russia and ukraine, get back together!

[The_Last_Word]

Originally posted by Lubov
****Yes, I have, but the problem I have with them is that such websites, be it Ukrainians in Russia or Russians in Ukraine, always push their own agenda on their viewers. I wouldn't call them a reliable source of information.

No doubt, Ukrainian nationalist sites have their own, as well.

However, would it surprise you if I told you that even on those sites they have not yet published one important evidence rejecting what is called Russian oppression of Ukrainians by the tsar's government.

You might have read it somewhere. I've read it once and thought I would find it in other places also, but I didn't. Now I have to find the site where I saw it again.

What happened was that the landowners and nobility of the Ukraine, recently joined with Russia, were against their own Ukrainian peasants. They basically wanted more power over the peasants and more rights, something that probably existed in Russia proper. The nobles petitioned to the imperial Russian gov't in St. Petersburg and presented their case as if it was the right thing to do for the country. The tsar's advisers believed them and granted them the requested rights resulting in oppression of the peasants by the local estate holders and nobles in the Ukraine. Ever since then, Ukrainian ultranationalists put the blame on the Russians, whereas the real blame should rest with Ukrainian nobles, largely of Polish desent. There are official documents in existence clearly proving these events.

***OK...So, non-Ukrainians tell the truth, Ukrainians lie, right?

I think with statements like that you're sliding down to Jarema's level.

How do you define the truth in History? In my opinion, the historic truth is almost unattainable, since historians are always to some degree influenced by their political views or personal preferences or accounts of events given by other people (which probably could not remain impartial either). A Russian historian, a Ukrainian historian and a Ukrainian American historian would have completely different accounts of the same even, don't you think? In any of the three cases you'll see history through their pair of eyes unless you participated in the event and know exactly what it was all about.

Right. But not in all cases. In some events, the truth is very clear, while some people persistently try to deny it. In other cases, a particular (unproven) version of events is preferred to suit public opinion and/or gov't policy of hate and hostility.

This seems like you can use history as well as opinion polls to your own interpretation, therefore, nothing is what it seems. Everything is relative, and the truth is out there somewhere...
Do I sound like you?

BTW, that quotation of Voltaire is the ultimate expression of the essence of freedom of speech. It's not about defending the correct opinion (how do you know it is correct, after all?) it's about letting you opponent to voice it and be heard.

I know what it's about. Did anyone ever say he is willing to die for your right to learn your language in school or your right to your national territory?

[Lubov]

[quote]Originally posted by The_Last_Word
[b]I just want to add that Russian companies already own controlling stakes in all major Ukrainian industries. That was a major investment by Russia into Ukrainian economy. Western companies were not even interested in investing into those industries, so Russia saved Ukraine's economy from demise.

NOT SO!

