[Peace-discuss] "Why Everything You've Read About Ukraine Is Wrong"

Mon May 26 12:06:54 EDT 2014

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Subject: 	[ufpj-activist] Why Everything You've Read About Ukraine Is Wrong
Date: 	Sun, 25 May 2014 09:20:42 -0400
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/05/19/why-everything-youve-read-about-ukraine-is-wrong/

          5/19/2014

  Why Everything You've Read About Ukraine Is Wrong

Comment Now

/This article is by Vladimir Golstein, a professor of Slavic studies at 
Brown University. He was born in Moscow and emigrated to the United 
States in 1979./

The mainstream American media has taken a nearsighted view of the 
Ukrainian crisis by following a script laid out by the State Department. 
Most reports have either ignored the truth or spun it in a way that 
paints only a partial picture. Here are seven things you should know 
about Ukraine.

*1.* *Regardless of claims by some commentators like Forbes contributor 
**Greg Sattell**, the divisions in Ukraine are real,* *and violence 
unleashed by the Kiev regime is polarizing the nation further.* While 
the differences between the Ukrainian west and the more Russian-facing 
rest of the country are widely acknowledged, what tends to be overlooked 
is that the culture, language, and political thinking of western Ukraine 
have been imposed upon the rest of Ukraine. Ostensibly this is for the 
sake of â??unifying the country,â?? but in fact the objective has been 
to put down and humiliate Ukraineâ??s Russian-speaking population. The 
radical nationalists of western Ukraine, for whom the rejection of 
Russia and its culture is an article of faith, intend to force the rest 
of the country to fit their narrow vision. Western and eastern Ukraine 
do not understand each otherâ??s preoccupations, just as Cubans in Miami 
and Cubans in Havana would not understand each other. Ukrainian conflict 
is not the conflict between the â??pro-Russian separatistsâ?? and 
â??pro-Ukrainians,â?? but rather between two Ukrainian groups who do not 
share each otherâ??s vision of an independent Ukraine.

Western Ukraine was joined to Russia only during Stalinâ??s era. For 
centuries it was under the cultural, religious, and/or political control 
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland. Hating Soviet occupation, 
western Ukrainian nationalists viewed Stalin as a much greater villain 
than Hitler, so that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists aligned 
themselves with Nazis and, led by their radical leader Stepan Bandera, 
proceeded to rid their land of other ethnic groups, including Poles and 
Jews.

Western Ukraine is unified in its hostility toward Russians, whom they 
see as invaders and occupiers. During the last 20 years, as Ukraine 
tried to distance itself from its Soviet past and its ideology, it chose 
the nationalism of western Ukraine as the alternative. A necessary 
correction, perhaps, but the one that has generated its own dangerous 
myths. Easterners are angry that pro-Bandera banners, posters and 
graffiti are popping up all over Ukraine and with the rewriting of 
history in general, where violent nationalists who fought alongside the 
Nazis are treated as heroes while Russians, who suffered under Stalin no 
less than the Ukrainians, are denigrated. Following the exile of 
President Victor Yanukovich and Russiaâ??s annexation of Crimea, 
Ukrainian nationalist rhetoric has become downright offensive and 
hysterical, ostracizing further the people in the east. The escalating 
violence will continue to radicalize both sides, so instead of finding a 
democratically acceptable solution they will resort to baseball bats and 
AK 47s.

*2.* *The Western press was wrong about the massacre of Ukrainian 
citizens in Odessa on May 2, 2014,* when as many as 100 (the officially 
accepted number appears to be 42) unarmed people were burned alive  in 
an Odessa building.  When telling the story, the Western press reported 
on the clashes between pro-Ukrainian soccer hooligans and pro-Russian 
protesters without any explanation as to why the results of these 
clashes were so one-sided.

