What kind of a country is modern Ukraine?

[AlexanderPK]

....Youtube and Twitter are private companies and have their own freedoms to regulate content published on their platforms.

Like they don't do what they are told. I know.
What do they call that thing again? Ah, yeah, freedom.

 

[otto105]

​

When the question “What kind of a country is modern Ukraine?” is asked, Americans usually answer that it doesn’t matter for them, what kind of a country modern Ukraine is.

However, in the past it did matter for Americans what kind of a country Libya was in 2011 when the U.S. bombed it; or it did matter for Americans what kind of a country Iraq was in 2003 when U.S. invaded it, etc.

The second Americans’ answer to the question “What kind of a country is modern Ukraine?” is the answer “Modern Ukraine may be a not especially good country now, but it is changing for the better”.

In this article, I am going to consider both above-mentioned theses.​

Spoiler

Rights of ethnic minorities in Ukraine after the Euromaidan

​

Before the so-called Ukrainian revolution, alias Euromaidan, i.e. before February 2014, ethnic minorities had much more rights in Ukraine than now. For example, Ukraine had state-financed Hungarian, Romanian etc. schools where children were taught in their respective languages during the whole course of education.

However, in 2020 and 2021 the Law on Indigenous Peoples and Law on Secondary Education were passed in Ukraine and under these Laws the state stopped to finance Hungarian, Romanian etc. schools of ethnic minorities because ethnic Hungarians, Romanians and other peoples were not named “Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” in these Laws.

Before February 2014, there were also so-called regional languages in Ukraine, i.e. languages which were native for more than 10% people in a region, city, town or settlement. These regional languages could be free used in public offices, in mass media, in private enterprises etc. on the territory of the respective region, city, town or settlement.

But in 2019 the above-mentioned regional languages were eliminated in Ukraine.
​

Freedom of speech in Ukraine after the Euromaidan

​

Before February 2014, Ukrainian police protected offices of mass media, even opposition ones.
However after the Euromaidan, the police often do not intervene when Ukrainian nationalists attack opposition media.

In the summer of 2016, a Ukrainian website accused the Ukrainian TV company Inter of cooperation with separatists. Till November 2016, the building, where this TV company is situated, was three times attacked by “activists” and its rooms were set on fire - fortunately, nobody died in these arsons. However, the material damage was great.

After one of these arsons, an Advisor to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko wrote in Facebook that one shouldn`t rule out that Inter managers themselves had provoked the arson of their rooms; see here.

So far, no culprits of these arsons have been found; and by the way, so far, Ukrainian authorities haven’t published any confirmation that Inter had really cooperated with separatists, i.e. no criminal proceedings have been started because of these allegations.​

​

In December 2017, Yevheniy Murayev, the owner of the Ukrainian TV channel NewsOne, called the Euromaidan a coup d'etat.

Although his words weren’t violation of Ukrainian laws, hundreds of “activists” surrounded the building of NewsOne and demanded apologies from Murayev.

The police did not intervene and Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Avakov said that owners of NewsOne “had to stop to provoke people”.

The “activists” blocked all entrances to the building of NewsOne by using sand bags and barbed wire; and this blockade lasted for 7 days and although it was an obvious violation of Ukrainian laws, nobody was arrested or otherwise punished for it.

In 2021 the broadcasting of NewsOne was suspended by Ukrainian authorities. And in 2023, the Ukrainian Council for Broadcasting – after a decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine - revoked license of NewsOne, see the official website of this Council; i.e. this TV channel was fully closed.

Therefore, I can conclude that situation in the sphere of rights of ethnic minorities and in the sphere of freedom of speech has become worse as compared with the situation before the Euromaidan.

Source

It's certainly not going to be pootin's bitch.

 

[AntonToo]

"Nothing I watch ever made such claims, no idea what you are talking about."
Is that what you call nailing? If you were able to see a hyperbole in that comment weren't you supposed to see that those 6000 were as stupid and unrealistic to me as millions or whatever the hell billions might have been? Didn't I say you're all like out of this world? Twisted somehow that is. Didn't you get who the "new kid" was either?

Nobody ever talked about "billions killed and a million tanks destroyed in three days", there is hyperbole and there is completely absurd statement like the one you've made about casualties reported.

 

[AntonToo]

Like they don't do what they are told. I know.
What do they call that thing again? Ah, yeah, freedom.

Sasha, private companies have a right to control content on their platforms. Do you understand that concept or not?

Opposition of Biden's and America can (and do) go on Youtube and make their case everyday.

There are very narrow legal exceptions to the general freedom of speech in America and we have an indepedent court system that vigorously defends our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech rights.

There is no comparison here to current state of repression of freedom of speech in Russia.

 

[AlexanderPK]

Nobody ever talked about "billions killed and a million tanks destroyed in three days", there is hyperbole and there is completely absurd statement like the one you've made about casualties reported.

If you were able to see a hyperbole in that comment weren't you supposed to see that those 6000 were as stupid and unrealistic to me as millions or whatever the hell billions might have been? Didn't I say you're all like out of this world?
Is this English or what? Это пиздец какой-то!
Ты реально не врубаешься?

