Ukraine! Saying What Needs to be Said!

Ukraine!  Its time…time to say what needs to be said.  Time to tell it like it is.  I’m not sure you all know exactly what’s going on here.  Yes we get the varnished version from CNBC and CBS and CNN, but we just don’t get it.  It gets pushed off the front pages unless people are dying en masse or there’s a real live battle.  Yes, Putin is Hitler, the Russians are terrorists, the EU, NATO and the US are ineffective, it’s a lost cause, Yanukovych is Putin’s dog, it’s a civil war…we’ve heard plenty, but not much of it either tells the story or what’s really happening.  Let me spend a few entries ‘splainin’ what I see going on around here.  It ain’t pretty. Not at all.  As a matter of fact those that want to avert their eyes from the photos and videos I’m posting, go right ahead.  But please at least, read on.

Black Thursday, February 20^th

You know the short story, over 100 killed on Black Thrusday, massive riots in Kiev’s Maidan Square with grandmas, grandpas, kids, lawyers, doctors, carpenters, laborers, students, all only 4 short months ago.  So here’s the last decade’s worth of “how did we get here” in 3 paragraphs or less.  Viktor Yanukovych, the fourth President of Ukraine from 2010 supposedly until 2015, famously left office the day after Black Thursday, escaping by the skin of his teeth!  His blusterous attack on Maidan on February 20^th ended his Presidency, as he secretly found safety in the bosom of Mother Russia.  He remains a fugitive there today, less relevant with the new elections in May.  The War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague will have something special for him in the future I’m sure.  More on Yanukovych below, including photos of his multi, multi-million dollar estate in “What you Need to Know about Ukraine”.  So many cartoons around Maidan of Viktor and Putin doing all sorts of crazy things.  Here are some of the more sanitized versions depicting of course in an allegorical fashion, “they were in bed together”.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhh such good stuff!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yulia Tymoshenko the “Gas Princess” lost the election in 2010 by only a few percentage points to Viktor.  She was the first woman Prime Minister from 2005 – 2010 and co-led the Orange Revolution in 2004.  She was listed in Forbes Magazine as one of the top 3 most powerful and richest women in the world in 2005.  Gas!  She favors membership in the EU, free market, and reduction of ties to Russia.  Ah the rub!  Frankly no one in Ukrainian politics has staying power without being in bed with Russia.  Yulia was thrown in prison on my first visit in 2011 and was suddenly declared innocent by the Supreme Court the day after ol’ Viktor fled to Russia.  What a coincidence!  Stunning!  Amazing!

Petro Poroshenko the chocolate king was elected this past May as the fifth President of Ukraine.  He also served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2010 and as the Minister of Trade and Economic Development in 2012. From 2007 until 2012, he headed the Council of Ukraine’s National Bank.  Yep so part of the original Yanukovych government.  In the last two week, he signed the contested agreement for greater cooperation with the EU.  He also has many factories churning out chocolate in Russia, employing many Russians and paying Russian taxes.  He’s a pragmatist, but as is with them all, also an “oligarch”.

Are you seeing a pattern here?  While we in the US accept that it takes lots of money to get elected to office, in Ukraine you must be part of the established State, which has been tied directly to Mother Russia since the time of Peter the Great’s in the early 18^th Century, almost a century before our own Independence.   Yeah, it’s a Russian novel!

These photos are by others, posted on kiosks in Maidan Square to commemorate Black Thursday

So goes the elections, so goes the politics.  Read below in the “What you Need to Know” entry about the plight of the Ukrainian people.  The Cliff Notes are, they usually make around $300/month, no one normal can afford a car, everyone lives in flats with their entire extended family, the streets, metro and infrastructure are pre WWII with little money spent on any of it since Khrushchev’s time.  That coupled with an open internet and one of the highest college educated rates in all of Europe, trouble has been brewing for some time.

These are regular people in the streets, swinging pipes, shooting ancient rifles, wearing construction hard hats, walking around in fatigues, living on Maidan Square for the last ¾ of a year.  Regular people.  Unemployment has soared, poverty exploding, homelessness rampant, business failures common, boarded up stores everywhere.  I’ve met engineers and scientists and college professors that are living in those tents on Maidan all winter long, were part of the fight for their freedom.  I’ve seen children playing violin on the streets for money.  I’ve seen old men playing the balalaika for money and regular people begging in the streets.  The news media plays up the Russian speaking population as the catalyst, not true, everyone I mean everyone speaks Russian.

