The recent events in the Ukraine seem important. Till now I haven’t come across a good article that describes the background of the event in detail. Can anyone provide me a good link?
It is difficult to get good info on the English-speaking internet. I have been following the Russian-speaking Internet + I have personal contacts (I was born in the Crimea, and raised in Odessa). I am happy to answer questions.
edit: the outside view of this reminds me of the European middle ages. Much of European politics was dominated by the conflict between France (a unified autocratic state), and the Holy Roman Empire (a highly decentralized “superstate” but dominant in central Europe). France was often able to exploit the decentralization of the HRE, and the lack of effective political power of the Hapsburg emperor to get its way, even though a unified HRE would easily defeat it. In fact, one of the stated foreign policy goals of France was to keep the HRE divided, which was accomplished by siding with individual german princes against the Hapsburg emperor (and doing scandalous things like allying with the Ottoman empire, which was a muslim state).
The EU is a kind of modern, liberal HRE, and is having the same difficulties solving coordination problems.
A who’s who chart with the power players would be a good start.
But it’s hard to ask the right questions without having a background. I would have never asked whether the Egyptian military has a problem with Mubarak following Washington consensus policies. Yet it’s something very important for understanding why they allowed the mob to remove Mubarak from power. It’s also the kind of thing that you don’t get to read in Western mainstream media.
By the way, I am not avoiding this question, I simply have no useful information to give you.
The non-obvious part is the Ukrainian government. I can say that Russia is not entirely incorrect when it claims there are radical elements there, but I do not think these elements form anywhere near the dominant majority (a similar situation with iffy radical elements often happens in parlamentary democracies).
The issue also is that Russia uses “fascist” as a rather flexible label. For example, the “Nashi” (“Ours”) youth group:
I have been following the Russian-speaking Internet + I have personal contacts (I was born in the Crimea, and raised in Odessa). I am happy to answer questions.
What are the top reasons people provide when asked why they want to join the EU or the Russian Federation?
How strong is the correlation between the language people speak and their desire to either strengthen the ties with Russia or the EU?
Do people living in the Crimea mostly listen to Russian media or also Ukrainian and western media?
Did at any point, since the crisis started, Russian people in the Crimea seriously feared for their lives/safety?
How is the relation between Russian people in the Crimea and Crimean Tatars?
What are the top reasons people provide when asked why they want to join the EU or the Russian Federation?
Because Ukraine is fairly large, it has complicated demographics (both ethnically and in terms of opinion).
The educated middle class in Ukraine understands that Ukraine inherited weak (in the sense of huge corruption drag on everything) Soviet institutions, feels a sense of shame because of this, and wants to modernize institutions using western Europe (and e.g. Poland) as an example to follow. I think the main push to join EU is this (obviously people also want to do well economically, but I think pride/shame has a lot to do with this as well). I think Russo-sphere is a profoundly dysfunctional and “third world” place in many respects. For example, here is a (russian-speaking, but pictures speak for themselves) url showing what some hospitals look like in Russia (w/ some comparison to how the elite live): http://lj-editors.livejournal.com/393747.html
The intelligentsia (both in Ukraine and Russia) is ashamed and deeply critical of Putin. Many Russian members of intelligentsia are ashamed to be Russian right now. There are anti-war protesters in Russia that are getting jailed.
It is also true that there is a segment of the population in Ukraine that does not like Russians (and Jews!), and some of these folks are fairly radical, and further some of these folks were involved in the February revolution. Some of these folks view http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera as a folk hero, although he has a negative status in Russia as a Nazi collaborator (the worst thing you could be in Russia). “Banderan” is a typical slur/catchall used against radical nationalist Ukrainians. These folks have motivations that are obvious.
It is also true that there are a lot of Russians/Russian speaking people living in the Ukraine, and when Ukraine obtained independence it started making moves that made this group unhappy (e.g. mandating Ukrainian for official use, and for education). There is a (racist) perception among some Russians that the Ukrainian language is a kind of “village dialect” of Russian, and not a real language (which is of course preposterous). Some of these folks worry about that an independent, Europe-oriented Ukraine will suppress Russian language and culture, and for this reason may prefer a more Russia-oriented stance.
Further, some (generally older) folks (Russian or not) share Putin’s view that the breakup of USSR diminished Russia’s place in the world, and for this reason prefer a stronger “USSR sphere” which would include Ukraine staying in Russia’s sphere.
How strong is the correlation between the language people speak and their desire to either strengthen the ties
with Russia or the EU?
I hope the above answered some of this. I think Putin’s invasion showed his true colors, and radicalized Ukrainians against Putin’s Russia. For example, in Donetsk (eastern “russian” part of Ukraine), the pro-Ukraine demonstrations are now vastly larger than anti-Ukraine. Odessa had very large pro-Ukraine demonstrations (some say largest in Odessa history).
