Posted on 05/02/2023 8:40:21 AM PDT by Tench_Coxe
In the Treasure pawn shop in Kyiv, Oleksandra, 40, a well turned out woman in a hooded wool coat and Nike trainers, has come to redeem her sewing machines. Like all those visiting the store, she does not want to give her family name.
She says that when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, she was working as an accountant for a firm that employed 14 people, who were all laid off because of the conflict. Since then she has struggled to find regular work. With savings running out, like many others in Kyiv, she turned to pawning her possessions to get by, only finding a job a year later that allowed her to claim back her machines.
(snip)
The scene in the pawn shop illustrates the crisis of growing poverty in Ukraine, the reality of which stands in contrast to the surface bustle of Kyiv’s busy restaurants and bars where it is often hard to get a table, with many living a precarious existence.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Yeah yeah. It all stops when Russia is wiped off the face of the planet. Spare me the script.
Americans outside of the DC-NYC-LA axis are also facing problems while their 'betters' finance the caviar in Kyiv.
Ukrainians should have chosen more wisely.
I travelled to Ukraine several times just before Maidan. It was a dark place then. Downtown Kiev was lovely, but other towns and cities looked very much like Soviet industrial towns in Northern China. No doubt Chinese cities and towns have surpassed them all since.
People were not friendly, and reserved, but one couldn’t blame them. They suffered from the dark hand of corrupt central government and oligarchs. All the USA did was place itself at the top of that system in an attempt to push out Russian influence.
People have been emigrating at a rate of 300K per year for 30 years. Many more millions left when the war started.
Their infrastructure is completely destroyed. An entire generation of men have been killed. There’s literally nothing left there.
Same can be said for Moscow and Russia.
Moscow looks as modern as any city on the globe, but go outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg and Russia is still pretty much the same as it was in Soviet times.
So are we to dismiss this article because its the Guardian or are we to embrace it as the truth?
Cry me a river. Eff’n moron Ukraine virtue signalers can’t name a single U.S. national interest in Ukraine, but they will blow hundreds of billions and deplete U.S. munitions, thus making America weaker. They don’t even ask the Ukrainians to pay back all this money. It’s worse than the Lend-Lease Act when allies only paid pennies on the dollar back to the US for assets they did not return after the war. Worse than funding a meaningless war, these same fiscally irresponsible idiots will want to spend even more to rebuild Ukraine.
All the USA did was place itself at the top of that system in an attempt to push out Russian influence.
....so it was the existing Russian influence that made it the craphole it was. No wonder the pro-west Maidan that erupted when
Yanukovich renegged on his promise to go west.
It depends. For the narrative shills: yes, dismiss it out of hand.
I'm sure the Guardian was trying to generate sympathy to keep the money flowing, but other sources have reported that a chunk of the money the US is sending is being siphoned by Zelensky and friends. So I regard it as a little bit of truth seeping out.
Taking down a country that has nukes pointed at us a peg or two is money well spent and in our interest Imho.
The only time “the Guardian” inadvertently tells the truth about Ukraine is when they are attempting to inhibit eroding war support by evoking sympathy.
Never went to Russia, but ironically, in Chinese cities, the ugly soviet-style apartment blocks are now the most desirable. They were distributed by government to employees long ago, so the occupant's cost basis is nearly zero. They will be held by their owners forever. They also are in the city centers, as development has had to find new land, far away, so they are super-convenient, closest to historical/cultureal sites, the oldest universities, etc.... There's also a sense of hierarchy, with the highest level bureaucrats living closest to the offices of government, so again, they are elite areas
They will be standing for a long time.
Guess you guys were running out of the usual handles.
You are missing much of the equation. Remember, Ukraine has been Russian-influenced basically FOREVER. And the Maidan was only a culmination of decades of Western attempts to pull it away from its Russian roots.
No one likes the analogy, but imagine Mexico, with the help of China, trying to purge California of its Anglo culture and political influence.
That's where Ukraine is now. Its why Zelensky and his Azov guards have banned Russian language, Russian education, Russian-connected religion. We are supporting a brutal cultural revolution, as well as an outright war.
In such a conflict, Ukraine was going to be destroyed in all ways sooner or later.
You mean unconditional surrender to the Russians and the destruction of their country?
That's not a choice.
“This network with 15,000 miles (24,000km) of track is Europe’s third largest. It has become a lifeline for the war-torn country. Since Vladimir Putin’s invasion the railway has helped bring civilians to safety. It has transported 4 million people and an estimated 120,000 pets. Eight million have fled abroad and 6.2 million are internally displaced, in the continent’s biggest refugee crisis since 1945.”
If Ukrainians wanted to stay in Russias orbit there would of been no Maidan. Russia meddled to try to prevent Ukraine from leaving its clutches. And when they failed and their new puppet wss tossed, they invaded.
You were saying?
Geographical location of Ukraine
Ukraine is situated in the central part of Eastern Europe, on the crossroads of major transportation routes from Europe to Asia and from the Scandinavian states to the Mediterranean region.
"Ukrainians" elected a pro-Russian President in 2010, largely on regional lines. You of course ignore the USA's deep role in fomenting the events of Maidan. But let's not waste time on facts.
Your goal is to simply spout great over-simplifications and slogans in support of a cheesy narrative. Its par for the course of the last 16 months. So have at it.
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