Ukraine is weak. Ukraine 's president, Leonid Kuchma, is weaker. Tape recordings that appear to be authentic reveal him to be tolerant of corruption, quick to abuse his power, willing to use the police against his enemies. The tapes, which came to light late last year, also show him apparently discussing what could be done about an investigative journalist named Georgy Gongadze - whose headless torso was found outside Kiev soon afterward.
Kuchma has few friends left, but among them are the business tycoons - known here, as in Russia, as the "oligarchs" - who couldn't abide Yushchenko's economic reforms and efforts to conduct fair and "transparent" sales of state-owned enterprises.
Kuchma's other friends, in his weakness, are in Russia.
"Russia looks after its own interests," said Igor Lutsenko, one of the leaders of a group called Ukraine Without Kuchma. "After eight years they found Kuchma in a very weak position, and of course they're using that."
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin has voiced his support for Kuchma, and the Russian press has picked up the cue.
At the same time, Russian investors have been snapping up one major Ukrainian company after another - seven in the past several months - in privatization deals that could be described as murky at best.
This year, the Zaporizhiya aluminum plant was sold off to Avtovaz, a Russian company, for $69 million, even though a Ukrainian group had offered $101 million. Yushchenko pushed for the higher offer, but Kuchma steered the sale into Russian hands. Viktor Pinchuk, a suave member of parliament who controls a television and industrial empire and is the common-law husband of Kuchma's daughter, had lobbied for the winners.
The Russians, said Pavlo Movchan, an opposition member of parliament, have become Kuchma's guarantor.
Over a glass of grapefruit juice in the serene surroundings of the Grand Club, across the street from parliament, Pinchuk argued that Ukraine has no reason to fear Russia, which he said is "an incredibly strategic country for us."
To the contrary, he said, it is Western organizations that are pursuing a "planned action" to disrupt Ukraine . He offered no evidence to support this contention, but he said there are "proofs" to back him up.
Turning against U.S.
Ukraine 's press, which is almost entirely controlled by either the government or such tycoons as Pinchuk, has been vilifying the United States recently - where once America could hardly do any wrong.
The attacks raise the specter of an America dictating every move to subservient Ukraine , although, if anything, Western involvement in Ukraine is falling off. Western businesses have been shut out of all major privatization deals.
"The coming of Western investors would have meant investments in these industries," said Sergii Rakhmanin, of the independent weekly newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli. "The coming of Russian investors is likely to mean the stripping of assets."
What Yushchenko accomplished in his 16 months as prime minister was this: He restructured the foreign debt, paid down the domestic debt, eliminated arrears in wages and pensions, oversaw the first solid growth of Ukraine 's economy since independence a decade ago, pushed hard for transparent finances in the energy sector and reined in tax breaks for favored companies.
All this hurt the oligarchs, who control about a third of the parliament, and led to widespread public support for Yushchenko - which gave the unpopular Kuchma cause for concern.
On Thursday, the oligarchs' faction in parliament joined with the Communists - who oppose any move toward a free market - to oust the prime minister and his Cabinet. In public, Kuchma said he regretted the decision, but he had made no attempt to save Yushchenko. And as soon as the vote was taken, he blamed Yushchenko for losing it.
`I need democracy'
Pinchuk elaborated on that theme. Yushchenko's whole problem, Pinchuk said, was that he tried to run the government without consulting the oligarchs, who had backed Kuchma. Yushchenko, he said, seemed unable to tell the difference between "criminal oligarchic gangs" and decent businessmen who had been forced to make up the rules as they went along in Ukraine 's transition to capitalism.
"Who are the oligarchs?" Pinchuk asked. "I'm called an oligarch. I'm an industrialist, I own many enterprises. Really, I consider myself a reformer. I need democracy, I need transparency to prosper."
But Yushchenko, he complained, talked about the oligarchs as if they were all criminals. Is it any wonder they turned on him? With Yushchenko's mistakes to learn from, Pinchuk said, economic and democratic reform can now move ahead even faster.
Movchan, who is the founder of a Ukrainian nationalist party, disagreed.
"What is in store for us?" he asked. "Inflation. We'll have to pay back debts that Yushchenko renegotiated. Salaries will be delayed again. The foreign debt will grow. The domestic debt will grow. All this will weaken the president. Then we'll hear the slogan, `Russia is our only savior.' And then they'll say our salvation is in a referendum for a new union with Russia."
With parliamentary elections scheduled for March, there's a certain amount of public anger over the dismissal, because Yushchenko was that rarest of things - a Ukrainian politician with solid positive ratings. A crowd estimated at 15,000 to 30,000 turned out in the streets of the capital to protest Thursday, but that's hardly enough to shake Kuchma.
On Friday, Yushchenko told a group of liberal and nationalist members of parliament that he was ready to become opposition leader, provided the factions can agree to work together.
It's a tall order. There had been a burst of demonstrations early last winter after the Gongadze tapes became public, and the various opposition groups united, but the moment passed, and they fell to quarreling among themselves. To get back together and stay together for nearly a year will be a test of will.
Opportunity for Russia
Markian Bilynskyj, director of field operations for the U.S.- Ukraine Foundation, expects that parliament will be unable to agree on any replacement for Yushchenko, which will likely mean an acting prime minister (or prime ministers) of diminished authority, and political trouble.
"And any upheaval or political crisis is a good opportunity for the Russians to get involved," said Mikola Tomenko, director of the Institute of Politics. "I think their basic goal - and this is something they've been proclaiming ever since Putin came to power - is the economic privatization of Ukraine " - that is, in Moscow's favor.
"This will mean the end of our independence," Lutsenko said.
Falling back on Russia is, after all, easy for Ukraine , Bilynskyj noted. Putin and Kuchma speak the same language - literally as well as figuratively, because Kuchma's grasp of Ukrainian has always been shaky. Kuchma, a former director of a rocket factory, is a Soviet manager to the core.
But despite the thuggishness of his police and special services, he is not himself a tyrant. Kuchma, said Bilynskyj, often doesn't know what he wants or how to get it if he does.
The corrupt and arbitrary bureaucracy, largely a holdover from the Soviet era, goes along on inertia, Bilynskyj said, leaving Ukraine with "a semblance of an authoritarian regime." It's a regime that by its nature tends to drive away Western engagement, and, without much direction otherwise, finds Russia to be a compatible fit.
Some of Kuchma's critics believe that Ukraine is in danger of being turned into a genuinely authoritarian country at Moscow's behest, but Bilynskyj thinks the Russians are subtler than that.
"Russia," he said, "would like to see a prosperous, formally independent Ukraine - but a Ukraine that defers to Russia."

