Ukraine

[Thunderball]

1) Reducing corruption is a gradual process that can't start while the power is concentrated in a single man and his pseudo party

2) Mostly true, but some of the old block countries shook off the issues. There is no reason the rest can't do the same.

3) It's true that he keeps the country stable, but that doesn't excuse his practices.

4) They want access to the markets, cheap labour and your resources. But does the oligarchy really offer anything else?

1) It's already started. It's probably not too obvious for anyone who is used to much better situation, but it's pretty apparent for people who's seen the 90s. And it's not a post-USSR era problem, soviet state started this shit. We can sure want it to go faster, but there is literally noone who could speed it up some more. Political turbulence will only hurt.

2) The larger is the country the more apparent are the consequences. It could work for Georgia or Kyrgystan (and we know by now that it didnt work out), but it wont for sure work for such big and problematic countries like Ukraine and Russia.

3) I dont get it. You probably dont get it aswell.

4) Nope. US probably wants to limit russian area of influence. You are probably right about the EU, but they dont offer anything in return. It's very natural for Ukraine to integrate with europe, but the conditions are just brutal. Just look what happened to baltic countries, Bulgaria, Romania. And those are much smaller and have smaller population. With Ukraine the outcome will be much more severe. And I dont really get the oligarchy argument, because recently anyone who operates on their own money has been labeled an oligarch and other who work for western money has been labelled the pro-EU politician, I just dont get it.

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As you say Ukraine is being held hostage by Russia, why else would it be such a problem to take steps towards EU-friendly reforms and still buy gas from Russia without having to suddenly pay extortion prices..

Because Europe only offers conditions that Ukrainian goverment just cant afford to agree to.

[Mosley]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hr...o_Street_riots

Wikipedia seems to have a good timeline with sources on all the events. At this point both sides have done bad things but even before the protesters attacked the police there were many occurences with berkut beating and seriously injuring people, they are there not to uphold the law, a lot of people who work there just enjoy violence and this is a perfect opportunity for them and there is nothing being done about it, the police forces will get away with anything they do and they know it, one day president promised to punish those responsible for beating innocent(at that time) protesters and then on 16th of january they pass the law that clears everyone involved in the brutal beatings and so they go unpunished.
The president had this long time coming, he cares nothing for the country and everything that's being done in the government is aimed at personal gain of all the people involved. The opposition is just trying to manipulate people into their own personal gain and a lot of the provocation and violence from the side of protesters are either nationalists(connected to the opposition) or people paid by the opposition to do it. There is no right and wrong side here, it's not just black and white, it's a political fight for power and money. There is way WAY more to whole this situation than you see/hear on the news and on the internet, and I'm not talking about conspiracy stories, I'm talking about the background history on everything that's happening, happened and on all the people involved.

[Wilian]

A recount from some Ukrainian dude:

Small chronicles of current Maidan for Codexers who want to know chronological order/reasons for stuff

Since Yanukovich came into power in 2010 he was promoting EU hard. So hard that it even got to usually pro-russian eastern regions (hence their quite notable presence on Maidan unlike 2004). But then on 21st Nov suddenly it becomes known that Yanukovich did a flip flop of Vault Dweller proportions and no association with EU (this is not membership, just a free trade zone, a first step to membership) will be signed.

So on 21st Nov angry students organize through facebook and vkontakte and meet on Maidan. No transport movement is blocked, nothing is being captured, zero barricades built. Just another protest.
Over the following days more and more sympathizers of all classes/ages join them.
Opposition ignores "just another protest" at first but joins it days later - on Nov 24th.
On Nov 29th Yanukovich doesn't sign any association. Students and people realizing that they failed start to disperse, deconstructing stage and tents.
On Nov 30th at ~4 AM when there aren't many protesters left (only a few hundred), mostly students - they are attacked by ~2000 Berkut soldiers and beaten up very heavily - in a usual Berkut way. Random bypassers are also get beaten even blocks away by squads of Berkut. The government excuse was "we gotta put a Xmas tree there!"

Yanukovich probably thought that just like in Belarus and Russia when OMOH beating happens people sit at home in fear.

But instead people got really pissed and start gathering on St. Michael's square (~700m from Maidan) and random drivers start blocking the traffic movement on Khreschatik. In the late day the crowd gathered becomes huge and moves into Maidan. Berkut and police runs away in panic.

