Posted on 05/10/2022 10:13:47 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
Writing on Twitter late Tuesday, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that “with his signature, the Evil Empire disintegrated” — a reference to Kravchuk’s pivotal role in disbanding the Soviet Union.
“Thank you for the peaceful renewal of our Independence. We’re defending it now with weapons in our hands,” Reznikov wrote.Although Kravchuk was a communist leader who spent a lifetime fulfilling decrees written in Moscow, during the waning years of the Soviet Union his strongly nationalist line brought him head-to-head with Russia in a struggle over the Black Sea Fleet and Crimea, The Washington Post reported ahead of his first official visit to the United States in 1992.
By refusing to sign President Mikhail Gorbachev’s treaty to restructure the Soviet Union, Kravchuk helped engineer its collapse in December 1991. Before the referendum, both Moscow and Washington were confident that Ukraine and its ex-communist leader were only toying with the idea of separation.
Kravchuk was born in the western Ukrainian countryside — the heartland of Ukrainian nationalism. An economist by training, he climbed up the Communist Party hierarchy, eventually becoming chief ideologist on the Ukrainian party’s Central Committee. He was fluent in Ukrainian, an unusual trait for a Communist Party apparatchik at the time.
In 1989, he was tasked by the party with crushing the grass-roots nationalist movement, Rukh. He ultimately wound up running the country by forging an alliance between moderate communist and nationalist legislators.
Zelensky on Tuesday praised Kravchuk’s unending loyalty to Ukraine, noting that as a child he had survived World War II and the Nazi occupation.
“Leonid Makarovych knew what freedom costs. And with all his heart he wanted peace for Ukraine. I’m sure we will implement it. We will achieve our victory and our peace,” Zelensky said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ukraine ping
Leonid Kravchuk was a member of the Soviet nomenklatura who labored in the belly of the beast, the Russian empire’s sanctum sanctorum, the mecca towards which the empire’s serfs paid ritual obeisance to ward off the attentions of the imperial secret police aka the KGB. Whether patriot or mere opportunist, he bided his time until the rarest of opportunities, took advantage of a moment of weakness in the Russian imperium, like the Poles and Finns a century ago, then set his people on the path to an independence they had only intermittently known for the last thousand years.
Over 300 years ago, Ivan Mazepa, a Ukrainian noble, attempted to wrest control of Ukraine’s lands from its Russian overlords. In Russian accounts, he is depicted as a creature of his Polish sponsors and a traitor to Russia. In reality, of course, Mazepa was just a Ukrainian patriot, much as the Founding Fathers were patriots of the Thirteen Colonies rather than traitors to the Crown.
If Ukraine survives as a independent political entity, Kravchuk will be remembered alongside Mazepa as a man who risked all for his people, but unlike Mazepa, forged a viable state. Leonid Kravchuk wasn’t perfect, but like Zelensky, he was the indispensable man for the moment he seized with both hands
Out of curiosity, what does Zhang Fei mean, anything? Is that a name of someone, you? Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks for the historical Ukrainian background info.
“Before the referendum, both Moscow and Washington were confident that Ukraine and its ex-communist leader were only toying with the idea of separation.”
Washington Foggy Bottom morons then and now. Always clueless, always wrong, but committed to deep state.
It’s absolute fiction and comedy that you talk about Ukraine “surviving as an independent political entity”.
Could anything be farther from the truth?
Victoria Nuland hand picked exactly who would comprise the Ukraine government after the constitutionally elected Kravchuk was unconstitutionally overthrown.
Please watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL_GShyGv3o
Before 2014, half the country voted pro russian and half pro west. But after this overthrow of the government, Ukraine became utterly anti Russian. Poroshenko bragged that the eastern Ukrainian citizens who were against him “would live in bomb shelters” as he continually bombed them and sent extremists to torture and ethnically cleanse them.
Political parties were banned, TV stations banned, the leader of the #3 vote getting party imprisoned and attempt made to imprison the leader of the #2 political party. This is the independent and democratic political entity you are talking about.
Watch and learn the attitude the govt Victoria Nuland installed had about Ukrainian citizens who voted the wrong way:
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=bQ5H9S2pv08
“ the Evil Empire disintegrated”
The Evil Empire is trying to re form but it’s hit a wall.
sorry yanukovich not kravchuk. Had that name in my brain from reading this article.
“Kravchuk was unconstitutionally overthrown”?
