What time is it in Moscow, Tovarishch?
Posted on 12/08/2014 10:19:25 PM PST by wetphoenix
A RECENT United Nations report says that nearly half a million Ukrainians have fled the country since April. The fact that families run from a war zone is heartbreaking but hardly unexpected. The disturbing part lies in the details — of the roughly 454,000 people who had fled Ukraine by the end of October, more than 387,000 went to Russia. Most of those who fled were Russian speakers from the east, but this still raises a sobering question: If this is a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, why did so many Ukrainians choose to cast their lot with the enemy?
Moscow’s denials of involvement in eastern Ukraine are, of course, absurd: It is clear that the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk are equipped, reinforced and trained by Russians. That said, if Vladimir V. Putin had tried sending unmarked commandos to set up sham republics in western Ukraine, where anti-Russian sentiment runs high, his men would have been returned to the Kremlin in body bags. Yes, Mr. Putin is brewing unrest in the east, but he is brewing with local ingredients. He is connecting with the population using a language they speak and a symbolism they understand.
The unpalatable reality is that a significant portion of eastern Ukrainians — the very people on the ground living and suffering through this conflict — distrust Kiev and the West and at least tacitly support Russia and the separatists. And frankly, that isn’t surprising.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The impact of World War II, or, as most people there call it, The War, on eastern Ukrainian consciousness cannot be understated. My childhood in the northeast city of Kharkov (now called Kharkiv) in the 1980s was surrounded by The War, 40 years after it ended. Every family — Russian, Ukrainian, Roma, Jewish — had ghost relatives who had vanished or perished. One of my earliest memories is of asking my father where the mortar holes pockmarking the outside of our apartment block had come from; one of my father’s earliest memories is of fleeing Kharkov mere hours before the Nazis invaded the city. Eastern Ukrainians today, especially the older generations, respond to swastikas and wolfsangel runes — Nazi symbols now used by Ukrainian ultranationalists — about as well as African-Americans respond to burning crosses. Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Mr. Putin and the Russian news media say that western Ukrainians in Mr. Poroshenko’s government are neo-Nazis. The West denies these claims, averring that there are no neo-Nazi elements in the Kiev government. Both are wrong. The Kiev government and the armies fighting in eastern Ukraine contain a small minority of neo-Nazi ultranationalists. To eastern Ukrainians, however, even one is too many.
Washington and the Western media have largely ignored the negative ramifications of Kiev’s actions. The State Department has said nothing about the pension freeze’s effect on the local population of eastern Ukraine; reports of the Azov battalion’s use of Nazi insignia have not been addressed in any meaningful manner. Mr. Putin’s greatest weapon of all may be the West’s refusal to speak directly to the people of eastern Ukraine. When I talk to family friends still living in Kharkiv, they ask me, “Why does the West label us as enemies?”
It seems the West has forgotten the lessons of its own history. At the end of the Cold War in 1989, Communism collapsed, leaving unrest and uncertainty in its wake. In that moment of chaos, the people of Eastern Europe turned their gazes westward. This happened not by accident, but because of decades of public diplomacy — from “Ich bin ein Berliner” to “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” to nightly broadcasts by Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, which constantly reassured those behind the Iron Curtain that the West had not forgotten them. That year my family was one of many that fled eastern Ukraine for Vienna, and later the United States.
In 2014, the people of eastern Ukraine find themselves in an exponentially more horrible and deadly situation. They will turn to whoever provides them with bread and security and respect for their language and culture. They are looking, and more and more it seems they’re turning, eastward.
Who is the strong horse here? It ain’t rocket science. They just wanna live ... like you an me, ya know ?
Voice of America is pretty much banned in Russia and Eastern Ukraine by Putin while we keep letting him speak here through RT channel.
This author is full of sht.
They’re leaving Ukraine because they’re Russians who were put there by the Soviet Union as a Soviet Fifth Column and they don’t belong in Ukraine in the first place.
VOA is jammed in certain other countries too. They view it as american propaganda. Ultimately my instinct more tells me Ukraine is being used as a pawn between Russia & Obi admin. Not good for Ukranians. But that’s politics.
~Voice of America is pretty much banned in Russia and Eastern Ukraine by Putin while we keep letting him speak here through RT channel.~
I might be extremely lucky to be able to access VoA as we speak:) My ISP must be reported to commissar immeadeately!
~They’re leaving Ukraine because they’re Russians who were put there by the Soviet Union as a Soviet Fifth Column and they don’t belong in Ukraine in the first place.~
...And should have expected this thread is going to attract the whole specter of ‘experts’ in East European ethnography too:)
These people are not ethnic Ukranians. They are the descendents of ethnic Russians moved there by the Soviet regime to further their control in the border states during the cold war. The same thing happened in Crimea (see tartar genocide).