Do people living in the Crimea mostly listen to Russian media or also Ukrainian and western media?
I do not have the information to answer this. I know independent Russian-speaking news sites are under continuous DDOS attack from Russia (but generally are handling it well, and are staying up). There is a huge activity of pro-kremlin 50-centers (“Kremlinbots” as they are called) on all major news media sites with comments.
The internet (especially social media) is making it far easier to get reasonable news quickly, despite disruption attempts from Russia.
Did at any point, since the crisis started, Russian people in the Crimea seriously feared for their lives/safety?
I would find troops with guns milling around and military tech scary. The point of the invasion is to pass a referendum in Crimea to join Russia under the barrel of a gun. I do not think the Crimeans were genuinely worried about the Russian spetsnaz, e.g. opening fire on them. However, military units in the Crimea who are loyal to Kiev are under tremendous pressure/siege to surrender. Some Ukrainian personnel were wounded with non-lethal stuff the Russians are using (e.g. flash grenades).
How is the relation between Russian people in the Crimea and Crimean Tatars?
What follows is conventional history (e.g. don’t need me for this, but providing as a reference):
There is a lot of bad blood between Crimean tatars and russians for historical reasons. The tatars are a turkish people that migrated with the mongols and were a part of the Horde (original connotation of “Yurt”/”Orda”, meaning a nomadic tent) that conquered Rus (what we call “mongols”, russians call “mongol-tatars”.) When the original Horde fell apart, the Crimean tatars had a Khanate that included Crimea and most of southern Ukraine, and were allied with the Ottomans. Tatars were a heavily oppressed minority during Tsarist Russian days, and were relocated from the Crimea to central Asia by Stalin around the time of the second war due to the same worries that led to japanese-american internment.
Despite the bad blood, the sides mostly kept to themselves, and the situation resembled typical ethnic tensions found in many other places (e.g. nowhere close to genocide).
Ukraine’s standard of living is very low, so it is difficult to compare directly with a middle class in a Western country. But by “educated middle class” I mean, roughly, college graduates, white collar workers, engineers, teachers (many quite poor by our standards!) The kinds of people that make a living in a way a middle class person does, and that have received a certain basic education level.
How many percent of the population would you count into that class?
I am not sure. I think at most half of the population is middle class, and some proportion of this is educated. Maybe 10-20% of the overall population? This is me shooting from the hip.
Thanks! Could you also comment on the following points published by the U.S. Department of State: President Putin’s Fiction: 10 False Claims About Ukraine. Who is less wrong about those 10 claims, Putin or the U.S. Department of State?
Putin is farcically lying about 1. We can even identify specific units sent (for example the “East” battallion sent to Dzhankoy). Not even mentioning, e.g. russian license plates on military tech. Putin’s claim that the troops wear uniforms “that you can buy in any store” are widely ridiculed in the Russosphere. The troops in the Crimea are Russian infantry Spetsnaz.
2: there might be some scope for Russian troop presence, but I did not read the agreement in detail. Not willing to pass judgement yet.
4: legitimacy is a matter of interpretation, so a tie.
Russian state TV is farcically lying about 5 (e.g. they are showing footage of what is supposed to be the Ukrainian/Russian border with a string of refugees, but is in reality the Ukrainian/Polish border identifiable by landmarks, with regular car traffic).
8: it is difficult to say because of the possibility of “black ops.” I have heard an account from a Crimean Rabbi that there was a swastika graffiti that appeared the day after Russian troops arrived (and this sort of thing never happened before).
9: I don’t know what Putin is trying to say here.
10: there is some radical influence in the Rada, but I do not think the radicals form anywhere near a dominant majority.
I have been following the Russian-speaking Internet + I have personal contacts (I was born in the Crimea, and raised in Odessa). I am happy to answer questions.
My girlfriend was born in Odessa, has family there, all pure-blood Ashkenazi. I’ve heard that Russian control of Ukraine would be better for Ukrainian Jews. It’s not a precise claim, but do you think it’s accurate?
“They lost their lives because they defended men and women, children and the elderly who found themselves in a situation facing a threat to be killed by invaders and sponsored by them subhumans. First, we will commemorate the heroes by wiping out those who killed them and then by cleaning our land from the evil”
That’s the prime minister. From Ukrainian embassy website. Those who speak Russian don’t have to wait for such things to be translated to English.
Ukrainians are quite anti-semitic, but so are russians. Probably given this, an autocratic asshole with an interest in appearing photogenic would seem like a better deal. Historically persecuted minorities do worse under weakened centralization.