What happened in Odessa was something ominously familiar to Eastern 
Europe: an organized pogrom. At least the BBC got part of the story 
right: â??several thousand football fans began to attack 300 
pro-Russians.â?? And as in every pogrom, the victimizers blamed their 
defenseless victims for initiating it. In fact, pro-Kiev thugs armed 
with iron rods and Molotov cocktails attacked the camp of protesters, 
set it on fire, and forced the protesters to retreat into a building, 
which was set on fire. It was a blatant act of violence and 
intimidation. The current leaders of Ukraine promised an investigation, 
but so far their only response has been to blame the passivity of 
security forces. The truth is that the victims simply refused to share 
Kievâ??s radical nationalist agenda. Should we call civilians 
â??separatistsâ?? or â??terroristsâ?? only because their rejection of 
radical nationalism has resulted in Occupy-type protests? Why not call 
them moderate Ukrainians? Incompetent at best and vicious at worst, the 
Ukrainian government is failing its own population by condoning the 
intimidation and thus radicalizing it further. This is major news, a 
possible watershed in the unfolding drama of Ukrainian civil war, yet 
Western coverage has quickly forgotten the story.

*3.* *The Ukrainian elections scheduled for May 25 would hardly solve 
the economic problems of Ukraine, since there is a glaring absence of 
good candidates.* Current political contenders in the elections are 
either Soviet-style oligarchs like Petro Poroshenko, corrupt politicians 
like former Prime Minister Iulia Timoshenko, or former member of 
Timoshenkoâ??s cabinet Arseny Iatseniuk. Corrupt as ousted president 
Viktor Yanukovich proved to be, he did win the role in the last 
election, with the country traumatized by Timoshenkoâ??s own corruption. 
It is a sad feature of the Ukrainian political scene that its most 
independent and dynamic politician is Oleh Tyahnibok from western 
Ukraine, the controversial leader of the far-right nationalist party, 
Svoboda. His party is mired in Bandera-Nazi accusations, while Russia 
declared him a â??fascistâ?? and opened a criminal case against him for 
organizing the assault on the civilians in eastern Ukraine.

*4.* *Politicians do not really matter in Ukraine, because Ukraine is 
the land of oligarchs*. For better or for worse, Putin has put an end to 
oligarch rule in Russia. Members of Putinâ??s inner circle may be 
immensely rich, but they know to whom they owe their wealth. By 
imprisoning Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin sent a clear message to the 
all-powerful oligarchs that controlled Russia during former president 
Boris Yeltsinâ??s time: stay out of politics. Ukraine didnâ??t have this 
experience, and the politicians seem to be working in unison with, if 
not under the control of, oligarchs. There are frequent tensions among 
them or between them and politicians; for instance, the richest person 
in Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov, worked closely with Yanukovich, while others 
preferred Timoshenko or Victor Iuschenko. Akhmetovâ??s business 
interests are connected with the metallurgical industries in the east 
and he has organized his 300,000 employees to help him assert his 
control over eastern Ukraine and fend off military attacks on civilians, 
attacks which were encouraged by another oligarch, Igor Kolomoisky.

*5.* *The Western press, including **Forbes**, has underestimated the 
extent of oligarch Igor Kolomoiskyâ??s influence*. Taking the concept 
â??corporate raidingâ?? literally, Kolomoisky has employed paramilitary 
units at his disposal for all kinds of hostile takeovers. Undoubtedly a 
shrewd businessman, he managed to wrestle various businesses from such 
powerful competitors as the current president of Tatarstan, and, if we 
believe Putin, from Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Kolomoiskyâ??s 
recent foray into politics has been carried out on the same grand scale. 
Even though he resides in Switzerland, he has been appointed the 
governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region. He has offered a bounty of 
$10,000 for any â??Russian Separatist,â?? provided the Ukrainian army 
with necessary equipment, and armed nationalist volunteers. With the 
regular Ukrainian army reluctant to shoot its own population, 
Kolomoiskyâ??s units have participated in various military attacks on 
the east, including the May 9 assault on Mariupol, where several 
civilians were killed. Russian sources connect him to the massacre in 
Odessa. Members of the new governor of Odessa, appointed after the 
massacre, are his close associates.

