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I am reposting this essay that I wrote earlier in the year as a backgrounder on the Ukraine conflict.
I make no apology for using Russian media as a source for information about the worsening crisis in Ukraine and Crimea.
While on the surface it could be seen as 'Russian propaganda' the Russian coverage is, in my opinion, fairer and more balanced than the real propaganda - which comes from the West.
Notice that RT doesn't find any difficulty in finding often highly-placed and erudite western sources for commentary, that not only see the situation differently from the mainstream corporate media.
How many American journalists had to look up 'Ukraine' and 'Crimea' on the map before dutifully filing their reports that came from on high?
In general, the NZ media parrots the western line, but occasionally they have interviewed people who are living in the area; the background from these people is invariably more balanced and informed than what comes through AP or Reuters.
Apart from a sheer ignorance of the region and a complete inability (read, unwillingness) to see things from the point-of-view of the citizenry there is an amnesia about events that happened before yesterday.
I have written this brief piece in an attempt to provide a bit of context and background to today's events
A BRIEF HISTORY
The present-day Ukraine is a result of the break-up of the Soviet Union as well as of its prior history.
The Ukraine has a fine history. It has been populated for about 4000 years and was where the horse was first domesticated. The capital Kiev was the site of Kiev Rus' was the site of the first Eastern Slav civilisations and the birthplace of the Russian state.
In the centuries following the Mongol invasion, much of Ukraine was controlled by Lithuania (from the 14th century on) and since the Union of Lublin (1569) by Poland, as seen at this outline of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as of 1619.
For many hundreds of years the Ukraine was ruled, successively by the Golden Horde, Lithuania, and Poland before being incorporated into the Russian Empire at the end of the 18th Century. Under the tsars, Ukraine was known as "Little Russia'
It is an irony and inconvenient fact that Ukraine owes its modern statehood to none other than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin when the USSR was formed in 1922.
Ukraine suffered greatly under the rule of Stalin (a Georgian). There was a genocide of Ukrainians: millions of people starved to death in 1932 and 1933 in the Holodomor and Ukrainian (as well as other) agriculture was forcefully collectivised.
Passers-by no longer pay attention to the corpses of starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, 1933.
This left millions to be used as slave labour in the Gulag, or to move to the cities to form the basis for Stalin's industrialisation of the country.
Stalin, it has to be pointed out, didn't discriminate when it came to oppression. Millions of Russians, as well as of other Soviet nationalities, were massacred or sent to die in the Gulag.
When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 he was supported by many Ukrainians who harboured the delusion that rule by Hitler would be preferable to rule by Stalin. It was Ukrainians that perpetrated the massacre of Jews at Babi Yar.
Ukraine was liberated by the Red Army in 1944 and went on to be (with the USSR and Belorussia) one of the founding states of the UN.
From then until 1991 Ukrainians shared the joy (sic) of living under socialism.
It has come as a surprise to me to read that right up to the break-up of the union (brought about by ultra-secret negotiations by Russia's Boris Yeltsin and the leaders of Belorussia and the Ukraine (Leonid Kravchuk), and imposed as a fact-on-the -ground, the majority of Soviet citizens, including Ukrainians, were in favour of maintaining the Soviet Union.
The Ukraine thus became independent with its Soviet-era borders, the Crimea having been transferred to the Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev (a Ukrainian).
Two future leaders of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev (pre-war CPSU chief in Ukraine) and Leonid Brezhnev (an engineer from Dniprodzerzhynsk) depicted together
That was done in the context of the "united, multi-national Union of free republics" (sic), so there was no concept of future problems.
CRIMEA
Crimea is a peninsular that is connected directly with the Ukrainian republic. It also has a direct geographical link with the Russian Federation.
The Crimea's direct rule by Kiev dates back to 1952 when it was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR by Khrushchev.
Before that it was part of the RSFSR, and before that part of the Russian Empire (since the 18th century). The Ottoman Turks ruled the Crimea from the 15th to the 18th century.
The Crimea was the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet continuously since the 18th century.
Since the break-up of the Soviet Union the Crimea has been part of the Ukrainian republic.
The Russians have leased space for their Black Sea fleet - this lease lasts until 2040.
The majority of inhabitants are Russian-speaking and owe their allegiance to Russia. The Crimean Tartar population for historical reasons prefers Ukraine (they were forcefully exiled from their Crimean home by Stalin in the 1940's).
The biggest myth perpetrated by the West (as well as by Kiev's new rulers) is that the Ukraine (which means border) is a united and viable state. There is nothing united about it. Ukraine is split between the western part of Ukraine that increasingly owes its allegiance to the West while the East and the South is Russian-speaking and looks to Russia - all the more so since the events of the past months.
How the conflict started was when Ukraine (which is perilously close to bankruptcy and economic collapse) negotiated a deal with the EU. At that point Moscow applied pressure (or simply offered a better and more equitable deal) - depending on your point of view and president Yanukovych stated his preference for a deal with the Russians.