Though if your choices are such that Putin is a better idea, then it seems to me that the correct response for an Odessan jew is to move to Brooklyn (?).
This is a good question! Very rich folks like Victor Pinchuk in that part of the world are hard to know well. I am guessing he covertly supported the February revolution, and probably has ties with the new government.
The thing that I don’t quite understand is why someone who’s financial interests are about selling pipes to Russian companies will found the Yalta European Strategy to increase ties between the EU and the Ukraine?
While this is an interesting conversation to have, I should point out that I no longer claim any sort of special knowledge due to being from that part of the world, or being able to read Russian language news. This is the sort of question you need a highly paid analyst for.
Pinchuk seems smart (I have read an interview of his). I think he basically realizes people like him do best in the long run in a legally stable environment, which means EU and not Russia. The issue with Russia is very weak institutions, that is a government of men and not laws. Bad for business (though well connected people can become very rich in such an environment, crucially they cannot reliably count on staying rich, or free, or alive).
This is the sort of question you need a highly paid analyst for.
To me it seems like a straightforward question. Russian mainstream media probably won’t ask it but there might be good blogs who do.
As far as I understand the situation at the moment and please correct me if I got something wrong or missed something important:
The EU proposed an association agreement last year that would have integrated the Ukraine into military exercises with EU countries and that would prevented the Ukraine from having a trade free agreement with Russia.
The Ukrainian president Yanukovych said no. Then the Yalta group headed by Pinchuk got angry. Europe didn’t wanted to do that much about it but the US was willing to spend 5 billion to buy a revolution to switch the regime of Yanukovych with one that would accept the association agreement.
From an EU perspective, we have enough trouble on our own supporting countries like Greece but there are still US policy makers who believe in cold war containment, so they choose to play strongly. Figures like George Soros are willing to fund related courses.
Pinchuk made his money with selling pipes but owns 1⁄3 of the Ukrainians media. For a while he was in parliament but he thinks he can do more working outside of it. He also made Time 100 most influential people once, his company was the first to go to Davos. He knows the US people, he signed Bill Gates pledge. He does a lot to combat AIDS but a lot of his charitable donations go into building civil society organisations that serve his political ends which happens to get the Ukraine into EU.
He wasn’t just a passive spectator. “We were on the phone constantly–with businessmen, with politicians, with our Western and Eastern friends, discussing what all of us could do.”
Other interesting information from the article:
Pinchuk’s fortune is tied to trade with Russia. Lest he forget that, Vladimir Putin’s regime recently imposed crippling tariffs on his core asset, the steel tube company Interpipe.
Recently is an interesting word. Having a date would be nice to understand the timeline of events better.
It seems very much like someone overplayed their hand. They gave weapons to facists that aren’t really nice. They didn’t anticipate that the Crimerian government rather wants Crimeria to be part of Russia than of the Ukraine. The didn’t anticipate that Russia can just move in and take Crimeria.
Given what happened in Georgia that seems stupid on the part of the US but it’s the US.
The alternative is that Pinchuk was angry at Russia for the tariffs and therefore gave the US bad intel about Crimeria to get them into play.
CFR has two issueguides on the subject. As an aside, I find CFR in general to be a great source of relatively balanced foreign news analysis. My primary source of world news these days is their Daily News Brief which I get delivered in my inbox.
CFR provides deep coverage but they aren’t balanced. They are a think tank with major influence on US politics. Joe Biden would be an example for a prominent member of the CFR.
It’s funded by ExxonMobile, Goldman Sachs and various other banks and Big Oil companies.
“Balanced” is a very subjective term, it basically means “in a one-dimensional political space their positions fall both to the left and to the right of me”. In reality the political space is multidimensional and different people have quite different reference (anchor) points in it.
I don’t think it’s possible for a single news source to be well-balanced. To get a reasonable picture you need to read a diverse collection of sources (and it’s OK for some or even most of them to be “unbalanced” as long as they are skewed in different directions).
“Balanced” is a very subjective term, it basically means “in a one-dimensional political space their positions fall both to the left and to the right of me”.
If you look at the interests of a think tank like the CFR I don’t think it makes much sense to think in terms of left and right.
If I look at CFR coverage of Ukraine, than asking whether it’s right or left isn’t helpful because it tells you little about the interests that the CFR has on Ukrainian politics. In the Ukraine it might work because there’s fascists against communists and you have a clear left right split.
If you look at a country like China or Egypt it doesn’t work because the interested of the multinational banks and oil companies aren’t left or right. There corporatist if you want to use a word.
On the other hand neither yourself no myself have stakes into what happens in the conflict in the Ukraine, so in some sense we can be more balanced. A random sampling of LW opinions is likely to be more balanced than a random sampling of CFR articles.