What time is it in Moscow, Tovarishch?
Consider the stupidity of your comments here, you barely concealed commie. These small parts of East Ukraine are under the control of Soviets who have placed their Commie flags up everywhere and have taken control of all government buildings and media. They have murdered Ukrainian Christians, killed patriots, driven out people who do not want to fight, and have declared the area THEIR country. Consequently, you want the Ukrainians to still be passing out money on territory you've claimed for the Soviet Un--errr, NovoRussiya. Which just goes to show that all the boasts the Russkies made in the first place were all lies, because they have no intention of spending their money on these places. It is to their benefit, in fact, that they turn this new "country" into a giant slum, because they can blame Ukraine for it.
FYI, vatnik, anyone in Ukraine can get their pensions or other money they have coming to them... provided they leave those areas under separatist control.
Thanks for keeping FR up to date with your selected premium Russian propaganda. FU very much!
It is not ethnography, it is fact that Lenin and Stalin politically displaced Chechens after WWII, Germans of the Volga were transfered to Kazakstan with only one suitcase allowed, and Russians were moved to Ukraine too. This Putin Policy is just an extention of this, a leverage of this tool he inherited from the Soviets.
Yes.
When people are being fired on...hungry and afraid...they will go to where the welcome is. Putin’s been sending in caravans of food and medical assist. for sometime now...where Kiev stopped assisting even with the little they sent...and that was for political posturing more than assistance.
No matter what news source you use it will be trampled on by those who only accept articles bashing Russia and or protecting Kiev......but Europe and Germany continue doing business with Putin, it’s just not public information as it certainly won’t be reported in our MSM.
Many Russians view Ukraine a part of Greater Russia. Is the reverse true? Probably not for many Ukranians & i think you make good points. Ethnograhy though is really peripheral. Politically & culrurally, I’d it’s more akin to a comparison between Canadians & Americans had Canada not had the British influence, and mostly politically.
Sorry my spelling on my mobile phone is atrocious!
It is claimed by some that California is not part of the U S, it is too radical and it’s population majority Hispanic.
It is the old Marxist narrative of hypocrisy, from Ukraine to the US, that they are nation hotbeds of racism. The language of Putin strangely parallels that of Obama...
Colors indicate (from dark blue to light blue) : Dark blue: French Empire Light blue: French satellite states and occupied zones Blue-grey: Countries forced by France into applying the Continental System.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C02E4DD1238EE32A2575AC2A9639C946996D6CF
GERMANY MAY PLAN UKRAINE MONARCHY; Preliminary to Modified Restoration of Romanoff Dynasty,One Theory Held.ROYALISTS COMING TO FORE New Metropolitan of Kiev a StanchSupporter of Czardom—OtherSignificant Appointments.
PERMISSIONS
By JULIUS WEST. Copyright, 1918, by The New York Times Company. Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES
May 29, 1918
http://russiankingdom.com/russian-imperial-family/
Is Russia planning on reestablishing monarchies?
“The modern day Russian Imperial Family is a formation of ancient noble families with close relations to the hereditary lines of Emperor Nicholas II and Emperor Alexander II. There is a strict legal and formal list of who is recognized as a member of the Russian Imperial Family. Within the modern day monarchy, members of the Russian Imperial Family are honoured with the style His or Her Imperial Majesty (H.I.M.), or His or Her Imperial Highness (H.I.H.), or His or Her Serene Highness (H.S.H.), and are considered either regents, principle or distinguished nobility.”
“By this criterion, the primary members of the Russian Imperial Family in 2016 will include Empress Katalina I, possibly Her Majesty’s future husband that holds the title Grand Prince Consort of the Russian Kingdom, Her Majesty’s nephew and successor the Crown Prince Alexander, Her Majesty’s sisters the Grand Princess Regent Tatiana and Grand Princess Elizaveta, Her Majesty’s mother the Empress Xenia and auntie Empress Irina, Her Majesty’s brothers the Grand Duke Marko and Grand Duke Karenine, Her Majesty’s nephew Grand Prince Mikoyan and niece Grand Princess Mariana, and Her Majesty’s sisters in-law Princess Lidia and Princess Stefania, Her Majesty’s auntie Grand Princess Olga and cousins Grand Prince Alexander, Grand Prince Nicholas, Grand Princess Alexandra, and Grand Prince Thomas.”
“The primary families that make up the Russian Imperial Family include: Imperial House of Romanov, Imperial House of Yusupov, and Imperial House of Belosselsky Belozersky.”
The British Royal family is German, they were from the house of Hanover, before they changes the name to Windsor. They are ALL related anyway, kissing cousins.
They have been accused of being behind all the illuminati garbage that started in Bavaria 1776 (same region). I think it’s interesting just saying.
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