This raised the ire of the Europeans who clearly didn't take kindly to a refusal. Suddenly Yanukovych, from being the democratically-elected leader of a country that the EU could do business with morphed into a tyrant who had to be removed.
People came out onto the streets of Kiev to protest.
To begin with the Maidan was filled with students and many decent people who had trouble with the government of Yanukovych which was, in common with previous governments, venal and corrupt.
Gradually the extreme ultra-nationalists and the xenophobic, anti-Russian and anti-Semite neo-Nazis (like the Svoboda Party and the Right Sector) began to take over the Maidan forcing the more moderate elements out.
This was when the real violence started, the occupation of buildings, the attacks on police, who at least at this stage of proceedings, were unarmed).
It was also a time when John McCain turned up in the Maidan to declaim "we are all Ukrainians" and to meet with the fascists.
It was (a little later) when Ms. Nuland of the State Department conferred with the US ambassador to plan their coup d'etat which included shutting Merkel's favourite Klichko out of the picture ("f...k the EU").
If anything Yanukovych (who is, like his predecessors, a venal and corrupt leader), could arguably be seen as weak. He made many compromises and never armed the Berkut (the police) or allowed them to nip rebellion in the bud before it became uncontrollable.
The end came when the Europeans brokered a deal between Yanukovych and the 'moderate' opposition. Meanwhile the Berkut (realising they were being hung out to dry) evaporated, leaving the rabble on the street in charge. Realising their strength they 'repudiated the deal.
Government buildings were occupied and finally the parliament deputies with (at least figuratively) a gun to their head voted to impeach Yanukovych who, in the meantime, seeing which way things were going, absconded and in a few days turned up in Russia.
The first actions of the 'government' (which includes members of the Svoboda party and the Right Sector) was to remove a ban on nazi regalia and to make Ukrainian the only language that could be used in official documents.
Among the grafitti appearing on buildings was "Jews live here"
The streets of Kiev and other centres are patrolled by the neo-Nazis who no doubt mete out summary justice to those they don't like.
This is Oleh Tyahnybok, he has claimed a "Moscow-Jewish mafia" rules Ukraine and that "Germans, Kikes and other scum" want to "take away our Ukrainian state."
These is the 'government' that the West supports - one that is has no legitimacy at all that seized power by a coup d'etat that was probably supported materailly by the United States.
The Russian government (as well as a vast majority of people) have an understandable aversion to revolution, and by introducing extra troops to supplement those already there, to stop the spread of the contagion to areas where they have a direct interest are behaving in a way that is decidedly less aggressively than the United States has repeatedly in its 'own sphere' (Latin and South America), not to mention all the countries it currently occupies.
Hypocrisy has no bounds.
On the Ukraine
Seemorerocks
I make no apology for using Russian media as a source for information about the worsening crisis in Ukraine and Crimea.
While on the surface it could be seen as 'Russian propaganda' the Russian coverage is, in my opinion, fairer and more balanced than the real propaganda - which comes from the West.
Notice that RT doesn't find any difficulty in finding often highly-placed and erudite western sources for commentary, that not only see the situation differently from the mainstream corporate media.
How many American journalists had to look up 'Ukraine' and 'Crimea' on the map before dutifully filing their reports that came from on high?
In general, the NZ media parrots the western line, but occasionally they have interviewed people who are living in the area; the background from these people is invariably more balanced and informed than what comes through AP or Reuters.
Apart from a sheer ignorance of the region and a complete inability (read, unwillingness) to see things from the point-of-view of the citizenry there is an amnesia about events that happened before yesterday.
I have written this brief piece in an attempt to provide a bit of context and background to today's events
A BRIEF HISTORY
The present-day Ukraine is a result of the break-up of the Soviet Union as well as of its prior history.
The Ukraine has a fine history. It has been populated for about 4000 years and was where the horse was first domesticated. The capital Kiev was the site of Kiev Rus' was the site of the first Eastern Slav civilisations and the birthplace of the Russian state.
It is an irony and inconvenient fact that Ukraine owes its modern statehood to none other than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin when the USSR was formed in 1922.
Ukraine suffered greatly under the rule of Stalin (a Georgian). There was a genocide of Ukrainians: millions of people starved to death in 1932 and 1933 in the Holodomor and Ukrainian (as well as other) agriculture was forcefully collectivised.
Stalin, it has to be pointed out, didn't discriminate when it came to oppression. Millions of Russians, as well as of other Soviet nationalities, were massacred or sent to die in the Gulag.
When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 he was supported by many Ukrainians who harboured the delusion that rule by Hitler would be preferable to rule by Stalin. It was Ukrainians that perpetrated the massacre of Jews at Babi Yar.
Burned out buildings in Kiev during the Second World War.
