afghanistan swarming with mujadeen fighters. So it is not that surprising to also the natural sense of brotherhood tying svidomy Azov fanatics to the Mohammedan invaders who are fighting to drag Novorossiya back into the Banderastan lunatic asylum, and whose presence even the NYT has by now been forced to acknowledege.
And why is Novorossiya fighting? So as not to have to listen to:
High Gauleiter of Galicia–Volhynia Dmytro Yarosh, 2020: We are now back in our golden age when the Proto-Ukrs dug out the Black Sea. We have arrived at our destination and we intend to stay here forever!
Gabon’s per capita income is also substantially higher than that of Russia, Serbia, Montenegro, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Belarus etc.
I’ve been in both Ukraine and Gabon. Let me tell you that the Gabonese are more sophisticated and civilized than the Ukrainians. And of course, they are also reacher.
How much of Ukraine’s smart fraction emigrated? I’d guess that has caused a large part of their problems. On the other hand, if iodine deficiency is a major cause of their underdevelopment, I’d be a lot more optimistic.
Also, it is worth noting Gabon is a small country with a lot of oil. Not a great country to use as comparison. I’d say Poland and Romania are better comparisons for potential vs actual.
http://www.unicef.org/ukraine/media_5277.html
(2006) “The results of a school-based survey have demonstrated that the general population in Lviv region has sufficient iodine nutrition. Children surveyed display normal levels of iodine in their bodies that is 60 per cent higher than the otherwise alarmingly low national average. Sixty-five per cent of households in Lviv are now consuming iodised salt in comparison with the national figure of only 31 per cent.”
If you google ” йододефиціта Україні” you’ll get a more detailed map showing high deficiency in the Carpathian mountains and in Volyn, with a green band of no deficiency going through Galicia.
Interestingly, it seems many Russian regions have iodine deficiencies also. I’m not sure why you bring up iodine deficiency and Ukraine, when Ukraine and Russia are the two countries in Europe with this problem.
Here is a map of GRP by oblast for 2014:
http://s59.radikal.ru/i163/1503/fd/03bbb13c1580.png
2015 will probably resemble 2014, give or take a couple %.
One need only visit a place like Lviv to see that the economy there, while contracting, has hardly collapsed. Cafes still have a lot of people, music festivals go on, people work, etc.
Gloating about Ukraine’s economic collapse in essence means laughing at Donbas’ plight.
Speaking of falsifiable predictions, you had once predicted that Ukraine would integrate with Russia:
For 2012:
“I expect 2012 will be the year in which Ukraine joins the Eurasian common economic space.”
For 2013: “Ukraine may join the Customs Union; however, I suspect that’s more likely to happen in 2014 or 2015, as Yanukovych faces re-election and has to make a choice between continued prevarication between it and the EU, and encouraging his Russophone base.”
You hedged your bets but assumed integration would be inevitable, it would only be a question of when.
So this stuff sounds a bit like sour grapes.
A good clue about when a subject becomes emotional for someone, is when an intelligent and knowledgeable person makes uncharacteristically big mistakes.
[Cafes still have a lot of people, music festivals go on, people work, etc.]
Shouldn’t those svidomite hipsters be fighting for Pedro Parasha’s sticky brown puppet regime on the battlefield, rather than attending music festivals in their native pigsty?
[A good clue about when a subject becomes emotional for someone, is when an intelligent and knowledgeable person makes uncharacteristically big mistakes.]
I think you’ll find Anatoly Karlin is laughing far too hard to be emotional.
I am not gloating. I am merely drawing attention to the disconnect between promises to Ukrainians that they would soon be living in a second
FrancePolandSwitzerlandGabon and the sordid reality, in which merely recovering Yanukovych era living standards has been stated as an ambitious policy goal by that great hero and statesman of the Maidan, Saakashvili.Things we are all indeed going that way – to the letter, pretty much – until the events of 2013. How could I or anyone guess that Kievites would be so easily manipulated, just ten years after another revolution that achieved nothing; that Yanukovych would turn out to be such a blithering tool – backstabbing his own friends while making unilateral concessions to people who despised him and would reward him by tearing up the agreement they had signed with him the day before; and that the false flag massacre in Kiev would be so competently organized and attributed to Berkut/Yanukovych/Putin?
