Did Pussy Riot Cause a Revolution?

UKRAINE: SOME FACTS

For some time now, we have been waiting for an inkling, yes, an inkling, of sense on this entire situation.  Other than a couple scholars who have immediately been called “Putin apologists,” as if Putin felt any need for apologies, and give very short times on our Corporate Media.  For awhile, we put the RT site up for more general access to an opposing viewpoint, and it at least allows for opposition on its own airspace.  One newscaster resigned, on air, and she was not cut off.  She knew she would get great exposure and this was her opportunity to perhaps find employment at a larger network.

          The point is, some good information, and accurate information, is starting to appear.  You can find it at ZNET online, from where this article appeared.  It is a clear and concise overview of the situation.  We might add, before leave to it, that the naval ports in Crimea were started by Katherine the Great in the 18^th Century, and I assume that this means in the 1700s.

          There has also been a great deal about the poor Tartars who were expelled by Stalin.  Well, if Stalin did it, it must be wrong, the reasoning goes.  But how did the Tartars get there in the first place?  Genghis Kahn, that’s who.  Now it comes down to who is “badder,” Stalin or Genghis.  The absurdity is overwhelming.  Also, if you want to talk about Pussy Riot, the girls who jump around a lot, the ones that hit them with their whips or sticks were Tartars.  So, maybe Pussy Riot caused all this?

          Silly season again.  Here is a great essay:

Ukraine: An Analysis

By David McReynolds 

March 9, 2014
 

Posted in: East Europe, Europe, International Relations, Russia, SourceZ, Ukraine, US | 1 comment

Before launching into my analysis of events in Ukraine, there are a few points which should be made for an American audience.

Putin:
Commentators are engaged in a campaign to discredit Vladimir Putin, dismissing him as nothing more than the former head of the KGB. I hold no brief for Putin, whom I consider the head of a state dominated by oligarchs. But it is worth remembering Putin is the head of a state with which the US needs to deal. Poisoning the water with personal attacks does not move us toward a dialogue on Ukraine or on other matters where the US needs to work with Russia. 

It is also worth remembering that Gorbachev, widely praised in the West (and in my view a major “good guy”) was actually the KGB candidate when he took office.  It is in US interests to have a working relationship with Russia on matters such as Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan. And, beyond that, on issues of true nuclear and conventional disarmament.

How legitimate is the new Ukrainian government?
There is general agreement that the ousted president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, was corrupt. The problem is he was elected by a clear margin. Dramatic as events on the Maidan were, it remains unclear what forces were involved,  who “won”, and what they represent. I’ve read several eye witness accounts of the dramatic actions in February – the problem is no two agree. The US insists the new government represents the people of Ukraine – but who makes that decision? (Younger readers need to remember that while Britain recognized the new Soviet government, which came to power in 1917, in 1924, the US did not recognize it until 1933. In the case of China, where the present Chinese government took power in 1949, the US did not recognize it until Richard Nixon’s term. The US is very selective as to when it recognizes new governments that come  to power via a revolution).

How nonviolent were the events at the Maidan?
I was more than a little surprised to find that the facebook page of the Nonviolent Action Research Network (widely wide by American pacifists) termed the events in Kiev “nonviolent”. That is nonsense. One  can support or oppose the shifts that occurred in Kiev but one cannot call them nonviolent. Not only were a number of protestors killed, but so were a number of Ukrainian police. If people check the storming of the Winter Palace in Czarist Russia,in October of 1917, when the Bolsheviks took power and the Russian Revolution became a reality, there were only a handful of people killed – far fewer than died in Kiev. I support the right of people to resist oppression by the methods they choose, but as a pacifist I will urge that resistance be nonviolent. For better or worse, Kiev was not nonviolent.

What happened at the Maidan? 

The events in Kiev were turbulent.  There have been reports – again, from eye witnesses – that far right wing elements dominated the protesters, while other equally fervent eye witnesses insist far right wing elements were marginal. Steve Erlanger, in a “memo from Kiev” in the New York Times of Sunday, March 2, noted that the new government has few representatives of “what was the country’s largest and most popular party, the Party of Regions, led by the ousted President, Viktor f. Yanukovych. Instead, the government is currently dominated by those associated with a former prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, who is widely blamed for the failure of the 2004 Orange Revolution to change Ukraine’s corrupt political system”. Erlanger’s analysis suggests that Russian fears of the new government are valid – and, more important, that the fears of many Ukrainians, particularly in the Eastern Ukraine, are valid.

Andrew Wilson, a Ukraine expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that an early “mistake” by the new government was the overturning of the 2012 law that allowed regions of Ukraine to make Russian a second official language, “needlessly offending Russian-dominated regions like the Donbass and Crimea”.

Commentators on events in Ukraine seem to break down into a kind of “left vs. right” pattern. William Blum, whose writing often makes good sense, argued in a recent piece that developments in Ukraine are part of the conscious pattern of the US to dominate the world, which has governed US actions for the last century. Much of what Blum has written has value, but this is nonsense – in 1914 it was Great Britain which ruled the world, WW I had just begun, and the US did not become conscious of its “new destiny” until after World War II. Other figures – Secretary of State Kerry, President Obama, and  Hillary Clinton – are so off base it would be funny if it were not serious. What is one to say of Obama, speaking at a press briefing in the White House, with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu sitting beside him, when he spoke of international law, ignoring the fact that Israel has occupied the West Bank in violation of international law, with considerable brutality and violence, for more than forty years.

