Is Ukraine about to explode?

Exactly. Despite years of Russification under Soviet Communist rule (i.e. Moscow), the fact that the Ukrainian language has survived at all is a powerful testament to a distinct cultural identity.

 

Oh. My. God.

And Khruschev's "Hay Zhive Vilna Ukrayina" speech must've been the cleverest of diversions. Don't insult my intelligence! If you want to look for oppressed people, look at Tatars, Chechens, Kalmyks, Jews, hell virtually anyone but the Ukies.
You may as well call the Belarusians oppressed, as you will hardly find one single person in Cucumberstan who can speak their own language properly.

The numbers from Lvov, Ivano-Frankovsk and Vinnitsa fluctuate between 93 and 96 per cent for Yushchenko. There are photographs of convicts in a Lvov jail casting their ballots under the watchful eye of wardens. Yushchenko is anything but a popularly elected president. You've got two frauds and saying that one of them is a lesser fraud by virtue of losing does not make him legitimate.

And the whole ceremony, the taking of oath on a Bible (it's supposed to be the constitution) before the sitting president's term was even up -- yeah, that reeks of liberalism and progress. Saying things like "If you don't elect me President, the streets will". COME ON!!!
He is just another apparatchik, the Ukrainian Yeltsin who is 13 years behind, like most of things in Ukraine. Don't delude yourself, this is plain silly.

 

They had an election. A deeply polarized one.
And, by the way, don't let me trot out Moldova here, the first post-Soviet state to vote out a sitting government. In favor of a Communist Russian, no less.

 

I have no clue and frankly no idea what to think about what is going on right now.

But according to the BBC, there are about 100,000 people outside the Kiev train station right now protesting for one of the candidates. But I am not sure which one. Why couldn't they find two candidates with different sounding names so I would not be confused.

Shurik, is the lack of different sounding names also a result of the Ukraine not being a separate nation?

 

I was trying to be funny and sarcastic. And to allow my American naivety and lack of sophistication to come out.

In any event, here is the current BBC story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4036867.stm

There are demostrations all over the place, for both candidates.

And Lech Walesa has been asked by the opposition candidate to mediate the crisis. Putin meanwhile seems to have backed away from his congratulations.

Now the "Ukranian diasphora" is in the act (from Instapundit)

http://fistfulofeuros.net/archives/000956.php

 

Yeah, I'd call being executed for being Ukrainian by the NKVD or put on a train to Siberia by the KGB "oppressed." Needless to say, not the most conducive environment for Ukrainians to assert their identity.

 

Please, don't try to privatize Stalin. He was an equal-opportunity cannibal.

 

Here is one thing you bug-eyed idealists just fail to grasp. That thing, of course, is irony. Deep, very deep irony, as deep and seemingly bottomless as a bowl of real Ukrainian borsch, loaded with porkfat and cabbage.
It is the irony of calling the elections a fraud and demanding not a recount, not a re-run, but an unilateral installation of the guy you want, without any evidence that he actually got more votes.
It is the irony of saying you defend freedom and trying to force an unconstitutional inauguration on a non-quorum Parliament.
It is the irony of calling yourself a liberal and leading a mob of people to crown you as the country's ruler.
It is the irony of the Kettleian-Pottiary kind, when the rigged votes in the West are supposed to count and the rigged votes in the East are not.

Do you really think that these people are defending "freedom"?

I get a kick out of all the news wires calling Yushchenko West-leaning. Every single one of them uses this term, even when it's a caption to a picture of the SOB screaming wildly on the city square. "You shall recognize me President or my boys will tear you from limb to limb," - said the West-leaning candidate Viktor Yushchenko while leading a charge on the presidential palace with his American-born wife at his side.
It's like they are hell-bent on closig their eyes on the true nature of things, just to satisfy their simplified vision of the situation.
Yushchenko's actions may be leaning West, but only as far as Bavaria.

 

Just make sure to take with a grain of salt what the haters and Russophiles have to say when it comes to Ukraine.

 

Ummmmmm porkfat.

I am not calling for anything. To be truthful, I have no clue what the hell is going on, why, or how it will end.

As for the rest, SHurik, I really have no clue exactly what you are trying to say, other than you seem not to think highly of Ukranians. In fact, from what I remember, you do not think very highly of any ethnicity, religion, or national grouping.