They want to be free, self determined, to enjoy the lives of the rest of the educated world.  Two sides.  The Ukrainian Nationalists don’t want to be a door mat for Russia any longer. They don’t want the oppression of economic and political freedoms that comes with the long repressive Russian government.  The Separatists that support becoming part of Russia don’t want to worry about money, unemployment, poverty or homelessness.  They want that huge iron clad safety net deployed as a foundation to their society.  It often relates to age, the ol’ Soviets want Russia and modern intelligencia on iPhones and the internet want the EU.  But it’s now life or death for them.  It’s complicated and convoluted, it’s volatile and dangerous.  When you’ve got nothing to loose, there’s nothing to loose!  It could blow any time dragging the EU, the US and most of the West into an anachronistic war.  Or it could just blow over.

Here are some links
RIGHT click on the link or you’ll loose your place:

Maidan in Photos

Eastern Ukraine last month

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The view from Kiev remains extreme…that the Russians have stolen Crimea, the crown jewel…that Russian military intelligence terrorists masquerading as Separatists operate throughout Eastern Ukraine, in Donetsk, Sloveansk and now Lugansk and Maripol.  In any case, the facts are that Russian military personnel, hardware and technology have openly supported or instigated the “Separatists”, terrorizing the countryside and blowing Ukrainian military planes and helicopters out of the sky with pin point accuracy.

The open boarders remain a sieve, with an open doorway for an unending supply of more Russian military terrorists flooding into Ukraine.  The US and the EU both know through intelligence that Russia is openly supporting and instigating such terrorism, creating a fake uprising.  Its the exact same tactic used to take Crimea.  The news media here suggests Russia is acting out of fear and not aggression or an anachronistic (seems to be the word of the day) view of Cold War politics.  Putin fears loosing the 1970’s style sphere of influence his much worshiped Soviet Union enjoyed, with the EU and NATO closing in on their boarders economically and politically if not physically.  That plus the conveniently ignored 1994 Nonproliferation Treaty based on the 1993 Massandra Summit between Ukrainian, US and Russia where the Ukraine received complete security assurances from the United States, Russia and Britain.  So much for our honoring our treaties.  http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/05/trilateral-process-pifer

Remember these are regular people, with regular lives and educations.  They are families with careers inspired to stand up and put everything on the line.  I’m here to relate to you what’s been happening and to report the “rest of the story”.  You decide how to affect change; now you’ll know more and understand more and consider better options.  The status quo will not work here.  Continuing to do nothing is a non-starter.  “It’s not going away.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The conflict continues with the same fervor from Black Thursday through to today.  Their goal, fighting Russian terrorism and aggression.  Why should we in the US and the EU care?  Simple, this could spill over into a wider regional conflict that would affect all of Europe, parts of the Middle East and drag the US into a larger war.  When I say this to my friends in the US, I almost always get one of two reactions: 1. Boots on the ground 2. Do nothing.  Period.  I suggest neither is correct.  American leadership is historically and currently crucial for any such endeavor and the US sometimes honors its treaties.  Sometimes.  There are many options other than the status quo to affect what’s happening here.  People are dying and the powder keg cache rapidly growing.  “It’s not going away” quite the opposite.  What are the solutions?  I leave it to you!  What are the solutions!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s news from the Front in Ukraine:

Railroad bridge blown, severing freight and passenger train travel to Southeastern Ukraine, 2 killed.
Passenger bus attacked passengers kidnapped and 3 killed near Donetsk.
Slavyansk liberated from Russian terrorists, the city lays in ruins
Lugansk a city of 1 million people under siege.
4 casualties on Maidan Square in central Kiev, skirmish with over 100 militia

I’ll bet you’ve not heard any of this from our news media.

Here are some links:

The latest news from the front Slavyansk

Donetsk, at the front

DO NOT watch this clip unless you really want to. It’s very disturbing, it’s Black Thursday.
Feb 20th, Black Thursday, CAUTION

 

These People are Dead Serious!

Almost everyone that knows me well has suggested that I be careful over here in Ukraine.  I sometimes ignore such warnings, feeling that I’m an experienced “Industrial Traveler” and that the Ukraine is full of survivors untouched by the war.  Yes, it’s called a war here.  War…civil or instigated or terrorist, everyone calls it a war!  Feeling that many are untouched was my first mistake.  Everyone is affected.  From the 50% rise in costs along with the inflation of the USD and Euro, to the collapse of the economy, to the crushing national debt, to the un-payable Russian gas bill,  to the closing of banks, devaluation of currency, reduction in business and trade, the constant fear of the unknown…everything here is ready to go at any minute.  Everyone says, it could go one way or the other.  No middle ground.  Mostly it’s safe…or relatively safe.  Then things go awry quickly, very quickly.  It is a power keg, with unknown players.  The day is full of life, families, color and kids.  Full of ice cream and shopping and walking hand in hand.  But the nights are dicey and ornary and harsh and unpredictable.  There is a collective fear and anger, an edginess that is palpable in the streets and conversations.  That edgy uncertainty is part of the excitement, but that’s not all bad!  Right?  Things however turn on a dime, a very thin dime.