And of course what can one say about any Russian actions in Crimea (on which I’ll comment in a moment) when they come from the leader of a nation which invaded Iraq, destroying it in the process, and has a bloody record of military interventions, some of which have never made rational sense (as in the case of Vietnam, where an estimated three million Vietnamese were killed).

There has been an almost complete lack of balance in media coverage. CNN has been happy to give extended time to interviews with John McCain, one of those rare veterans who seems to long for war, but little time to calmer voices.

To sum up what happened at Maidan, I’m fed up with some of the left telling me it was an anti-Semitic event, and everyone on the right saying it was entirely a democratic event. Clearly – if one can work through the reports – it was not just a “left vs right” event, but one in which many young Ukrainians, fed up with the corruption of the government, burst into a largely spontaneous and very exciting moment of revolt. However there is no question that the political right was there, and no question at all that it has been given key posts in the new government.

A note on Crimea:
Crimea is historically Russian. It does not have the independent history of Ukraine. It also has Russia’s only warm water port. It was inevitable, once the events in Kiev took the turn they did, that Russia would move into Crimea, and it is not going to leave. Think back to our own actions – when Fidel Castro took power in Havana in 1960 he posed no threat to the US – only to US control in Central and South America. Yet the US was so disturbed it launched a military attack (the Bay of Pigs), and has spent much of the the past half century trying to assassinate Fidel, and imposing severe sanctions. And we are surprised that Russia took steps to protect what had historically been part of Russia?

The trigger for Russian actions:
Early in February, as events at the Maidan has created a crisis, with the death toll rising, Polish and German diplomats met with both the Ukrainian government and with the rebels, working out a series of compromises which would have left Yanukovych in power but would also have met many of the demands of those in the Maidan. It is probable that Putin would have lived with that, but we will never know, since the rioters continued the uprising, which had by then become a revolution, and Yanukovych was forced to flee.

The context of the Ukrainian Crisis:
Here I want to step back away from the immediate crisis of Ukraine, for a look at the history which dictates much Russian policy – under Putin as it did under Stalin.

Russia has no natural barrier – no river, no mountain range – to guard it on its Western border. It has suffered invasion from the West three times in recent memory – under Napoleon and then twice under the Germans. In the last invasion, under Hitler,  between 25 and 27 million Soviet citizens lost their lives.  All the factories, dams, railroads. towns and cities West of a line from Leningrad in the North to Moscow to Stalingrad in the South were destroyed. Americans make much of 9.11 (and I don’t make light of it) but for Russia it was not just a handful of buildings in one city which were destroyed – it was entire cities, leveled. And then with the wounded to care for, the orphans, the widows.

Americans have never understood what the war meant to Russia and why, after the war, the Soviets sought to build a “protective band” of territory between itself and Germany. This was Eastern Europe, which under the iron boot of Stalin became “people’s democracies” or “presently existing socialism”. 

Something Americans (perhaps including our President and the Secretary of State) have forgotten was that Russia wanted to make a deal with the West. It had made peace with Finland, which (again, memories are short and we have forgotten this) fought on the side of the Nazis. The Soviets withdrew from Austria after the West agreed that Austria, like Finland, would be neutral.The Soviets very much wanted a Germany united, disarmed, and neutral. Stalin did not integrate the East Germany into the Eastern European economic plans for some time, hoping he could strike that deal. But the West wanted West Germany as part of NATO, and so the division of Germany lasted until Gorbachev came to power.

I would have urged radical actions by the West in 1956 when the Hungarian Revolution broke out – it was obvious that if the Soviets could not rule Eastern Europe without sending in tanks (as they had already had to do in East Germany in 1953), they posed no real threat of a military strike at the West.

What if we had said to Moscow, withdraw your tanks from Hungary, and we will dissolve NATO, while you dissolve the Warsaw Pact. 

But of course the West didn’t do that. The US in particular (but I would not exempt the Europeans from a share of the blame) wanted to edge their military bases to the East. When the USSR gave up control of Eastern Europe, the US pressed for pushing NATO farther East, into Poland and up to the borders of Ukraine. 

Pause for a moment and assume that revolutionary events in Canada had meant Canada was about to withdraw from NATO and invite in Russian military advisers.

What do you think US response would be?

Why are we surprised that Putin has said, very clearly, “no closer – back off”.

In this case Moscow holds the high cards. Europe is not going to war over Crimea. And it needs Russian gas. Sanctions will cut both ways – Europe is very cautious and, irony of ironies, it is Germany which is behaving with the greatest diplomacy.

If, out of all this, US planners accept the fact that there are real limits to how far East NATO can push, then the crisis will have helped us come to terms with reality. It may even lead us to consider dissolving NATO!

The importance of civil society.
All states act in their own interests. States do not have moral values. What we need to count on is the civil society – and Russia has one – which will modify state behavior, just as civil society here can sometimes modify state behavior. We – folks in the American civil society – need to reach out to the folks in Ukrainian and Russian civil society. There have been anti-war actions in Russia at this time – great, let’s try to link with them. We need to worry when, as in Nazi Germany, civil society is silenced. To a great extent that has happened here, in the US. Of course we should hope for a fair referendum in Crimea – but I think the fairest possible referendum will still see Crimea returned to Russia. 

