West of the Elbe

[makcum]

Ukraine, as an independent state, was handed to Ukrainians on a silver platter by the economic laws of Adam Smith and by a quirk of history. Nobody, in their right mind, expected Ukraine to become an independent state without bloodshed and fierce resistance by Russia and the rest of the USSR. Yet it happened and in one of the stranger twists of history, the glory must rightfully go to Leonid Kravchuk.

This is not to say that others did not play a crucial role in this dramatic miracle. In the many years of seemingly hopeless dissident activity in the 1960▓s and 70▓s by Levko Lukyanenko, Vyacheslav Chornovil, Ivan Svitlychniy, Vasyl Stus, Bohdan Horyn, Valeriy Marchenko, Ivan Dzyuba, Alla Horska and hundreds of others who paid for their efforts with prison sentences and some with their lives. Unknowingly, they paved the way for Kravchuk, the man charged by the Communist Party of Ukraine to help keep Ukraine in the USSR, to bring it to independence. It also belongs to generations of the past, the Sichovi Striltsi, the OUN, the UPA, the people who actually laid down their lives for this future event.

I watched this drama in the United States sitting in front of my television spellbound. Events were overtaking each other every day. The demonstrations; the "Human Chain" from Lviv to Kyiv, the meetings in front of the monument to Taras Shevchenko in Kyiv. The tens of thousands of young people out on the streets marching and singing. The sea of blue and yellow flags on the streets carried by the brave and the newly freed.

As I watched the tears of joy 7,000 kilometers away from the events, I, like every Ukrainian living in the West, felt part of these historic events. I also watched in horror as my President, George Bush, told Ukrainians to avoid "suicidal nationalism" and basically to stop their march to freedom. This was as unworthy a performance as any American President had ever done. Thank God that Ukrainians had the good sense not to heed Bush▓s advice.

There was also the less then honest performance by the "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, who insisted that Ukraine was something akin to California and should not engage in "separatism". It was no doubt, a standard speech used to bully the Irish but this time with "Ukraine" replacing "Ireland". The Lady was sucking up to George. It was the Anglo-American "special relationship" at work to pressure Ukraine, but to no avail.

Nuclear Weapons

The first conflict between the United States and Ukraine concerned nuclear weapons and their delivery systems based in Ukraine. This was something which the Americans had calculated into their thinking before Ukrainian independence.

I was once present at a small meeting in the Pentagon in 1989 between the Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney and Bohdan Horyn from Rukh. I was translating for Horyn. Cheney asked Horyn what Ukraine intended to do with the nuclear weapons on its territory when it became an independent state. Horyn replied "We▓ll give them away, we do not need them." Cheney smiled and asked "Will you give them to Iran or Iraq?" Bohdan replied "Yes, so long as they are not on our soil." I cringed and translated fatefully. How naОve it all was then. Dick Cheney, today the Vice President, must recall this conversation. His secretary wrote down the notes from this meeting.

Then came the first Clinton administration and its lack of understanding and vision by Clinton▓s advisor Strobe Talbott. His romantic belief in the higher values of "Russian culture" immediately created an atmosphere of mistrust towards Ukraine. This led to the Clinton administrations lack of understanding for Ukraine▓s need for security. Talbott, in his recently published memoir▓s "Russia Hand", bitterly complains about Leonid Kravchuk, Anton Butejko, Anatoliy Zlenko and Boris Tarasiuk standing up for Ukraine▓s rights. Talbott, convinced himself into believing that the US can dictate anything to anybody, describes the talks on forcing Ukraine to give up the nuclear arsenal on its territory. Talbott▓s description is phony. I know this from very good sources. Mr. Talbott is simply telling fairy tales meant to place himself in a good light. And while it is true that a vague ▒trilateral pact of protection▓ for Ukraine was signed at the time, it was rapidly forgotten by Warren Christopher, then the Secretary of State and everybody else. The entire exercise was an inducement for Ukraine to give up its nuclear arsenal without any rights for Ukraine, so that Russia, Talbott▓s darling, a Russia led by Yeltsin and his criminal "family,▓ could prosper, and repay America for disarming Ukraine. We should not forget one incident which took place at the time. Boris Yeltsin and Andre Kozyrev, his then foreign minister. discussed the possibility of a nuclear strike against Ukraine. This soon became public. What was the American reaction? Can anyone remember? Talbott does not even mention this incident. It never happened in his version of history.