But yes I was ultimately wrong on that but not in a way that virtually anybody else before November 2013 expected.
maybe something really new is starting to happen in Ukraine now. When Ukraine reaches an african level of development people might start to have children in an african way, too. It could be that Ukraine becomes the first country other than Israel where non-africans, non-muslims start to reproduce against in a significant way. Like that Ukraine could become some sort of counter-weight agains the influx of tens or hundred of millions refugees to Europe.
Not true! Wikipedia is your friend.
According to Wikipedia entries on the nations I mentioned here are their most recent estimated nominal per capita incomes:
Gabon: $13,032
Romania: $ 10,859
Belarus:$ 8,711
Russia: $ 8,184
Bulgaria: $ 8,037
Serbia: $ 5,676
source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgaria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romania
And the 2015 estimate for Ukraine’s per capita income is $ 2,001. Which is lower than at least 8 subsaharan nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine
Nominal GDP is pretty useless, especially when Russia is currently playing economic chicken with the rest of the world.
@Bliss
The most recent (2014) GNI figures from the World Bank are:
Russia $13210
Romania $9370
Gabon $9320
Bulgaria $7420
Belarus $7340
Montenegro $7240
Serbia $5820
Ukraine $3560
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD/countries
Yes, those claims were silly. Politicians say silly things a lot.
Well, you again seem to be ignoring the huge regional differences within Ukraine. Lviv’s economy declined 2.8% in 2014. 2015 will be about the same, plus or minus a couple %. Odessa’s decline was only .3%. Volyn’s grew 3.2%. Indeed, the economy grew in 9 of Ukraine’s oblasts in 2014.
Sure, a national average involving bombed-out Donbas is awful, but it’s as accurately descriptive of a statistic as one about American homicide rates that includes the Detroit ghetto, implying that people in the suburbs are living dangerous lives. Saying that Ukraine may take 20 years to reach 2013’s economic level ignores the fact that in may take Donbas 50 years to do so, that Volyn and 8 other oblasts already surpassed the 2013 level by the end of 2014, and it may take Odessa 1 year and Lviv 2 years to get back to that level.
The one guy who predicted this quite accurately was Alexander Motyl. Written January 2013, over a year before Yanukovich was overthrown:
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/2013-end-ukraines-regionnaires
“Is 2013 the End for Ukraine’s Regionnaires?”
That being said, although I wouldn’t have predicted the dramatic anti-Russian turn in Ukraine, the inevitability of integration with Russia was very doubtful. Half the country, including an easy majority of the country’s youth, was opposed to this. And it was the half of the country whose population was growing and that included the capital. Ukraine wasn’t going to follow the wishes of its pensioners and eastern proles towards a Russian future. This was real wishful thinking. The only question was the nature of the turn towards the West.
As for the 2004 Revolution, it delayed Yanukovich’s (and his handlers’) plans by 5 years, produced another cohort of western-oriented youth, and proved that people-power was effective in Ukraine. So it did not achieve “nothing.”
No, in 2014 birth rate in Ukraine slightly increased almost everywhere but Donbas (where it decliend a lot; Luhansk was down to 5.1, little more than a third of Rivne’s) ), then declined slightly in the beginning of 2015. 2012 was Ukraine’s high-point so far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#Birth_data_by_oblast
In terms of casualties Lviv has provided its “fair share” although the largest number comes from Dnipropetrovsk. List is from August 2014 and limited to official dead but I doubt the ratios have changed much:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Ukraine_military_losses_2014_place_of_birth.png
ATO is more like Viet Nam was for Americans* (without the bitter large-scale anti-war movement) than like the Great Patriotic War was for the Soviets. Life goes on outside the warzone. Lviv had a very nice jazz festival this summer. Kiev beaches were packed.
I doubt he is laughing at Donbas, the one region that has truly suffered due to the insurrection.
But Ukrainian women are a hundred times hotter than Gabonese women, aren’t they?
But on a serious note, I recall, in the 2000s, that Ukrainian computer programmers would consistently come on top on topcoder.com. I don’t know if that has changed now, but Ukraine probably does potentially have better human capital than Gabon.
