Ukraine-in-a-thread

[Sarmatian]

Is that the Easter spirit?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Yes.

[Gilrandir]

OK, Easter is over, so back to bickering and snapping at each other.

Yes, I agree it was a little misleading. The picture and the text are a part of a longer text about women during Maidan, which mentions that some women were trained for conflict with the police and it also included a picture of normal, everyday women just standing with the words "mum" written on a piece of paper.

Not that it matters much either way, it's 21st century. It just refutes your claim.

Since the article you quoted seems to have no mentioning of Maidan protesters shielding themselves from Berkuts by women I don't see how it refutes my arguments.

Well, I'm sure Ukrainians will be extremely happy about that when they're NATURALLY freezing come next winter.

Let's make it clear once and for all. Every year Ukraine extracts about 22-23 billion cubic meters of its own gas and imports that much. ALL THE GAS THAT IS NEEDED FOR HEATING AND COOKING IS EXTRACTED IN UKRAINE. All the imported gas is used for chemical and metallurgical industries (mostly owned by the hateful tycoons). It is them (and people who work at those enreprises) that will suffer most. Especially bad it would be for chemical plants since there gas is not used for buring but it serves as a substance to make whatever they produce (furitilizers, for example) out of it. So no winter freezing looms in view. We will have to reverse the gas flow direction from westward to eastward as all gas vats are in Western Ukraine. And it was done before (in 2008 or 2009, I don't recall the exact year) when through having signed no fresh gas agreement Gazprom closed the valve. I think Europeans remember this conflict, but Ukrainians didn't suffer at all.

On its own, I'd call that decision "petty nationalism". In conjunction with everything else, a rather unpleasant pattern was emerging.

Can you define how nationalism (petty or large-scale) is different from patriotism in your view?

[Gilrandir]

If Russian is given official standing alongside Ukrainian you might have a situation where, in some provinces, Laws were written in Russian - thereby prejudicing Ukrainians.

For those who don't know much about translation - the problem is that a Law, treaty, etc. has to have legal force and be interpreted according it's words as well as its intent - when you translate something the words move, and this can cause ambiguity. When international treaties are written they are usually written explicitly in only one or two languages, and then translated into other languages. Only the language the law was WRITTEN in has legal force.

That's why this is such a sensitive issue for Ukraine.

I don't think you understand why language is such a sensitive issue for Ukraine. As I have shown, Ukraine now is on the way of reviving Ukrainian and introducing into some spheres (education, medicine, science) where exclusively or predominantly Russian was used. It exasperates many pro-Russians. For example, only 4-5 years ago Nikolay Levchenko (then the secretary of Donetsk city council and now a MP) said that Ukrainian is good only for folksongs and in other cases it is useless.
I would say that 95% of those who speak Ukrainian can also speak Russian, but not the other way around. So for some people in the East and South introducing Russian as a second official language is the legal justification of why they shouldn't learn Ukrainian. They use Russian everywhere they want (according to the recent poll, 75% of the people of South-eastern regions don't see that the rights of Russian speakers are infringed upon) and having Russian as an official language wouldn't change anything in their life except that their anti-Ukrainian bias would have legal grounds.

[Brenus]

“what was not done by Maidan Nazis”: No, because one, they wanted all Ukraine, no a bit, two, it is because the Eastern European Nazis, for whatever reason in their sick heads, think Europeans love Nazis and are proud of Hitler.

“Svoboda speaks fascist, easterners act fascist.” Svodoba is not fascist. Svododa is Nazi. As the ideology of the ones you describe as easterners, it vary from newspapers to newspapers, and goes from Communist to fascist.

“Neither of these are extraordinary moves - as previously noted the language of the French Republic is French, not Breton” The bit of difference is French was official language before Revolution in the facts (as spoken by the King and all administrations in all local governments). And it became official when voted by elected representatives in all French Constitutions. Not imposed from the back without any consultation of the concerned populations.