 

People walk right up to me in the streets and say “where are you from” (yes, many in the capital speak English).  I guess with my white socks, Nike shoes, shorts and large camera…I don’t look much like a Ukrainian.  Well, that and I don’t have a cigarette hanging out of my mouth and my hair isn’t cropped close to my head!   Oh and I don’t wear those off white shoes.  Mostly they love us Americans.  They throng to us when we are found out.  Pats on the back, beads around the neck, ribbons around the wrist, kisses, hugs, Amerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-ica!

Then there’s the collective fear and anger.  Tonight I went out from my apartment, which is right on Maidan Square, the place of the Black Thursday battle that killed hundreds on February 20^th of this year.  Constant rallies ring through the canyons of the buildings surrounding the Square.  I went to the Square to hear a popular band play rally songs, Ukrainian National songs.  The crowd knew the songs, fists in the air, screaming and chanting in time with the music.  Tough tough looking guys with bloody scars on their faces and knuckles were mulling around the crowd.  The same dirty, sun baked, unshaven thugs as the militia were practicing karate, kicking the shit out of a “test your strength” dummy on the edge of the square. Their karate kick would run the red numbers up to 100+ then they’d fist bump each other, or swing their foot to within a hair of each other’s nose.   The crowd shouting in time to the music, pro Ukrainian songs, chants, cheers, when a rumble broke out in the middle of the crowd in front of the band.  Instantly 20 thugs are at it in the middle of the plaza, the song still going on, guys dragged away.  A group of karate kids dragged one of the perpetrators away to the side of a building and pounced on him.  No cops, no law and order, no justice, more like the frontier.  Keep your head down and your powder dry.  I gingerly hid my camera and backed away.

On my way back to my flat, passing one of the camps in Maidan Square, a group of over a dozen militia was meeting in a circle. More bodies than usual and all in the militia uniform.  The darkness split by the intrusive yellow haze of the sodium lights gave everything that eerie yellow glow.  I always believe in asking for forgiveness and not permission when shooting photos.  I quietly set my camera on the wooden fence around their compound.  I get off one bad shot and set up for another, when these two militia descend on me and start yelling and grabbing.  I replied in my best American English, that slowed them down a bit as did the fence.  I made a hasty get away, fearing more for my camera than my own safety.

What does this have to do with “the price of Starbucks in America”?  Well, nothing or everything.  Our world is safe, predictable, controlled.  We go to concerts and expect to have a Coke or a beer or a Starbucks and go home, go to bed and get up for the next 50 years just like we did before.  Our collective conscious revolves around a very predictable set of parameters.  We go about our days and maybe we stop long enough to discuss what the hell Putin is up to, or what could we do, or why should we police the world and where the hell is the European leadership and who really cares?  Is Ukraine in Asia or in Europe anyway?   We have the luxury of complacency…we think.

I can assure you that this powder keg is ready to explode into a significant war if we are not all very careful.  The tensions here are higher than high.  If Russia pushes any harder there will be a conflict that will make February 20^th Black Thursday look like a day in the park.  Ukrainian nationalism is powerful and universal.  And it’s not just the thugs and militia.  This is a fight for their country and for their freedom.

Earlier today, I decided to head to the museums of WWII down along the Dnieper River near the Lavra, the Vatican of the Russian Orthodox religion.  A nice Sunday with beautiful blue skies and bright sun.  I got out of the Metro, their subway, which by the way is mostly between 10 – 20 STORIES below ground.  Thank you Mr. Stalin!

Anyway, I got 10 steps out of the station into the plaza and there were these regular folks, middle aged, older even, retirees, some older than me!!! handing out pitch forks and rakes and flags on really long poles!   Too good to pass up, this is why I’m here anyway, so I let providence take over and scrapped the museum.  Suddenly we are on a half a mile march right past Parliament to the President’s Offices, the equivalent of the White House.

Valari, a retired electrical engineer from the Soviet days and part time English teacher spied me (remember white socks and no cigarette).  AH an English speaker!  I’m full of questions!   Where’re we going?  What’s this about?  What about Poroschenko?  What about Putin?  What about Russians on the boarders?  What about Crimea?  You know the answers already.  This group of upstanding citizens, pensioners and retirees was marching with rakes and flags to the President’s Office to give him a piece of their mind, which was to push Russia hard, to demand, and fight, and declare and threaten and to do it NOW!  Valari extolled in perfect English that they have a terrorist as a neighbor.