[The_Last_Word]

Originally posted by Lubov
Originally posted by The_Last_Word
I just want to add that Russian companies already own controlling stakes in all major Ukrainian industries. That was a major investment by Russia into Ukrainian economy. Western companies were not even interested in investing into those industries, so Russia saved Ukraine's economy from demise.

NOT SO!

Why not? Your article basically says the same thing.

So now you resort to posting someone else's article to your defense?

Ukraine is weak. Ukraine 's president, Leonid Kuchma, is weaker. Tape recordings that appear to be authentic reveal him to be tolerant of corruption, quick to abuse his power, willing to use the police against his enemies. The tapes, which came to light late last year, also show him apparently discussing what could be done about an investigative journalist named Georgy Gongadze - whose headless torso was found outside Kiev soon afterward.
Kuchma has few friends left, but among them are the business tycoons - known here, as in Russia, as the "oligarchs" - who couldn't abide Yushchenko's economic reforms and efforts to conduct fair and "transparent" sales of state-owned enterprises.
Kuchma's other friends, in his weakness, are in Russia.
"Russia looks after its own interests,"

AS does any country that knows what's good for it.

said Igor Lutsenko, one of the leaders of a group called Ukraine Without Kuchma. "After eight years they found Kuchma in a very weak position, and of course they're using that."
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin has voiced his support for Kuchma, and the Russian press has picked up the cue.

I wouldn't pick up the cue. But I wouldn't favor most of Kuchma's opponents either.

At the same time, Russian investors have been snapping up one major Ukrainian company after another - seven in the past several months - in privatization deals that could be described as murky at best.

Subjective and baseless opinion.

This year, the Zaporizhiya aluminum plant was sold off to Avtovaz, a Russian company, for $69 million, even though a Ukrainian group had offered $101 million. Yushchenko pushed for the higher offer, but Kuchma steered the sale into Russian hands. Viktor Pinchuk, a suave member of parliament who controls a television and industrial empire and is the common-law husband of Kuchma's daughter, had lobbied for the winners.

Exactly. It takes more than just money to win a deal. The naive should look and learn.

The Russians, said Pavlo Movchan, an opposition member of parliament, have become Kuchma's guarantor.
Over a glass of grapefruit juice in the serene surroundings of the Grand Club, across the street from parliament, Pinchuk argued that Ukraine has no reason to fear Russia, which he said is "an incredibly strategic country for us."
To the contrary, he said, it is Western organizations that are pursuing a "planned action" to disrupt Ukraine . He offered no evidence to support this contention, but he said there are "proofs" to back him up.