[Pannonian]

I don't think you understand why language is such a sensitive issue for Ukraine. As I have shown, Ukraine now is on the way of reviving Ukrainian and introducing into some spheres (education, medicine, science) where exclusively or predominantly Russian was used. It exasperates many pro-Russians. For example, only 4-5 years ago Nikolay Levchenko (then the secretary of Donetsk city council and now a MP) said that Ukrainian is good only for folksongs and in other cases it is useless.
I would say that 95% of those who speak Ukrainian can also speak Russian, but not the other way around. So for some people in the East and South introducing Russian as a second official language is the legal justification of why they shouldn't learn Ukrainian. They use Russian everywhere they want (according to the recent poll, 75% of the people of South-eastern regions don't see that the rights of Russian speakers are infringed upon) and having Russian as an official language wouldn't change anything in their life except that their anti-Ukrainian bias would have legal grounds.

I don't know why you bother. You'll all end up speaking English anyway.

[Sarmatian]

Interesting news - German diplomat Klaus Zillikens, head of OSCE mission in eastern Ukraine said that after four weeks they've been in Ukraine so far, OSCE didn't find any evidence whatsoever of the presence of Russian servicemen in Ukraine, including Donetsk region. link

[Gilrandir]

“Svoboda speaks fascist, easterners act fascist.” Svodoba is not fascist. Svododa is Nazi. As the ideology of the ones you describe as easterners, it vary from newspapers to newspapers, and goes from Communist to fascist.

OK, Svoboda speaks Nazi, easterners act Nazi.

[Husar]

Interesting news - German diplomat Klaus Zillikens, head of OSCE mission in eastern Ukraine said that after four weeks they've been in Ukraine so far, OSCE didn't find any evidence whatsoever of the presence of Russian servicemen in Ukraine, including Donetsk region. link

Before anyone complains that the site must be biased propaganda because it's Russian, this German site quotes him as saying that, too.

I also agree with this from your link:

Western media are trying to show Russia in an unflattering light when covering the Ukraine crisis and its stance is conscientiously Russophobic.
"They have a task to show Russia in an unflattering light, and this task is editorial," Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the "Right to Know" program on Russian TV channel on April 19.
"There are chronic inflammatory processes of consciousness that are deeply rooted in the "Cold War" era. These processes have not gone anywhere. They were simply overlapped by new perceptions like the atmosphere of a 'reset' and globalisation when people started travelling and meeting each other and when a thing like public diplomacy emerged," Peskov said, adding that phobias and Russophobia have always been present in media coverage of events related to Russia.
"Russophobia warmed up sometimes artfully and elegantly and sometimes by openly rude and unpardonable barrage of propaganda that would make the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) envious tends to aggravate in critical moments. This is what we now see in the United States and Europe," Peskov complained.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_0...ion-head-6727/

I've had this impression for a very long time, and there seem to be a lot of people who default to blaming Russia without even considering the option that Russia may not be to blame as valid.

[Gilrandir]

I don't know why you bother. You'll all end up speaking English anyway.

Fisrt of all, I hope we will not end up.
Second of all, that's where the Irish are heading now.
Third of all, "bothering" of that kind installed English in England as the language of the Parliament in 1362 instead of French and towards the end of the century England had the first English-speaking monarch. Languages need bothering about.

[Gilrandir]

Interesting news - German diplomat Klaus Zillikens, head of OSCE mission in eastern Ukraine said that after four weeks they've been in Ukraine so far, OSCE didn't find any evidence whatsoever of the presence of Russian servicemen in Ukraine, including Donetsk region. link

As far as I know, OSCE mission never reached Slovyansk where all the Russianness is coming from.

[Gilrandir]

I've had this impression for a very long time, and there seem to be a lot of people who default to blaming Russia without even considering the option that Russia may not be to blame as valid.

Annexing a part of another country's territory is not a valid reason to blame Russia?

[Sarmatian]

Before anyone complains that the site must be biased propaganda because it's Russian, this German site quotes him as saying that, too.

That doesn't mean it's true, Hus. It just means that German site is also biased propaganda.

Fisrt of all, I hope we will not end up.
Second of all, that's where the Irish are heading now.
Third of all, "bothering" of that kind installed English in England as the language of the Parliament in 1362 instead of French and towards the end of the century England had the first English-speaking monarch. Languages need bothering about.

