Roots and consequences of Ukraine's violence

[runningdownthatdream]

... any other form of intervention might produce results which could be truly catastrophic.

Disturbing news reports from the BBC last night on the rise of the neo-fascists in Ukraine. Gangs wearing neo-Nazi regalia now strut the streets of Kiev and say what they want is a pure Ukraine purged of Russians and... yes... Jews. The same old story.

And there you have it which is exactly why 'the West' needs to stay the fuck out and let Russia clean up the mess and restore order. What's taking place in Ukraine isn't much different than what too place in Iraq after the war, Libya after Ghaddafi, Egypt after Mubarak, and what's occurring right now in Syria. Despots are often despotic for a reason: because it's the only way to maintain some sort of law and order no matter how specious. One just has to search online to find all the articles written before, during, and after the Ukraine incident to see just how much the nationalists are involved. Shame on the EU and the US for supporting this debacle and throwing their support behind fascists.

[Dino Velvet]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...ionalists.html

World News

03.01.14
Can Ukraine Control Its Far Right Ultranationalists?

Ultra-nationalist groups help win the struggle against Yanukovych, but now the country may struggle to put their violent, homophobic genie back in the bottle.
“The Right Sector was armed and will be armed till the time when it will be necessary,” said the man in camouflage in the video. As if to prove his words, he pulled anAK-47 machine gun out from under the table of a local Ukrainian parliament. “You did not give us this weapon and you will not take it away. Who wants to take away my machine gun, my pistol, my knives? Let them try! As Americans say, ‘God made every man different; Sam Colt made them equal!’ I will put aside my Kalashnikov only when order in Ukraine is restored.”

Posted on YouTube earlier this week, the ”! Click here!” In it, Bilyi roughly yells at the prosecutor of the Rivno region, snatching his tie and threatning to pull him to the Maidan trussed up by a rope. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov condemned the video as “not an exaggerated manifestation of the hunt for justice, but sabotage against people’s faith in possible order.” Bilyi may have thought he was clowning around, but his particular brand of hooliganism demonstrates the sort of problems the Right Sector may have as it looks to enter into national politics. Absolutely marginal before the events of the Euromaidan, the far-right helped win the struggle against Yanukovych and has gained some prominence—but now that the struggle is over, they just keep on fighting.
The Right Sector is a confederation of several right and far-right organizations and groups such as “Patriots of Ukraine,” the Social-National Assembly, Stepan Bandera’s All-Ukrainian Association “Trident,” Kyiv Organization’s “White Hummer,” and the UNA-UNSO. The Right Sector trumpets the ideology of Ukrainian nationalism, which reaches its zenith in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which in its heyday was lead by Bandera. (He was assassinated by a KGB agent in Munich in 1959.) From 1942 to 1954, the group acted fought against the German and Soviet Armies. Now, its descendent organizations are dedicated to advancing the 20th-century throwback notion of the primacy of the nation-state. Their rhetoric may sound utopian (or dystopian), but it’s actually quite archaic. “If non-Ukrainians understand Ukrainians’ urge towards their nation, and are disposed to it and help in struggle, we are disposed to them too; if they are neutral and don’t prevent us in our struggle, we are neutral to them, too; if they object our right to be a nation-state and work against us, we are hostile to them,” Bandera once said.
Of course the role that the Right Sector played in the Euromaidan cannot be underestimated. When two months of protests in the streets got almost no attention from Yanukovych’s government and just tightened the screws on society—with parliament voting on new draconian anti-protest laws and pro-government thug squads kidnapping and killing civil activists—it was the far right that first started to talk back to Yanukovych in his own language. They were the first to throw Molotov coctails and stones at police and to mount real and well-fortified barricades. They were amongst those who that attacked the barricades on February 18. The Euromaidan won thanks to the resoluteness of people who were ready to fight rather than to negotiate in parliament when any negotiation became pointless. But now the situation on the ground has changed and the role the far right will play in the future of the country is an open question.
As University of Ottawa political scientist Ivan Katchanovski writes: “The far right in Ukraine has now achieved the level of representation and influence that is unparalleled in Europe. A member of Svoboda, a name adopted by the Social-National Party in 2004, became the Minister of Defense. Svoboda members also control the prosecutor general office, the deputy prime minister position and the ministries of ecology and agriculture. The paramilitary right sector has de facto power at least in some Western Ukrainian regions, such as the Rivne and Volyn Regions. Anriy Parubiy, the commander of the “Maidan self-defense,” has been appointed the head of the National Security and Defense Council, and [Dmitro] Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector, is expected to become his deputy.”
Katchanovski and other analysts are concerned that people with radical views are not suitable for the dull routine of politics. German political scientist and expert in far right ideology, Andreas Umland, disagrees: “Svoboda is probably still to be counted as ultra-nationalist, but has a foreign policy agenda and electorate untypical for far-right parties.” Umland may be correct in part—on February 26, Right Sector management and Yarosh met with with Israel’s ambassador to Ukraine, Reuven Din El. “Our movement will adhere to a policy of tolerance unto national questions,” Yarosh declared to Din El. “We will give up and stop any manifestations of chauvinism and xenophobia.”
But there are several areas in which the Right Sector still holds outdated and ultra-conservative views. In his video address “Great Ukrainian Achievement: What does Right Sector struggle for?” Yarosh says: “We are against degeneration and totalitarian liberalism, but we support traditional morals and family values, against the cult of profit and depravity.” What Yarosh means here when he says ‘degeneration’ is ‘homosexuality.’ When he says ‘totalitarian liberalism,’ he means that the right of the nation trumps human rights. Right Sector websites actively use such strange terms as “liberal homodictatorship” when they talk about modern open Western societies. One should note that while the far right is good in fighting, they might prove very problematic for Ukraine’s modern, open future.