Dec 1st. Angry Kyiv citizens and people from other regions keep coming. Realizing that in this country it is now possible for Berkut to beat up peaceful protests (last time it happened only in 1991 during revolution of Independence and that was still USSR) people start building barricades from what gubmint managed to put on Xmas Tree and near it and move into public areas of City Hall and Union House - like halls and staircases. This is not any kind of "capture".
About this time Government realizes that shit just hit the fan and comes up with a plan to give Berkut a reason for more violence. That's where famous cinematicly filmed provocations start on Bankova str. near president's administration. Naturally many people come to see wtf is going on and some join in. However opposition politicians calm the crowd down and provocators disperse. But only a few hours later suddenly Berkut arrives and beats the crap out of everyone who is still there. They also capture some people and then proceed to further beat up and torture them (some journos manage to sneak in and capture some footage of it)

Angry crowd then moves to Lenin monument in an attempt to destroy it (the symbol of USSR that still holds its grasp over Ukraine after all) - but Berkut promptly arrives there to defend it. However this time this is not a calmed down crowd and they end up beating the crap out of Berkut and they end up running away. Lenin "survives" that day however.

After that Yanukovich runs away from the country and watches from afar (from China no less). However opposition keeps calming people down, talking about peaceful protest 2004 style (a mistake that will be one of the major causes for Jan 19th events). And nothing happens over the following week.

On Dec 8th after a week of being ignored by the government people want action. In the evening opposition tells people to go and build barricades in the government square. However opposition is being stupid again and asks people to spread barricades across 1 km of streets. At this time more radical people finally destroy Lenin monument.

Government "finally" "notices" Maidan and on 9th Dec morning first "bombs" in metro appear. Stations near and under Maidan get closed. People are expecting an attack and build barricades at metro entrances. Nothing happens for the rest of the day but on 9-10th night Berkut attacks government barricades and since they are so outstretched it's impossible to defend them. People guarding them return to Maidan. Berkut doesn't move any further.

10th Dec. More "bombs" in metro. Stations are closed and reopened as more and more "bombs" get "planted" in them. Maidan is surrounded by riot police but they are facing outwards and say that their order is to keep the peace. They disappear in the evening however.

11th Dec. At 1 AM shit hits the fan. Berkut attacks Maidan directly (numbers range from ~2k to 4k of them according to various sources), destroying barricades and tents on two streets but people mount a heavy resistance. St. Michaels Church rings its bells (a thing used in middle ages to warn people of foreign invaders coming). Kyiv citizens rush to Maidan in any way they can and keep gathering around riot police lines outside Maidan which are supposed to hold people off. However by the early morning people numbers get so big they simply flood riot police and push to Maidan. At this point Berkut mounts an attack at City Hall but encounters barricades blocking doors and people blocking their rear. Berkut gets sprayed with ice cold water at -10C from the 2nd floor. In the end they completely lose it and run away from Maidan.

Over the course of the following days people are building much more manlier, metallic barricades, make Berkut-like shields and train to counter Berkut attacks each night. Berkut has not attempted to attack Maidan ever since.
Cops disappear from the streets of Kyiv and are brave enough to travel around it only in cars.

Realizing that brute force of police forces vs. Maidan is futile government changes its tactics. Cops dressed in civilian clothes start knifing and beating up protesters and their leaders in other Kyiv areas (and other cities) and burning their cars all the coming weeks almost each day.

As impotent opposition keeps singing its song about peaceful protests without any real action, morale on Maidan keeps dropping hard over the next weeks. Less and less people come and stay. As a result this slowly washes away people who are for a peaceful protest and makes those that remain more and more radical with each day.
The fact that politicians also left on vacations doesn't help. Especially ironic is the fact that Party of Regions members are spending their holiday time on various european beaches despite talking for months about how Europe is shit.

1st Jan 2014. Massive celebration not seen since 2005. It revitalizes Maidan a bit for a few days, morale gets higher - but ultimately opposition singing its "peace" song makes it quickly fall down again. Most people on Maidan don't believe opposition anymore and think they sold Maidan out to Yanukovich and it's just a way to make it disappear eventually.

16th Jan. As politicians come back from holidays in a very unexpected and illegal move - in under 20 minutes - a bunch of hard, dictatorship laws come into being through hand voting. Despite later photos showing only ~100 raised hands (out of 226 needed) - the pro-gubmint speaker counts 239 votes (in just several seconds) and pronounces laws as in-effect.
This upsets and outrages people on Maidan heavily. It means that anyone who ever took part in Maidan is now facing 15 years in jail at minimum.
And instead of getting scared outraged people across many non-political organizations and unions (incl. now famous Right Sector) present on Maidan tell opposition that unless they do anything - people will take matters into their own hands. Deadline - Sunday, 19th Jan.

19th Jan. Opposition does their shit again. Dances, songs, let's protest peacefully. It's ~15:00 and desperate people, feeling betrayed (and rightfully so), go to Hrushevskogo str. and shit hits the fan. Instead of supporting them opposition uses its stage to shout "provocators" at them. Which outrages even more people. Klichko tries to stop protesters on Hrushevskogo but is sprayed with extinguisher and is almost beaten up by an angry mob shouting "beat up Klichko" and "traitor" and is forced to escape.