Meanwhile, we need to tamp down the talk of military action, of sanctions, and of efforts to humiliate Putin. He isn’t my hero, but most Russians are happy with him. He has restored to Russia some of the pride it lost with the dissolution of the old Soviet Union. Americans, of all people, should understand this, with our endless (and tiresome) insistence we are the great nation in the world.

David McReynolds was the Socialist Party candidate for President in 1980 and 2000, past Chair of War Resisters International, and for nearly forty years on the staff of War Resisters League. He is retired and lives with his two cats on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He may be reached at: davidmcreynolds7@gmail.com

-->

Ukraine, Idiocy, Russia, Benghazi, and Sense

Ukraine, Idiocy, Russia

          Just recently, Lindsay Graham proclaimed proudly on Fox that Russia’s reaction to Ukraine was a result of Benghazi.  I heard this in disbelief.  Preposterous!  How could he get away with it? 

          Shortly thereafter, someone posted this survey of right-wing types, Fox news advocates, that shows where these people thought Benghazi was located.  As you can see, only 2% of them could even locate the correct continent!  There is no wonder these people would swallow that nonsense.  They know nothing else.  Still, I feel obliged to say I am not making any of this up, because what is to come is even more surrealistic.

          The question was asked whether or not the U.S. has any military agreement with Ukraine, asked of course by someone who wanted a nice little war.  The answer was that we did, of sorts.  There was mentioned an agreement between the California National Guard and Ukraine.  So, we might ask, what happens as a result?

          The answer is obvious.  Because of Benghazi, we send the California National Guard to Kiev (two syllables, idiots) in Ukraine and then to Crimea to rescue it from Putin who is oppressing the Tartars.  That makes perfect sense. 

          We will get back to this issue shortly, but meanwhile, Nitwityahoo was here visiting with Obama, the most hated U.S. President of all time in Israel and who has facilitated the most for it.  His, Nitwityahoo’s, speech to AIPAC was about BDS, boycotts, divestment, and sanctions.  If you are interested in boycotting goods that profit Israel directly, here is a product code strip, they thing they scan to ring up your purchases:

So, look at the first three digits.  This is solely done here for the purpose of giving Israel the attention it deserves during these busy times.

          OK, back to Ukraine.  There seems to be a contention that Crimea, a Russian speaking and Russian Ethnic section of Ukraine, can not vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia as it wishes.  This is according to its constitution.  However, the constitutional president of Ukraine was overthrown in a coup engineered by the “West,” as conversations involving a U.S. Ambassador show.  Also, those gunmen or snipers you saw, allegedly Pro-Russian have now been forensically identified as members of the “Ultra-Nationalist” opposition.  Actually, Russia has every right to grant the request of the democratically elected President of Ukraine, who is currently in Russia, and take military action.

          Putin has already gotten permission to do just this, to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine from his own Parliament.  That sounds legal enough to me.  All we have to do is identify which parts are ethnically Russian and which not.  Fortunately, we have this map:

So, it seems quite clear.  Russia should get the red places and Poland the yellow or green (whatever that other color is).  Or to make it easier, everything east of Kiev should be part of Russia or the Russian Federation and west should be part of NATO.

          Now, we have not mentioned NATO.  Article 5 of the agreement allows any member of NATO to have all of NATO act as if it has been attacked.  Russia has been surrounded by enemies for a couple thousand years, at least, while the U.S. is safely surrounded by two oceans.

          Another fact is that Europe relies on Russia for a great deal.  The energy supplies are only one factor here, but they are critical. 

There is one more idiocy I would like to clear up.  Our press, 90% owned by 6 corporations, tells us that Russia forbade American adoption of its orphans because of Georgia (the one over there, stupid, not Atlanta).  Actually, that ban went into force after a woman here, in one of our southern states, sent back an orphan she had adopted.  She just put him on a plane to Moscow, put a note on him saying something like “he’s a pain in my ass,” and then forgot about him.  Russia decided that Americans are not very reliable so far as adoption is concerned and it would rather take care of its own orphans. 

Some people say that Ukraine first saw humans as far back as 32,000 B.C.  The people who think this is important are the same people that think the world is only 6,000 years old. 

I did not make any of this up!

-->

SOME BALANCE

AS long as corporate media continues to give a one-sided view of the Ukraine, we are running Russian Television.  There are some facts you need to know.