 

[ESay]

If you were able to see a hyperbole in that comment weren't you supposed to see that those 6000 were as stupid and unrealistic to me as millions or whatever the hell billions might have been? Didn't I say you're all like out of this world?
Is this English or what? Это пиздец какой-то!
Ты реально не врубаешься?

Shurik, you really live in an anecdote. Like that one, from the old Soviet times:

In a meeting with Brezhnev, Nixon once said: Leonid, your country doesn't have freedom of speech. Here, every person can come to the square and say - down to Nixon!

Brezhnev: Oh, big deal. Every person in Moscow can also come to the square and say - down to Nixon; too.

 

[AntonToo]

If you were able to see a hyperbole in that comment weren't you supposed to see that those 6000 were as stupid and unrealistic to me as millions or whatever the hell billions might have been? Didn't I say you're all like out of this world?
Is this English or what? Это пиздец какой-то!
Ты реально не врубаешься?

Lets put your ludicrous hyperbole aside.

Why does 6000 killed, wounded, or captured Russians seem outside of possible to you.....yet you readily accept that 500,000 Ukranians were killed?

You really don't see a contradiction and a clear double standard in your thinking?

 

[AlexanderPK]

Lets put your ludicrous hyperbole aside.

Why does 6000 killed, wounded, or captured Russians seem outside of possible to you.....yet you readily accept that 500,000 Ukranians were killed?

You really don't see a contradiction and a clear double standard in your thinking?

500,000 overall and 6000 in a week, see the difference? I would not accept 6000 Ukies in a week as much as I'd want it to be true.

 

[AlexanderPK]

Shurik, you really live in an anecdote. Like that one, from the old Soviet times:

In a meeting with Brezhnev, Nixon once said: Leonid, your country doesn't have freedom of speech. Here, every person can come to the square and say - down to Nixon!

Brezhnev: Oh, big deal. Every person in Moscow can also come to the square and say - down to Nixon; too.

So hohols are now free all of a sudden? Yeah, to fall flat into a puddle drunk as a poet on a payday seeing how miserable that pay is. Those poor bastards you tied to the posts down withed someone too, I guess.

 

[AlexanderPK]

Shurik, you really live in an anecdote. Like that one, from the old Soviet times:

In a meeting with Brezhnev, Nixon once said: Leonid, your country doesn't have freedom of speech. Here, every person can come to the square and say - down to Nixon!

Brezhnev: Oh, big deal. Every person in Moscow can also come to the square and say - down to Nixon; too.

There's another one but I'm afraid you don't very much like it.
A Mykola (an average Ukrainian shmuck in other words) is bragging to his compadre about how he took revenge on Russia for the Crimea.

• Get out! How did you do that?
• I took a dump on the Red Square.
• Really? And they didn't even arrest you?
• No, they didn't. I did it stealthily, to my pants.

 

[AntonToo]

500,000 overall and 6000 in a week, see the difference? I would not accept 6000 Ukies in a week as much as I'd want it to be true.

500,000 Ukrainians killed (vs Russians killed/wounded/captured) over 90 weeks of war works out to….~5,500 a week avg.

So yes, you did implicitly accept way more killed, you just don’t have a good grasp on what the numbers even mean.

 

[AlexanderPK]

500,000 Ukrainians killed (vs Russians killed/wounded/taken prisoner) over 90 weeks of war works out to….~5,500 a week avg.

So yes you did implicitly accept way more killed, you just don’t have a good grasp on what the numbers even mean.

It's Hohols you're talking about. They are world renowned blowhards, so safely divide your number by ten and get a more or less plausible one. They can shit in their pants and pass it off as a great victory. See my earlier post as a proof.

 

[AntonToo]

It's Hohols you're talking about. They are world renowned blowhards, so safely divide your number by ten and get a more or less plausible one. They can shit in their pants and pass it off as a great victory. See my earlier post as a proof.

....we can switch to chauvinistic terms if you like, but I'm going to repeat my question to you:

Why do you think that it's completely impossible for 6000 Russians Orcs to get killed/wounded/captured in one week of them desperately trying to advance on Ardiivka, but you think it's perfectly reasonable to belive that 5,500 Ukranians Hohols got killed every week for 90 weeks straight?

Think you can coherently answer it THIS TIME?

 

[ESay]

So hohols are now free all of a sudden? Yeah, to fall flat into a puddle drunk as a poet on a payday seeing how miserable that pay is. Those poor bastards you tied to the posts down withed someone too, I guess.

Heck, how this salad should be deciphered? Who are you? English teacher in a Russian school?

 

[AlexanderPK]

Heck, how this salad should be deciphered? Who are you? English teacher in a Russian school?

Mykola, it's not down to Nixon, it's down with Nixon. You can come up with your own words sometimes, for emotional impact or comical effect. English is quite flexible in that regard, methinks. Your language skills aren't as good as you might think, here's the lack of understanding you happen to experience from time to time. It's none of my business and I don't give a damn if you're illiterate or whatever but it looks like you were trying to insult me, weren't you?

