What is really happening in Ukraine

http://www.slideshare.net/NazarBartosik/what-is-really-happening-in-ukraine

by DeusExMachina • 12 years ago

244 312 12 years ago

Why do some keep calling it a civil war instead of a revolution? Sure, the government has hired/collaborated with non-government people to cause trouble/beat up the protesters, but which tyrannical government doesn't do that during a revolution? They all do it.

kome• 12 years ago

It's a civil war because a lot of Ukrainians speaks Russian and want a "Russian" Ukraine.

mtrimpe• 12 years ago

It's not so much about whether they speak Russian or not. Eastern Ukraine is just generally closer ideologically to Russia whereas Western Ukraine prefers to maintain close ties with Europe.

You can see that reflected quite clearly in the split between west and east in where the protests are.

In general the president is supported by the eastern part of Ukraine, but is also a convicted criminal who sent the previous president to jail on trumped up charges (which is what's blocking their entry into the EU.)

FWIW, the linked presentation gives a pretty good overview of the dynamics at play at the moment... from the perspective of the protesters of course.

densh• 12 years ago

There is little connection if any between people speaking Russian and those wanting a "Russian" Ukraine. I come from russian-speaking part of Ukraine myself and hardly anyone here supports current government.

free652• 12 years ago

Most Ukranians speak Russian due to eastern/southern parts larger than the western part. A lot of Ukranians speak "surjik" which is a mix between Russian and Ukranian and Western Ukranians speek a mix of Polish and Ukranian. I'd say there aren't many people that speak perfect Ukranian. Do you count people speaking "surjik" as Russian or Ukranian speakers?

There is no civil war, if it was a civil war the western part wouldn't survive a day. Nor the Russian speaking Ukranians want "Russian" Ukraine.

dmytrish9• 12 years ago

This is a very simplified point of view.

The eastern part is mostly Russian-speaking but that does not mean all they want to speak Russian, it is just a convention there that slowly breaks up. Ethnic Russians are only 17% of the population and mostly live in Crimea and Donetsk/Lugansk oblasts. Most of people in Kharkov, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa are still Ukrainians under heavy influence of Russian media and culture. "Russian Ukraine" is more of Crimea myth. People from all regions are ok with the existing Ukrainian state as far as they don't feel they are discriminated or demonized for other parts (it's a part of grudge between West Ukraine and Donetsk Ukraine, they often fault each other, Russia helps the latter much to do that, depicting evil Westerners as unbridled Nazi nationalists).

nitid_name• 12 years ago

Is there a significant difference between a civil war and a revolution without respect to the outcome?

mapleoin• 12 years ago

Yes. In a revolution, the population is more or less united against the government. In a civil war, there are two opposing sides, both made up of the general population fighting against each other. One of the factions in a civil war can also be supported by the government, but the point is there are civilians fighting on both sides, whereas in a revolution there are civilians only on one side.

randomafrican2• 12 years ago

The length is more important than the outcome, IMO

myth_drannon2• 12 years ago

Because the descendands of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv_pogroms perpetrators will want an ethnically pure Ukraine. And East/South of Ukraine will not allow it. US state department is interested in the break up and pushing west ukr down the throat of EU(Germany) which really is not interested in that right now (EU is going down with PIIGS, but US needs even weaker EU with +50mil dirt poor Ukrainians with extremely corrupt political system ). Russia probably wants the split too, east ukr will be easier to control and they get rid of western ultra-right/nazi/Bandera followers.

leobelle• 12 years ago

There's no evidence the US wants a "weaker EU" and I doubt you personally have access to classified state department documents, and nothing of this sort was in any of the documents leaked by Manning. A weak EU is not in America's interest with a rising China and waning influence. The US has continuously asked allies to increase their military spending, so you are just spouting off run-of-the-mill incredulous and unthoughtful anti-american cynicism.

dmytrish9• 12 years ago

This is not correct. I don't know any influential Ukrainian nationalists who want ethnic purity to rule them all. Even Stepan Bandera welcomed Russians and Jews (!) who aren't enemies of Ukrainian state.

Please stop this crazy Nazi bias and fear mongering. Yes, there were some parts of nationalist movements during WWII who tried to use Nazi force to establish Independent Ukraine, but this union was situational, tense and fragile (and I am not proud of it).

yxhuvud• 12 years ago

I don't understand why you think giving EU even more of an advantage in population will make EU weaker.

In the long term, that will absolutely not be the case. They might be poor now, but will get richer as time goes.

avasylev5• 12 years ago

This is ridiculous... Except of few crazy people no one wants ethnically pure Ukraine. I grew up in western Ukraine and I have never seen single person discriminated for being Russian. I don't know why would you post that wiki link, WW2 situation was complex, but 100 years passed and it has nothing to do with current situation.

lmm• 12 years ago

A revolution would have been over more quickly.

stargazer-35• 12 years ago

This is much more informative and complete than any Western media news report. (Disclosure: I grew up in Kiev)

mitchelllc• 12 years ago

Yanukovich refused to sign EU association in November. I am wondering if the EU association was approved by most of Ukrainian through voting (or other ways), and Yanukovich disobeyed the voting results.

stargazer-35• 12 years ago

Association pact is a purely economical agreement that is mediated by governments only. So no, he did not violate anything. However, 42% of the population supports European integration, while only 31% wants to join the Customs Union, seen as USSR v2.0

memracom3• 12 years ago

How could anyone understand the implications of all of this well enough to make any kind of approval decision, for or against?

[http://eeas.europa.eu/ukraine/assoagreement/assoagreement-20...]

bitL• 12 years ago

Why don't you guys split Ukraine into two parts? The western part (pre-WW2's part of Poland) is pro-western, speaking Ukrainian, the eastern part is mostly inhabited by Russians that gravitate towards Moscow. Why nobody suggests this solution?