Remember Boston? Ukraine has Friends

    This is just available from the Justice Integrity Project.  Ukraine encourages terrorism:

Justice Integrity Project

---

New Ukrainian Official Urges Chechen Terrorist To Act Against Russia Posted: 02 Mar 2014 04:56 AM PST The Ukraine's new deputy national security director urged March 1 that Russia's most feared terrorist take action against their mutual opponent. In a shocking statement largely ignored by the Western media, Dmitry Yarosh asked the fugitive Chechen Doku Umarov to take advantage of the "unique chance to win" arising from disturbances in the Ukraine. Yarosh was appointed to the Ukraine's new government after leading the Right Sector group of ultra-rightists, perhaps the best organized and otherwise most effective of the street fighters who topped the Ukraine's government last week. Umarow, described as Russia's equivalent to Osama bin Laden, has not been reported seen or heard since last summer, when he urged terror attacks to prevent the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. He is shown in a file photo courtesy of Creative Commons and Wikipedia. In an interview on RT March 1, I described Yarosh's request to the terrorist as dangerous because it is so inflammatory and comes from an official of the new government. But the Yarosh statement serves also as a valuable illustration to Western audiences of the violent tendencies of the street demonstrators who took power after they were encouraged by the West. Meanwhile, Russian troops deployed through pro-Russian Crimean Peninsula of the Ukraine hosting a vital naval base of the Russians. Russian troops also massed near the Ukraine border at a reported strength of 150,000. Crimea is the tan section in the Black Sea on the adjoining map courtesy of Wikimedia. United States and allied Western officials threatened reprisals against Russia but appeared to have few military or other meaningful options without risking world war. A war-weary American public is hardly likely to support a new one that could escalate to a tragedy beyond anyone's understanding or control. Also, any action by the United Nations Security council would be subject to a Russian veto, and "a coalition of the willing" is unlikely for similar reasons. Even a down-sized Russia is not Saddam Hussein's Iraq. President Obama and allied powers denounced the Russians Saturday following a mid-day meeting at the White House of such top administration officials as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. However, the actions so far of the Obama team show them as seeming unprepared for what appears to have been the most logical outcome of the West-orchestrated overthrow of the Ukraine's elected government. Republican leaders had little more to add aside from recriminations against Democrats for not acting more aggressively and spending more money on war-preparations and offers of aid. More generally, the vast suffering created in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria all began with optimistic rhetoric from Western leaders about the benefits of collective action to support such attractive-sounding goals as national security, peace, democracy, and human rights. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power was among those who followed that pattern March 1 as she warned Russia against interference in the Ukraine. Curiously lost in most U.S. coverage, however, has been the clear trail of United States and other Western interference in the Ukraine leading to coup last week overthrowing elected President .

ABSURD UPDATE ON UKRAINE

THE ABSURD TIMES


I

TOLD


YOU


SO!

UKRAINE -- GO AWAY!

THE ABSURD TIMES

 

Illustration: Carlos Latuff and his take on Ukraine.  Carlos was rated on of the top three forces in the world by AIPAC (well, he was one of the top three they didn’t like and that amounts to about the same thing) recently.  He suddenly seemed to disappear and work in Portuguese, as is his obvious right, and it seems that a wave of idiocy on Twitter in favor of deposing Morsi was related.  I may be wrong.  However, he remains dead on right on issues and here illustrates quite vividly what we have been saying all along.

          Fascism has a long history and we are not concerned here with taking it back to its early origins.  However, it is clear that a strong percentage of the Ukrainians fighting for power in Kiev were classical Fascists with roots in German Fascism, which used Hegel’s notions on the state and built on the fatherland idea as well as racial purity that was so evident in Nazi Germany.  We should also note here that John Maynard Keynes predicted World War II as a result of the treaty of Versailles that imposed “austerity” on Germany.  The EU will impose austerity on Ukraine if it drifts in that direction.  However, now that the Olympics are over and Russia gain more medals than any other country, Putin has turned his attention to more pressing matters.  The army is now “on alert” on the western border of Russia.

          One of the speakers below, when he uses the term “Fascism” is referring to that sort of classical political agenda.  However, if one extends the concept to include central governmental administration of racial purity and the notion of the fatherland, we will see that the number is not a mere 5%, but more like 40 to 50%. 

          At any rate, here is the dialogue:

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2014

A Coup or a Revolution? Ukraine Seeks Arrest of Ousted President Following Deadly Street Protests

Ukraine is in a state of crisis two days after the country’s democratically elected president was ousted following months of street protests that left at least 82 people dead. On Saturday, Ukraine’s Parliament voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovych, a move Yanukovych described as a coup. Earlier today, Ukraine’s new leaders announced the ousted president was wanted for mass murder of peaceful protesters. Russia condemned the move to oust Yanukovych and recalled its ambassador to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Europe has embraced the new government. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is traveling to Ukraine today to discuss measures to shore up Ukraine’s ailing economy. One of Yanukovych’s main rivals, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, was released from custody. We speak to Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University. His latest article for The New York Review of Books is "Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine." We also speak to University of Rhode Island professor Nicolai Petro, who is in Odessa, Ukraine.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Ukraine is in a state of crisis two days after the country’s democratically elected president was ousted following months of street protests that left at least 82 people dead. On Saturday, Ukraine’s Parliament voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovych, a move Yanukovych described as a coup.

VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH: [translated] I am absolutely confident that this is an example, which our country and the whole world has seen, an example of a coup. I’m not going to leave Ukraine or go anywhere. I’m not going to resign. I’m a legitimately elected president. I was given guarantees by all international mediators who I worked with that they are giving me security guarantees. I will see how they will fulfill that role.