When seeking to get a reasonable picture it’s always good to know the interests of the source you are reading.
I’m not referring to their recommendations, just their coverage. I was not aware of their funding sources, and I never heard of Joe Biden being a member. The primary reason I had the impression they were relatively balanced is because I’ve tried to detect a slant to their reports (whether by leaving out some information or by reporting it in a slanted way), but I have been unable to do so. Of course, that could just be because I don’t know enough or am not perceptive enough to detect the slant.
They intent to inform readers in the US policy by giving them useful information about what’s going on in the world.
They don’t pretend to be balanced. Neither does the Economist for that matter. Both use language like “We think XY should happen.”
In US culture there the strange idea that being a good news source is about having no interests and weighing all views equally.
Often the people who are deeply informed on a topic do have interests. That doesn’t mean that you should ignore them but it’s worth to keep in mind those interests when you read them.
Why do you care? Sure, these events might kill us, but do you expect them to influence your decisions?
What do you mean by “deep”? In one comment you contrast it to propaganda, but in another you mention the possibility of slanted deep coverage. You asked for a chart of who’s who. BBC gives one. Is this shallow? But don’t you need to start shallow? Do you predict that Ilya will give a radically different one?
What is your assessment of what happened in Egypt?
Why do you care? Sure, these events might kill us, but do you expect them to influence your decisions?
Two years ago I sat in the audience of the Chaos Computer Congress when Julian Assange said that he got a leaked “North Pole”-confidental report with a list of persons who don’t get Christmas presents if they don’t do anything to advance politics in the right direction the common year. He handed out a bunch of codes so that everyone who got a code sort of new that he had to do something to get off the list.
I personally made a decision against actively working at Wikileaks or similar causes. I have more private information about myself in the public domain than would be wise if I would make those kinds of political moves myself. I still like to be one of the people who can hold a political conversation on the level that created a project like Wikileaks.
As a community of smart people I don’t think it’s useful to give up politics completely.
I didn’t mean to imply that you shouldn’t care about any politics, just that this topic sounds like gossip, not an attempt to “advance politics in the right direction.”
Isn’t this the worst argument in the world? I don’t think this topic is anywhere near the central element of the set “gossip”. Gossip is if we talk about the Kardashians.
Gossip has two meanings. One meaning is talking about people you know. That is real political coalition-building. The other is celebrity gossip, where you fool yourself into thinking that you are doing politics.
What the BBC writes could be classified as gossip. I don’t really disagree on that point.
Reading articles that are really intended to inform about the crisis in the Ukraine is however not gossip. To me it’s a major political event. I also live in Europe so it’s more important to me as it would be if I would live in the US.
I think that if you want to advance politics in the right direction you first have to understand the playing field. That means understanding major events.
I however won’t judge anybody who thinks that dealing with politics isn’t worth his time because he doesn’t see an effect on his actions.
You asked for a chart of who’s who. BBC gives one. Is this shallow?
The BBC one contains no single oligarch. That’s a significant decision.
Sergej Aksjonow who’s the premier of Crimea and who declared that he commands the fleet, police and the interior ministry that’s stationed on Crimea doesn’t make it into the BBC’s list of major players.
From a propaganda standpoint framing the major players that way makes sense. Western powers don’t want that the democratically elected premier of Crimea has power.
If you read the CFR reporting you find talk about how the US thinks Europe wasn’t investing enough effort into funding protestors of the old Ukranian regime. That’s useful information for understanding the who’s who. The CIA was more interested in getting rid of the old Ukranian regime than European actors.
It’s the kind of information that the audience of the Western foreign policy community who reads CFR to inform themselves of the conflict needs. The CFR wants to inform the Western foreign policy community to have them make decisions in the interests of the Western foreign policy community and that means that they actually have to communicate the who’s who more accurately.
What is your assessment of what happened in Egypt?
The military has the power in Egypt. In contrast to a country like the US the Egyptian military controls large parts of the Egyptian economy. Certain policies of opening up Egypt to international investors and making life for international investors easier go against the business interests of the Egyptian military. They see themselves as nationalists.
When the revolution came around they allowed Mubarak to fall and didn’t shoot and protesters because they didn’t like Mubarak.
When it turned out that the brotherhood government wasn’t what they wanted the military took power themselves and did shoot at protesters. That surprised people who believed the narrative that Western media told, but it shouldn’t have surprised anyone who paid attention.
The recent events in the Ukraine seem important. Till now I haven’t come across a good article that describes the background of the event in detail. Can anyone provide me a good link?