V-2• 12 years ago

"Why nobody suggests this solution?" - I don't know what your definition of "nobody" is, but eg. Dmytro Tabachnyk did suggest that

stargazer-35• 12 years ago

Why don't Americans split the USA into two parts, the red one and the blue one?

pdwetz• 12 years ago

It was attempted once before.

maxmcd• 12 years ago

The divide between "red" and "blue" is not geographically consistent. The general political views of both groups are similar. They're not in active conflict at the moment.

hackerboos• 12 years ago

More than 2 parts:

http://www.clevelandleader.com/files/splitus.JPG

gaius• 12 years ago

The Confederacy you mean? I seem to recall there was a bit of a problem with that...

ynniv4• 12 years ago

There are more realistic borders along which the United States might reorganize:

http://rocs.hu-berlin.de/projects/borders

dragonwriter2• 12 years ago

Why don't Americans split the USA into two parts, the red one and the blue one?

Because the "red" and "blue" states are artifacts of winner take all election, most of the country (by states) is actually a pretty similar shade of "purple" (at a lower level, like counties, you've got intensely "red" areas in "blue" states, and vice versa), and also because the partisan leanings aren't all that consistent over time.

Was that the intended analogy for the situation in the Ukraine?

ctdonath4• 12 years ago

If you look at the red/blue split on election precinct levels, you'll see exactly why: the division is very distinct & consistent at the boundary between urban and rural. There is no single clear line (we tried that in the 1860s, didn't go very well), and the geographic (as contrasted with populous) bulk of the so-marked areas sharply disagree with the portrayal. Example: New York is a "dark blue" state, but something like 90% of the land votes "red", noting that the bulk of the population is highly concentrated in a half-dozen cities; Georgia is a "bright red" state, with the city of Atlanta strongly disagreeing. The sharp red/blue division is a waterline surrounding islands of high population; rural folk often do smile at the notion of separating from "blue" areas, but the latter would soon find that severely problematic and will do anything to prevent it.

solyanyk4• 12 years ago

That's a great idea! In addition, we could also put good guys in charge of everything, and send bad guys to the jail. Also, raise salaries and lower prices. I sense the solution to the Ukrainian crisis is starting to shape!

hodgesmr2• 12 years ago

This worked so great with Germany...

viraptor3• 12 years ago

What would be the alternative in this case? Leaving the country on its own with lots of angry people outside and with embargoes on most trade as a punishment? If that country was going to fail and start an upraising, someone would move in quickly to take it over completely.

Sure, it sucked for the east part. West part was doing quite well and still is.

IgorPartola3• 12 years ago

Because the issue is not west vs east. Ukraine spent lots of time divided this way over the centuries and no it does not work any better than splitting the US into red and blue states.

viach• 12 years ago

-- Why don't you guys split Ukraine into two parts?

It won't blend then.

dimitar5• 12 years ago

I upvoted this comment due to its honesty, but I disagree that Ukraine needs dividing.

Let me bring up some points:

* Why should apolitical people have their country divided?

* Ukraine isn't divided by language, practically everyone can use both to a different extent and there is no miscommunication. The language that you use most of the time doesn't have to match your politics and often doesn't.

* ~80% percent of the population identifies as simply as Ukrainian with majorities in both parts of the country.

* No part of the country is "mostly inhabited by Russians that gravitate towards Moscow". Even in the Crimea the self-identifying Russians don't have 50% of the population.

* The Yes vote in 1991 for Ukrainian independence from the USSR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ukr_Referendum_1991.png

* 55% of ethnic Russians supported independence from Russia and they remember, are around 17% of the population.

* With the return of Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians from other parts of the USSR and withdrawal of Soviet troops if there was a confirming referendum today if anything the percentage would be bigger.

* Otherwise the culture is pretty much common to all Ukrainians.

* Religion isn't that different - people actually self-identify as Christian or East Orthodox and the traditions are the same all over the country. Even the Greek-Catholics (10% of population) are really much more Orthodox than Catholic.

dmytrish9• 12 years ago

I agree with all your points with a minor exception: Crimea does have more than 50% Russians[0] - it's the only region that has more Russians than Ukrainians.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea#Demographics

strlen10• 12 years ago

Indeed. What I see happening is young and liberal Ukrainians (whethers Russian, Ukranian, Tatar, and others) simply want their state to be like many other European countries: free, prosperous, democratic, but still multi-ethnic. In fact, they're actually asking for surrender of some aspects of national sovereignty by joining the EU.

steven20122• 12 years ago

I heard that there are a lot of nukes in Ukraine and the last thing the world wants is those split off into separate hands. I would harbor a guess that the US would rather have those nukes in the hands of Russia, who is a known evil but rational, vs someone else entirely new.

I read on Stratfor that Russia does not want Ukraine to become independent because it's basically the "soft underbelly" leading into Russia. It's basically the equivalent of letting Texas become independent. With Putin in control, there's no way he's letting Ukraine go free, especially given all the nukes, its strategic location, etc.

IgorPartola3• 12 years ago

You heard wrong: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine. There are no nukes in Ukraine.

hodgesmr2• 12 years ago

Uhm, Ukraine is an independent, sovereign country. Comparing Ukraine to Texas makes no sense.

egao19805• 12 years ago

Some Texans wouldn't agree with you :)

stargazer-35• 12 years ago

Ukraine has no nukes. They were disarmed in exchange for security assurances from both Russia and USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine

adobriyan• 12 years ago

Nukes were transferred from soviet republics to Russia exactly because western world didn't trust newly founded random goverments.

kenster07• 12 years ago

I'm curious as to what you mean when you say Russia is a "known evil." Are you alluding to real life? Movies? The Cold War? It would seem that true rationality and evil have little to do with one another.

GrahamsNumber• 12 years ago

'Murica

a235• 12 years ago

Ukrainian here.

Ukraine gave up on its nukes in nineties in exchange for military guarantees from US, NATO and Russia. No warheads, no enriched uranium (has been given away by the current president in exchange of nice handshakes with US at the beginning of his term).

Russian leaders are trying to restore its Soviet era, where Ukraine used to be the second most populated country after Russia itself. Clearly, this is a big deal for them. Location wise is not that important, all Baltic countries are way closer to Moscow.