From then until 1991 Ukrainians shared the joy (sic) of living under socialism.
It has come as a surprise to me to read that right up to the break-up of the union (brought about by ultra-secret negotiations by Russia's Boris Yeltsin and the leaders of Belorussia and the Ukraine (Leonid Kravchuk), and imposed as a fact-on-the -ground, the majority of Soviet citizens, including Ukrainians, were in favour of maintaining the Soviet Union.
The Ukraine thus became independent with its Soviet-era borders, the Crimea having been transferred to the Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev (a Ukrainian).
CRIMEA
Crimea is a peninsular that is connected directly with the Ukrainian republic. It also has a direct geographical link with the Russian Federation.
The Crimea's direct rule by Kiev dates back to 1952 when it was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR by Khrushchev.
Before that it was part of the RSFSR, and before that part of the Russian Empire (since the 18th century). The Ottoman Turks ruled the Crimea from the 15th to the 18th century.
The Crimea was the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet continuously since the 18th century.
Since the break-up of the Soviet Union the Crimea has been part of the Ukrainian republic.
The Russians have leased space for their Black Sea fleet - this lease lasts until 2040.
The majority of inhabitants are Russian-speaking and owe their allegiance to Russia. The Crimean Tartar population for historical reasons prefers Ukraine (they were forcefully exiled from their Crimean home by Stalin in the 1940's).
Percentage of Russian speakers in Ukraine
The biggest myth perpetrated by the West (as well as by Kiev's new rulers) is that the Ukraine (which means border) is a united and viable state. There is nothing united about it. Ukraine is split between the western part of Ukraine that increasingly owes its allegiance to the West while the East and the South is Russian-speaking and looks to Russia - all the more so since the events of the past months.
How the conflict started was when Ukraine (which is perilously close to bankruptcy and economic collapse) negotiated a deal with the EU. At that point Moscow applied pressure (or simply offered a better and more equitable deal) - depending on your point of view and president Yanukovych stated his preference for a deal with the Russians.
This raised the ire of the Europeans who clearly didn't take kindly to a refusal. Suddenly Yanukovych, from being the democratically-elected leader of a country that the EU could do business with morphed into a tyrant who had to be removed.
People came out onto the streets of Kiev to protest.
To begin with the Maidan was filled with students and many decent people who had trouble with the government of Yanukovych which was, in common with previous governments, venal and corrupt.
Gradually the extreme ultra-nationalists and the xenophobic, anti-Russian and anti-Semite neo-Nazis (like the Svoboda Party and the Right Sector) began to take over the Maidan forcing the more moderate elements out.
This was when the real violence started, the occupation of buildings, the attacks on police, who at least at this stage of proceedings, were unarmed).
It was also a time when John McCain turned up in the Maidan to declaim "we are all Ukrainians" and to meet with the fascists.
It was (a little later) when Ms. Nuland of the State Department conferred with the US ambassador to plan their coup d'etat which included shutting Merkel's favourite Klichko out of the picture ("f...k the EU").
If anything Yanukovych (who is, like his predecessors, a venal and corrupt leader), could arguably be seen as weak. He made many compromises and never armed the Berkut (the police) or allowed them to nip rebellion in the bud before it became uncontrollable.
The end came when the Europeans brokered a deal between Yanukovych and the 'moderate' opposition. Meanwhile the Berkut (realising they were being hung out to dry) evaporated, leaving the rabble on the street in charge. Realising their strength they 'repudiated the deal.
Government buildings were occupied and finally the parliament deputies with (at least figuratively) a gun to their head voted to impeach Yanukovych who, in the meantime, seeing which way things were going, absconded and in a few days turned up in Russia.
The first actions of the 'government' (which includes members of the Svoboda party and the Right Sector) was to remove a ban on nazi regalia and to make Ukrainian the only language that could be used in official documents.
Among the grafitti appearing on buildings was "Jews live here"
The streets of Kiev and other centres are patrolled by the neo-Nazis who no doubt mete out summary justice to those they don't like.
"In
an opinion poll conducted on December 7–17, 2013, respondents
showed that in a hypothetical presidential election between Viktor
Yanukovych and Tyahnybok, results found that Tyahnybok would
win with 28.8% of the popular vote, versus Yanukovych's
27.1%.[31] Another poll taken on January 42–February 2, 2014
across all regions of Ukraine showed that in a presidential race
between Tyahnybok and incumbent Yanukovych, 54.% of the population
would vote for Tyahnybok" (Wikipedia)
The Russian government (as well as a vast majority of people) have an understandable aversion to revolution, and by introducing extra troops to supplement those already there, to stop the spread of the contagion to areas where they have a direct interest are behaving in a way that is decidedly less aggressively than the United States has repeatedly in its 'own sphere' (Latin and South America), not to mention all the countries it currently occupies.
Hypocrisy has no bounds.
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