What do you think would be the best course for Ukraine and the world response? I forgot you were Ukrainian. It would interesting to hear from a national and cut through all the bs propaganda we are getting.
Full disclamer: I left Ukraine 15 years ago while still in highschool. So all I know about the current sitution comes from various news outlets and posts on facebook.
It's a tough one. The armchair strategist in me says that US and UK must honor their nuclear non-proliferation agreement with Ukraine cause otherwise how can we convince anyone else to give up their nuclear arms? On the other hand noone wants to start World War 3 over some peninsula that never really felt as a part of Ukraine. So I think unless Russia gets greedy and continue the Crimea scenario in other russian-speaking regions the rest of the world will let it slide just like with Georgia.
Ukrainian army is just for show. They haven't fought a single war in their post USSR history. Their battle ready troops are about 6 thousand people out of 40 thousand strong army. So all they can really do - suicide run at Russian forces in Crimea to ignite the fire and force US/EU to react. Or what's more realistic just defend their borders and any separatists movement in eastern regions.
Also if you want some english speaking footage from Crimea check out this Youtube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZaT_X_mc0BI-djXOlfhqWQ) Or to be specific their series "Russian Roulette: The Invasion of Ukraine" cause they have bunch of videos there from all over the world. AFAIK it's a Bill Maher project but videos are amazing and actually tilted toward pro-ukraine.
EDIT: I'm not much of a LJ writer, more of a copy&paster :) so if I missed some point or you want me to clear something up ask away!
Thanks a lot for your time! I really appreciate it. Then when the topic comes up, I can have an idea of what ethnic Ukrainians think. One time I was on RT where they had an article about a resistance movement in Ukraine, with the headline: "Resistance Leader says he will spend his whole life fighting Russians and Jews" Some of the people commenting knew how to speak the language and said he wasn't really saying that. It's difficult to understand what's going on without knowing the language. :-)
I'm jewish and from south region of Ukraine - Kherson, that borders with Crimea. So my native language is Russian. Not much of ethnic ukrainian :)
Well RT being RT is very anti-ukraine right now. Or to be more precise - RT is always pro-russian.
The neo-nazi angle is also complicated. There are nationalists elements in the protest. Maidan became organized defense organism thanks to self trained nationalistic militia elements from the west of Ukraine. You know how the story goes we've seen it done to the Tea Party. Some of their political parties (which are official parties) got cabinets assignemnts in new government. Mostly in ukrainian armed forces, police, secret service. Which freaks out pro-russians even more. To some extent legitimately
The western ukraine is way more nationalistic and ukrainian than the east. East was always under Russia and more loyal to russia. It's a north-south cultural split we have in the states. During WW2 there was a freedom fighting nationalist army formed in Ukraine. They fought against germans and soviet alike. Then when germans took over Ukraine the ukrainian freedom fighters pledged allegiance to Nazi Germany in exchange to getting Ukraine independance after the war. Their leaders still hailed as heros and national liberators in western ukraine.
Their main heros was Stepan Bandera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera You might see people calling ukrainians benderovec/benderovci as in thugs/nazis.
The red and black flags you see are of the Ukrainian National Assembly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_National_Assembly_%E2%80%93_Ukrainian_National_Self_Defence
Which links itself to history and memory of Ukrainian National Army http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_National_Army
There was also SS Division part of that Army http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Ukrainian)
So this is where ""all ukrainian protesters are neo-nazis" coming from. Add to it 40+ years of soviet text books saying that ukrainian national army fought with nazis against glorious armies of USSR. Stabbed generous soviet people in the back and traitors. So you can understand the reaction in Russia/Eastern Ukraine
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-03-11 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-12 02:12 am (UTC)It's a tough one. The armchair strategist in me says that US and UK must honor their nuclear non-proliferation agreement with Ukraine cause otherwise how can we convince anyone else to give up their nuclear arms? On the other hand noone wants to start World War 3 over some peninsula that never really felt as a part of Ukraine. So I think unless Russia gets greedy and continue the Crimea scenario in other russian-speaking regions the rest of the world will let it slide just like with Georgia.
Ukrainian army is just for show. They haven't fought a single war in their post USSR history. Their battle ready troops are about 6 thousand people out of 40 thousand strong army. So all they can really do - suicide run at Russian forces in Crimea to ignite the fire and force US/EU to react. Or what's more realistic just defend their borders and any separatists movement in eastern regions.
Also if you want some english speaking footage from Crimea check out this Youtube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZaT_X_mc0BI-djXOlfhqWQ) Or to be specific their series "Russian Roulette: The Invasion of Ukraine" cause they have bunch of videos there from all over the world. AFAIK it's a Bill Maher project but videos are amazing and actually tilted toward pro-ukraine.
EDIT: I'm not much of a LJ writer, more of a copy&paster :) so if I missed some point or you want me to clear something up ask away!
no subject
Date: 2014-03-12 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-12 11:54 am (UTC)Well RT being RT is very anti-ukraine right now. Or to be more precise - RT is always pro-russian.
The neo-nazi angle is also complicated. There are nationalists elements in the protest. Maidan became organized defense organism thanks to self trained nationalistic militia elements from the west of Ukraine. You know how the story goes we've seen it done to the Tea Party. Some of their political parties (which are official parties) got cabinets assignemnts in new government. Mostly in ukrainian armed forces, police, secret service. Which freaks out pro-russians even more. To some extent legitimately
The western ukraine is way more nationalistic and ukrainian than the east. East was always under Russia and more loyal to russia. It's a north-south cultural split we have in the states. During WW2 there was a freedom fighting nationalist army formed in Ukraine. They fought against germans and soviet alike. Then when germans took over Ukraine the ukrainian freedom fighters pledged allegiance to Nazi Germany in exchange to getting Ukraine independance after the war. Their leaders still hailed as heros and national liberators in western ukraine.
Their main heros was Stepan Bandera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera
You might see people calling ukrainians benderovec/benderovci as in thugs/nazis.
The red and black flags you see are of the Ukrainian National Assembly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_National_Assembly_%E2%80%93_Ukrainian_National_Self_Defence
Which links itself to history and memory of Ukrainian National Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_National_Army
There was also SS Division part of that Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Ukrainian)
So this is where ""all ukrainian protesters are neo-nazis" coming from. Add to it 40+ years of soviet text books saying that ukrainian national army fought with nazis against glorious armies of USSR. Stabbed generous soviet people in the back and traitors. So you can understand the reaction in Russia/Eastern Ukraine
Btw have you seen these videos:
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no subject
Date: 2014-03-13 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-13 02:32 pm (UTC)