[Dino Velvet]

[Stavros]

And there you have it which is exactly why 'the West' needs to stay the fuck out and let Russia clean up the mess and restore order. What's taking place in Ukraine isn't much different than what too place in Iraq after the war, Libya after Ghaddafi, Egypt after Mubarak, and what's occurring right now in Syria. Despots are often despotic for a reason: because it's the only way to maintain some sort of law and order no matter how specious. One just has to search online to find all the articles written before, during, and after the Ukraine incident to see just how much the nationalists are involved. Shame on the EU and the US for supporting this debacle and throwing their support behind fascists.

Yes, and no. The EU has been involved with the Ukraine as part of its 'European Neighbourhood Policy' which looks at those states on the borders of EU countries with a view to bringing them into closer economic relations with the EU, with the long-term potential for membership. On the one hand this looks reasonable if you consider that countries like Serbia and Moldova are on the borders of EU states but not part of the EU, on the other hand this policy also includes all of the North African states from Morocco to Egypt, as well as the Palestinian authority, Jordan and Syria. If someone can tell me how Egypt and Jordan can be part of the European Union without removing the word 'Europe' and replacing it with something else then I would like to hear it. Politics, rather than economics has been driving too much of EU policy in recent years, and it shows.

Nevertheless, what it means is that the EU can express 'an interest' or 'concern' with the Ukraine, but to me it is transparently part of the conflict with Russia and Putin's attempt to take that country back to a moment somewhere between Gorbachev and Yeltsin. An obvious concern is that the territorial integrity of the Ukraine has been violated in the Crimea by Russia - this is a clear violation of the Budapest Agreement of 1994 in which Ukraine declared itself a non-nuclear state and began to transfer all of its stockpile of nuclear weapons to Russia, in exchange for those security guarantees. For the US and the EU Russia's actions in the Crimea appear to be a clear violation of international law, but I don't see how anyone other than Putin can do anything about it, unless they want to send in a 'task force' to remove the Russians. The Crimea may be many things, the Falkland Islands it aint.

The issue of law and legitimacy is an interesting one -yes, Yanukovich was democratically elected, but he lost his legitimacy for the same reasons as previous Presidents, because he helped himself to the national wealth and disregarded the rule of law. He was forced from office by popular demonstrations, not always the best way of changing political leaders, but then impeached by a democratically elected parliament.

The existence of extremist elements in Ukraine is mirrored by extremist elements in Russia, because the history of these two countries has enabled such extremes to exist -if they appear distressingly visible in the Ukraine it is the usual reason -the broad mass of people do not speak with one voice, whereas a small organised group can stage demos, rallies and above all have the placards, badges and slogans at hand to wave at the cameras, something the tv loves, and it is no surprise to find these nutcases on tv telling the Russians to 'go home' when there is a distinct lack of news on what the majority of people in the Ukraine want. An early decision by Parliament to degrade the status of the Russian language was an emotional, and politically naive decision -the city of Kiev, as Kievan Rus in 882 was the birthplace of the Russian state -and the Ukrainian state -and Belarus, so the claims to legitimacy on the basis of language alone cannot stand.