Tuna-Fish• 12 years ago

I heard that there are a lot of nukes in Ukraine

You should re-evaluate how you acquire information and which sources do you trust. You could have found out that this is not true by spending 10 seconds looking it up. Ukraine had nukes, but gave them back to Russia due to US and Russian influence.

How many other things do you believe that are flatly not true?

rdl• 12 years ago

Technically there may be some Russian nuclear weapons in the Russian naval base on the Black Sea, which is leased from Ukraine, but they would be under Russian control.

Igor_TN2• 12 years ago

All nukes went from Ukraine to Russia (same in other former Soviet republics) after the Soviet Union broke apart. It all was regulated by proper treaties. You should not listen to rumors.

Regarding your next statement, Russia is not interfering in what is happening in Ukraine AT ALL. As opposed to EU and US who send their emissaries to Ukraine very often. The only "interference" from Russia is giving to Ukraine a huge credit and pushing down the gas prices which I guess is more help than interference. Also, this is not about Putin or anybody else. Most of Ukraine is culturally and historically extremely close to Russia. They are pretty much the same people. This may not be true regarding a couple of the most Western regions of the country. Those guys, I believe, have their full right on "independence" but that effectively would mean the split of the country which is the hardest thing to do.

Please be careful with selectively picked information. It's not constructive and not helpful.

dmytrish9• 12 years ago

There are multiple rumors about Russian forces disguised as Berkut, there are some evidences about Russian snipers here, there are videos of some military forces of non-Ukrainian origin in Southern Ukraine, etc. I don't give this full credibility (usual rumors in time of unrest, perhaps), but still there's no smoke without fire.

steven20122• 12 years ago

Whoops, I guess I heard wrong about the nukes in Ukraine. Thanks for the information!

Igor_TN2• 12 years ago

I also grew up in central Ukraine and have my close relatives there. As much as I despise the current government, I must say that this "beautifully done" presentation is completely one-sided, unbalanced, and manipulates with both real and made-up facts. And, this is always non-constructive and even dangerous. The situation is much more complicated. I am really afraid that this is going closer and closer towards a civil war and split of the country. Presentations like this one only work in favor of that.

stargazer-35• 12 years ago

I have to disagree with you. Care to elaborate on what facts are made-up?

mratzloff• 12 years ago

I must say that this "beautifully done" presentation is completely one-sided, unbalanced, and manipulates with both real and made-up facts.

OK... How?

malkung2• 12 years ago

I am always suspicious about a story where there are goodies and baddies.

polymatter• 12 years ago

I am biased against the Ukrainian government, but this entire thing reads as a propaganda piece so much I can't trust a single 'fact'. It uses lots of appeals to emotion with vague, subjective terms. To anyone biased to support the government, its not exactly persuasive is it?

gkoz2• 12 years ago

Is there any evidence or confirmation by the press of 'dozens of unidentified dead bodies?'

thinkpad20• 12 years ago

It's very obvious that the presentation is one-sided, and should be taken with a grain of salt. However, if you claim that it makes things up, you should point those things out specifically.

strlen10• 12 years ago

It is definitely one sided and propaganda, but it's better than absolute lack of information I am seeing in the West. I think scenario you mention here will happen only if the rest of Europe chooses to ignore and waive their hands.

arca_vorago3• 12 years ago

That's actually a very well done summary. I have an acquaintance that is Ukrainian and I have been asking her about it. Pretty much what happened so far can be summed up as "The leadership betrayed the Ukrainian people to Russia under pressure from Putin" and both of generally agree that it's too late now to stop, and that the protesters have to be at least partially successful or else it is likely there will be more bloodshed.

Being self designated geopolitics guy though, my curiosity is "Where is the US?" We know they were involved in Georgia in 08, and we know the US has a vested interest in giving the Russians a black eye, so I would think they would be involved somehow, but have not seen as such.

Demiurge13• 12 years ago

I wonder what you'll think if you have another friend who is saying completely the opposite.

gtaylor• 12 years ago

I can't help but notice you replying to basically everyone with how wrong they are without providing specifics. Can you either provide some substance or find something more constructive to do?

arca_vorago3• 12 years ago

Point taken, but as a person who tries very hard to not let my filter bubble be too small, I am surprised at the lack of people talking about what I suppose could be considered the North Ukrainian point of view. I did see a few mentions that they would be more aligned to Russia, but haven't seen any in depth reporting from that perspective. Have you seen such?

lgieron2• 12 years ago

My guess is that, since Russia is no longer a top global power, this area is not a priority for the US now. Georgia lies in more strategically important (lots of oil around) and fragile region, while saving the Ukraine would be mostly a favor for Poland and rest of EU (not to mention Ukrainians).

viraptor3• 12 years ago

For many polish people still remembering the war times, effectively sharing a border with Russia again would be a big issue. I haven't been following news in pl for a while, but I'm sure there's a lot of pro-eu-ukraine sentiment present. There was definitely a lot of it during the orange revolution some time ago.

Edit: just checked, is not hard to find neutral articles, but all the others are pretty much against the current government

yawz• 12 years ago

Very scary similarities with what has happened in Turkey.

I have amazing respect for all those brave people risking their lives to say "No!" to tyranny. They are the modern day heroes.

Demiurge13• 12 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuO53xeZkm8

Does this look like brave people risking their lives to say "No!" to tyranny, or like a bunch of young energetic people who have no idea about whats going on in politics throwing molotov cocktails at police?

mathetic2• 12 years ago

I cannot account for what's happening in Ukraine but last time a video like this one released in Istanbul during protests, it was undercover police throwing molotov cocktails to armoured police vehicles. It was the only video shown by all the news agencies [0].

It is quite funny that a community of skeptics being pedantic on silliest social networking apps takes what they see in a video for granted and makes harsh judgements about people.

EDIT after citation request:

So this is the famous video. The masks they are wearing are identified to be standard police issue. They are also holding radio transmitters similar to used by police but that would not prove anything.