Yet he does reveal an interesting sidelight to the mentality of the Russian leadership of that time. The Russian Ambassador to the United States, Vladimir Lukin, told Talbott that Russia▓s relations with Ukraine were "identical to those between New York and New Jersey." Primakov, the then head of the FSB told him that Ukrainians were like children who had gotten their hands on their father▓s loaded rifle.

I believe that the only sensible and farsighted thinker in the 20th Century American White House who understood Ukraine and its role was Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor in the Carter administration. He understood the realities of Central European geopolitics and that is why he is so hated by the Pavlovsky, Malenkovich flimflam (for translator √sakhrayi) gang today.

The Ukrainian Elite

More then a decade has passed since the Second Ukrainian Revolution (Bloodless) of the 20th Century took place. Ukrainians, or Kravchuk, to be more precise, did the only thing that logic, history and conscience required them to do, to declare independence. Ukraine▓s day had finally arrived.

As I look back on these events now and see the chaos and lack of direction in Ukraine today, I need to find answers to a number of questions: How is it that a former communist nomenclature manager of a rocket factory, a man who never in his life had the vision to see Ukraine as an independent state (if anything, he saw this as an act of treason) become President? How did it come about that the country is being run by men who are Sovoks? They are so distant from any national identity that every word they pronounce is an ungrammatical joke. Why is it that most of them are under suspicion of being corrupt, of having laundered stolen money and of being members of some evil criminal conspiracy?

At the same time I will never forget Mykola Zhulynsky▓s wise words. He once told me in New York (I think it was in 1990): "We all know what happened when former political prisoners took over the government of Russia in 1918." He meant Lenin, Stalin and that gang of criminals. Zhulynsky during this discussion was referring to the possibility of Vyacheslav Chornovil becoming President of Ukraine. I was more optimistic. And with all due respect and love for Vyacheslav Maksymovich, Mykola was right. But the results were disastrous nonetheless. The Ukrainian political elite it seems was either educated in the labor camps of Mordova or in the Higher Party School.

[Aala]

Hello Maksym, I like the way you wrote your message, but... what did you mean to say? Are you surprised? Disappointed? Angry?

[makcum]

LOL, you crack me up. It is a news paper article I just decided to post.

[Volodya987]

Speaking of insults hurled at Ukrainians by, armed to the teeth, thugs, does anyone know in which section of the Us#A Constitution the provision exists for a eg USAF, or a Marine Corp? or an I.R.S.? or a privately owned "Federal Reserve" bank? Isn't the "right to bear arms in an organised militia" a "State's" right. Isn't currency control a "State's right". Nimrod certainly struck again.
Volodya987
PS. The Ethiopians were descended from Cush, from whom sprang Nimrod, the first to usurp dominion over his fellow-men. The "Ethiopians" were Buddhists, turfed out of India by the natives.

[Freedom1]

Taxing authority is a consitutuonal amendment, while armed forces in the defense of the nation are embedded in the original document, as is " the right to keep and bear arms".

I dont know who the eff nimrod is, but he was CERTAINLY not amonst the orignal signers of the Declaration of Independence, men who, as a group, gave up everything they owned, property, family lives, etc, EVERYTHING for the cause. And I mean this quite literally. People, even Americans, forget the price these men paid for freedom.

If you're going to ramble diatribe, you shouldnt do it on topics some may be versed in.

Maxim, nice 'newspaper article'. I should like to share a few private emails with youat some occasion. Being no more than casual observer, seems the country is between a rock and a hard place. Reliant on its eastern neighbor for energy, and viewed by western nations with some disdain, as a unruly republic run by criminals. Not entirely so, but enough so it indeed causes distancing or neglect by some western nations. If it wasnt for the nuclear arsenal, it would be, I'm afraid, total neglect.

Same reason large oil service companies elect to not do much business in Russia. Huge political risk, and huge bureaucratic inertia.

[Volodya987]

From my understanding:
Right to bear arms is a State's right, never intended to give "The" Family of the President Of Us#A, the right to send armed thugs, all over the world, to serve their own monetary interests.
Most of the "original" signers of "The" Declaration of Independence were a branch of the Bavarian Illuminati. There was even one on The Mayflower, divvying up North America between himself.
Too many Micky Mouse, Archie and Jughead and The Phantom comics in your youth, and not enough international political facts, it appears, Freedom1.
What's that quote on the female holding an Olympic torch
on the Hud's Son river:
"Give me your poor, you hungry, your blah, blah, blah and we'll screw 'em for generations, just like we have in Europe"

[Volodya987]

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