It is difficult to get good info on the English-speaking internet. I have been following the Russian-speaking Internet + I have personal contacts (I was born in the Crimea, and raised in Odessa). I am happy to answer questions.
edit: the outside view of this reminds me of the European middle ages. Much of European politics was dominated by the conflict between France (a unified autocratic state), and the Holy Roman Empire (a highly decentralized “superstate” but dominant in central Europe). France was often able to exploit the decentralization of the HRE, and the lack of effective political power of the Hapsburg emperor to get its way, even though a unified HRE would easily defeat it. In fact, one of the stated foreign policy goals of France was to keep the HRE divided, which was accomplished by siding with individual german princes against the Hapsburg emperor (and doing scandalous things like allying with the Ottoman empire, which was a muslim state).
The EU is a kind of modern, liberal HRE, and is having the same difficulties solving coordination problems.
A who’s who chart with the power players would be a good start.
But it’s hard to ask the right questions without having a background. I would have never asked whether the Egyptian military has a problem with Mubarak following Washington consensus policies. Yet it’s something very important for understanding why they allowed the mob to remove Mubarak from power. It’s also the kind of thing that you don’t get to read in Western mainstream media.
By the way, I am not avoiding this question, I simply have no useful information to give you.
The non-obvious part is the Ukrainian government. I can say that Russia is not entirely incorrect when it claims there are radical elements there, but I do not think these elements form anywhere near the dominant majority (a similar situation with iffy radical elements often happens in parlamentary democracies).
The issue also is that Russia uses “fascist” as a rather flexible label. For example, the “Nashi” (“Ours”) youth group:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashi_(youth_movement%29 http://www.nashi.su/
is called an “anti-fascist” youth organization, but is precisely the opposite (heavy shades of Hitler youth).
Those two pieces are both useful information. On their own not enough but they help with building the full picture. Knowing things is hard.
What are the top reasons people provide when asked why they want to join the EU or the Russian Federation?
How strong is the correlation between the language people speak and their desire to either strengthen the ties with Russia or the EU?
Do people living in the Crimea mostly listen to Russian media or also Ukrainian and western media?
Did at any point, since the crisis started, Russian people in the Crimea seriously feared for their lives/safety?
How is the relation between Russian people in the Crimea and Crimean Tatars?
Because Ukraine is fairly large, it has complicated demographics (both ethnically and in terms of opinion).
The educated middle class in Ukraine understands that Ukraine inherited weak (in the sense of huge corruption drag on everything) Soviet institutions, feels a sense of shame because of this, and wants to modernize institutions using western Europe (and e.g. Poland) as an example to follow. I think the main push to join EU is this (obviously people also want to do well economically, but I think pride/shame has a lot to do with this as well). I think Russo-sphere is a profoundly dysfunctional and “third world” place in many respects. For example, here is a (russian-speaking, but pictures speak for themselves) url showing what some hospitals look like in Russia (w/ some comparison to how the elite live): http://lj-editors.livejournal.com/393747.html
The intelligentsia (both in Ukraine and Russia) is ashamed and deeply critical of Putin. Many Russian members of intelligentsia are ashamed to be Russian right now. There are anti-war protesters in Russia that are getting jailed.
It is also true that there is a segment of the population in Ukraine that does not like Russians (and Jews!), and some of these folks are fairly radical, and further some of these folks were involved in the February revolution. Some of these folks view http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera as a folk hero, although he has a negative status in Russia as a Nazi collaborator (the worst thing you could be in Russia). “Banderan” is a typical slur/catchall used against radical nationalist Ukrainians. These folks have motivations that are obvious.
It is also true that there are a lot of Russians/Russian speaking people living in the Ukraine, and when Ukraine obtained independence it started making moves that made this group unhappy (e.g. mandating Ukrainian for official use, and for education). There is a (racist) perception among some Russians that the Ukrainian language is a kind of “village dialect” of Russian, and not a real language (which is of course preposterous). Some of these folks worry about that an independent, Europe-oriented Ukraine will suppress Russian language and culture, and for this reason may prefer a more Russia-oriented stance.
Further, some (generally older) folks (Russian or not) share Putin’s view that the breakup of USSR diminished Russia’s place in the world, and for this reason prefer a stronger “USSR sphere” which would include Ukraine staying in Russia’s sphere.
I hope the above answered some of this. I think Putin’s invasion showed his true colors, and radicalized Ukrainians against Putin’s Russia. For example, in Donetsk (eastern “russian” part of Ukraine), the pro-Ukraine demonstrations are now vastly larger than anti-Ukraine. Odessa had very large pro-Ukraine demonstrations (some say largest in Odessa history).