However, this is the only instance where the police have not heavily "interfered" to the event. The pressure they use on these guys is one tenth of what they use against unarmed civilians. There are quite few videos showing how they shoot people with water canon and literally threw them away. These plus the fact that this is literally the only video shown by all news agencies clearly indicate that the whole thing is staged.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxuOmnQpu8E

sp3323• 12 years ago

What do you expect it to look like?

michaelt• 12 years ago

Has there ever been a war that wasn't predominantly fought with energetic young people?

xutopia• 12 years ago

Look at the channel this comes from: https://www.youtube.com/user/dzgmvs?feature=watch

It looks like a ministry or something is releasing these videos.

I live in Quebec and in August 2007 one branch of our police force did a false flag operation to discredit protesters and legitimize the use of force on civilians. They got caught by pacifist protesters who noticed the boots of the undercover cops were wearing the same boots as the police force: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow

The police force then mistranslated the events by saying that the president we see in here asking the cops to "drop the rocks" saying that the president and others were asking them to "throw the rocks". I have no trust in anything coming from my government anymore.

You know who got reprimanded for using provocateurs? No one!

Similar techniques were used at the G20 and the media is playing right into the government's hands.

cdash2• 12 years ago

Yes, that is exactly what it looks like.

grey-area2• 12 years ago

Does this look like a responsible police force maintaining order?

http://www.policymic.com/articles/79771/this-photo-is-going-...

0grr• 12 years ago

The best part about a democracy is when the losers respect the electoral process, but this same logic seems to escape many liberals when in comes affairs of foreign countries, so they'll blindly bandwagon any rebel without a cause. Or, perhaps you aren't liberal and simply view civil strife as being good for western(American)interests - in which case you are a fit to work for the white house.

Demiurge13• 12 years ago

This is propaganda and has no place on Hacker News. Anything that says 'Civil War Has Been Ignited", when there is no civil war YET, is war mongering for some cause.

milkshakes• 12 years ago

how would you define "Civil War"?

Demiurge13• 12 years ago

how would you? if a demonstration turning violent is "Civil War", they should take notice at the G8.

ctdonath4• 12 years ago

War: "Organized, large-scale, armed conflict between countries or between national, ethnic, or other sizeable groups, usually involving the engagement of military forces."

A standoff between protesters (lots of yelling, occasional rock-throwing and starting small isolated fires) vs. riot police pretty much just standing in lines, hardly constitutes a "war" (civil or otherwise). If fatalities are on the order of "one in a million", that (however tragic & objectionable it may be) is little more than statistical noise.

Learjet• 12 years ago

My prayer is that this would come to some sort of a peaceful conclusion.

beauzero• 12 years ago

I disagree. It is imperative to see how technology is used in a crisis situation. I find this extremely pertinent.

ds9• 12 years ago

Are you calling it propaganda only because the authors used the term "civil war"? Or are you saying that the statements about the origin of the conflict, in the early slides, are untrue? If the latter, please say why you think so and what the actual facts are.

Demiurge13• 12 years ago

I call this propaganda because the authors used many emotionally charged terms and slogans, claim to speak for the people, claim authority on things that they not only don't source, they can't possibly know. In all, this is clearly a plea for emotional response in support of a particular side.

Lastly, it is the positive claim that needs facts. You can't prove a negative, even with facts.

graeham• 12 years ago

It is certainly biased, but >100 people think it is interesting and its also something that hasn't be reported on very well by other media.

Phil_Latio2• 12 years ago

All of this while the EU transforms into an EUDSSR where unelected bureaucrats decide everything (EU commission). Good luck...

vixen99• 12 years ago

The European Elections are in May 2014 so make your voice heard.

Phil_Latio2• 12 years ago

I can not elect the european commission. If the european parliament decides something, this may happen:

The European Commission said Wednesday it will not suspend the safe harbor data privacy agreement with the U.S. despite calls from the European Parliament.

anovikov2• 12 years ago

That has some elements of propaganda yes, but from my talks with many Ukrainians including several of my employees, this seem to be more or less fair depiction of the facts.

Nobody calls protesters Nazis, but Russian media view of the subject is indeed extremely biased.

What's worst of this is that the view of it from Eastern and Western sides of Ukraine is totally different, too (while both dislike Yanukovich strongly, which is a big difference from the state of things just 3 months ago). West dislikes him for being evil, East dislikes him from being stupid and not protecting their case strongly enough.

agrostis• 12 years ago

Re. Russian media: I wonder, why their view (extremely biased, no doubt) could be of any concern to HN readers who are predominantly English-speaking and get much of their information from Internet sources?

ash4• 12 years ago

Because there are Russian-speaking HNers too. And Ukrainian topic certainly attracted more of them to this thread.

TausAmmer• 12 years ago

Look at it, at many angles as possible, don't be a ram. http://zyalt.livejournal.com/984735.html

darkbot9• 12 years ago

Exactly: http://zyalt.livejournal.com/985632.html

gtrubetskoy2• 12 years ago

What is really happening in Ukraine is that both sides of this conflict (pro-Euro and against) are absolutely corrupt and the people know it. The tragedy of this is that no one from the government or opposition represents the will of the people. The population of Ukraine really just wants an end to corruption and a better national identity, euro-integration was just the last straw, but not fundamental to this crisis (as much as we in the west would like to believe that).

choonkeymoonkey3• 12 years ago

Wait, aren't the people fighting in the streets?

simonh• 12 years ago

Some people are fighting in the streets. Some other people support them, some other people oppose them, some other people are the police officers breaking their heads. What percentage of the population of Ukraine are actually out fighting in the streets?

I'm not many any point at all about who is or isn't in the right or wrong here, I'm not Ukrainian, don't know anyone Ukrainian and have minimal knowledge of the situation out there. But who you consider to be 'the people' is usually a matter of point of view.

For example I have been to Egypt, do know Egyptians and have a fair basic understanding of the situation out there which is complex and tragic. I had hopes the brothers would form a competent administration, but they didn't and now they I think deservedly got booted out. But take a popular chant 'The people and the Army are one hand'. Which people? The Muslim Brotherhood somehow aren't people? The only way you can ever know what 'the people' really think is in a free and fair election, but the results can often be surprising to outsiders.

dmytrish9• 12 years ago

Yes, you're right that Ukrainian opposition is still a part of the corrupt system, but there's a hope that Klichko (who lived in Europe for a long time) is a fresh blood here. Also, current Yanukovych's and Party of Regions corruption is outrageous even for Ukraine. This is the true reason of the revolution.