I'd like to see that proof also.
However, it might as well be such opinion polls by U.S. organizations as I posted earlier, which Ukrainians might see as America's anti-Ukrainian stance (meaning a pro-Russian stance).

Turning against U.S.
Ukraine 's press, which is almost entirely controlled by either the government or such tycoons as Pinchuk, has been vilifying the United States recently - where once America could hardly do any wrong.
The attacks raise the specter of an America dictating every move to subservient Ukraine,

This is true. You can expect U.S. troops posted at even more locations around the globe, including possibly the Ukraine, supposedly to keep east and west Ukrainians from eating each other in the event of a conflict.

although, if anything, Western involvement in Ukraine is falling off. Western businesses have been shut out of all major privatization deals.
"The coming of Western investors would have meant investments in these industries," said Sergii Rakhmanin, of the independent weekly newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli. "The coming of Russian investors is likely to mean the stripping of assets."

Rakhmanin's subjective opinion: "likely to mean" doesn't sell to me.

What Yushchenko accomplished in his 16 months as prime minister was this: He restructured the foreign debt, paid down the domestic debt, eliminated arrears in wages and pensions, oversaw the first solid growth of Ukraine 's economy since independence a decade ago, pushed hard for transparent finances in the energy sector and reined in tax breaks for favored companies.

Did Yuschenko put an end to theft of Russian natural gas from the pipelines also?

All this hurt the oligarchs, who control about a third of the parliament, and led to widespread public support for Yushchenko - which gave the unpopular Kuchma cause for concern.
On Thursday, the oligarchs' faction in parliament joined with the Communists - who oppose any move toward a free market - to oust the prime minister and his Cabinet. In public, Kuchma said he regretted the decision, but he had made no attempt to save Yushchenko. And as soon as the vote was taken, he blamed Yushchenko for losing it.
`I need democracy'
Pinchuk elaborated on that theme. Yushchenko's whole problem, Pinchuk said, was that he tried to run the government without consulting the oligarchs, who had backed Kuchma. Yushchenko, he said, seemed unable to tell the difference between "criminal oligarchic gangs" and decent businessmen who had been forced to make up the rules as they went along in Ukraine 's transition to capitalism.

Is there a transition? I wonder where it's all going? Why did the author not call this situation as murky also?

"Who are the oligarchs?" Pinchuk asked. "I'm called an oligarch. I'm an industrialist, I own many enterprises. Really, I consider myself a reformer. I need democracy, I need transparency to prosper."
But Yushchenko, he complained, talked about the oligarchs as if they were all criminals. Is it any wonder they turned on him? With Yushchenko's mistakes to learn from, Pinchuk said, economic and democratic reform can now move ahead even faster.

Yuschenko, even with the credit of his accomplishments, looks more naive as I read on.

Movchan, who is the founder of a Ukrainian nationalist party, disagreed.
"What is in store for us?" he asked. "Inflation. We'll have to pay back debts that Yushchenko renegotiated.

The author failed to disclose that those are debts mostly to Russia that Movchan is worried about.

Salaries will be delayed again. The foreign debt will grow. The domestic debt will grow. All this will weaken the president. Then we'll hear the slogan, `Russia is our only savior.' And then they'll say our salvation is in a referendum for a new union with Russia."

Here's Movchan's main concern: a possible union with Russia. He is more worried about that then he is about the welfare and aspirations of Ukrainian citizens (even if they are for a union with Russia).

With parliamentary elections scheduled for March, there's a certain amount of public anger over the dismissal, because Yushchenko was that rarest of things - a Ukrainian politician with solid positive ratings. A crowd estimated at 15,000 to 30,000 turned out in the streets of the capital to protest Thursday, but that's hardly enough to shake Kuchma.

Maybe Kuchma has become like Lukashenko.

