What makes me sad is, that the front line does not divide regions. It cuts families in two, circles of friends, work places, building neighbours etc. It's not as clear cut as the media makes it. I know a family from Odessa, in which the sister refuses to speak Russian to the brother, the father is Russian speaking pro-Kiev, the mother and the uncles are Russian-speaking pro-nothing, the rest of the family is a mix of bilinguals refusing to choose and fatalists expatriated young professionals who just wait and see. The aunt is Ukrainian speaking and nationalist but lives with a pro-Putin bilingual and the situation of the neighbours is not really clearer either. This is the real Ukraine, not what we see in the media and definitely not the one the propaganda of each side is selling us.

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Es wird nichts ausgelassen, um mich hier herauszuekeln. Ein Lehrbuch. False accusations and attacks continue. There is no stopping righteous people when they are wrong.

I know. And I know this, because I live exactly this, with my classes, but post conflict, refugee situation in CH. When things should be all cool and dandy, and are still not, because of the good old guerilla spirit, that even despite of the move from the epicenter of all evil, still stays.

I'd say, and will sound horribly boring, the only hope is education and patience. The good thing is, that way back there, the level of education, despite of the lack of state official investments, is quite high. It will happen, but while old generations disappear, and will become more confident, things will become easier, with patience. And will become more expensive. Because people will actually have to pay for education. Which is the price of freedom.

I know we run in circles here, which helps nobody right now there. We can send NATO, US or EU cops, when things get critical, but not sure how/if it will help.

I miss the home Slavic spirit of široká duše we share with those folks. Nobody can translate this.

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"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

A French/German/Lithuanian documentary that seems to put the events in Ukraine in context:
Putin's background in the KGB and his love of the Soviet system is a constant theme. It refers to the desire to expand Russia's power base and the significance to Putin of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution in 2004/2005.

5/7
8:08 Ukrainian presidential elections in October 2004 and Kremlin involvement
9:00 Ukrainian political analyst: "This [Orange Revolution] was an anti-Russian revolution, an anti-imperialist revolution against the Kremlin empire. It was the most terrible failure of his whole political career".
6/7
4:07 Vladimir Putin: "The military budget of the United States is 25 times ours. That means that their house is their fortress. Clever. Very clever. It means that we too must build a strong and resistant house, because we can see what is going on in the world. We know what is going on. Our comrade, Mr Wolf, knows who to eat. He devours other countries, heedlessly... He has no intention of listening to anyone."
11:40 Yuri Samodurov, Director of the Sakharov Foundation, a human rights organisation which promotes civil society and democracy in Russia:
"Nobody in my generation thought that one day we'd see the end of the Soviet system, the fall of Communism. When it finally happened, we thought it would never return... [becomes tearful] ... but it has."

славянская душа? There must be a point where Russia draws the line. Being treated like a small country is not an option. Those who do not understand that have the opportunity to get the point with this crisis. We'll see how long it takes for certain capitals to admit they went too far. China does the same regularly around Taïwan. The US does the same in the Caribbean area too. Normal.

This has just popped up on my Facebook feed.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...raine/7816951/

Scary to think this is what's happening...

Washington doesn't have to destabilize Minsk next. Russia subsidizes Belarus to greater degree (per capita) than EU the eastern members. Minsk already criticized Crimea takeover. They know they're next.

They don't know who distributed them, the local Jewish community thinks it "smells like a provocation", the "Russian side has used the specter of anti-Semitism in a cynical manner" and "Jews are the default scapegoat throughout history for despots to send a message to the general public: Don't step out of line."

The Russian foreign minister was speaking today about the need to protect all minorities. Perhaps it has been orchestrated to back that idea up.

Geneva agreement looks hopeful; let us hope all sides will keep their promises.

The Jews fear both sides in this matter. There is nothing for them to expect from the nationalist government in Kiev that openly accept the active help of neonazis for their dirty work and there is no way you can make a Jew trust a Russian government ever.
Jews know that they will be used by Kiev because the new government needs the world to forget about their nazi friends - and by Russia because Moscow intend to remind the world of exactly that. It's pure strategy, we will never know who is really behind all this seen from the west.

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Es wird nichts ausgelassen, um mich hier herauszuekeln. Ein Lehrbuch. False accusations and attacks continue. There is no stopping righteous people when they are wrong.

Unfortunately I do not think NATO today has the power to be an effective policeman. Also finding effective economic sanctions has so far proven not to be easy and maybe not even possible. Anyway Ukraine is not a NATO country so no reason to be involved.
Looking at the ease with which the pro-Russian people get their hands on modern guns it could be that the Russians would run into armed insurrection if they move into other parts of Ukraine; that would not be a solution and could turn into another Syria.
If the Russians took another chunk of the Ukraine then they would also have the problem of defining and guarding a new thousand km border; there is no obvious geographic feature like a river that they could base a new border on.
Could also be that some places in Russia take this situation as encouragement to try to move out which could also get very messy.

