Ukraine says thank you to Vladimir Putin

FT ^ | 29 Oct 15 | Taras Kuzio

[elhombrelibre]

Last Sunday Ukraine held elections to local councils and city mayors that the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe described as “competitive and well organized overall” adding that “the campaign generally showed respect for the democratic process”.

The holding of a third democratic election in Ukraine since last year’s Euromaidan revolution in a region where free elections are uncommon is one of many signs of how far Ukraine is moving away from Russia and to what extent the actions of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, have accelerated this process.

Russia’s increasingly ‘hard authoritarian’ state and its support for re-Sovietisation and re-Stalinisation can be contrasted with democratisation, removal of Soviet monuments and Communist symbols and a long-term de-Stalinisation taking place in Ukraine. A majority of Ukrainians – unlike Putin and many Russians – do not lament the disintegration of the USSR.

Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has rebounded in five ways.

Politically: following the disintegration of the pro-Russian Party of Regions and the Communist Party, these parties no longer command major support in the Ukrainian parliament. Since 2014, Ukraine has for the first time had a constitutional majority of deputies who support European integration.

Patriotism and national identity: Russian aggression has inadvertently forged a new civic Ukrainian national identity and integrated Ukrainian and Russian speakers. Russia’s aggression in eastern and southern Ukraine was defeated not by the Ukrainian state, which barely existed in the first half of 2014, but by a people’s war of Russian and Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians, Jews and others. As an extension of the Euromaidan popular protests, the people’s war included soldiers, volunteers and civil society support groups staffed largely by women.

[elhombrelibre]

Soros failed and Putin did too. The Ukranians did got their independence and civil rights despite Putin's armed aggression. It is especially interesting to see how the Russian speakers in Ukraine rallied around their own nation, Ukraine. They too fought the Russian troops and their surrogates.

"Patriotism and national identity: Russian aggression has inadvertently forged a new civic Ukrainian national identity and integrated Ukrainian and Russian speakers. Russia’s aggression in eastern and southern Ukraine was defeated not by the Ukrainian state, which barely existed in the first half of 2014, but by a people’s war of Russian and Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians, Jews and others. As an extension of the Euromaidan popular protests, the people’s war included soldiers, volunteers and civil society support groups staffed largely by women."

[1rudeboy]

But, but, Nazis! Someone post something from RT, quickly!

[armydawg505]

The article says there are five reasons but only lists two. And it notes the war is over or virtually over, news to me. When can we expect the break away regions to rejoin Ukranie?

[nuconvert]

There’s more here ;

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2015/10/29/ukraine-says-thank-you-to-vladimir-putin/

[Leo Carpathian]

Freedom loving Ukrainians are showing the world how to deal with corrupt, crooked, commie politicians and system.
Blood spilled at EuroMaidan and resistance to Putin’s efforts to restore Gulag of Nations should be example to rest of the world.
Peaceful protests, insistence on commie Yanukovych to resign, blood spilled for freedom, resistance to Putin’s thugs will bring desired freedom and independence.

There are no Ukrainian separatists in Crimea or Eastern Ukrain, there are only imported masked Putin’s spetznatz thugs violating Budapest agreement, trying to take over Ukraine and possibly march West.

[JEDI4S]

The first thing they should to is renuke so this won't happen again.

Fools let themselves be disarmed by Slick Wille and the one-worlders.

Don't get fooled again.

[Rockingham]

Gradually, week by week, Ukraine has become more coherent as a society and its government and improvised militias and nascent national armed forces have become more organized and effective. Meanwhile, sanctions and the decline in oil prices have cost Russia dearly even as Putin strips the national budget in thievery and to fund military modernization, the war in Ukraine, and foreign adventures.

Putin's regime has murdered, imprisoned, intimidated, and exiled its internal opponents and thus looks solid for now, but it does not offer a credible model once Putin is dead or out of power. Russia's cartelized and mafia-dominated economy and its isolation from the West deprives it of essential security and of foreign investment and technology. And, worst of all, there is no form of governance on offer for Russia except to be ruled and exploited by the biggest, nastiest thugs.