People fight with the state sincerely, I don't see much sane people who are sincerely supporting Yanukovych now.

gtrubetskoy2• 12 years ago

Klichko doesn't strike me as an honest person, he's as corrupt as the next guy, but that's just MHO.

cLeEOGPw3• 12 years ago

The people know that, and the reason they fight for Ukraine to at least in future join EU is because, as they say themselves, in EU at least the laws are valid. And that is true. It has been already stated that in order for Ukraine to join EU it will have to undergo a reform that will rise the transparency and bring it closer to EU standards.

darkbot9• 12 years ago

Pretty naive belief.

Spain just practically outlawed demonstrations or to publicly criticize the government.

Hamburg in Germany has declared 'danger zones' in parts of their city that's, anti-demonstration laws that are even more strict than the ones Ukraine.

api• 12 years ago

That seems to be a common thing globally. All sides of most political conflicts are corrupt.

memracom3• 12 years ago

Exactly!

And how many of you have actually read the agreement that the EU presented to Yanukovich to sign. You will be surprised at the scope of the changes that Ukraine would have to implement. [http://eeas.europa.eu/ukraine/assoagreement/assoagreement-20...]

It is hard to believe that Ukrainian citizens are even aware of the details in this agreement. How can they decide whether or not it is a good deal if they do not even know the details?

Too many Ukrainians believe that this agreement would give them visa free travel to the EU (it would NOT) so that they could go there, get a job, save up the money and come home to buy a house and live a life of ease. This actually happened to a lot of Polish workers when Poland joined the EU, but the EU economy was in a different state back then. Since that time the EU has imposed strict rules around new members working in the EU so that Rumania and Bulgaria did not experience that same gold-paved road that the Poles experienced.

Aoyagi3• 12 years ago

Not another piece of news that makes the protesters seem like pure white knights that peacefully protest... Can we have some news about Ukraine that isn't totally biased, please?

solyanyk4• 12 years ago

You can find tons of alternative views, with little effort. But let me save you some time and present the brief summary here: the protesters are, in fact, not all white knights.

Moreover, it is by now rather clear that they don't all smell like roses and talk like fairies. More than one breach of gentlemanly conduct have been reported by independent sources, and I think it is now safe to say that each and every of them has some kind of agenda and personal goals.

Now what? Does it mean that they have no right to protest? Or that they should stop fighting and go home until they reach perfect enlightenment? What does being or not being white knights have to do with the matter?

Aoyagi3• 12 years ago

Heh, thanks, but I already knew that. That's why I'm disappointed to see so biased 'article' at the top of HN today. As for the last line: It matters because most popular media I've seen portray them as peaceful activists that are beaten by vicious police commandos armed with assault rifles and grenades. And I'll resent violence no matter who it comes from, but I guess it's the easiest way to get attention, huh? Not paying taxes could take a while to get through. It's the bias what annoys me. What's happening there is another thing (though there is a nice video of it http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=959_1390672028 ). If both sides weren't corrupt as hell, they'd make open transparent referendum for the whole thing and be done with it.

Edit: The top comment right now (people being kidnapped) is a nice example. There is no proof of that as far as I know and people already talk about it as facts...

sethbannon• 12 years ago

People being kidnapped from hospital beds and tortured by their own government. It's hard to imagine a more depraved situation.

D9u2• 12 years ago

How about drone strikes which target and kill a US citizen and his teenage son?

galenko2• 12 years ago

You stood up for your country, then the government hurt you so bad, that you were taken to the hospital, the government then came to the hospital, took you from there, proceeded to undress and torture you. They then threw you out on a cold field to die (it's -14C there).

That vs.

Walking down the road, boom, a lot of me is missing, shock, I'm gonna die, ouch, ouch, dead.

I know which way I'd prefer to go if it was down to these two choices.

dfc2• 12 years ago

This would be much more effective if true. The son was not targeted.

rdudek• 12 years ago

What the hell does that have to do with the current situation in Ukraine? Or did you just come here to troll with your anti-US bullshit?

davidw• 12 years ago

Is there a name for the internet law that pretty much any discussion of a country doing something unseemly manages to drag the US into the discussion?

unethical_ban2• 12 years ago

I appreciate perspective and, when more general discussions on government abuse are taking place, comparisons to other 'first-world' countries. You're being criticized because we should be able to have discussions about other parts of the world without changing the subject.

tptacek23• 12 years ago

I shouldn't indulge these unproductive subthreads, but I have mild nerd autism and am easily trolled.

It's my experience that people who bring up Anwar al-Awlaki and his son --- particularly when using the term "US citizen" in the same breath --- rarely know anything specific about what actually happened.

To start with, al-Awlaki and his son Abdulrahman weren't killed together, but at separate times.

Abdulrahman was never targeted. He was killed a month later because he was for some reason in the same cafe as Ibrahim al-Banna, the day-to-day operational leader of AQAP. al-Banna was the target of the attack. The USG had no reason to know of Abdulrahman's presence in Shabwa, Yemen, which wasn't under the control of the Yemeni government and continues to be the site of bloody conflicts between militants and the Yemeni state. What was Abdulrahman doing there? Super-parent Anwar al-Awlaki brought him there, to an AQAP war zone that was hosting conflicts not just with the US but with its own host country.

Anwar al-Awlaki was targeted by the US. al-Awlaki was a US citizen. But, like the tens of Americans who left the US to fight for Hitler in World War 2, al-Awlaki deliberately placed himself outside the protections of his citizenship and from that vantage point tried to wage war on his home country. al-Awlaki built up a serial murderer's resume as a sponsor, planner, and coordinator of multiple attacks on civilians in the US and UK. The only reason anyone questions his role in those attacks is because they ususally failed --- the planes didn't blow up, the stab victims didn't die.