I do not have the information to answer this. I know independent Russian-speaking news sites are under continuous DDOS attack from Russia (but generally are handling it well, and are staying up). There is a huge activity of pro-kremlin 50-centers (“Kremlinbots” as they are called) on all major news media sites with comments.
The internet (especially social media) is making it far easier to get reasonable news quickly, despite disruption attempts from Russia.
I would find troops with guns milling around and military tech scary. The point of the invasion is to pass a referendum in Crimea to join Russia under the barrel of a gun. I do not think the Crimeans were genuinely worried about the Russian spetsnaz, e.g. opening fire on them. However, military units in the Crimea who are loyal to Kiev are under tremendous pressure/siege to surrender. Some Ukrainian personnel were wounded with non-lethal stuff the Russians are using (e.g. flash grenades).
What follows is conventional history (e.g. don’t need me for this, but providing as a reference):
There is a lot of bad blood between Crimean tatars and russians for historical reasons. The tatars are a turkish people that migrated with the mongols and were a part of the Horde (original connotation of “Yurt”/”Orda”, meaning a nomadic tent) that conquered Rus (what we call “mongols”, russians call “mongol-tatars”.) When the original Horde fell apart, the Crimean tatars had a Khanate that included Crimea and most of southern Ukraine, and were allied with the Ottomans. Tatars were a heavily oppressed minority during Tsarist Russian days, and were relocated from the Crimea to central Asia by Stalin around the time of the second war due to the same worries that led to japanese-american internment.
Despite the bad blood, the sides mostly kept to themselves, and the situation resembled typical ethnic tensions found in many other places (e.g. nowhere close to genocide).
What people count into the middle class in Ukraine? How many percent of the population would you count into that class?
Ukraine’s standard of living is very low, so it is difficult to compare directly with a middle class in a Western country. But by “educated middle class” I mean, roughly, college graduates, white collar workers, engineers, teachers (many quite poor by our standards!) The kinds of people that make a living in a way a middle class person does, and that have received a certain basic education level.
I am not sure. I think at most half of the population is middle class, and some proportion of this is educated. Maybe 10-20% of the overall population? This is me shooting from the hip.
Thanks! Could you also comment on the following points published by the U.S. Department of State: President Putin’s Fiction: 10 False Claims About Ukraine. Who is less wrong about those 10 claims, Putin or the U.S. Department of State?
Will add to this post as I collect my thoughts:
Putin is farcically lying about 1. We can even identify specific units sent (for example the “East” battallion sent to Dzhankoy). Not even mentioning, e.g. russian license plates on military tech. Putin’s claim that the troops wear uniforms “that you can buy in any store” are widely ridiculed in the Russosphere. The troops in the Crimea are Russian infantry Spetsnaz.
2: there might be some scope for Russian troop presence, but I did not read the agreement in detail. Not willing to pass judgement yet.
4: legitimacy is a matter of interpretation, so a tie.
Russian state TV is farcically lying about 5 (e.g. they are showing footage of what is supposed to be the Ukrainian/Russian border with a string of refugees, but is in reality the Ukrainian/Polish border identifiable by landmarks, with regular car traffic).
8: it is difficult to say because of the possibility of “black ops.” I have heard an account from a Crimean Rabbi that there was a swastika graffiti that appeared the day after Russian troops arrived (and this sort of thing never happened before).
9: I don’t know what Putin is trying to say here.
10: there is some radical influence in the Rada, but I do not think the radicals form anywhere near a dominant majority.
My girlfriend was born in Odessa, has family there, all pure-blood Ashkenazi. I’ve heard that Russian control of Ukraine would be better for Ukrainian Jews. It’s not a precise claim, but do you think it’s accurate?
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:W7a815ys0XwJ:usa.mfa.gov.ua/en/press-center/news/24185-mi-uvichnimo-pamjaty-gerojiv-ochistivshi-nashu-zemlyu-vid-nechistiarsenij-jacenyuk-u-spivchutti-ridnim-i-blizykim-zagiblih-vojiniv-u-lugansyku+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk
before the cache updates, quote:
That’s the prime minister. From Ukrainian embassy website. Those who speak Russian don’t have to wait for such things to be translated to English.
Ukrainians are quite anti-semitic, but so are russians. Probably given this, an autocratic asshole with an interest in appearing photogenic would seem like a better deal. Historically persecuted minorities do worse under weakened centralization.
Though if your choices are such that Putin is a better idea, then it seems to me that the correct response for an Odessan jew is to move to Brooklyn (?).
Given this, doesn’t look likely.
Well Masha Gessen is not necessarily the most trustworthy source on these matters.
After reading a bit, I got a decent question: Who does Victor Pinchuk happen to be in your opinion?