Kolomoiskyâ??s â??pro-Jewishâ?? activity has its own share of 
controversy. He gives money to various restoration or construction 
projects from Jerusalem to his native Dnepropetrovsk, serves as the 
president of the Jewish community in Ukraine, and in 2010 he became the 
president of the European Council of Jewish Communities, following his 
promise to donate $14 million for various projects. Other EJCJ members 
described his appointment as a â??hostile takeover Eastern European 
style.â?? ^After several of them resigned in protest, Kolomoisky quit 
the EJCJ, but not before he set up an â??alternativeâ?? committee called 
European Jewish Union. Jewish leaders subservient to Kolomoisky claim 
that Ukraine is now an open, pluralistic society, but in light of 
Ukraineâ??s tradition of anti-Semitism and pogroms, it is hard to be 
optimistic.

The Western press complains about Putinâ??s state-controlled media, but 
Kolomoisky has no less information control. His business holdings 
include the largest Ukrainian media group, â??1+1 Media,â?? the news 
agency â??Unian,â?? as well as various internet sites, which enable him 
to whip public opinion into an anti-Putin frenzy. Andrew Higgins of /The 
New York Times/ published a story with the headline, â??Among 
Ukraineâ??s Jews, the Bigger Worry is Putin, Not Pogroms,â?? which 
praises Kolomoisky for adorning Dnepropetrovsk with â??the worldâ??s 
biggest Jewish community centerâ?? along with â??a high tech Holocaust 
museum.â?? Higgins notes, however, that the museum â??skirts the 
delicate issue of how some Ukrainian nationalists collaborated with 
Nazisâ?¦explaining instead how Jews supported Ukraineâ??s efforts to 
become an independent nation.â?? In other words, this high-tech museum 
is no more than a media project, as it focuses on issues unrelated to 
the Holocaust at the expense of honoring the victims and documenting the 
role of the Ukrainian collaborators.

*6.* *Russia is weak. The country is losing population and shrinking 
geographically and economically*. Russia is clearly overextended. Look 
at the Russian-Chinese border, where the concentration of population 
reveals a grim picture for Russia: there are about 100,000 Chinese per 
square kilometer on the south side of the border vs. 10 Russians on the 
Russian side. Only a fanatical Russophobe would imagine that Russia 
wants to expand. The Baltic republics, Moldova, Georgia, and Poland, 
continue to prod Western media with the stories of Russian expansion, 
because NATO, the EU, and the USA are more than happy to â??stand up to 
Russiaâ?? and provide financial aid.

*7.* *President Putin has been accommodating to Western interests*. 
Despite what you read in the Western press, he didnâ??t protest about 
NATO expansion, he gave up on a number of important Russian military 
bases, and acted aggressively only when he felt that Russiaâ??s back 
yard was threatened. Annexation of Crimea, while responding to very 
strong popular demands both in Russia and Crimea, was a limited 
operation that enabled Putin to save his face after â??losingâ?? 
Ukraine. Since then he has given plenty of indications that he is ready 
to call it a day. His limited goals are acknowledged in the writings and 
interviews of such people as former ambassador to Russia Jack Matlock, 
or former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. But what needs to be 
stressed is that the next Russian leader might not be that 
accommodating, especially in light of continuous and needless bullying 
on the part of the US. Dmitry Rogozin, Russiaâ??s NATO representative 
and a serious political figure on the right, has already declared that 
next time heâ??ll fly into Ukraine and Moldova on military bomber after 
these countries didnâ??t allow his plane to use their airspace. What 
gave rise to Hitler was Germanyâ??s continuous humiliation after World 
War I. The policy of public humiliation of Putin, the talk of 
â??punishingâ?? him or Russia for bad behavior, is insulting to the 
Russian leader and his countrymen. In contrast to Germany in 1939, 
Russia still has plenty of nuclear arms. Had Russia intended to enslave 
the US or its allies with its threat of nuclear bombs, I would be more 
than happy to repeat after New Hampshire: â??Live Free or Die.â?? But is 
it worth it to taunt and threaten an already angry and frustrated 
nuclear power for the sake of handing Ukraine to the likes of Mr. 
Kolomoisky and his motley crew of oligarchs, nationalists, and 
subservient politicians? Those Western politicians and journalists, who 
confuse the issue of defending freedom with the power games that the 
current Ukrainian elite is playing, should be aware that they are not 
serving, but rather betraying, cherished American principles.

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com (blog)

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. - 
Henry David Thoreau

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