July 31, 2022
"[L]ate last month, Ihor Kolykhaiev, the mayor of the city of Kherson since 2020, said the Russian propaganda, coupled with the feeling of being abandoned..."
"... by the government in Kyiv, was slowly succeeding in changing the perceptions of some residents who have stayed behind — mainly pensioners and people with low incomes.
'I think that something is changing in relationships, probably in people’s habits,' he said, estimating that 5 to 10 percent of his constituents had changed their mind because of the propaganda.
'This is an irreversible process that will happen in the future,' he added. 'And that’s what I’m really worried about. Then it will be almost impossible to restore it.'... Days later, his assistant announced he had been abducted by pro-Russian occupying forces.... Mr. Putin has referred to Kherson and other parts of Ukraine’s southeast as Novorossiya, or New Russia — the region’s name after it was conquered by Catherine the Great in the 18th century and became part of the Russian Empire. In recent years, nostalgia in the region for the Soviet past and skepticism of the pro-Western government in Kyiv still lingered among older generations, even as the region was forging a new Ukrainian identity."
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19 comments:
"Next come sham elections"
NYT propagating the Big Lie.
It's a shame the New York Times (remember that 3-letter stenographer epitaph) has no credibility in war reporting, or I might take this report seriously. Sadly, it has none. There are no New York Times reporters in the Ukraine. They're all children, too busy looking for gotcha material on Twitter and doxxing meme-ers.
"In recent years, nostalgia in the region for the Soviet past and skepticism of the pro-Western government in Kyiv still lingered among older generations..."
Gee, I wonder why that could be. Maybe Kiev didn't use enough artillery on the separatists over the last 8 years.
Some regions inside of Ukraine are populated mostly by Russians. In theory, the borders should have been -- and still could be -- drawn so that those regions are inside Russia. However, redrawing those borders has not been practical.
In my own opinion, Russia should not have launched a war to redraw those borders. Instead, Russia should have campaigned peacefully for referendums to be conducted in those regions. This problem could be resolved fairly, but the resolution was not so urgent that a war was justified.
If those populations voted overwhelmingly -- say by 3/4 or 2/3 -- to redraw the borders, then the borders should be redrawn. That is how the Crimea left Ukraine and joined Russia. The USA should not object to such resolutions.
However, Russia did launch a war to redraw the borders, and so the USA has to deal with this messy situation. Although the USA might sympathize with Ukraine and might condemn Russia's impatient invasion, our involvement in disputes about foreign borders should be limited.
Also, the USA should be more aware that, to a large extent, Ukraine brought this situation upon itself by rioting against Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych, who had been elected to his position fairly (according to the European Union) by campaigning on a platform of improving relations with Russia and thus staying out of the European Union and NATO. President Yanukovych was compelled to flee his elected position and Ukraine itself.
How many Americans are aware of that aspect of the history of this situation? Russians are well aware of it.
The Obama Administration should not have justified and encouraged those Maidan riots. Rather, the Obama Administration should have advised Ukrainians to allow President Yanukovych to govern in his elected position until the next Ukrainian presidential election.
During that time, the Obama's "point man on Ukraine" was Vice President Joe Biden.
Supposedly, the Maidan riots against elected President Yanukovych were justified because Yanukovych and his close associates were "corrupt".
That accusation from the US Government was rich. "Ukrainian point man" Joe Biden's own son Hunter Biden had to be hired by Ukraine's major natural-gas company and paid $85,000 a month to be a "consultant on corporate compliance". The USA's "anti-corruption" concerns about Ukraine were ludicrous.
In general, the US Government's moral posturing about Ukraine is so ludicrous that now we should just stay out of this Ukraine-Russia dispute.
Chances aren't small that Kherson won't be in Russian hands much longer.
Sham elections? What are they going to do? Have Voter Harvesting and unattended drop boxes?
How does the NYT know they are "Sham" elections? Wow, we sure have trouble knowing what side the NYT's favors. Objectivity. BTW, zelensky has banned opposition parties, arrested many of their leaders, and censors the Newspapers and TV. Ukraine is in no sense of the word a "Democracy". Speak out against Zelenksy and you will be put in jail.