On Friday, Yushchenko told a group of liberal and nationalist members of parliament that he was ready to become opposition leader, provided the factions can agree to work together.
It's a tall order. There had been a burst of demonstrations early last winter after the Gongadze tapes became public, and the various opposition groups united, but the moment passed, and they fell to quarreling among themselves. To get back together and stay together for nearly a year will be a test of will.
Opportunity for Russia
Markian Bilynskyj, director of field operations for the U.S.- Ukraine Foundation, expects that parliament will be unable to agree on any replacement for Yushchenko, which will likely mean an acting prime minister (or prime ministers) of diminished authority, and political trouble.
"And any upheaval or political crisis is a good opportunity for the Russians to get involved," said Mikola Tomenko, director of the Institute of Politics.

One-sided view.
It would actually be a great opportunity for the Americans to get involved and send troops into the Ukraine, like they do with most other countries.

"I think their basic goal - and this is something they've been proclaiming ever since Putin came to power - is the economic privatization of Ukraine " - that is, in Moscow's favor.
"This will mean the end of our independence," Lutsenko said.

Why is privatization in Germany's, Poland's or America's favor not considered an end to independence?

Falling back on Russia is, after all, easy for Ukraine , Bilynskyj noted. Putin and Kuchma speak the same language - literally as well as figuratively, because Kuchma's grasp of Ukrainian has always been shaky. Kuchma, a former director of a rocket factory, is a Soviet manager to the core.

Kuchma also comes from Chernigov, a historically Russian town.

But despite the thuggishness of his police and special services, he is not himself a tyrant. Kuchma, said Bilynskyj, often doesn't know what he wants or how to get it if he does.
The corrupt and arbitrary bureaucracy, largely a holdover from the Soviet era, goes along on inertia, Bilynskyj said, leaving Ukraine with "a semblance of an authoritarian regime." It's a regime that by its nature tends to drive away Western engagement, and, without much direction otherwise, finds Russia to be a compatible fit.

Russia has already made a much bigger break with its Soviet era bureaucracy than Ukraine did.

Some of Kuchma's critics believe that Ukraine is in danger of being turned into a genuinely authoritarian country at Moscow's behest, but Bilynskyj thinks the Russians are subtler than that.

Yes, Russia knows much better than that, they are not newbies in the game. However, those critics are clearly exaggerating regarding a "genuinely authoritarian coutry" that Ukraine could become. Even Ukrainians know better than that.

"Russia," he said, "would like to see a prosperous, formally independent Ukraine - but a Ukraine that defers to Russia."

It would suck for the millions of Russians and Russian-speakers in the Ukraine to defer to Poland or Turkey, instead of Russia.

[The_Last_Word]

Originally posted by Jarema
...The TRUTH demands that sometimes we have to choose sides.

You clearly choose to oppose the truth and invent your own "truth".

Patriotizm demands recognition of one's duty to his/her nation.

To you this duty is to hate Russians and to persistently occupy Russian historic lands and forcibly Ukrainize its population.

In our case it is our INDEPENDENCE. If we lose that, we loose our self-respect ad the respect of others. We will be ruled ny people like the last word who are full of hate for what we stand for as a nation and for our difficult choices.

I would never rule the likes of you. I'd rather you have your own national "paradise" apart from the country I live in.
Accusing me of being "full of hate" only lowers your own already ignorant image.

I am not saying we are ideal or perfect. We have to go on as Russia's EQUAL (neither older, nor younger brother) and respect our differences keeping in mind our national iterests, our language and cluture. ...

I doubt Ukraine will ever be equal to Russia, if it lasts much longer.
The language in the Ukraine is largely Russian, and you fail to admit or recognize it officially.

[Lubov]

[quote]Originally posted by The_Last_Word
[b]

Originally posted by Relict


In a way, Russia is keeping the Ukraine alive by providing natural gas to the country, which is mostly illegaly stolen from the pipelines by Ukrainians.