Well, it's gonna be much simpler when we speak just three languages, English, Spanish and Chinese... Imagine that, you speak just three languages and you can communicate with the entire world.

I'm a polyglot myself, thanks to Balkan nationalism. In addition to Serbian, I'm also completely fluent in Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin. Who said nationalism was bad? I speak three additional languages without ever learning them thanks to it.

[Gilrandir]

Well, it's gonna be much simpler when we speak just three languages, English, Spanish and Chinese...

It's gonna be much simpler when we look the same, act the same, think the same. What trouble the future rulers it would save.

[Brenus]

“easterners act Nazi.” How and when? By the way, what about the waves of Crimean Tatar refugees who had their house marked and were near to be ethnically cleansed? Any news?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I don't think you understand why language is such a sensitive issue for Ukraine. As I have shown, Ukraine now is on the way of reviving Ukrainian and introducing into some spheres (education, medicine, science) where exclusively or predominantly Russian was used. It exasperates many pro-Russians. For example, only 4-5 years ago Nikolay Levchenko (then the secretary of Donetsk city council and now a MP) said that Ukrainian is good only for folksongs and in other cases it is useless.
I would say that 95% of those who speak Ukrainian can also speak Russian, but not the other way around. So for some people in the East and South introducing Russian as a second official language is the legal justification of why they shouldn't learn Ukrainian. They use Russian everywhere they want (according to the recent poll, 75% of the people of South-eastern regions don't see that the rights of Russian speakers are infringed upon) and having Russian as an official language wouldn't change anything in their life except that their anti-Ukrainian bias would have legal grounds.

Go back and read my posts on this - I get it. I get that it goes back to when Ukraine was ruled from Russia and everybody was expected to become Russian. A big deal for you - Imagine being Latvian, or Estonian.

Actually, I have to say, I think you must have missed my point - because I just said all that to Brenus in the last few pages.

Fisrt of all, I hope we will not end up.
Second of all, that's where the Irish are heading now.
Third of all, "bothering" of that kind installed English in England as the language of the Parliament in 1362 instead of French and towards the end of the century England had the first English-speaking monarch. Languages need bothering about.

That's correct - but it took 300 years for that to happen, and it's not the same English as spoken in Wessex in 1066. It took that long because language is sensitive on both sides.

“easterners act Nazi.” How and when? By the way, what about the waves of Crimean Tatar refugees who had their house marked and were near to be ethnically cleansed? Any news?

Depends -if you're Jewish or not. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's great that the Fascists aren't killing people yet, or even beating them, but it's still early.

[Sarmatian]

Depends -if you're Jewish or not. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's great that the Fascists aren't killing people yet, or even beating them, but it's still early.

Yeah, that pamphlet actually proved to be another forgery and they didn't in fact come from the protesters.

So, in hindsight we've had:

1) Genocide of the Tatars which failed to happen
2) Genocide of the Roma which failed to happen
3) Anti-semitic leaflets (proof of genocidal intention apparently) which were a forgery
4) Great Hunt of the Ukrainians speakers which failed to happen
5) Russian army which is absent according to OSCE (a commie-nazi organisation)

Is it possible that there has been... I'm not sure how to put this... or do I actually dare to say it... some propaganda involved.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Yeah, that pamphlet actually proved to be another forgery and they didn't in fact come from the protesters.

So, in hindsight we've had:

1) Genocide of the Tatars which failed to happen
2) Genocide of the Roma which failed to happen
3) Anti-semitic leaflets (proof of genocidal intention apparently) which were a forgery
4) Great Hunt of the Ukrainians speakers which failed to happen
5) Russian army which is absent according to OSCE (a commie-nazi organisation)

Is it possible that there has been... I'm not sure how to put this... or do I actually dare to say it... some propaganda involved.

I've heard it claimed that pamphlet was a forgery - claim to present some evidence to that affect?

[Sarmatian]

I've heard it claimed that pamphlet was a forgery - claim to present some evidence to that affect?