This is a good question! Very rich folks like Victor Pinchuk in that part of the world are hard to know well. I am guessing he covertly supported the February revolution, and probably has ties with the new government.
The thing that I don’t quite understand is why someone who’s financial interests are about selling pipes to Russian companies will found the Yalta European Strategy to increase ties between the EU and the Ukraine?
While this is an interesting conversation to have, I should point out that I no longer claim any sort of special knowledge due to being from that part of the world, or being able to read Russian language news. This is the sort of question you need a highly paid analyst for.
Pinchuk seems smart (I have read an interview of his). I think he basically realizes people like him do best in the long run in a legally stable environment, which means EU and not Russia. The issue with Russia is very weak institutions, that is a government of men and not laws. Bad for business (though well connected people can become very rich in such an environment, crucially they cannot reliably count on staying rich, or free, or alive).
To me it seems like a straightforward question. Russian mainstream media probably won’t ask it but there might be good blogs who do.
As far as I understand the situation at the moment and please correct me if I got something wrong or missed something important:
The EU proposed an association agreement last year that would have integrated the Ukraine into military exercises with EU countries and that would prevented the Ukraine from having a trade free agreement with Russia.
The Ukrainian president Yanukovych said no. Then the Yalta group headed by Pinchuk got angry. Europe didn’t wanted to do that much about it but the US was willing to spend 5 billion to buy a revolution to switch the regime of Yanukovych with one that would accept the association agreement.
From an EU perspective, we have enough trouble on our own supporting countries like Greece but there are still US policy makers who believe in cold war containment, so they choose to play strongly. Figures like George Soros are willing to fund related courses.
Pinchuk made his money with selling pipes but owns 1⁄3 of the Ukrainians media. For a while he was in parliament but he thinks he can do more working outside of it. He also made Time 100 most influential people once, his company was the first to go to Davos. He knows the US people, he signed Bill Gates pledge. He does a lot to combat AIDS but a lot of his charitable donations go into building civil society organisations that serve his political ends which happens to get the Ukraine into EU.
Forbes description of Pinchuk during the crisis:
Other interesting information from the article:
Recently is an interesting word. Having a date would be nice to understand the timeline of events better.
It seems very much like someone overplayed their hand. They gave weapons to facists that aren’t really nice. They didn’t anticipate that the Crimerian government rather wants Crimeria to be part of Russia than of the Ukraine. The didn’t anticipate that Russia can just move in and take Crimeria.
Given what happened in Georgia that seems stupid on the part of the US but it’s the US. The alternative is that Pinchuk was angry at Russia for the tariffs and therefore gave the US bad intel about Crimeria to get them into play.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26270866
is a decent starting point
I don’t want to read government propaganda but would rather read something deeper.
I couldn’t listen to the German state television on the issue without busting out laughing.
http://live.aljazeera.com/Event/Ukraine_liveblog
AlJazeera is an excellent, sorely underrated news source.
Liveblog sounds very noisy, is there a good write up that not “XY” happened today on AlJazeera?
Analysis pieces:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/03/ukraine-identity-rift-20143353050840757.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/analysis-us-russia-relations-drop-new-low-2014367738365747.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/03/destitute-country-can-ukraine-s-201435155043404522.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/03/ukraine-goodbye-cold-war-hello-g-20143645051692739.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2014/03/russian-defence-dominance-201434123623509686.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/03/former-soviet-republics-fear-con-20143572552718992.html
CFR has two issue guides on the subject. As an aside, I find CFR in general to be a great source of relatively balanced foreign news analysis. My primary source of world news these days is their Daily News Brief which I get delivered in my inbox.
CFR provides deep coverage but they aren’t balanced. They are a think tank with major influence on US politics. Joe Biden would be an example for a prominent member of the CFR.
It’s funded by ExxonMobile, Goldman Sachs and various other banks and Big Oil companies.
“Balanced” is a very subjective term, it basically means “in a one-dimensional political space their positions fall both to the left and to the right of me”. In reality the political space is multidimensional and different people have quite different reference (anchor) points in it.
I don’t think it’s possible for a single news source to be well-balanced. To get a reasonable picture you need to read a diverse collection of sources (and it’s OK for some or even most of them to be “unbalanced” as long as they are skewed in different directions).
If you look at the interests of a think tank like the CFR I don’t think it makes much sense to think in terms of left and right.
If I look at CFR coverage of Ukraine, than asking whether it’s right or left isn’t helpful because it tells you little about the interests that the CFR has on Ukrainian politics. In the Ukraine it might work because there’s fascists against communists and you have a clear left right split.
If you look at a country like China or Egypt it doesn’t work because the interested of the multinational banks and oil companies aren’t left or right. There corporatist if you want to use a word.