AMY GOODMAN: Viktor Yanukovych speaking Saturday. He has not been seen publicly since then. Earlier today, Ukraine’s new leaders announced the ousted president was wanted for mass murder of peaceful protesters. Meanwhile, one of Yanukovych’s main rivals, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, was released from custody on Saturday. Russia condemned the move to oust Yanukovych and recalled its ambassador to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Europe has embraced the new government. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is traveling to Ukraine today to discuss measures to shore up Ukraine’s ailing economy. On Sunday, Ukraine’s interim president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said he would focus on closer integration with the European Union.

OLEKSANDR TURCHYNOV: [translated] Another priority is returning to the European integration course, the fight for which Maidan started with. We must return to the family of European countries. We also understand the importance of our relations with Russia, to build relations with this country on a new, just, equal and goodwill basis which recognizes and takes into account the European choice of the country. I hope that it is this choice that will be confirmed in the presidential elections on the 25th of May of this year. We guarantee that they will fully subscribe to the highest European standards. They will be liberal and fair.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the crisis in Ukraine, we’re joined by two guests. Timothy Snyder is professor of history at Yale University, author ofBloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. His latest piece for The New York Review of Books is headlined "Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine." He joins us from Vienna, Austria. And with us in the Ukrainian city of Odessa is Nicolai Petro, professor of politics at the University of Rhode Island. He has been in Odessa since July 2013 as a Fulbright research scholar.

Nicolai Petro, let’s begin with you in Ukraine. Do you agree with what the president, or now the former president, Yanukovych, said, that this is a coup?

NICOLAI PETRO: Yes, it’s pretty much a classical coup, because under the current constitution the president may be—may resign or be impeached, but only after the case is reviewed by the Constitutional Court and then voted by a three-fourth majority of the Parliament. And then, either case, either the prime minister or the speaker of the Parliament must become the president. Instead, that’s not what happened at all. There was an extraordinary session of Parliament, after—it was held after most members were told there would be no session and many had left town. And then, under the chairmanship of the radical party, Svoboda, this rump Parliament declared that the president had self-removed himself from the presidency.

AMY GOODMAN: And what are the forces that brought this about? And what’s happening right now in Ukraine? You’re not in Kiev; you’re in Odessa. What is even happening there?

NICOLAI PETRO: The situation here in Odessa is pretty quiet. I would say that what led up to this is a coalition of three distinct forces. One is the group that started at the end of November of last year, genuine civic frustration with the government’s decision to delay the signing of the EU Association Agreement. This was then seized upon by the parliamentary opposition, who joined belatedly and pressed the government for further concessions. And finally, the actual coup was accomplished thanks to the armed intervention of extreme nationalists, led by the Right Sector. And the fact that they were so instrumental in accomplishing this change of power has put them in the driver’s seat. From now on, whatever political decisions are arrived at will really be at the sufferance of the Right Sector.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Timothy Snyder, would you agree with this assessment of what’s taking place in Ukraine right now?

TIMOTHY SNYDER: I think parts of it are exactly right. I think I would disagree with certain parts of it. For one thing, when it comes to the question of how these changes came about, it’s a little bit reductionist just to mention opposition politicians, the right wing in Europe. The movement—the protest movement at the Maidan included millions of people in Kiev and all around the country. It included people from all walks of life, both genders. It included people from—included Muslims. It included Jews. It included professionals. It included working-class people. And the main demand of the movement the entire time was something like normality, the rule of law. And the reason why this demand could bring together such people of different political orientations, such different regional backgrounds, is that they were faced up against someone, the previous president, Yanukovych, whose game was to monopolize both financial and political as well as violent power in one place. The constitution, the legitimacy of which is now contested, was violated by him multiple times, and most of the protesters agree to that.

The second thing that I would modify a bit would be this idea that what happened is a coup, where now somehow everything is determined by the right. The Parliament does not—is not represented. Nobody from the Right Sector is in Parliament. The people who are making the decisions in Parliament come from the conventional political parties. If you look at the people who are on top, who are they? The acting president is from the southeast. He’s a Russian speaker. He’s a Baptist pastor, by the way. The two candidates for president—Klitschko and Tymoshenko—are both Russian speakers. Klitschko studied in Kiev. Tymoshenko is from the southeast. Let’s look at the power ministries. If you were a right-wing revolutionary, this is the first thing you go for. Who now occupies the power ministries? The defense minister is a Russian speaker who is actually of Roma origin, of Gypsy origin. The interior minister is half-Russian, half-Armenian. And the minister of internal affairs is a Russian speaker from the far southeast, from Zaporizhia. So, it seems extremely unlikely to me that this government is something which could possibly have been dictated by nationalists from western Ukraine. This government, if anything, is tilted towards the south and towards the east.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think this could lead to a split between East and West Ukraine, Professor Snyder?

TIMOTHY SNYDER: No, on the contrary. The one thing which could lead to a split—sorry, the one thing that could lead to a split between East and West Ukraine would be some kind of intervention from the outside. We have—we have good polling data, taken over the course of the last 20 years, from all regions of Ukraine. In no region of Ukraine do more than 4 percent of the population express a wish to leave the country. I’m pretty sure in most states of the United States the percentage would be much higher than that. The normal response is about 1 percent.