And just to repeat, I love how the NYT's has labeled the upcoming elections a "Sham" despite having no evidence. Just like they said there were no POTUS 2020 election irregularities in November 2020 despite having no evidence and no audit of the votes.
30 percent of Ukrainians are native Russian speakers. And this thirty percent lives primarily in the areas in Eastern Ukraine. Many of them would love to be reunited with Russia, and plenty of Ukrainians feel the same. there is no discrimination against Ukrainians in Russia.
NYT: “…even as the region was forging a new Ukrainian identity."
How exactly do regions “forge new identities”?
Also, the USA should be more aware that, to a large extent, Ukraine brought this situation upon itself by rioting against Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych, who had been elected to his position fairly (according to the European Union) by campaigning on a platform of improving relations with Russia and thus staying out of the European Union and NATO. President Yanukovych was compelled to flee his elected position and Ukraine itself.
There is well sourced suspicion that the "riots" were orchestrated by the CIA. That is probably behind the Russians unwillingness to go the referendum route. Any American who points these facts out is accused of being "pro-Russian." I wonder why the Democrat Party is so fixed on this? It is almost as though they want war. Meanwhile they are dismantling the US military.
NYT: "...the region was forging a new Ukrainian identity."
"Forging is the manufacturing process of hammering, pressing or rolling metal into shape. This is either delivered from a hammer, press or die."
NYT does tell the truth one way or another, one step removed in this case. Need to make that step to understand what they are really saying.
You know, if Putin and Zelensky had special assistants monitoring Althouse, none of this ever would have happened.
Once Putin had decided to go kinetic, everything was staked on a blitzkrieg regime change operation. That was a humiliating failure, and the Russians have only themselves to blame.
They obviously didn't expect so much return fire. Political and military misjudgment, hand in hand.
Much is made of the Ukrainians' long low-level war of extermination against Russia in the eastern regions; let's grant that as actual, and Russian concerns as genuine. Even if we do, the better solution would have been to snip them off and present the world with a fait accompli, without all the human rights and democracy whingepocracy. Or rather, all the whingepocracy would still be available, and easier to peddle.
As for Ukrainian democracy, whether you think it's real or not, the Brits didn't leave Mosely loose when the war began, and in 1939 Poland was not anyone's idea of a real democracy (except for some Poles, I suppose) nor did they leave known German agents and sympathizers alone. Foreign invasion can have that effect, regardless of the type of government.
Nobody in what is now the Ukraine or Russia (to list only a few) lives in anything remotely resembling Western democracy, and nor probably will their children. Nationalism real and imagined continues to be the primary loyalty in Europe, with all that other stuff trailing behind. (The large influx of POC with their strange gods is a temporary thing, and likely to end as idealistic experiments in Europe usually do.)
American nationalists and realists should be very careful about intervening.
So pretty normal stuff over the last many thousands of years of human history.
"some residents who have stayed behind — mainly pensioners and people with low incomes"
Wait, I thought all Ukrainians were heroically resisting the evil Russians to save their motherland?
"How exactly do regions 'forge new identities'?"
Under pressure. For instance, support for Russian rule in the areas of Ukraine conquered by Russia in its 2014 Donbas invasion has evaporated, now that residents there have had a few years to understand what Russian rule is really like.
Candide said...
NYT: “…even as the region was forging a new Ukrainian identity."
How exactly do regions “forge new identities”?
Having groups like the Azov battalion kill thousands of people after they overthrow the leaders the people in east Ukraine voted for.
Eight years since the Biden/Maidan/Slavic Spring in the Obama world spring series, established a Kiev-military-paramilitary axis that disenfranchised and assaulted Ukrainians in Crimea and Donbas regions, which justified their vote to invite a Russian force to mitigate their progress. That and the Biden administration-backed support for expansion of NATO and illicit operation of Wuhan-style labs.
Tom T., you are seriously misinformed.
Russia will need to pay their pensions.
so More US funded Ukraine loot for Zelensky and FJB gang.
In 1936, the Communist University of Moscow offered its first Ph.D. in Propaganda. And it was called that.
I have an Ukrainian artist friend who attended Propaganda Studies graduate school in Moscow in the 80's.
These things are unambiguous. Except, apparently, to American Democrats and leftists.
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