People have strange ideas of how "citizenship" works. The American government has no arrest powers in Shabwa and Anyan Province Yemen. There is no due process in that part of the world whatsoever. The USG had three options in al-Awlaki's case: (1) ignore him and hope that he didn't eventually manage actually blow up a passenger plane, (2) kill him with a targeted airstrike, or (3) invade Yemen to capture him. The USG chose the option that killed the fewest innocent civilians.

at-fates-hands• 12 years ago

>> How about drone strikes which target and kill a US citizen

I'd use the term "citizen" pretty loosely here. Considering his passport was revoked six month before he was assassinated and the fact he had taken up arms against the US by fighting in another country's army, I'd say he wasn't exactly a "citizen".

It's only murky because the US government didn't officially revoke his citizenship.

whatevsbro• 12 years ago

How about the life of an American is not more valuable than an Ukrainian's?

It's somewhat disgusting to see the distinction between Americans and Others keep being made, as if spying on non-Americans was somehow less evil than spying on Americans, and so on. They're leveraging the nationalism they've programmed into your heads, to make the all-encompassing surveillance seem less ominous.

But if you believe they don't spy the fuck out of you Americans too, you're being naive. Controlling you specifically is the US government's primary objective because they're becoming a totalitarian regime. I can't imagine it being any more obvious than what's happening over there. Get out while you can.

strlen10• 12 years ago

Politics of foreign drone strikes (which I oppose, but don't equate to whole-sale domestic political repression) aside, this is a logical fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

In other words, it's not simply not a valid argument.

adrenalinup• 12 years ago

We had a similar situation in Republic of Moldova in 2009, an ex-USSR country near Ukraine, a so called twitter-revolution, one of the first of them. [1]

We are much smaller and less population but the tactics used in Ukraine reminds me of the events Moldova but on a bigger scale. So called "titushki" are the instigators that are infiltrating among peaceful protesting population with the intention to compromise the entire movement and to discredit the protest.

Students were tortured by the police for months after the protests begun. Students that participated in the protests were kidnapend from the dormitory. [2] Those slides of Ukraine are not at all surpising.

Protesters killed to death, at least 4. Valeriu Boboc, 23 year old who was also a father was killed after the protests ended http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Moldova_civil_unrest#Death...

I must say, the tactics of the instigators were very effective in our country. The result was burning of the house of parliament [3]. All the blame was on protesters, it basically discredited the protesters calling them vandals and thefts (as some of them have stolen some furniture). We believe that instigators and the police who gave up surprisingly easy were cooperating, and that they burned up and destroyed documents from parliament themselves.

I'm very glad that in Ukraine they are better prepared. I have very much sympathy with the protesters in Ukraine as the Russian influence in the region is still very much present. Russian is still defending it's interests and it makes us angry. You must understand that a country very rich in petrol and all kind of minerals have a great deal of influence when massively sponsoring parties of their interest and putting pressure with their own army in Transnistria that they left after collapse of USSR. [4]

* * *

There is also a big problem with russian population that stayed on our territory and continue to have the USSR values. And more of all, they continue to believe that they don't need to learn the local language. It's a mess. That's why it's so much fight between populations and shady people profiting of this situation.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Moldova_civil_unrest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution

[2] http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR59/003/2009/en/cf...

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/04/07/world/0407-MOLDO...

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria

dmytrish9• 12 years ago

Shame for Ukrainian media that these events has passed by me unnoticed. Thank you for this insight and good luck in fighting the USSR past!

zby• 12 years ago

This is not really sure that it was the government that kidnapped them. You have to take into account that there are more players there than just the government and the opposition.

egao19805• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_National_Assembly_%E2... Nazis are all over the barricades. Ukrainian riot police is more than capable of doing European G8 style riot control but is ordered not to do so because of the huge pressure from EU and USA. Finally, imagine Ukrainian or Russian officials going into crowds of Occupy Wall Street or Paris protests urging to overthrow the government and giving their support to protests.

choonkeymoonkey3• 12 years ago

Could you please explain, how you exactly base your argument on the link above? Please, show us your reasoning.

egao19805• 12 years ago

1) .. far-right party... 2) The party maintains a close relationship with the National Democratic Party of Germany which is considered to be a promoter of a neo-Nazi ideology by some. UNA-UNSO has been widely considered to have employed neo-Fascist and neo-Nazi methods and ideologies.[23][24][25] 3) And easy guess - concealed swastika as a logo

xentronium• 12 years ago

Everyone is over the barricades now, left, right, centrists, politically unaffiliated.

darkbot9• 12 years ago

Not true. The barricades are guarded by the "Right Sector", who will only let their own ranks come near it to, quote, "[not] to prevent them from interfering with work."

caiob• 12 years ago

What do we have governments for again?

arethuza2• 12 years ago

Mostly to protect us from other governments.

ommunist2• 12 years ago

OK, lets also discuss Iran, Syria, Israel vs Palestine and all other bloody conflicts here. Is this political forum or what? With regard to Ukraine, I have a message to "protesters". Lads, instead of getting 30EUR per day of "protest", do some real coding for the benefit of your society.

zxcdw• 12 years ago

I challenge everyone to read your past comments and reflect this one with the fact that you're Russian.

Now it would be a good time to stop your nationalistic dishonesty, when politics and people as human beings are against your views.

ommunist2• 12 years ago

Dude, I am Soviet engineer. I remember times when we called each other brothers. Kiev is mother of Russian urban culture. Do not mix politics with code and you will be all right.

shomyo• 12 years ago

Stop posting this stuff. This is not reddit.

euphemize2• 12 years ago

I wish those underlined words were links to sources or any kind of data. I haven't been following very closely and although I'm not putting in doubt what's on the slides (people on here seem to be more or less corroborating the data), there are lots of claims I'd like to read up on. Maybe a slide at the end with more info?