 

[ESay]

Mykola, it's not down to Nixon, it's down with Nixon. You can come up with your own words sometimes, for emotional impact or comical effect. English is quite flexible in that regard, methinks. Your language skills aren't as good as you might think, here's the lack of understanding you happen to experience from time to time. It's none of my business and I don't give a damn if you're illiterate or whatever but it looks like you were trying to insult me, weren't you?

Damn, Shurik. I happened to be right? You are an English teacher?

 

[AlexanderPK]

....we can switch to chauvinistic terms if you like, but I'm going to repeat my question to you:

Why do you think that it's completely impossible for 6000 Russians Orcs to get killed/wounded/captured in one week of them desperately trying to advance on Avdiivka, but you think it's perfectly reasonable to believe that 5,500 Ukrainians Hohols got killed every week for 90 weeks straight?

Think you can coherently answer it THIS TIME?

Because they are not desperately trying as you're made to believe, it's not their MO. They are slowly and patiently pushing Hohols and grinding them down when they counter attack and waiting for them to crack and give up, like they did in Mariupol for instance. They've got artillery, Air Force, 500-1500 kg Glide-bombs, RBK500 cluster bombs and a hell of a lot of other stuff to do their dirty work for them. Why the hell would they beat their heads against the wall when they got fire power? Hohols are desperate on the other hand to show results, for the West doesn't see the financing paying-off and there are signs of its getting weary of Ukraine, not willing to waste money but searching for a ramp-off.

 

[AntonToo]

Because they are not desperately trying as you're made to believe, it's not their MO. They are slowly and patiently pushing Hohols and grinding them down when they counter attack and waiting for them to crack and give up, like they did in Mariupol for instance. They've got artillery, Air Force, 500-1500 kg Glide-bombs, RBK500 cluster bombs and a hell of a lot of other stuff to do their dirty work for them. Why the hell would they beat their heads against the wall when they got fire power?

Should I belive my own lying eyes or your laughable Russia1 propaganda? Orc waves are getting clustered, artilleried, Himared, tanked, mined and droned all around Ardiivka.

Lets cut the bs, you have zero sane explanation for why you think 6000 Orcs getting killed/wounded/captured in one week is IMPOSSIBLE and yet think that 5,500 Ukes are killed every week for 90 weeks now.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Before February 2014, Ukrainian police protected offices of mass media, even opposition ones. However after the Euromaidan, the police often do not intervene when Ukrainian nationalists attack opposition media.​

This is true. It is war. In Russia the police always intervene — they arrest dissidents, they censor the mass media, they close opposition media. Russia has long been a mafia-like state with Putin and his siloviki on top. In some ways many things were better in Ukraine before EuroMaiden — before the wars. Putin’s meddling and final 2022 invasion has made everything worse. If the Russians withdraw, it will be better once again.

Bullshit, Russia is the most corrupt country in the region.

Ukraine was the same but has been cleaning up for a decade now and has measurable progress to show for it. They know thats the only way they can ever hope to get into EU.

I agree. Russian oligarchs backed by Eussia’s foreign state power vs. Ukrainian oligarchs who long worked with them created an especially corrupt country, where extortion, local gangs, poverty and small corruption flourished. Now even many of the Ukrainian oligarchs are worried and must at least pretend to meet EU standards. The violence of war brings its own desperation and corruption, but also hope for a better future in the EU.

Here are some examples of [Ukrainian] lynch “justice' which almost fully replaced the official one.

War is terrible, especially wars which are partly civil wars. During the U.S. War of Independence many working with the British were “tarred and feathered.” These particular people we know nothing about. They may have been innocent and just speaking up for the “wrong side” in the wrong place at the wrong time. It would seem they were not killed but only humiliated. War sucks. The Russian invaders have and will do much worse to Ukrainian national patriots if they win.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Another point: The freedoms won for the press and the very possibility of having relatively free elections before Maidan never would have existed if the Russians had their way. Generally fair elections were guaranteed only by the 2004-2005 “Orange Revolution” which forced a revote after the pro-Russian candidate tried and failed to steal the election.

The fact that the great majority of citizens increasingly felt Ukrainian and not “Russian” — including most of those who spoke Russian at home — meant that Russian oligarchs and gangsters increasingly had to rely on Russian state pressure to win and hold power. This ran directly up against the sentiment of most Ukrainians.

Of course had Russia even a slightly enlightened political culture, things may have been different. It also did not help that many Ukrainians had their own problematic political culture (the Banderite influence). Bandera worship was not nearly so widespread as the Russians made it out to be. However in Western Ukraine this sentiment was sort of like Confederate “Lost Cause” nostalgia in the American South. A good number of die-hard anti-Russians rallied around this minority political narrative leading up to Maidan, and even after.

Anyway, Ukraine was not Switzerland or even Austria. The great middle of ordinary people who did not want war could not stop the drift to war, could not control events. After 2014 Putin militarily supported the secessionists and by 2022 decided he could invade and put a “quick end” to growing Ukrainian nationalism … which of course he called fascist.