 

 

The gates of the President’s compound were swung open, military guards everywhere, plain cloths police around the crowd,  I’m in the middle of it all, then the evening news showed up, guards hiding in the bushes and trees around the compound, guys with head sets, clip boards, bull horns.  There’s chanting, shouting, fist pumping, a single voice of a slogan then the crowd replies, then more chanting, then the laying of the rakes and signs at the door step of the White House, then applause, chants, shouts…then it disperses.  Everyone walks away leaving their messages on the ground for the all President’s Men to clean up.

 

 

By the way, this was one afternoon and evening!  Yes, today’s activities!  In the US, we have it very easy.  We don’t have to even think about Mexico taking Texas and invading and terrorizing parts of New Mexico, Arizona and California.  We worry about our Starbucks and if its skinny double half caf Frapa this that and the other thing.  Or is there a storm brewing over the horizon we just can’t see?  Time will tell.  These people are dead serious I’ll tell you.  Dead serious.

 

One last antic dote…they sell door mats here in the streets with an image of Putin’s face looking for all the world like Hitler right in the middle of where your feet would wipe the dirt.  I hear they are very popular!

Kiev, a Torn Capital

On my direct flight from Istanbul straight North to Kiev, the Captain nonchalantly announced in his “how do you do’s” that our flight path would be diverted to the West over Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria then directly east to Kiev.  A strange path, except our original flight would have taken us over parts of both Crimea and the embattled South of Ukraine.

Next on arriving in the Kiev Airport, we were all greeted with uniformed military with automatic weapons over their shoulders and a long stare.  Arriving in the center of Kiev at Maidan Square, I thought I was prepared, but clearly wasn’t.  The square, previously one of the most beautiful in all of Europe and certainly Central/Eastern Europe, is destroyed.  Everything torn up, pulled out, busted, broken, smashed, blackened buildings now covered with construction mesh with graphics of nature and flying geese to mask the fact that these major banks and government buildings have been gutted by fire and explosives.  Every last sidewalk paver has been pulled up and in piles for projectiles.  There are still people walking, talking, working, dressed in their usually nice, colorful Ukrainian cloths, on their cell phones but it’s an eerie silence, like those days after 9/11.  The shops are empty, the plaza empty, the streets empty from the previous throngs of locals and tourists.  Many thriving shops from my previous visits are now boarded up or abandoned.

The most dramatic however is the military camp throughout the streets and gutted Maidan Square. The city center is full of make shift baracades, tires, barbed wire, pallets, metal, sheets, hundreds of army tents.  The “camp” is filled with what appear to be local militia in fatigues.  Some with Cassack hair cuts, some with weapons like knives, swords, clubs, pipes, baseball bats, shovels, pitch forks, all Ukrainian, all fiercely Nationalist.  Many look very scary and I and the local population give them a wide berth.  Most are permanently camped there with cots in brown army tents, burning fires, spits cooking dinner, smoking, drinking, and circles of standing group meetings.  Lots of arm flailing and pointing, the men are dark from dirt and sun and smoke, unshaven and angry.

They don’t bother anyone , but they are surely there to defend against any incursion into the city.  They believe realistically or not, that the Russians could parachute into Kiev at any moment and all hell would break loose.  If Russia decided to try to take this country by force, I’d say “Good luck Mr. Putin!”.  There is no doubt in my mind that every last one of these guys would die fighting with knives, and bats and pipes rather than be taken over by Russia.   It may be the equivalent of the nuclear option, a horrible, dastardly, bloody fight played out on an international stage as in February of this year.  The dastardly bully, the Soviet Bear, rising from the dead, rearing it’s ugly head against the poor people of Ukraine.  That would change world public opinion in a hurry!  These people are ready, ready for whatever comes their way.   They feel abandoned by the West and NATO and Europe and the US.  They are on their own, so they man their tent cities with farm implements and anger and pride.

At the end of my first day here, I went to the underground supermarket where many shops are typically located.   It’s part of a vast Soviet system of the grand plan with huge boulevards above and shopping underneath.  Thank you Mr. Corbu!  I bought some groceries, made my usual mistakes not following the buying customs of every single country I visit…not following the local protocol with fruits, vegetables and pastries, labels, weighing and so on.  Appropriately scolded by the Russian speaking clerk…they all speak Russian here and everywhere I’ve traveled in Ukraine.  Then summarily hauled back to the check out counter I imagined, by my ear as in Barnard Elementary School.  Then paying for my groceries, there’s this Ukrainian militiaman in uniform, red baret, dirty face, dirty uniform, unshaven, filthy boots, dark from the sun, trying to buy a single beer with a pile of pennies about a foot in diameter.  One single beer!  The clerk was counting out the pile of pennies for the less than $1 beer.  I froze, my heart sank, this guy is out there on the front line of their war, real or imagined, with pennies for a single beer.  I quickly paid for his beer and without looking up to get a reaction, left the store in a daze.