LaGrange• 12 years ago

This is your data. Yeah, the quality of this data is rather poor. This is not a time when you can count on balanced, slow research. That will be something historians will hopefully eventually do, but meanwhile people have act on what they have. Because there is no such thing as „inaction”.

euphemize2• 12 years ago

I'm not talking about a peer-reviewed report here - I'd appreciate just a link to a shitty youtube video, an audio clip of an interview, raw chat log, etc. - anything else than the claim itself. This slideshow isn't data, it's a report of "what's really going on". As I said earlier I'm not really familiar with the events, those numbers could have a few more trailing zeroes and I wouldn't know the difference until I see something that gives me an order of magnitude.

darkbot9• 12 years ago

Well, there are no links because a lot these claims can not be verified.

versale• 12 years ago

"Journalists are asked to watch closely the airports for possible Russian police coming to Ukraine and changing into Ukrainian police."

Oh, c'mon... Why are these speculations on HN?

lhgaghl5• 12 years ago

Can't watch any of the videos linked because youtube asks me to sign in to prove my age. And to sign up, it asks for cell phone number to send an SMS to verify. Perhaps because I use tor. Anyone have a usable source?

If you have the viewtube greasemonkey plugin, you can download the video from youtube and upload it somewhere else (e.g mediafire, zippyshare). Would be good if someone does that.

slig2• 12 years ago

Replace the "/watch?=$id" with "/v/$id" in the URL and it should work.

lhgaghl5• 12 years ago

I tried and it just asks me to download a .SWF file:

www.youtube.com/v/z0zD3pOG-Tk

disposablename• 12 years ago

/embed/$id will give you HTML5

aestra• 12 years ago

In the video link, where it says www.youtube.com/blahblahblha just replace the youtube.com part with pwnyoutube.com and leave the rest of the link the same. So this new link will be www.pwnyoutube.com/blahblahblha From there there's a few links to watch the video without logging in - clean viewer or loop or full page or to download the video.

lhgaghl5• 12 years ago

Oh, I used to use that site until it needed Java. Now it has alternatives so I can use it again, thanks!

crypt1d2• 12 years ago

Frankly, this "presentation" feels like a 13-year old made it for his homework assignment. Poor language skills, not many details and unreliable evidence. I got to the 10th slide and gave up. This is definitely not something I would use to form an opinion on the current situation in Ukraine.

curtis• 12 years ago

Poor language skills ...

Poor English skills. However, there's a good chance that the writer is not a native English speaker.

imdsm• 12 years ago

Poor language skills

Or English is their second language? So Poor English language skills?

crypt1d2• 12 years ago

Yes, they are probably not native English speakers. But then again, this is a major topic so I would expect that anyone who presents it to a broad audience at least makes the effort to do it properly. The language used here is just one of many things that give the impression that the person who made it has no idea what he/she is talking about.

egao19805• 12 years ago

Simple question - if somebody is protesting for more than 2 month where does he/she get money from? Leaving us with 2 major groups - unemployed/homeless and students. Unemployed people are suffering in every country, but putting enthusiasm into looking for a job for 2.5 months would most likely solve their problem. Students are stupid, and gullible, I know, I've been one :)

GhotiFish2• 12 years ago

This is the first time I've heard jobs mentioned about the protest.

ben0x539• 12 years ago

Are you saying unemployed, homeless and students are better equipped to do without an income for two months of protesting than well-off people with savings? I can see prolonged protesting making people unemployed or homeless, though probably not into students...

darkbot9• 12 years ago

Wow, some this is some epic propaganda.

Closer to truth is that this is more a coup-d'etat by the Ukrainian fascist paramilitary. The liberal Ukrainian opposition has been chased out of greater parts of the Maidan square and is now in control of "Right Sector", a loosely based umbrella coalition between various fascist and nazi organisations and parties. These extremist wants to ignite a civil war to "cleanse Ukraine from all Russian elements". Pretty scary shit, regarding that a lot of people in Ukraine has Russian as their main language.

The media has mainly filtered this out so far, because they favor anything that destabilize Ukraina in fear of Russia.

I wish that western media would stop feed a biased and false view of what's really happening in Ukraine. Right now their a fueling a fire that could get out of hand with disastrous results.

The current situation is in dire need of de-escalation.

Here are few rare articles that's shedding some light in to the situation:

Ukraine: far-right extremists at core of 'democracy' protest http://www.channel4.com/news/kiev-svoboda-far-right-protests...

Ukrainian far-right group claims to be co-ordinating violence in Kiev http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/23/ukrainian-far-r...

Far-right extremists staged a paramilitary funeral for shot Ukrainian protester (and the media didn't notice) http://imgur.com/a/LSvOk

EDIT: There is a lot of unfounded rumors about the government cracking down on the protestors in Ukraine on Twitter. There's also a lot of old images, videos and news that are being recirculated that does not reflect the current situation. Please, double or triple check facts and sources before retweeting any (dis)info.

EDIT2: No, I am not Ukranian, nor Russian. Also I don't support either side. I think either regime is equally corrupted.

vdaniuk2• 12 years ago

As a Russian speaking Ukrainian, participating in protests, living in Kiev that considers this quote by Albert Einstein to be very true "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind", you are so full of shit.

shitgoose3• 12 years ago

Would you dare to go to Lvov these days and speak Russian there, your native language?

jjcc• 12 years ago

Here are a couple of links that support your opinion. Unfortunately most people here might not be aware that western media is quite biased.

http://orientalreview.org/2014/01/24/coup-in-western-ukraine...

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/01/libya-syria-and-now-ukr...

Dear fellow hackers, media is "The Matrix" regardless it's from democratic western countries , or Russia, China, North Korea. Ironically most western people believe they have know more truth because their journalists are independent. It's quite deceptive.

sgift• 12 years ago

Every media, as long as media is made by humans, will be biased. The only choice you have is to search the bias you know, so you can use your brain to fix the information you were fed.

Example: Every time I read something about left/right wing politics on HN I try to check if the commenter is from the US. If he is I apply a "mental filter" which allows me (as an European) to better understand him (what people from the US consider "central" falls under "right wing" policies in my mind). Without that filter political discussions on HN would be pretty useless for me (actually that was the case until I had read enough to understand this particular bias).