********* I wouldn't call those shcmuks Ukrainians, they are crooks and mostly Russian speaking ones. You don't just come up to the pipe and open a tap and "steal" oil or gas from it. You have to have equipment to make that bypass or whatever and you have to know what to do with the stolen oil/gas, you don't steal it and keep it in your garage. Most of poor Ukrainians in the godforsaken country simply have no means to venture business like that. The country is run by crooks, most of the politicians as you rightfully mention are Russian speaking(quote - Furthermore, Rada deputies themselves are too lazy to speak in Ukrainian and speak Russian instead all the time)which, according to your logic, makes them Russians by default, and most of them have stakes in oil business. So what's up with that? ***********

Nevertheless, that does not prevent official Kiev from banning Russian-language TV programs and newspapers and forcing schools to teach only Ukrainian to children against the people's will.
************ All I can say about the passage above is that Russian mass media do their job well. I'm sorry but this is the biggest nonsense I've read so far in this thread.***********

[Lubov]

Here's a piece that demonstrates that to some of you, rusophiles, are dragging far behind the recent trends in Russian historiography.

"The creation of the Russian-Ukrainian historians commission will also be challenged by a growing body of Russian historians who are more willing than Kuchma or Semynozhenko to move away from "harmonization" toward the reconciliation and normalization work undertaken by Poles and Ukrainians. Writing in the April issue of the journal "Nations and Nationalism," Professor Vera Tolz surveys the decline in attempts by Russian historians to associate the Russian tsarist empire or the USSR with "Russia," or to see Kyiv Rus as the first "Russian" state. Kyiv Rus is now portrayed with three capitals (Kyiv, Novgorod, and Lagoda), while Ukraine and Russia signing the Pereyaslav Treaty in the 17th century are described as different in culture, language, political traditions, and customs.

This development is the first attempt, Tolz believes, whereby Russian historians are in the "process of inventing a truly national tradition" outside the imperial past. Attitudes toward Ukraine are evolving from the pure derision aimed at the very idea of an independent Ukraine to gradual acceptance, particularly after the signing of the Russian-Ukrainian treaty in 1997."



The full version can be found @ http://www.brama.com/news/press/0207...kr-rus-history

NOTE: The article is posted for its informational value. No claims about it being the ultimate truth have been made so far.

We've exhausted the topic, don't you think. Right now we are milling the wind or "tolchem vodu v stupe" or "tovchem vodu v stupi" or whatever you might want to call it in whatever language you choose.

[The_Last_Word]

Originally posted by Lubov
********* I wouldn't call those shcmuks Ukrainians, they are crooks and mostly Russian speaking ones. You don't just come up to the pipe and open a tap and "steal" oil or gas from it. You have to have equipment to make that bypass or whatever and you have to know what to do with the stolen oil/gas, you don't steal it and keep it in your garage. Most of poor Ukrainians in the godforsaken country simply have no means to venture business like that.

What's with the excuses? They do it, don't they. And everyone knows that.

The country is run by crooks, most of the politicians as you rightfully mention are Russian speaking(quote - Furthermore, Rada deputies themselves are too lazy to speak in Ukrainian and speak Russian instead all the time)which, according to your logic, makes them Russians by default, and most of them have stakes in oil business. So what's up with that? ***********

1. I always differentiate Russians and Russian-speakers in the Ukraine, as you can see in my posts.
Speaking Russian to most of them is just good to cozy up with the large Russian-speaking electorate. Most of them are, as I said, too lazy to learn a new language, s.a. Ukrainian. They only hope the new generation of children will speak it in the future. They are breeding a new Ukrainian race, like on a farm, to create a justifiable distinct Ukrainian ethnic group that would occupy the whole of Ukraine.
2. Oil stakes: they are businessmen first, and people's servants only afterwards.

Nevertheless, that does not prevent official Kiev from banning Russian-language TV programs and newspapers and forcing schools to teach only Ukrainian to children against the people's will.
************ All I can say about the passage above is that Russian mass media do their job well. I'm sorry but this is the biggest nonsense I've read so far in this thread.***********

This I got from Ukrainian Russian-speaking sources. However, the forceful teaching of Ukrainian and in Ukrainian in schools is more than enough for a normal person to realize how "free" Ukraine is.