Ukraine relies on Russia for its gas, as was shown a few years ago, the Russians can stop the gas any time they want. The co-existence of Russians and Ukrainians in Ukraine (and indeed, in Russia) and the different political affiliations across the Ukraine suggest that the problem of long-standing enmity between the two will be increased by the annexation of the Crimea, notwithstanding the curious history of this multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-religious peninsula which hosts the Black Sea fleet of the Russian Empire....

...one only hopes that a shooting war does not start; that 'acts of terrorism' do not take place. We are still living with the consequences of the end of the USSR, but I don't see what the 'west' can do other than use diplomacy to persuade both sides to avoid war and find a practical settlement of grievances. One also hopes that new political alignments within the Ukraine will sideline the neo-Nazis and in the long-term seek a mode of political representation that is not disfigured by the worst excesses of nationalism.

[Prospero]

So where do your sympathies lie, Dino, in the light of your background?

...and talking of the homophobic genie, its well and truly out of the bottle in Mother Russia.

[runningdownthatdream]

Yes, and no. The EU has been involved with the Ukraine as part of its 'European Neighbourhood Policy' which looks at those states on the borders of EU countries with a view to bringing them into closer economic relations with the EU, with the long-term potential for membership. On the one hand this looks reasonable if you consider that countries like Serbia and Moldova are on the borders of EU states but not part of the EU, on the other hand this policy also includes all of the North African states from Morocco to Egypt, as well as the Palestinian authority, Jordan and Syria. If someone can tell me how Egypt and Jordan can be part of the European Union without removing the word 'Europe' and replacing it with something else then I would like to hear it. Politics, rather than economics has been driving too much of EU policy in recent years, and it shows.

Nevertheless, what it means is that the EU can express 'an interest' or 'concern' with the Ukraine, but to me it is transparently part of the conflict with Russia and Putin's attempt to take that country back to a moment somewhere between Gorbachev and Yeltsin. An obvious concern is that the territorial integrity of the Ukraine has been violated in the Crimea by Russia - this is a clear violation of the Budapest Agreement of 1994 in which Ukraine declared itself a non-nuclear state and began to transfer all of its stockpile of nuclear weapons to Russia, in exchange for those security guarantees. For the US and the EU Russia's actions in the Crimea appear to be a clear violation of international law, but I don't see how anyone other than Putin can do anything about it, unless they want to send in a 'task force' to remove the Russians. The Crimea may be many things, the Falkland Islands it aint.

The issue of law and legitimacy is an interesting one -yes, Yanukovich was democratically elected, but he lost his legitimacy for the same reasons as previous Presidents, because he helped himself to the national wealth and disregarded the rule of law. He was forced from office by popular demonstrations, not always the best way of changing political leaders, but then impeached by a democratically elected parliament.

The existence of extremist elements in Ukraine is mirrored by extremist elements in Russia, because the history of these two countries has enabled such extremes to exist -if they appear distressingly visible in the Ukraine it is the usual reason -the broad mass of people do not speak with one voice, whereas a small organised group can stage demos, rallies and above all have the placards, badges and slogans at hand to wave at the cameras, something the tv loves, and it is no surprise to find these nutcases on tv telling the Russians to 'go home' when there is a distinct lack of news on what the majority of people in the Ukraine want. An early decision by Parliament to degrade the status of the Russian language was an emotional, and politically naive decision -the city of Kiev, as Kievan Rus in 882 was the birthplace of the Russian state -and the Ukrainian state -and Belarus, so the claims to legitimacy on the basis of language alone cannot stand.

Ukraine relies on Russia for its gas, as was shown a few years ago, the Russians can stop the gas any time they want. The co-existence of Russians and Ukrainians in Ukraine (and indeed, in Russia) and the different political affiliations across the Ukraine suggest that the problem of long-standing enmity between the two will be increased by the annexation of the Crimea, notwithstanding the curious history of this multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-religious peninsula which hosts the Black Sea fleet of the Russian Empire....

...one only hopes that a shooting war does not start; that 'acts of terrorism' do not take place. We are still living with the consequences of the end of the USSR, but I don't see what the 'west' can do other than use diplomacy to persuade both sides to avoid war and find a practical settlement of grievances. One also hopes that new political alignments within the Ukraine will sideline the neo-Nazis and in the long-term seek a mode of political representation that is not disfigured by the worst excesses of nationalism.