A Western-orientation of the country’s youth means they will leave when they can. Hankering after western lifestyles, they don’t want to start a family in Ukraine. There is the real threat to the country’s existence (Ukrainian demographers themselves say this). Rich areas Ukraine has, but that could be lead to population movements within the country. At some point Ukraine is going to have to deal with spiralling demographic anorexia in whole regions that will have zero amenities. The choice will be to ask neighbouring countries to take over those regions or import people from outside Europe.
Switzerland is quite a good model for success inasmuch as the population do not know the name of the prime minister. Importing star politicians from other countries would be bizarre even if they had a record of success.
Ukrainian soldiers are always drunk. My cousin worked with them in Cambodia.
If there’s no work in Ukraine, more than likely they’ll just end up as refugees themselves. And if they can’t get residency in the EU, they’ll probably end up in Russia.
I’ve heard (but can’t substantiate) that Poland is filling up its refugee quota by using Ukrainians – its way of avoiding taking in Syrians and north Africans..
Ukraine is a major IT outsourcing country. This industry is mostly based in Lviv and Kiev. Just one example of a Lviv company:
http://www.intellias.com/news/intellias-is-the-best-lviv-s-it-employer-for-the-second-consequent-year/
In fairness, people I know who worked with Ukrainians say they are always drinking, but are so used to alcohol that they don’t appear drunk.
” Ukraine probably does potentially have better human capital than Gabon.”
All they need now is a wall to keep it in.
Gabon extracts oil and is hardly populated at all. There is no industry and the people there are neither as well-fed nor well-off as those of Europe’s poorest.
I’ve neither been to Ukraine or to Gabon, I just have to rely on google. But a google search shows Ukraine as any other bland eastern European country with plenty of problems, while Gabon looks no different from any other African shithole. Who would you bet your money on, Ukraine or Gabon? I would bet on Ukraine.
Ukraine has grade A human capital. (Even though thousands and maybe even millions of the finest Ukrainians have left the country over the last 30 years.) The ongoing crisis there (and I mean 30+ year crisis, not just the last 30 months) seems to suggest that IQ (or whatever you want to call it) alone is not enough. Competent patriotic leadership and a confident national strategy are also necessary.
And this is my main take-out from Karlin’s article – the leadership in Ukraine is and has been disastrous. One scumbag after the other. The people in charge are venal and slimy, and the national strategy is something between non-existent and absurd.
I think the USA and European countries like France or Germany also have neither a patriotic leadership nor a confident national strategy, yet (at least in a superficial way) these countries function. So it has to be something else which makes the differences between countries like Ukraine and rich western countries.
National strategy, driven by elites who were Soviet middle-managers with questionable loyalty to the new country, has been to loot as much as possible. Rooting for Ukraine is a but like being a Cubs fan, but there is some grounds for optimism.
Anatoly, what are some good sources (in Russian or English) about why Ukraine is such a broken country? As far as I can tell Ukraine’s political and business leaders are what Russia’s were in the 90’s – violent, thieving parasites – who neither normalized their business practices nor were brought under control by a strong leader.
Why did the economy in Volyn grow anyway?
Donbass is Ukraine’s Chechnya.
Currently Ukraine’s agriculture and IT are doing fairly well. Volyn is agricultural. Ternopil province, which saw double-digit economic growth in 2014, in 2013 had completed a massive sugar-processing complex that exports to Nestle and other western firms.
To a point. Thank God, neither side is as brutal to each other as in Chechnya, however. Civilian casualties in Chechnya were 50,000-100,000 during Yeltsin’s war and about 25,000 during Putin’s war, compared to an estimated 2,500 in Donbas. There is no terrorism in Kiev, as there was in Moscow.
I’m solidly on the pro-Novorussia side of the conflict, but ‘Gabon with snow’ overstates things. Gabon is a highly unequal petrostate where most people never see any of that money, even though it has a high per capita income. If you rank by HDI instead of income, Gabon is well behind Ukraine (and for that matter behind every European country).
Putin’s War?
Will Ukrainians ever act responsible rather than blame it on others?
“There is no terrorism in Kiev”
Yet Kiev’s opponents are called terrorists.
Thanks for the answer.
How much of the Ukrainian defense industry is located in West Ukraine?
OFF TOPIC
AP, I have a question for you: What do you think of the idea of Galicia seceeding and becoming an independent republic? If there were no border disputes, it would expedite their entry into NATO/EU.