You have to do this with every source, otherwise you will always be fooled. Back to the current case: I am not able to distill your sources, because I have no idea what their bias is. At least with most western media I know that they usually tend do favor the "non-government" side in conflicts of people vs government.

cLeEOGPw3• 12 years ago

Just a heads up for those not accustomed to Russian propaganda - in Russia and neighbor countries Russia wages a massive propaganda war against EU and currently it's largest target is EuroMaidan. Their purpose is to put as much dirt on the protesters as possible. The propaganda is especially active in internet comments and forums. They often make long and semi written in advance post with link to Russian government controlled sources to sound more legitimate.

Source: I am from a country neighbor to Russia.

mercurial3• 12 years ago

Your sources don't support your narrative. What they are claiming is that you have a presence of violent right-wing elements among the protesters, in some non-determinate numbers, and that they are organized. Point taken. G8 demonstrations features Black Block elements with depressing regularity. Are G8 demonstrations also an attempt at a coup by Black Block supporters?

strlen10• 12 years ago

No, I am not Ukranian, nor Russian. Also I don't support either side. I think either regime is equally corrupted.

I am sorry, but as an ethnically Jewish, Belarusian-born, Russian-speaker residing in US, I have to say what you're engaging in is the equivalent of "mansplaining" (EDIT: or "patronizing" if you prefer).

To wit, on my Facebook, the only person who is presently in Ukraine (who attended school and a university in US before moving back to Ukraine after graduation) is also Jewish, takes his Jewish roots far more seriously than I do (he had his icons set to the Israeli flag a multiple times), and is posting protest related pictures, and reposting _Russian language_ messages like "My dad was seized by Berkut. Are there any lawyers here that can help out?"

In terms of Ukrainian-Americans posting on this that I know none shown any signs of ultra nationalism and have plenty of Jewish, Russian, and other former-USSR friends in US, and in terms of religion happen to include agnostic, Orthodox (Western Ukraine has a larger Catholic presence as it was part of Poland and Austro-Hungarian Empire), and a Muslim.

Here's an article on this, by the way, about Jewish community's view of this: http://www.jta.org/2013/12/08/news-opinion/world/young-jews-...

(I tend to note that Passionate Americans That Know Everything Because They Read it On the Internet Somehow are going to likely 'splain this way with a Zionist conspiracy -- in a language very similar to what ultranationalists themselves use, ironically -- but Israel itself generally takes a "realpolitik" approach to these kinds of situations and the Israeli _government_ has made no statements).

My personal view of this is the extent to which the Western Media is under-reporting this story (and in my view they are: this has rarely, for example, come up on my Yahoo News pager which is generally syndicated from mainstream sources) is playing into the hands of ultra-nationalists. Keep in mind that Ukraine is far from the only country in Europe to have ultra-nationalist voted in as part genuine views and part protest votes: Golden Dawn in Greece had far greater electoral results and is far scarier, there's also Jobbik in Hungary, BNP in UK, National Front in France, and so on...

It is very much in Russia's interest to make sure ultra-nationalists become the dominant party in this: should the leader of Svoboda run against Yanukovich, the result would be a land-slide for Yanukovich. The best analogue for this is actually probably when David Duke (a KKK leader, anti-Semite, the full nine yards) ran for governor of Lousiana against a known crook (the bumper stickers were "vote for the crook, it's important"). He received many votes as a protest, but it would be insane to think his views represented the mainstream conservative US politics (he ran as a republican party candidate, but his opponent was endorsed by the republican party).

I should also note that generally in former USSR "right" doesn't mean what it means in US: the political spectrum there is best describes as a circle: mix of left-wing and right-wing liberals on one end (a spectrum between those who favour a Scandanvian-style welfare state and those leaning towards classical liberalism -- essentially the entire US/UK/Canada would simply be called "liberalism" in former USSR) and a "red-brown alliance" on the other.

I'd also add that Svoboda is actually very much anti-EU (again not much different from other far-right morons in Europe) and realistically speaking, should they come to power in any shape or form (they will never win a democratic election), they'll be overthrown far quicker than you can say "faster than Morsi/Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt". Since anti-Nazism is a very strong unifying theme between Russia and Western Europe, no one will actually tolerate a neo-Nazi state in Europe.

darkbot9• 12 years ago

That JTA article is almsot 2 months old. A lot has changed since then. A lot has changed just in the last 5 days.

elohesra2• 12 years ago

Can we please drop this 'mansplaining' bullshit? It's as offensive as referring to feelings of being othered as 'girlfeeling'. These kinds of sordid, petty, gendered derogations have no place on HN. There is literally no need for an insultingly sexist synonym for 'patronizing', when 'patronizing' already exists as a less offensive (and better understood) equivalent.

It's a shame really, because you've clearly taken the time to write a well structured and thoughtful response to the parent, and the use of that sexist slur in the first line sets a terrible tone for the rest of the comment.

darkbot9• 12 years ago

It is very much in Russia's interest to make sure ultra-nationalists become the dominant party in this

Honest question: How is this in Russia's interest? The paramilitary UNA-UNSO helped fighting the Russian military in both the Abkhazian and the Chechnya conflicts, according to their own account.

dimitar5• 12 years ago

The black and red flags are symbols of OUN-UPA - a WWII era insurgent army that fought both the Nazis and the USSR. Many different groups, parties and individuals use these very general symbols. They represent the Ukrainian struggle for independence, not a racist or anti-semitic agenda.

darkbot9• 12 years ago

OUN-UPA collaborated with the occupying nazi-Germany forces and are responsible for massacres and ethnic cleansing. That's a historical fact.

desireco42• 12 years ago

I see this attempts to drum up support for protesters in Ukraine, even here on HackerNews and this is not the place.

Also I personally don't want to support civil way anywhere, which is what they are trying to create. One look at Syria should be enough for normal people to try to seek better solution.

So called protestors are no angels.

solyanyk4• 12 years ago

I'm sorry that there is not enough angelic protesters in Ukraine to conform to your high standards. Not only that, but apparently Ukrainians don't even qualify as "normal people", since no matter how many times we look at Syria it doesn't become obvious that the "better solution" is to yield to the government and abandon our constitutional rights.

dfkf• 12 years ago

For God's sake, how is this piece of propaganda relevant to hacker news? This is not reddit.

What is really happening in Ukraine

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