Posted on 11/27/2004 12:51:21 AM PST by jb6
Renowned Russian political scientist Sergei Markov told reporters in Moscow on Thursday that the ongoing political crisis in Ukraine was in fact a Polish conspiracy with the aim of imposing Polish patronage over Ukraine and thus raising Polish influence within the European Union.
“Yushchenko’s electoral campaign has been developed within the Polish diaspora abroad and its ideological basis was prepared by former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and his two sons,” the Newsru.com web-site quoted Markov as saying.
Markov said that another ethnic Pole, Andrian Karatnitsky, the head of the U.S. foundation Freedom House, had hired Serbian spin doctors and brought them to Ukraine ahead of the presidential elections. (Another Russian political scientist, Gleb Pavlovsky, said in a Wednesday evening news broadcast on Russia’s RTR television channel that Yushchenko’s campaign had been prepared by the same specialists who prepared similar campaigns in Serbia and Georgia).
“The arrival of Lech Walesa and Aleksander Kwasniewski as intermediaries in the Ukraine negotiations would become a part of the Tbilisi-Belgrade scenario, as the objective of these intermediaries is not peace, but a passing of power to Yushchenko,” Markov said.
He added that the original plan is for Poland to impose its patronage over Ukraine. Polish politicians are seeking more influence within the European Union, currently dominated by France and Germany, and to achieve this, they want to become patrons of the whole of Central and Eastern Europe, the Russian analyst said.
Markov said the United States would benefit from a Yushchenko victory as it would weaken Germany and France on the world arena and also split Ukraine and Russia. He also added that “the majority of the representatives of the Polish diaspora in the United States hate George Bush and want to cause a quarrel between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin”.
Markov also said that the main drawback of the plan was that its implementation was possible only on condition of extreme secrecy. He reminded the press that due to historical reasons the Ukrainians are very suspicious of the Poles and such a plan would find widespread disapproval among the majority of Ukrainians.
Some regions of Ukraina historically aligned with Poland, or with whichever nation was anti-czarist Russia, other (most) regions swore loyalty to the czars (cynical aside: see what it got them?).
Obviously, the political scene has changed from those days, but do please believe that the old resentments still linger; the East and the West of Ukraina are much more divided than the red and the blue states here.
FReegards to all!
Quick question: first, when besides now and shortly after 1917 has Ukraine ever been a nation? 2. Ukraina and Cossaks, well who exactly populated the vast majority of Ukraina if it wasn't the Cossaks, and what ethnic groups/social classes made up the Cossaks? 3. Who or what occupied all of Southern Ukraine and the Crimea upto the late 1800s. Who built Kharkov, Lughansk, Odessa, Dnepipetrovsk?
I don't give much weight to that story. Gossip is a popular thing in the region, it was probably invented there. I have lots of relatives in both Poland and the Ukraine, each one of them has their own conspiracy story.
I think they are each assigned one at birth.
That aside, Keiv has a facinating history, it's said to be the first fortress built in Europe. Part of the main gate still stands.
'They could break a nation by aligning with its enemies, they could preserve Russia by staying faithful to the czar, but they wanted neither of these. While the Dnieper and the Don Cossacks were Orthodox, they wanted to be an independent power, loyal to the czar by choice, but it was never to be. Simple numbers worked against them. Their population by most estimates never exceeded 250,000 for all the tribes over all of Southern Russia. They were footloose, almost nomadic, and, while some established homesteads, these were the few. These Cossacks, and the nation that might have been theirs, what we now call the Ukraine, had no firm base, no geographical centre around which to form a state. Against this, the static power of the newly energised Muscovy under Peter, and the ever expansionist desires of Poland and other European nations toward Russia, ultimately made the Cossack 'state' merely an ally of convenience, when convenient.''
Look up the history of the Polish 'registry' of Cossacks when you have a spare minute; it WILL repay your reading, I promise you.
You are of course quite right; bar a brief interregnum during/after the chaos of 1917-1918, Ukraina had never been independent until the Soviet government collapsed. Even aside from fighting the 'Whites', Lenin focused inordinate attention on subjugating Ukraina, because he realised that his revolution couldn't possible feed the nation without the chernozyom. Stalin, of course, thought that grain could grow itself, merely by the dedication of sincere Communists, and with Khruschev as his personal deputy engineered the infamous atrocity of forced starvation in Ukraina in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Excellent documentary film of these events, ''Harvest of Despair'', very much worth your attention.
Still, it's very instructive to see that, even today, your relatives still deal in the ancient ''conspiracies'', or whatever these might be called.
Unfortunately, the only time I've ever visited Russia was in 1971, cultural exchange programme, all that garbage, and was stuck in Leningrad at the university for most of it. Got to see Kiev for ONE lousy day (mutter, grr)
It was all part of the kingdom of Poland at one time, mostly slavic tribes. The history is a very long and complicated one.
It's too bad you never got to spend time in Keiv. Standing by the old city gates is where alot of the early history of all Europe past through. It's where I get my blue eyes and blond hair from.
Interesting thing, back in the 16th and 17th centuaries, any cossak who farmed was put to death by his Hetman and others. Of course, Cossaks settled northern Caucuses (and built Grozny, since until Stalin and the Chechins exterminated the Tarek Cossaks, Chechins only lived in the southern mountains), settled and conquered most of Siberia and took Alaska. They also intermarried with all the local peoples. There were only 3 battles in the conquest of all of Siberia and if I recall correctly, two were against the Chinese.
Oh and grain also grows in northern Siberia and southern Russia, especially Stavropol. The difference is, both areas were under control of some what compitent White generals, Ukraine was under control of a nut job anarchist (oxymoron since he ruled a semi organized state and army) and he was the easiest target to take first. Also they wanted to keep Poland out of it and did defeat them several times towards the end.
Kieven Russ stretched from Krakow to Vladimer, east of Moscow. During the Mongol invasions, Poles, Lithuanians and Teutonics invaded from the West. They lost several battles around Novograd. Eventually they were also defeated by the Mongols, along with the Hungarians and the Bavarians. Only pure luck saved most of Europe.
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