If this had happened in 1991 Galicia would probably have been in the EU and NATO by now, and would have had an income comparable to that of next-door Slovakia, if not higher (similar populations, Galicia is actually a little more urban and better educated, historically until Soviet times Galicia had always been wealthier, Ukraine’s poverty is the result of non-Galician post-Soviet elite who cared only about robbery and not nation-building).
It would never have happened because Galicia has a very strong all-Ukrainian national identity, largely developed in the 19th century (like most of Europe’s national identities), by exiled Central and Eastern Ukrainians such as Hrushevsky who couldn’t pursue such work in the Russian Empire. Even the main ideologue of the fascist Banderists, Dontsov, was from a Cossack family on the Black Sea coast who escaped to Lviv. So the regions are quite intertwined. There is a local sense of identity in Galicia (it’s more orderly, cleaner, safer, more “European”), but not in terms of nationality. For this reason even inclusion of Galicia into the nightmare Stalin’s USSR is not widely viewed as a tragedy, but as a reunion in Galicia.
Nowadays, of course, a split would be unthinkable as Kiev and the center is about as nationalistic as Galicia, and much of the south has become like the center used to be.
Are you suggesting that if not for Putin’ s support this war would still exist? If not for Russian-supplied weapons, Russian advisers, Russian troops (contrary to Kiev’s propaganda, probably small numbers operating sophisticated equipment), Russian training and Russian volunteers such as Strelkov or Motorola, Kiev would not have reestablished control, ending the war?
I meant stuff like Chechens bombing the Moscow metro, taking the theater hostage, etc. Unlike Russia, Kiev hasn’t caused 10,000s casualties in civilian Novorossiya areas and unlike Chechens Novorossiyans haven’t been killing civilians in Kiev.
Lviv was the site of a major plant that produced electronics for Soviet military equipment (missiles, radars, etc.); one of my uncles was its director. The plant was shut down by Kuchma, because he followed the USA’s wishes and didn’t supply Saddam with this stuff. Lviv has an aircraft re[pair facility and produces armored cars.
Zhytomir, in the center-west of the country, is where a lot of old tanks are being refurbished:
http://ukraineinvestigation.com/armoured-plant-works-in-full-operation-in-zhytomyr-photo/
Zhytomir experienced 7.1% economic growth in 2014.
However most of Ukraine’s defense industry is in places such as Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, and shipbuilding in Mykolaiv on the Black Sea coast.
The data I gave are projections for 2015. Surely you are aware that 2015 has been a very bad year for Ukraine. And not so good for Russia either.
Why do slavs lag behind western europeans and southern europeans? Do HBDers blame it on lower slav IQ? If not why not?
Communism. Pre-commie Czechoslovakia was wealthier than all the southern European countries such as Portugal, Greece, Italy, Spain, Romania and Greece. And Finland. Poland was wealthier than Portugal and Romania.
Recently, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia have caught up and surpassed Greece and Portugal, and Poland is not far behind.
Bliss claims: “The data I gave are projections for 2015.”
But click the sources and notice these bits of info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabon
GDP (nominal) 2014 estimate
– Total $20.664 billion[2]
– Per capita $13,032[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia
GDP (nominal) 2015 estimate
– Total $1.176 trillion[6] (15th)
– Per capita $8,184[7] (74th)
So actually, no Bliss, you aren’t using 2015 projections but comparing Gabon in 2014 with Russia in 2015. Jon’s source compares 2014 figures for Gabon with 2014 figures for Russia (as well as 2013 figures, 2012 figures etc).
Apples and Oranges really.
Jon’s reproduction of the 2014 figures for Gabon is slightly off from that of his source (perhaps there was a change since he posted it or he mixed up some figures), but the overall difference remains similar:
Russia (2014) – $13,210
Gabon (2014) – $9,450
Ukraine (2014) – $3,560
Overall though the HDI comparison as Hector St Clare suggested seems more relevant with Russia ranked 57th (2014 estimates for 2013), Ukraine ranked 83rd (2014 estimates for 2013) and Gabon ranked 112th (2014 estimates for 2013). In that ranking Ukraine is most similar to Peru (ranked 82nd), Belize and Macedonia ( both ranked 84th). So Ukraine could be considered Peru in Europe or Peru with Snow (but then Peru already has the Andes….)