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

The EU was always destined to become a political entity, in my view. The most powerful players have been empire builders for centuries and while WW2 may have put an end to their individual goals, the EU afforded them the ability to, collectively, rebuild and pursue the same policies which drove their empires. Napoleon, Bismarck, Pitt, and Hitler must all be kicking their desiccated corpses for missing the boat on peaceful unification - but I guess one can argue that Europe needed to go through countless wars to learn that peaceful unification was the only feasible path for long-term success. Ultimately though a 'united' Europe is merely a fiefdom presided over by Germany, France, and Britain with everyone else just bit players.

Ukraine history has been interwoven with that of Russia's for a very long time. Arguably, there would be no Ukraine without Russia and definitely no Crimea within Ukraine without that gift from Kruschev - which, by the way, the Russian parliament voted to rescind several years ago. as I see it, Russia may not have international law on its side but it certainly has the right and obligation to protect its interestes particularly when those interests relate to Ukraine.

[Prospero]

The crisis in Crimea could lead the world into a second cold war
The Kremlin believes the west has been instrumental in the unrest in Ukraine – and will take its revenge

Piece of Dmitri Trenin from the Carnegia Moscow centre - published in today's Sunday Observer in London

This is perhaps the most dangerous point in Europe's history since the end of the cold war. Direct confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian forces will draw in the United States, one way or another. While there is still time, it's extremely important to understand what each party involved is aiming for.

Over the last 10 days, Moscow has been unpleasantly surprised several times. First, when Ukraine's then president, Viktor Yanukovych, halted an operation which would have cleared his opponents from the positions they occupied in central Kiev. Given the clear order, the Berkut riot police were closing in on the Maidan – the protest movement, named after Kiev's Independence Square, whose leaders were desperately calling for a truce, – but suddenly the Berkut advance was stopped. Instead, Yanukovych invited the opposition for negotiations. The second surprise came when the negotiations turned into talks about Yanukovych's concessions, with the participation of three European Union foreign ministers.

The agreement, signed on 21 February, was a delayed capitulation by Yanukovych – who had been seen triumphant only a couple of days earlier. An even bigger surprise was the rejection of these capitulation terms by the radicals, and the opposition supporting Yanukovych's immediate resignation. Finally, the German, Polish and French governments, who had just witnessed the Kiev accord, raised no objection to the just-signed agreement being scrapped within hours.

Russia, whose representative had been invited to witness the signing of the 21 February document, but who wisely refused to co-sign it, was incensed. What Moscow saw on 21-22 February was a coup d'état in Kiev. This development led to a fundamental reassessment of Russian policy in Ukraine, and vis-à-vis the West.

Viewing the February revolution in Kiev as a coup engineered by Ukrainian radical nationalists from the west of the country – assisted by Europe and the United States – the Kremlin believed Russia's important interests were directly affected. First, Russian president Vladimir Putin's plans of economic integration in the post-Soviet space would have to do without Ukraine. Second, the fact that radical nationalist components were among the beneficiaries of the Kiev revolution left no doubt about Ukraine's future foreign and security policy and its domestic policies.

The Association Agreement with the EU, whose signature was suspended by Yanukovych in November 2013, would now be signed, putting Ukraine, in principle, on track to long-term integration with the EU. More ominously, the new Ukrainian government would revoke the 2010 law on the country's non-aligned status and seek a Nato Membership Action Plan, or MAP. (It was the issue of MAP which materially contributed to the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia). In domestic terms, the triumph of western Ukrainian nationalists threatened discrimination against the Russian language, including in the largely Russophone eastern and southern regions, and a separation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate. The new official Ukrainian narrative, it was feared in Moscow, would change from the post-Soviet "Ukraine is not Russia" to something like "Ukraine in opposition to Russia".

Moscow has always been thoughtless, lazy and incoherent in its strategy towards an independent Ukraine. It preferred instead to focus on specific interests: denuclearisation; the Black Sea fleet; gas transit and prices; and the like. During the early days of the present crisis, it remained largely passive. Now, things are changing at breakneck speed. With the delicate balance in the Ukrainian polity and society which had existed since the break-up of the USSR no more, Russia has begun to act, decisively, even rashly. Again, there is hardly a master strategy in sight, but some key elements are becoming evident.