Elementary deduction, my dear Watson.



If you sign and put an official stamp on something, you do that so people would know it comes from you and the organisation you're representing, in which case you don't deny it was from you the next day.

If you want to spread a message but later deny it came from you, you don't sign and put an official stamp in first place.

Also, there are differences between the stamp used on that paper and the official stamp.

[gaelic cowboy]

and its completely impossible it came from say the FSB eh.

no chance they would do such miss-information ops is there?

the reality is you dont know who wrote it

[Sarmatian]

and its completely impossible it came from say the FSB eh.

no chance they would do such miss-information ops is there?

the reality is you dont know who wrote it

So, FSB released a pamphlet discrediting the protesters to give them the opportunity to deny it...

No, I never thought of that, because, as far as I know, Baldrick doesn't work at FSB.

Serious answer - No, we can't say for sure who created it, but from what we know, it is most likely a propaganda piece with the goal of presenting protesters in the east as anti-Semites.

[Beskar]

Could be a random dude in his mothers spare-bedroom with a working printer and some messed up views.

[Sarmatian]

Could be a random dude in his mothers spare-bedroom with a working printer and some messed up views.

Could be theoretically...

... but there is some skill involved in making the document realistic and falsifying the stamp and then there's the issue of distribution which involves more than one man. It is, most likely, organised propaganda, a reasonably effective one at that. Very few of the major news agencies even bothered to mentioned that the man who supposedly signed it immediately denied it, let alone take it under deeper scrutiny.

[Brenus]

“Depends -if you're Jewish or not. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's great that the Fascists aren't killing people yet, or even beating them, but it's still early.” You will tell me if I am wrong, I am sure, but the only real anti-Semitic incident was actually in the ranks of the democratic movement, with the Jewish leader telling the community to leave the town.

[gaelic cowboy]

or its been designed badly so one side or the other can proclaim its dirty tricks by there opposing side.


All I know is that regardless who wrote it we can be certain that turmoil suits Russia more.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Could be theoretically...

... but there is some skill involved in making the document realistic and falsifying the stamp and then there's the issue of distribution which involves more than one man. It is, most likely, organised propaganda, a reasonably effective one at that. Very few of the major news agencies even bothered to mentioned that the man who supposedly signed it immediately denied it, let alone take it under deeper scrutiny.

You can falsify the stamp with a potato, a child can do it -anybody with actual skill would have been more convincing, unless they wanted to be unconvincing.

We know Russia operates illegal deep-cover agents in the US, and is still inserting them, they won't have stopped because Anna Chapman was caught. This leads us to the logical conclusion that they also operate them in Ukraine - may have many more in place than the US, as inserting someone would be effortless by comparison.

These FSB agents may also not be the brigtest sparks, because until recently it would have been an easy posting.

I never thought it came from the office of the "People's Governor", but Putin is the one using the Russian nationalist dog whistle, that will attract all the racist fruitcakes with anti-Jewish, anti-Ukrainian, anti-Tartar views.

There's another problem with Right Sector or another Ukrainian militia distributing them - they were doing so in broad daylight, given that militias rule in Donetsk, it seems unlikely that random men in balaclavas could walk around all day shoving stuff in people's faces if they weren't known to the local heavies. One thinks, if they were strangers, they would have been taken somewhere "private" for "strong words".

[Sarmatian]

or its been designed badly so one side or the other can proclaim its dirty tricks by there opposing side.


All I know is that regardless who wrote it we can be certain that turmoil suits Russia more.

And painting protesters as anti-Semitic, racist bigots suits Kiev more. Don't forget that they, in addition to international propaganda battle, are also waging a domestic propaganda battle. A lot of people in the east is still divided on what to do. A lot of people in the central Ukraine are divided on how to address the protesters.

The worse the protesters are presented, the more freedom they get to deal with them violently instead of addressing their issues.

You can falsify the stamp with a potato, a child can do it -anybody with actual skill would have been more convincing, unless they wanted to be unconvincing.