A very bad situation for the people who live in Ukraine; some may benefit but I expect most will not.

The identical automatic guns with grenade launchers are in possession of men wearing identical military uniforms and having identical standard issue equipment - as Putin said, just anybody can buy it on every street corner.

Even in US fully automatic weapons are banned.

Yes, but the phrasal unit široká slovanská duše we use to relate to mostly Russians in certain literary context is hard to translate..wide, open, large (soul), not in a physical term, can mean understanding, warm, emotional, nuanced. Which aren't exactly terms I am thinking of when this terrible conflict is on my mind.

I agree. Russians have a history of annexing. They did take a chunk of Ukraine already, that used to be ours, in 1945 (it was formerly a part of the ČSR), without being troubled by border definition. We still have minorities there, that did not excape Hitler or Russians (like my family did, spent months in the infamous Ukrainian train through Europe, that could not go straight through Slovakian Fasist State nor Hungarian Fasist State).

This tactics repeats a few times every century it seems.


Most of what is now happening in there reminds me of Munich. And then Stalin, or those who "helped" us a number of times last century, last "help" being the sad 1968. Same "let us help you" rhetorics. I hope there is some kind of help factor somewhere in there, marton, but so far it seems only as a mere manifesto of power that is costing civilians their lives.

However is the West trying to push or protect, it seems to be just a bit too late. Including quite careful reporting.

Everybody in Europe is watching closely, if there will be waves of refugees, they will most likely be directed to places with already existing large Ukrainian communities to join their family members (which is my home).

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"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

If Ukraine fell Poland would have Russia/Russian proxy states all around its eastern border except for Lithuania. Not a nice situation. I really hope that at least western part of Ukraine raises to the challenge. It is a real pity it is similarly as lawless and corrupt as Russia, but maybe not crime ridden to same degree as e.g. murder rate is just half of Russia.

Interesting point for me is that in the videos from Ukraine the militias are handling their weapons in a very professional manner. Contrast with videos from other hot spots like Syria and see how they hold their weapons.
The Ukraine militias have clearly had military training and look like their weapons handling is under strong discipline.

http://www.economist.com/news/leader...r-if-west-does

Quote:
Red lines and green men
Russia insists that it has played no part in the seizure of towns such as Sloviansk and Gorlivka. This is implausible. The attacks were co-ordinated, in strategically useful places that had seen few protests. Just as in Crimea six weeks ago, troops in unmarked uniforms and with Russian weapons carried out the initial assaults. Russian agents have turned up in custody and in reporters’ notebooks, organising the protests and, some say, paying for them. Russia has been meddling in eastern Ukraine for weeks, occasionally with results from the pages of Gogol. On April 6th “local people” stormed what they thought was the regional administrative headquarters in Kharkiv only to find that they had taken control of the opera house.

About "Russia insists that it has played no part in the seizure of towns.."
As I posted before you just have to look at how these "pro Russian supporters" handle their weapons to see they are actually professional soldiers.

Hardly astonishing. Many Ukrainian soldiers are ethnic Russians

Putin "promised" that apart from Crimea everything will stay as it was. Now everyone can see how much value his promises have.
The whole Eastern Europe, not only Ukraine is in a terrible situation. Moscow has close connections with the far right wing, anti-European parties in Western Europe; the morale of the people in the Eastern part is getting lower and lower. The game is clear.
USA alone cannot do much and the West part of Europe is duplicitous, as always. Sorry to say that.

Unfortunately I have to agree. US might be unfortunately the only ally, but after their "reset with Russia" and "pivot to Asia", not sure if/when their interest aligns with Eastern Europe countries.
Now, when Germany's chancellor displays a portrait of Catherine the Great, Siemens ceo meets Putin just after Crimea is taken, and Schroeder presides over Nord Stream gas pipeline - it is more than just Real Politik. F.....g West.

But what you describe is THE Ukraine described in much of the media. The media is NOT portraying things as "clear-cut" as you make it.

You should not just look at the headlines but read and watch the whole reporting.

I still remember a colleage of Dad in the 1950ies. The man was half Russian and had lived in Odessa for years. I am absolutely sure that Mr B... would have welcomed Mr Putin taking the Krim back. But most likely would be against the strange moves which came later.

Back to the journalists. Lengthy and comprehensive reports are cut down to two or three minutes in the main news, but when you watch the full reports of them in other broadcasts you can see a difference