Russia is now seeking to insulate the Crimean peninsula from the rest of Ukraine – to prevent clashes between Kiev's military or police forces or Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary groups, on the one hand, and the locals, on the other, as well as to neutralise the Ukrainian police and military forces permanently deployed in Crimea. Moscow has given political, economic and military support to the local, pro-Russian elements who never accepted Ukraine's ownership of Crimea, which was transferred from Moscow's to Kiev's administration in 1954. Moscow now has two options: a confederacy between Crimea and Ukraine and Crimea's full integration into the Russian Federation (a relevant law is being adjusted to allow this).

With regard to eastern and southern Ukraine, Russia will seek to support those elements who resent western Ukrainian rule in Kiev. Rather than favouring their secession, Moscow is likely to support Ukraine's decentralisation up to federalisation, which would neutralise the threat of a unified anti-Russian Ukraine within Nato. The effectiveness of Russia's efforts to mobilise opposition to Kiev in the east and south will depend on the levels of wisdom and tolerance by the new authorities in Kiev. In the worst case, a unified Ukraine may not survive.

With regard to Kiev, Moscow has balked at recognising the "coup" which many Russian state-run media and officials call "fascist" or "neo-Nazi" – a reference to the collaboration between western Ukrainian nationalists and Adolf Hitler during the second world war. Russia has not recognised the provisional government and is only maintaining "working contacts" with Ukrainian officials. To poke Kiev in the eye, Russia gave the ousted President Yanukovych personal protection on its own territory, and organised his press conference in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don on Friday. The lack of legitimate authority – the Russians say the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, is acting under pressure from the Maidan – gives Moscow a freedom to act in "lawless" and "rudderless" Ukraine.

Unlike in 2008 in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Moscow decided not to wait for the first shot being fired before intervening: prevention, it now evidently believes, is better than counter-attack. As in 2008, however, recognition of a breakaway region by Moscow – this time, Crimea – may become the legal basis for a Russian military presence in the area beyond the terms of the 1997 Russo-Ukrainian treaty governing the status of the Black Sea fleet. This is unlikely to be a passing moment in Russian-western relations.

In Moscow, there is a growing fatigue with the west, with the EU and the United States. Their role in Ukraine is believed to be particularly obnoxious: imposing on Ukraine a choice between the EU and Russia that it could not afford; supporting the opposition against an elected government; turning a blind eye to right-wing radical descendants of wartime Nazi collaborators; siding with the opposition to pressure the government into submission; finally, condoning an unconstitutional regime change. The Kremlin is yet again convinced of the truth of the famous maxim of Alexander III, that Russia has only two friends in the world, its army and its navy. Both now defend its interests in Crimea.

The Crimea crisis will not pass soon. Kiev is unlikely to agree to Crimea's secession, even if backed by clear popular will: this would be discounted because of the "foreign occupation" of the peninsula. The crisis is also expanding to include other players, notably the United States. So far, there has been no military confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian forces, but if they clash, this will not be a repeat of the five-day war in the South Caucasus, as in 2008. The conflict will be longer and bloodier, with security in Europe put at its highest risk in a quarter century.

Even if there is no war, the Crimea crisis is likely to alter fundamentally relations between Russia and the west and lead to changes in the global power balance, with Russia now in open competition with the United States and the European Union in the new eastern Europe. If this happens, a second round of the cold war may ensue as a punishment for leaving many issues unsolved – such as Ukraine's internal cohesion, the special position of Crimea, or the situation of Russian ethnics in the newly independent states; but, above all, leaving unresolved Russia's integration within the Euro-Atlantic community. Russia will no doubt pay a high price for its apparent decision to "defend its own" and "put things right", but others will have to pay their share, too.

Dmitri Trenin is director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre.

[Dino Velvet]

So where do your sympathies lie, Dino, in the light of your background?

I'm an American and on the side of staying out of it. Like everyone else watching packs of crazy Slavs warring with each other. My grandparents left Russia hating Russia.

[Prospero]

World war three anyone?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...going-war.html

[broncofan]

This is brinksmanship. The Russians know nobody wants to engage in full scale warfare with them over illegal actions taken in Eastern Europe. Does anyone really expect the U.S and Britain to send forces to fight the Russians because they violated the Budapest Memorandum? With all apologies to the Ukrainians and at the risk of sounding completely craven, that would be a hell of a commitment; truly crossing the Rubicon (or the geographic equivalent).