We know Russia operates illegal deep-cover agents in the US, and is still inserting them, they won't have stopped because Anna Chapman was caught. This leads us to the logical conclusion that they also operate them in Ukraine - may have many more in place than the US, as inserting someone would be effortless by comparison.

And we know that US does all that and more, UK also (only on the much smaller scale). If we're basing our judgement on that USA could be responsible just as well.

I never thought it came from the office of the "People's Governor", but Putin is the one using the Russian nationalist dog whistle, that will attract all the racist fruitcakes with anti-Jewish, anti-Ukrainian, anti-Tartar views.

The anti-whatever views are more easily associated with Kiev. Don't forget that 5 ministerial positions, in addition to various other important state functions, in the Maidan government is held by what is effectively a nazi party and that only violent incident (actually two incidents) involving Jews happened in Kiev, prompting one of the chief Rabbis in Ukraine to urge Jews to leave Kiev and, possibly even the country, to be on the safe side.

There's another problem with Right Sector or another Ukrainian militia distributing them - they were doing so in broad daylight, given that militias rule in Donetsk, it seems unlikely that random men in balaclavas could walk around all day shoving stuff in people's faces if they weren't known to the local heavies. One thinks, if they were strangers, they would have been taken somewhere "private" for "strong words".

There were only about 200 or so of them distributed in a very short time by three men and then they disappeared. The men as well as pamphlets.

[Shaka_Khan]

I don't think you understand why language is such a sensitive issue for Ukraine. As I have shown, Ukraine now is on the way of reviving Ukrainian and introducing into some spheres (education, medicine, science) where exclusively or predominantly Russian was used. It exasperates many pro-Russians. For example, only 4-5 years ago Nikolay Levchenko (then the secretary of Donetsk city council and now a MP) said that Ukrainian is good only for folksongs and in other cases it is useless.
I would say that 95% of those who speak Ukrainian can also speak Russian, but not the other way around. So for some people in the East and South introducing Russian as a second official language is the legal justification of why they shouldn't learn Ukrainian. They use Russian everywhere they want (according to the recent poll, 75% of the people of South-eastern regions don't see that the rights of Russian speakers are infringed upon) and having Russian as an official language wouldn't change anything in their life except that their anti-Ukrainian bias would have legal grounds.

Do you live in Ukraine? The news over here said that most of the Ukrainians are certain that Russia would invade. What do you think?

Would it be safe for a Russian to speak in Russian in the regions that are predominantly Ukrainian, especiallly with all these tensions going on? What if a tourist spoke Russian in a city like Kiev? And do you think it would become too dangerous for a tourist to visit there in a few months? I visited Kiev a few years ago so I'm not afraid to go there again right now.

[Sarmatian]

Interview with several soldiers who were involved in beating back the protesters at Mariupol. It may be indicative of the mindset of Ukrainian soldiers.

Even though they're lauded as heroes in western Ukraine and one tycoon wants to give them a monetary reward in excess of 50,000$, they appear to be skeptical about the whole thing and just want to go home.

Some of what they said also casts doubt that the Russian professionals are the ones spearheading the attack. One of them said: "These pro-Russians here have no idea how to make petrol bombs. They made no damage at all, apart from burnt curtains. Perhaps they used vodka instead of petrol. In Kiev, they threw real stuff at us—they were pros,”.

They also still appear to be haunted by the events in Kiev: “You know they keep talking about the dead protesters in Kiev, but did anyone say a single good word about servicemen who were dying there in their dozens?”

EDIT: corrected link

[Gilrandir]

“easterners act Nazi.” How and when?

Attacking and beating people at peaceful pro-Ukrainian meetings in Kharkiv, dispersing the similar meeting in Slovyansk, attacking Gipsies there, threatening people expressing pro-Ukrainian views all over Donetsk and Lugansk region.

By the way, what about the waves of Crimean Tatar refugees who had their house marked and were near to be ethnically cleansed? Any news?

There are no waves, but still a steady trickle of Tatars (mostly, the old, women and children) to other regions of Ukraine. In my city they report of close on 200 refugees from Crimea (I don't know whether they are all Tatars or otherwise). Tatars prefer to leave for western regions.