Replies

In 2013, there were two elections, the first, purporting to elect Yanukovich, was found to be fraudulent and set aside. The second, he campaigned on a specific promise to conclude a comprehensive trade deal with the EU and bring Ukraine closer to the EU. Instead, he took the fully-drafted EU trade agreement, publicly discarded it, and instead signed a fully drafted trade agreement with Russia. Note about Russia: 300 years of oppression, 3.9 million Ukrainian peasants starved to death, promised independence of Ukraine reneged on by Lenin.

Demonstrators assembled in Maidan Square beginning on November 21, 2013, and were brutally attacked by federal “Berkut” police on or about November 30, 2013. Demonstrators assembled in greater numbers, clashes with police escalated, and included sniper fire on the crowd, the use of a tank, shutting demonstrator organizers into a building where they had assembled for a meeting, and setting fire to it. Note on shutting assemblies up in building and setting fire to it: the same tactic was used in March or April of 2013 in Mariupol against a union meeting, apparently because they held the meeting in Russian. That act of arson and mass murder was carried out by Yanukovich’s federal police. It seemed to have been a tactic which he favored, wherever there were assemblies behind closed doors of which he disapproved. Other organizers were arrested and marched naked through the streets. Police had a free reign to beat, kill and maim.

Understandably, after all these repressive acts by the government, with the open acquiescence of the legislature by a show of hands, the demonstrators turned into revolutionaries, and the violence escalated as the unrest increased. On February 22, 2014, Yanukovich resigned and fled in the night to Moscow via helicopter.

“Sure! Let’s talk about unconstitutional revolutions that overthrow the will of lawful voters.”

You mean, the American, French, Israeli, Indian and Russian revolutions were by royal leave? Any revolution is unconstitutional. There’s this thing called the Social Contract. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Yanukovich violated the rights of Ukrainian citizens. The violations were so brutal and over-the-top that he set off a revolution, at the root of which was understandable Ukrainian aversion to closer ties with Russia, and desire for closer ties with Europe.

It was not Putin’s affair then, though his interference was what led to it, and his meddling in the affairs of Eastern Ukraine was what precipitated eight years of civil war. If Eastern Ukrainians had a beef which Putin purported to champion, it was with Poroshenko, who participated mightily in the Maidan uprising, and escalated the already brewing troubles in Eastern Ukraine. Fine.

But Poroshenko was voted out, and the duly elected President of Ukraine is now Volodomir Zelensky, who attempted, albeit inexpertly, to make peace in Eastern Ukraine, and Putin’s response to that was to invade as soon as he was sure that America would just write him a sternly-worded letter, now that Trump was out of the way and Biden showed how weak he was in Afghanistan.

But you know what makes me sick. I can explain all this at length, and waste a good deal of time doing it, and the next time the subject of Ukraine comes up, you or some other Putinista will make the same phony arguments again. The object is to discourage people from posting news about Ukraine or unfavorable to Putin. As deTocqueville (?) put it, you meant to “fatigue men into submission”.

But consider, standing up for supposed “oppressed minorities” is already a time-worn trick of dictators. Hitler did it in the Sudetenland. The Arab nations are doing it in Israel ‘til this day. Putin did it before in Georgia, and even faked a separatist movement in Crimea and later bragged about it. Well, the Kirsch Bridge is getting increasingly rickety, along with Russia’s hold on Crimea.