Ukraine is a diverse country, but diversity is supposed to be a good thing. It’s a multinational state in which both this revolution and the people who oppose this revolution have various kinds of ethnic identifications, various kinds of political commitments. The person who started the demonstrations in November was a Muslim. The first people who came were university students from Kiev. The next people who came were Red Army veterans. When the regime started to kill people, the first person who was killed was an Armenian. The second person who was killed was a Bielorussian. In the sniper massacre of last week, which is what led to the change of power, which is what directly led to the change of power, one of the people who was killed was a left-wing ecologist Russian speaker from Kharkiv, Yevhen Kotlyar. Another was a Pole. The people who took part in this protest represent the variety of the country. The people who oppose these protests also come from various parts of the country. This is an essentially political dispute.

And I think the good news is that once Yanukovych was removed, violence ceased, and now we are on a political track in which power is no longer in the hands of an interior minister who is killing people and instead is within the chambers of Parliament. Parliament has renewed the 2004 constitution, which makes the system a parliamentary system, and has called for elections in May. And in those elections, people from all over the country will be able to express themselves in a normal post-revolutionary way. And then we’ll see where things stand.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, Democracy Now! spoke to Russia scholar Stephen Cohen, who said Ukraine is essentially two different countries.

STEPHEN COHEN: Ukraine is splitting apart down the middle, because Ukraine is not one country, contrary to what the American media, which speaks about the Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. Historically, ethnically, religiously, culturally, politically, economically, it’s two countries. One half wants to stay close to Russia; the other wants to go West. We now have reliable reports that the anti-government forces in the streets—and there are some very nasty people among them—are seizing weapons in western Ukrainian military bases. So we have clearly the possibility of a civil war.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Stephen Cohen. Nicolai Petro, would you agree?

NICOLAI PETRO: Professor Cohen is right that there are very serious differences between the regions, and they go deep to the historical memory of not just what World War II was about, but what the end of the Russian Empire was about, what the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland, the parts of Ukraine that were under it, were about. Professor Snyder is, however, also correct on the fact that much of the country does not want to dissolve. There is a commitment to being Ukrainian. And it would be indeed to everyone’s advantage here if the country—if the Parliament really did reach out to the segments of the population that are not—that have been, effectively, disenfranchised by the last coup. And, however, I would tend to disagree, because the first steps, within 24 hours, that they’ve taken are exactly the opposite.

Let me give you an example. The repeal of the law allowing Russian to be used locally, that’s the main irritant in east-west relations within the Ukraine; the introduction of a resolution to outlaw the Communist Party of the Ukraine, which effectively is the only remaining opposition party in Parliament; the consolidation of the powers of the speaker of the Parliament and the acting president in a single individual, giving him greater powers than allowed under any Ukrainian constitution; of course, the call for the arrest of the president. Now we have, effectively, a Parliament that rules without any representation from the majority party, since most of the deputies of the east and the south of the country are afraid to set foot in Parliament. Meanwhile, all across the country, headquarters of parties are being sacked by their opponents. This is the stage which we have for the elections for May 25th. Will they be fair? There’s no money, according to the prime—the acting president and speaker. Vigilante militias routinely attack and disperse public gatherings they disapprove of. News broadcasts—yesterday Inter was interrupted by forces claiming to speak for the people. What do you think?

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going break and then come back to this discussion and talk about the significance of the release of the former prime minister, who was imprisoned and brought back in a wheelchair to Independence Square, where she made her re-emergence, this as the current president—the past president was fleeing Kiev. We’re talking to Nicolai Petro, professor of politics, University of Rhode Island, speaking to us from Odessa in Ukraine. We’re also speaking with Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University. He’s today in Vienna, Austria. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, it is Democracy Now!'s 18th birthday. We are celebrating it through this month of February, 18 years of Democracy Now! since we first went on the air on about eight community radio stations, February 19th, 1996. We're now broadcasting on over 1,200 public television and radio stations around the country and around the world. And if you want to send in your photo holding up why you need Democracy Now!, that’s what we’re showing during our breaks, and for folks listening on the radio, you can go to our website at democracynow.org, where we’re streaming the pictures. You can also send us video to tell us what Democracy Now!means to you. Check out democracynow.org. All the details are there.

Well, I’m Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now! And we’re talking about the crisis in the Ukraine. We’re still with Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University. He is in Vienna, Austria. His latest piece for The New York Review of Books is titled "Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine." And with us from Odessa, Ukraine, is Nicolai Petro, professor of politics at University of Rhode Island.

I want to turn to comments made by the former prime minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, following her release from jail on Saturday. She was addressing Maidan protesters in Kiev.

YULIA TYMOSHENKO: [translated] I know that all together we will be able to do it, and I personally will never allow anyone to let you down. I will never allow not a single politician, not a single official, to even touch nor even lay one of their fingers on your honor, on your life. Know that nothing in my life will be more important. May God give you good health. May you be happy in your country, and then all these sacrifices will not be in vain. Glory to Ukraine!

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the former Ukrainian prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. Timothy Snyder, the significance of her release, how long she was held in prison, what she represents?

TIMOTHY SNYDER: Well, she was a political prisoner. She was the head of the major opposition party to Yanukovych’s party. She lost the last presidential elections to Yanukovych by a relatively narrow margin. For many years, she and Yanukovych were the two dominant figures in Ukrainian political life. So, obviously, most human rights observers, most governments in the West have been calling for her release for quite a long time. It’s a good thing that she was released. It’s a step towards the return of the rule of law in Ukraine.