And the following events are well known...

Government actions and opposition's lack of those pushed people to the edge. And despite what some may think - opposition was never in control of Maidan. It was just preventing Jan 19th from happening earlier, which probably was a mistake since opposition never hand any kind of plan or a leader and Maidan lost needed numbers due to disappointment.

It's also vital to stress that government has never made any attempt to talk to people. Even now they are deciding something with opposition leaders instead of inviting the real people there or coming to Maidan like EU politicians would do. Opposition retards still don't get that they have no control over Maidan anymore and this pisses people right now more and more.

However there is a ceasefire as negotiations last.

[wowsucks]

As you say Ukraine is being held hostage by Russia, why else would it be such a problem to take steps towards EU-friendly reforms and still buy gas from Russia without having to suddenly pay extortion prices..

Ukraine was not being held hostage by Russia, the EU association agreement was badly written in such a way that Russia would have to close its markets for Ukraine, otherwise since Ukraine and Russia have free trade agreement cheap european goods would destroy the competition and the industry in Russia itself.

[Thunderball]

The law they passed specifically targets Euromaidan.

What is the surprise there, actually? If it was Germany or France in question those people would be beaten up and in jail in a week after this shit started. Ukrainian goverment apparently is too pressured to make such radical moves which doesnt play out in their favor considering recent events.

[wowsucks]

The law they passed specifically targets Euromaidan.
They did indeed take some of them last year and they did build barricades,but not without a reason - lets not forget why it all started. Current presidents schemes and plots to delay/evade direct answer to question do they want to join EU market,mysterious visits to Kremlin are suspicious, to say the least yet at the same time he parades and declares the he is pro-EU. Peope are fed up with it and looking at the results and state of Russia, most people dont want that kind of regime and economy.Plus the historical question of Golodomor...
Itd be quite hard to clear a square that constantly hosted about 20k-30k(going up to 100k during weekends) people and still claim its course was pro-democratic.

Part of democracy is the option to go out on streets and give a clear sign that current order isnt right and ask for immediate elections.

Ofc it targets Maidan, nobody else is abusing the law, 100k protesting in one city of the like 40mil country does not mean that the government has an obligation to fulfill their demands, especially considering the fact that the majority of them know nothing of the economy or the EU agreement, they just want to live like Germany and think it will do it

[Charge me Doctor]

Why is a bomb so much more important to react to than small Fire Bombs, Firing Water at people in below zero temperatures where the water begins to freeze immediately, shooting people with guns. Right now it's an ongoing war of reacting, and it's getting worse and worse. You'd think someone, somewhere, capable, would do something to settle it down before it gets out of hand.... or yeah, we could wait till some kind of slaughter happens. Let's continue to be reactive instead of proactive.

around a pile of burning tires i doubt that there was below zero temperature

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Just now Im reading an article about one of the Euromaidan leaders who was kidnapped,was tied to a tree and has obvious signs of torture.
Assuming that you are Russian, you should be able to read it-Russian isnt my native yet I can make sense of it. Vesti.ru isnt the most reliable resource, you know.
http://espreso.tv/

Is it the one who proposed to track policeman families (wife and kids) and beat them up? TV Дождь is not most reliable resource too, they spend a lot of bullcrap and the only way they are still have viewers is because it's new-look to say that government is crap and teens like it.

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Putin and his crew are robbing the regular Russians blind. All the money that could go into better infrastructure, healthcare, housing and everything else is distributed among his close friends keeping everybody else poor. That is the real problem in our part of the world. We need to get rid of these criminals once and for all.


Also, please stop with the US examples. I don't give a shit about that country.

Reminds me of "millions killed by Stalin personally". "Millions stolen by Putin personally". I, kinda, find it funny. It's not president who is the "head" of corruption, the whole country is corrupt, and if you put anyone in politics he will steal government money. That's how Russian post-soviet mentality works. Everything for yourself and your family first, then for society.

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Someone hasnt done his homework,ie research.

Justify this.Oh right, another neo-nazi,western sponsored media spy...
http://newsru.com/world/23jan2014/journalist.html

You are unable to take step back or read something other than Kremlin media which wants you to think that Ukraine has been besieged by neo-nazis and current president is a saint.

"The protocol was written that the detainees threw stones and chanted anti-government slogans."
Poor bastards! How could police force do this to them! they only threw rocks at police, nothing unusual

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They havent,believe me.
Wrong order. President issued laws that ban any kind of protesting and thats when shit got real.The next day police was sent in to clear it since the anti-protesting law had taken place.They took buildings in Lviv and other cities only yesterday/today.
Also its only in last 48h when he(president,cant be arsed to spell it correctly) seems start listening to the other side.Too late :-/

Now it is chicken and egg issue? Who care about who started first, the wrong side is the one who starts fire in the middle of the city

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As you say Ukraine is being held hostage by Russia, why else would it be such a problem to take steps towards EU-friendly reforms and still buy gas from Russia without having to suddenly pay extortion prices..