 

I have seen this before. Many times.
The same exact picture, the same exact words. "Let us lead the humanity to happiness with an iron fist".

Spare me more.

 

I don't think it would be accurate to describe someone that doesn't like Russians as a Russophile.

 

As I've said on this thread before, eastern Europe is about 150 years behind Western Europe. Its not that things will always be ********, its that the Ukranians have to actually grow into democracy. Its not something that can be done from the top down. Which is what's happening now. Yuschenko isn't democratic - he was Kuchma's crony for a while for Christ's sake! He cheated. The other guy cheated. This isn't democracy - its will to power by the ballot box. Then, in a show of his democracy, he commits acts more constitutionally illegal than Marcellus giving Pompeius that stupid sword. In time Ukraine may come to democracy. But its not even close yet. And this election proves it. The supporters of Yuschenko are not interested in the democratic process, unless its gets their guy elected. That's not democracy.
Imagine if Gore's response to losing the Florida recount was to say "get into the streets people!" and then to tell the media and foreign nations that "if my demands are met, I don't forsee any civil unrest". Yey democracy! Hell, in the Roman Republic they'd had called that tyranny, and stoned the fellow to death. Or, a la Saturninus, pelted him with tiles from the roof of a temple.

He's a liar and a thief. His only claim to legitimacy is being less of a liar and a thief. History is squarely on my side; he's a party apparatchik. The burden of proof is on you to show he might be different. And we have no basis to believe that, especially given his current actions.

A narrow win for Yeltsin. Quite frankly, I think the help Yeltsin got in that election was a GOOD thing for Russia. It would have been great had Zhuganov won, no?

 

I don't believe anyone one these boards stated once that the guy should be inaugurated without full proof he has won the elections. That's the main point everyone is trying to defend here, so cut the irony crap and get to the point. I don't care who actually wins in the end, I just want a voting that gets as close to honesty as possible.
BTW, the independent parallel voting commitee has assigned a 10% win to Yutshenko, I think this can hardly be disregarded.

I also noticed the way you've been making fun out of metros11 on the former soviet forum in a real prickish way. The fact he was insulted is at least one form of proof of an own Ukrainian identity IMO.

 

Unfortunately ALL Ukranians disagree with you, as they've demonstrated by cheating in these elections. So, which horse are you backing?

In the words of Joe Stalin, how many divisions has this independent parallel voting committee?
Incidentally, I think it has been pointed out (although I do not have sources at the moment) that the monitors were specifically stationed in the anti-Janukovitch areas of Ukraine, rather than ones where Yuschenko cheated.

 

As I have said before, I have no real idea what is going on or what I shoudl think. But I do think Havel should replace Anan as Secretary General of the UN.

 

Yes, this is why I don't agree much with Nicephoras and Shurik cynical (and not really hidden pro-russian) stand on this issue.

I could be proven wrong, though, hopefully not.

Let's hope for a better future for Ukraine.

 

"Then don't make facile posts connected to video games in a serious discussion. "

--» i am sorry for that.

"Hooray for Portugal and the anti-Salzar forces. We have already discussed how comparisons to Western Europe are ridiculous. Ukraine is centuries behind Portugal. "

--»--»Ridiculous?! it could be, but the truth is that Portugal at that time had an highly uneducated population unlike Ukraine, Portugal had 50 % or more ppl working in agriculture, Portugal had wars in Africa against the old colonies, Portugal had a descolonization (spl?) process that brought home almost 1 million ppl in a few years, Portugal was a poor nation in terms of natural resources but even worst it was a poor nation in terms of human resources, this was the reality of Portugal, are you saying that the actual Ukraine is in worst situation that Portugal at that time?!

"Except to think that democracy would be consolidated in the Ukraine you'd have to think they have real democracy in the first place, which they don't"

--» They have to start from something.

I think this could be an decisive moment for the Ukranians and the history of their nation, one thing the politicians can´t forget the power is always with the people, like someone said in this thread the Russians want a poor and weak Ukraine, because the Russian imperialistic ambitions can´t be fullfilled without Ukraine...
And right now thats the only thing that matters in on side we have the pro-Russians in the other side we have someone who wan´t to "try something new" and go west.