What it means in political terms, I think, is rather more complicated. She has not been a part of these revolutionary events. She came to them at the very end. And what she said to the protesters in the passage you played is rather curious and, in a way, pre-revolutionary and anachronistic. I think the sense of the Maidan is that there is this—there is a civil society. They’re self-organizing people who can stay and occupy a place in the middle of the winter for weeks upon end, which means soup kitchens. It means people cleaning up. It means people in hospitals. It means doctors. It means journalists. It means a movement in which millions of people took part. They’re not asking for someone to take care of them. In a way, that’s the old-style politics. And I think many people rightly associate Tymoshenko with Yanukovych and with politics of an old style. So it’s not clear to me that her return will be as significant politically as it might seem at the very beginning. This, of course, remains to be seen. I would stress, of course, that Tymoshenko, like everyone—virtually everyone else we’re talking about, is a Russian speaker from the southeast of the country, so, again there, it’s not a matter of west versus east.

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking on Sunday, National Security Adviser Susan Rice warned Russia against sending in troops to Ukraine.

SUSAN RICE: That would be a grave mistake. It’s not in the interest of Ukraine or of Russia or of Europe or the United States to see the country split. It’s in nobody’s interest to see violence return and the situation escalate. There is not an inherent contradiction, David, between a Ukraine that has long-standing historic and cultural ties to Russia and a modern Ukraine that wants to integrate more closely with Europe. These need not be mutually exclusive.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice. Nicolai Petro, your response?

NICOLAI PETRO: Well, she’s right, but I don’t see what—the discussion of the armed forces seems cavalier. I mean, no one’s even thinking or talking about that. I’d like to chime in, if I may, on the Tymoshenko question that you asked, and agree with Professor Snyder’s assessment. At least in this area of Ukraine, the south, she seems to not have any resonance. And the perspective is that this is very much—her appearance is very much a blast from the past, if you will, sort of things that have—we’ve all gone through that before. And the hope is that there can be more dramatic changes. A little bit of a disconcerting element to this is her usage of the familiar Svoboda refrain now from World War II, "Hail to Ukraine," which is becoming sort of the routine greeting for the revolutionaries now.

AMY GOODMAN: What is—right now the Olympics are ending. How does Putin see the situation? They’ve pulled the ambassador back from Ukraine, the Russian ambassador to Ukraine back. Professor Petro, what would you say Putin sees in what has taken place? Is he concerned this will happen next in Russia?

NICOLAI PETRO: Oh, no, no, I don’t think that at all. What I think is, when people watch what’s happening here in Ukraine, in the former Soviet Union, they’re saying, "There but for the grace of God, you know, go we." This is a very—a cautionary tale, if you will, against chaos and corruption, as well, leading to these sorts of extremes. Whether—President Putin has already declared the government’s willingness to support Ukraine, to see the country prosper, and so far the only monetary—and it’s worth pointing out, the only monetary contribution on the table right now is the $15 billion that have been offered in bonds and, in addition, even more significantly, the reduction in the price of natural gas that Ukraine is buying from Russia right now. Whether or not Europe or the United States or the International Monetary Fund will come up with anything comparable is much to be hoped for, but right now there’s a lot of dithering on the part of the West.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Timothy Snyder, your assessment of what this means for Putin right now?

TIMOTHY SNYDER: Yeah, I would agree completely that he has no immediate reason to worry that this will repeat itself in Russia. Russia is not Ukraine. But in a way, the fact that Russia is not Ukraine has been the problem for Russian foreign policy. The Russian money which was offered to Ukraine was offered as an alternative to the trade deal with the European Union, but it seems very likely that there was a price. The major package of $15 billion, which was referred to, preceded—and I think it’s no coincidence—the laws on the Russian model, for example, forcing non-governmental civil society organizations to register themselves as foreign agents, laws which ban freedom of expression, laws which turn people who manifested on the streets into extremists, which of course paves the way for martial law and such things. The whole package of laws on the 16th of January was the result. That failed. That made the protests much more aggressive and much larger. Then, when the Russians finally did release $2 billion of that, it was just a matter of days before the sniper attacks last week, which led to the political change that we’re talking about. So, the Russians did put money on the table, but there was a price. The price was to try to make Ukraine more like Russia. That has now failed, it seems, so the Russians have something to contemplate.

With the European Union, it has to be much more complicated. The European Union is not a petrol state which can just offer money here and there where it wants, the way that—the way that Russian is. The European Union has to have guarantees that the money that’s spent will be in exchange for constitutional reform, in exchange for free elections—I completely agree about the significance of that, including the importance of the participation of electoral observers—and in exchange for thoroughgoing local reform which would make corruption—and I also agree about the significance of corruption in Ukraine—that will make corruption much less likely. Those discussions, however, are already underway. The European Union is about to announce its package. The IMF has already expressed its willingness. I completely agree that those things are essential.

Ukraine has been brought to a—by its president, to a state of near bankruptcy. Yanukovych literally sat on gold toilets in his ridiculously extravagant residence. This is a country which needs to have not only political change, but financial backing for that political exchange—for that political change. Otherwise, it’s not going to be able to happen. I would also stress that only financial backing of parliamentary democracy is the thing which can keep the extremes from making their way towards the center, but I think people in the West understand that now.