Of course, Russia should get its gas out of Ukraina right now! Let people of ex-union just freeze to death. Ukraina can't afford being part of EU. It's either Russian cheap gas, or EU cheap goods

[Cybran]

1) It's already started. It's probably not too obvious for anyone who is used to much better situation, but it's pretty apparent for people who's seen the 90s. And it's not a post-USSR era problem, soviet state started this shit. We can sure want it to go faster, but there is literally noone who could speed it up some more. Political turbulence will only hurt.

The anti demonstration laws and the involvement of the military show that the process isn't doing well enough. I saw what happened in the 90s and I know why some countries did better than others. It's not only about geographical position.

4) Just look what happened to baltic countries, Bulgaria, Romania. And those are much smaller and have smaller population. With Ukraine the outcome will be much more severe.

The Baltic countries are doing amazingly. They have managed to cut down buerocracy, corruption, implement electronic governement and have some of the best education systems in Europe. Romania and Bulgaria on the other hand did everything wrong. Bulgaria didn't even implement a lustration law which would have barred former communists from taking public office. This meant that the old oligarchs kept their power and still appoint incompetent ministers that help them rob the rest of their countries.

http://euobserver.com/opinion/122862

EU membership by itself doesn't mean anything if the countries fail to fix themselves. There is a right way (Poland and the Baltic countries) and a wrong way (Romania and Bulgaria). Ukraine should make the right choice.

Of course, Russia should get its gas out of Ukraina right now! Let people of ex-union just freeze to death. Ukraina can't afford being part of EU. It's either Russian cheap gas, or EU cheap goods

The UK and Germany pay the least for Russian gas while the Balkan and Eastern countries pay almost twice as much. How is that helping them?

[Deleted]

Problem there, Yanukovitch is a criminal (he's been in jail twice!). The people are just sick of their corrupt politicians.

And no, please no, keep America out. Putting their damn nose in everything.

[Raldazzar]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/kiev-b...191541233.html

Should the U.S. and the EU start doing massive sanctions against their Government? This shit is getting way out of hand.

Feels very.. world police.

I mean, don't we have enough shit to deal with? hell, one of the most prominent EU countries (UK) had its own riots just a couple of years back..
the US has riots everytime somebody with a skinshade darker then milk dies..

we are in no position to lecture others

[Orrin]

The protest is relatively peaceful: there are barricades, but barring one shop that was burn by accident, there's no damage to buildings. This is civilized protest, stores are not being pillaged, etc. Also after protesters capture government buildings, they don't damage anything there

[Deleted]

The UK and Germany pay the least for Russian gas while the Balkan and Eastern countries pay almost twice as much. How is that helping them?

They would pay even less if Ukraine agreed to what EU wanted and let the currently in prison ex-PM, Yulia Tymoshenko, go to Germany for heathcare reasons.

[Deleted]

[Masark]

And......?

[Cybran]

[IMG]http://rt.com/files/news/21/f9/40/00/map.jpg[IMG]

So the protesters aren't a minority after all.

http://www.businessinsider.com/under...omaidan-2014-1

Many Ukrainians are upset at the power of the "family"

The so-called Family (an informal power structure, which consists of officials close to the President) is a very important part of the difficult situation in the country, as some of the most profitable sectors of the Ukrainian economy are under its control. This structure pursues expansion in the media market by acquiring major publication houses. The biggest media-holding, which publishes Forbes and other big brands, was recently redeemed for $300-400 million. Also, since most of the channels have tried to avoid criticism of the authorities, more or less truthful news was only available on the Internet. The total wealth of the President’s son, Alexander Yanukovych, in is alleged to have tripled, reaching $510 million, in recent years, and the President himself won't explain how that could have happened.

Here is an interesting article about the reasons for the protests. They have always been against the elite, not pro-EU.

[Bakis]

I'm surprised there will be talks, some good news.

[Masark]

I'm surprised there will be talks, some good news.

Talks are all well and good, but it remains to be see whether anyone will actually say anything.

[Bakis]

Talks are all well and good, but it remains to be see whether anyone will actually say anything.

Obviously but it is better than people getting killed.

[Deleted]

Another country just about to get ruined by the corporate cancer, when they take power, everything (major industry) will be sold, ppl will be surely no richer (just like in my country after 1989).

[Deleted]

Another country just about to get ruined by the corporate cancer, when they take power, everything (major industry) will be sold, ppl will be surely no richer (just like in my country after 1989).

https://www.google.de/search?q=slova...NMyI_AbTroGIBA