On the other hand neither yourself no myself have stakes into what happens in the conflict in the Ukraine, so in some sense we can be more balanced. A random sampling of LW opinions is likely to be more balanced than a random sampling of CFR articles.
When seeking to get a reasonable picture it’s always good to know the interests of the source you are reading.
I’m not referring to their recommendations, just their coverage. I was not aware of their funding sources, and I never heard of Joe Biden being a member. The primary reason I had the impression they were relatively balanced is because I’ve tried to detect a slant to their reports (whether by leaving out some information or by reporting it in a slanted way), but I have been unable to do so. Of course, that could just be because I don’t know enough or am not perceptive enough to detect the slant.
They intent to inform readers in the US policy by giving them useful information about what’s going on in the world.
They don’t pretend to be balanced. Neither does the Economist for that matter. Both use language like “We think XY should happen.”
In US culture there the strange idea that being a good news source is about having no interests and weighing all views equally.
Often the people who are deeply informed on a topic do have interests. That doesn’t mean that you should ignore them but it’s worth to keep in mind those interests when you read them.
Why do you care? Sure, these events might kill us, but do you expect them to influence your decisions?
What do you mean by “deep”? In one comment you contrast it to propaganda, but in another you mention the possibility of slanted deep coverage. You asked for a chart of who’s who. BBC gives one. Is this shallow? But don’t you need to start shallow? Do you predict that Ilya will give a radically different one?
What is your assessment of what happened in Egypt?
Two years ago I sat in the audience of the Chaos Computer Congress when Julian Assange said that he got a leaked “North Pole”-confidental report with a list of persons who don’t get Christmas presents if they don’t do anything to advance politics in the right direction the common year. He handed out a bunch of codes so that everyone who got a code sort of new that he had to do something to get off the list.
I personally made a decision against actively working at Wikileaks or similar causes. I have more private information about myself in the public domain than would be wise if I would make those kinds of political moves myself. I still like to be one of the people who can hold a political conversation on the level that created a project like Wikileaks.
As a community of smart people I don’t think it’s useful to give up politics completely.
I didn’t mean to imply that you shouldn’t care about any politics, just that this topic sounds like gossip, not an attempt to “advance politics in the right direction.”
Isn’t this the worst argument in the world? I don’t think this topic is anywhere near the central element of the set “gossip”. Gossip is if we talk about the Kardashians.
It’s politics, though.
Gossip has two meanings. One meaning is talking about people you know. That is real political coalition-building. The other is celebrity gossip, where you fool yourself into thinking that you are doing politics.
I am sorry, but world politics is just not the same as gossip.
What the BBC writes could be classified as gossip. I don’t really disagree on that point.
Reading articles that are really intended to inform about the crisis in the Ukraine is however not gossip. To me it’s a major political event. I also live in Europe so it’s more important to me as it would be if I would live in the US.
I think that if you want to advance politics in the right direction you first have to understand the playing field. That means understanding major events.
I however won’t judge anybody who thinks that dealing with politics isn’t worth his time because he doesn’t see an effect on his actions.
The BBC one contains no single oligarch. That’s a significant decision.
Sergej Aksjonow who’s the premier of Crimea and who declared that he commands the fleet, police and the interior ministry that’s stationed on Crimea doesn’t make it into the BBC’s list of major players.
From a propaganda standpoint framing the major players that way makes sense. Western powers don’t want that the democratically elected premier of Crimea has power.
If you read the CFR reporting you find talk about how the US thinks Europe wasn’t investing enough effort into funding protestors of the old Ukranian regime. That’s useful information for understanding the who’s who. The CIA was more interested in getting rid of the old Ukranian regime than European actors.
It’s the kind of information that the audience of the Western foreign policy community who reads CFR to inform themselves of the conflict needs. The CFR wants to inform the Western foreign policy community to have them make decisions in the interests of the Western foreign policy community and that means that they actually have to communicate the who’s who more accurately.
The military has the power in Egypt. In contrast to a country like the US the Egyptian military controls large parts of the Egyptian economy. Certain policies of opening up Egypt to international investors and making life for international investors easier go against the business interests of the Egyptian military. They see themselves as nationalists.
When the revolution came around they allowed Mubarak to fall and didn’t shoot and protesters because they didn’t like Mubarak.
When it turned out that the brotherhood government wasn’t what they wanted the military took power themselves and did shoot at protesters. That surprised people who believed the narrative that Western media told, but it shouldn’t have surprised anyone who paid attention.
Another story about how the BBC engages into propaganda that’s not about information the viewer:
http://stevecoast.com/2014/03/02/ukrainian-maps-and-the-lies-they-tell/