What are you talking about? Kravchuk lost the 1994 elections and there was a peaceful transfer of power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Ukrainian_presidential_election?wprov=sfla1
You failed to read message #7.
“Victoria Nuland hand picked... after kravchuk..”???
Huh? In 1994 Nuland was Nuland was chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott
You think she was orchestrating intrigues then??!?
You failed to read message #7... twice?
Poroshenko is a native Russian speaker by the by.
In 2014, the Presidents of Ukraine, Yanukovych, went back on his election pledge to seek cooperation with the EU. He did this as the anti corruption reforms is not what he wanted.
He moved secretly to sign a deal with Putin.
The public didn’t like this and held peaceful demonstrations in Majdan.
Yanukovych sent in the militias to beat the demonstrators. That caused a larger demonstration of people asking for a change from corruption.
Yanukovych was in process of being impeached for gross corruption and was going to be removed one way or another. He said he would not step down even if impeached. The day parliament voted 73% for his impeachment, he willingly tucked tail to Russia when he knew it was inevitable.
He placed Russia-style limits on assembly and free speech that people yearning for freedom were NEVER going to accept peacefully. Only after the subsequent crackdowns on peaceful protestors did the protests turn violent.
Note that the successor to Yanukovych was Poroshenko, a Russian speaker.
Poroshenko was voted out by the people and the new president was Zelensky, another Russian speaker
Furthermore “But after this overthrow of the government, Ukraine became utterly anti Russian.”
Ukraine was united by Putin’s Russia grabbing Crimea and sending in special operation troops into the Donbas to create the two people’s Republics
11 political parties collaborating with Putin’s invasion force were banned.
Just read it, thanks for the correction
“Political parties siding with Putin were banned.”
I am so surprised they weren’t invited to form a government of national disunity, what was Zelensky thinking? He’ll never make a good Russian that’s for certain.
Never underestimate the willingness of a lot of people to confuse the very different politics and contexts of many completely different political leaders across three different decades.
Kravchuk - ex commie, became an independent and worked with all parties. Ukraine at peace.
Kuchma: right wing independent. Ukraine at peace.
Yushchenko : reformer, moderately right wing, nationalist, pro-EU but not unfriendly to Russia. After leaving office, he helped negotiate Minsk II. Russia poisoned him in an attempt to strengthen Yanukovych’s election chances.
Yanukovych - a robber capitalist and Putin stooge in the mould of Belarus’ Yukashenko. In 2013, he tore up the EU Free Trade Association bid (which all parties across Ukraine’s parliament had overwhelmingly approved) and locked Ukraine into a sub-prime deal with Russia (signed 17th December 2013 without the knowledge or consent of the parliament, after a closed meeting with Putin).
The deal Yanukovych signed meant that within 6 months Russia would effectively be able to call in its loans, and install its own puppet leadership around Yanukovych. The imminent coup was on RUSSIA’S side with Yanukovych being its enabler. Maybe 40% of the Donbass and Crimea were okay with that; the rest of the country was incensed. He was removed from the Presidency as a result of an impeachment where 73% of the MPs in Parliament, across party lines, supported the impeachment. Alongside other factors for his removal from office, while he was in Russia Yanukovych not only green-lit a Russian incursion into Crimea in violation of the Budapest Agreement, he ordered the Ukrainian armed forces not to intervene.
Poroshenko - hardliner, nationalist, supporter of Azov. Helped put Azov into government.
Zelenskyy - was probably closer to Kravchuk and Yuschenko before the war. Between him being elected to office and the start of the war, Azov lost ALL their parliamentary seats, Azov was ordered to stand down in Donbass, and for three years civilian deaths (direct and indirect) in Donbass didn’t even hit 30 a year. (Russian refugees from Donbass tell me it had de-escalated to the point of it being mostly reduced to sporadic fighting between die-hards on both sides with everyone else mostly unaffected.) In effect, despite what the Kremlin and the separatists say, Zelenskyy had made significant efforts to defuse the conflict in Donbass - but he was refusing to go further until Russia reversed its ambitions.
In 1991 on a referendum on independence, 92.3% of the voters in Ukraine voted to be free and independent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum
“In 1991 on a referendum on independence, 92.3% of the voters in Ukraine voted to be free and independent.”
The main disconnect with the pro-Putin folk is they somehow don’t understand why Ukraine didn’t enjoy its 7 decades under Soviet despotism.
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