AMY GOODMAN: Nicolai Petro, there is an interesting picture in The New York Times today, the headline, "Fresh From Prison, a Former Prime Minister Returns to the Political Stage," and it is a picture of Tymoshenko, and she is flanked by both the American ambassador, Geoffrey Pyatt, and the European Union’s Jan Tombinski. Talk about the United States in all of this. We have played the clips of Victoria Nuland talking about who she wants in government and not, top diplomatic official in charge of this area that includes Ukraine, that these—this taped conversation that somehow made it to YouTube. What about U.S.’s role? Of course, she was giving out cookies to the protesters on the front lines a while ago.

NICOLAI PETRO: Well, I must say that the United States, in my—from my perspective, tried to play a role in the reconciliation process but was not terribly effective, because it does not have the necessary leverage. That is in—the only country that has the leverage and the resources and knows the situation well is Russia. So, if there is a country with deep knowledge of this area, I would say it would be Russia, and I would hope that we would listen to the advice of our Russian partners in this.

But I do also believe there was an error in the assessment of one of the more significant, I think, and ultimately determinant groups in accomplishing the revolution. I clearly have to disagree with Professor Snyder. I ascribe a much greater role to the Right Sector, as they call themselves, the spearhead of the revolution. And given the hope of many in the West regarding this revolution, I think it’s especially important to note that this group is critical of party politics in principle. It is skeptical of what it calls imperial ambitions of both Moscow and the West to the Ukraine. The former are easier to understand. The latter try to sap the Ukrainian national spirit with all this talk of dialogue and compromise. So what they hope to see emerge out of this turmoil is a new Ukraine, as they put it, quote, "burnished by the flames of national revolution," able to stand up in opposition to the democratizers and their local lackeys. And I think there has been a strong underestimation of the influence of this right nationalist movement, not in terms of numbers, but in terms of street cred, in terms of the vision that they can offer which can inspire young people, really, especially in the West, but throughout the country, in terms of, you know, maybe we don’t even need a parliamentary system; let’s just do something that is more decisive and dramatic and can actually maybe move the country forward in a way, because it’s been stagnating for 20 years now.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Petro, when you talk about the right, who exactly do you mean, for an American audience who knows very little about Ukraine?

NICOLAI PETRO: There is a parliamentary party now, which could be called a right-wing party, and that is the Svoboda party. They’re the ones who, as I mentioned, convened the extraordinary session of Parliament that led to the ouster of the president. Now, how to exactly describe them, I will leave that to Professor Snyder. But I would simply note that there was an EU Parliament resolution of December 13, 2012, that drew attention specifically to the Svoboda party and called it racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic. Now, compared to Svoboda, the Right Sector, which has been active in all of the violence in the streets, is more radical, more militarily organized and more willing to use violence.

AMY GOODMAN: Final words, Professor Timothy Snyder, in understanding this, and who the right is and—both opposed to Russia and opposed to the West?

TIMOTHY SNYDER: Thanks. Yeah, I mean, as Professor Petro probably knows, that’s the subject of my specialization. And, of course, I share his concern. Svoboda takes its example from the history of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, an interwar, extreme-right party which I would not hesitate to call fascist. The Pravi sector also refers to the same historical symbolism. Both of them speak of the necessity for a national revolution, especially Pravi sector. They are significant. They are less significant than the far right in Austria, where I am now. They’re less significant than the far right in France. They’re less significant than the far right in the Netherlands. But they matter.

And I think the crucial thing is to understand that they become more important when the system becomes a dictatorship. When the leader of the center-right—that’s Tymoshenko—is put in prison, then the far right of course is going to benefit as a protest party. When the situation is revolutionary, and these are the people who are willing to risk their lives, of course they’re going to become more important, which means that for all of us who are concerned about the return of normality, stability, the rule of law, it’s very important that this—that the revolutionary character of this situation pass now into a normal political process, where we can agree or disagree about who should rule and who shouldn’t rule, but where decisions are made in Parliament, where decisions are made in the ballot box, and where decisions are not made in the streets.

In Kiev today, the metros are running. In Kiev today, there is no looting. The place is remarkably peaceful. The presidential residences are being visited peacefully, rather than looter-sacked as in other revolutions, or even the United States when we have a weather problem. The country is in an orderly position. If we want to keep both extremes at bay—the extreme from the right, which I am indeed worried about, as well as extremists on the other side, with their support from Russia—the most important thing to do is to back parliamentary democracy, back early elections, do the small things that we in the West can do to make sure that that’s the outcome—a restoration of the rule of law, restoration of a parliamentary constitution, restoration of democracy. These are things that we can help achieve, and the Ukrainians themselves have already done the hard part. That’s where I would end.

AMY GOODMAN: Timothy Snyder, I want to thank you for being with us, professor of history at Yale University, speaking to us from Vienna, Austria. His book,Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin; his latest piece in The New York Review of Books, "Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine." And Nicolai Petro, thanks for joining us from the Ukrainian city of Odessa. He’s a professor of politics at the University of Rhode Island.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go to Britain to speak with Luke Harding. He says he has been surveilled as he wrote the book about Edward Snowden, The Snowden Files. We’ll find out what happened. Stay with us.

---

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

-->