Some of the latest news articles regarding the current situation in Ukraine:
- Russia Stages a Coup in Crimea
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/01/so-russia-invaded-crimea.html
- Ukrainian Crisis Media Centre
https://www.facebook.com/uacrisis
- A Ukrainian Explains 10 Things The West Needs To Know About The Situation In Kiev
(Maidan)
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/understanding-euromaidan-2014-1
- Podcast: When Russians Talk About Ukraine
(starts in Russian but the whole programme is in English)
http://www.rferl.org/content/podcast-when-russians-talk-about-ukraine/25272721.html
- The Guardian – plenty of articles about Ukraine
- Bohdan Nahaylo: The Crimean Tatar factor
http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/bohdan-nahaylo-the-crimean-tatar-factor-338861.html
- Putinism: The Ideology (Video)
London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Speaker: Professor Anne Applebaum, the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs for the 2012-13 academic year. Recorded on Monday 28 January 2013 in New Theatre, East Building.
http://stopputler.org/index.php/english/98-putinism-the-ideology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt_6mPxgUNI&feature=share
- Putin’s Project
Ukraine has no future without Europe, but Europe also has no future without Ukraine. Throughout the centuries, the history of Ukraine has revealed the turning points in the history of Europe.
16.04.2014, von TIMOTHY SNYDER
Crisis in Ukraine
Continuing comment and reporting by New York Review contributors
http://www.nybooks.com/topics/crisis-in-ukraine/
MAY 29, 2014
Tim Judah
Ukraine’s president-elect Petro Poroshenko has his work cut out for him. He needs to end the rebellion in the east, make deals with Ukraine’s powerful oligarchs, fend off a possible threat from Tymoshenko, shore up a sinking economy, and talk to the Kremlin. One Ukrainian journalist told me that some people in Kiev are thinking that it might be better to let the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk go.
MAY 27, 2014
Timothy Snyder
On the European left, criticism of the purported fascism of the post-revolutionary government in Ukraine has been de rigeur. It can only be hoped that the Europe’s electoral results will open some eyes. The European left has a real problem, and it is not the Ukrainian far right. It is the European far right, which happens to be popular, and is supported by the Russian far right, which happens to be in power in Moscow.
MAY 23, 2014
Tim Judah
As Ukrainians go to the polls to elect a new president, something strange is happening in the east. Its rebels, who a few weeks ago were triumphantly wrenching the region away from Kiev, now seem stalled; but without much sign that the government in Kiev is recapturing its lost authority. Rebel control is partial, but few are ready to risk being beaten, kidnapped, or worse to help run polling stations—or vote.
MAY 22, 2014
Timothy Snyder
Ukrainian elections mark the eastern boundary of European democracy, which is why they are so threatening for Moscow. With a regularity that is clearly unwelcome, Ukrainians stand up for their rights. Ukraine has deep problems, which can best be addressed by fresh elections—the presidential ones on Sunday, and hopefully parliamentary elections this fall. Ukrainians should be allowed to get on with it.
MAY 22, 2014
Tim Judah
Just as the rebels say that the government and the people who support it are fascists, the government says that all the rebels are terrorists—and in fact neither is true. Between a few in government with an extreme right-wing past and a few in rebel territory who have used extreme violence to seize power, the vast majority of people in the east are simply downtrodden and trapped.
MAY 15, 2014
Anatol Lieven
There is nothing inevitable about the future course of the conflict in Ukraine. It is absolutely essential for Western governments to focus on what they can do to avoid war, preserve democracy, and keep Ukraine united.
APRIL 28, 2014
Tim Judah
Talk to people manning the anti-government barricades in eastern Ukraine, and one thing in particular is scary. They talk as though they were a long persecuted minority, as if they have forgotten that easterners under former president Viktor Yanukovych ran the country until February. All they seem to register is a hysterical drumbeat from Russia about the new Nazis of Kiev and their NATO masters.
APRIL 25, 2014
Tim Judah
In late April, traveling in eastern Ukraine, I was in the midst of its phony war. Threats were flying, ultimatums were delivered, and jets screamed low over the countryside. Trees were felled to block back roads, tires were piled up to build barricades, and men from backwater towns strutted with their guns, their lives suddenly seeming to have purpose. In eastern Ukraine, where neatly kept memorials commemorate the fallen of the great battles fought there by the Red Army during World War II, all the omens seemed to tell of war coming once again. But even at the eleventh hour it is not inevitable.
APRIL 17, 2014
Let the Past Collapse on Time!
Vladimir Sorokin
If you compare the post-Soviet bear to the Soviet one, the only thing they have in common is the imperial roar. However, the post-Soviet bear is teeming with corrupt parasites that infected it during the 1990s, and have multiplied exponentially in the last decade. They are consuming the bear from within. Some might mistake their fevered movement under the bear’s hide for the working of powerful muscles. But in truth, it’s an illusion. There are no muscles, the bear’s teeth have worn down, and its brain is buffeted by the random firing of contradictory neurological impulses.
MARCH 29, 2014
Amy Knight
To anyone who has followed the Kremlin closely over the years, its actions in Ukraine should not come as a great surprise. To the contrary, the recent events bear out longstanding policy aims of the Putin regime, which for years has worked to roll back US and European influence and rebuild its own suzerainty over post-Soviet states.
MARCH 7, 2014
Timothy Snyder
Just what does Russian President Vladimir Putin think he is doing in Crimea? The clues are there, in the language of the Kremlin’s non-stop propaganda campaign. The invasion was not a reaction to an actual threat, but rather an attempt to activate a threat so that violence would erupt that would change the world.
MARCH 5, 2014
Amy Knight
The toppling of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, an autocratic leader whose government was plagued by corruption, hits dangerously close to home for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The memory of large demonstrations in Moscow and continued allegations of Kremlin corruption are doubtless much on the minds of senior Putin advisers.
MARCH 1, 2014
Timothy Snyder
Whatever course the Russian intervention may take, it is not an attempt to stop a fascist coup, since nothing of the kind has taken place. What has taken place is a popular revolution, with all of the messiness, confusion, and opposition that entails. The young leaders of the Maidan, some of them radical leftists, have risked their lives to oppose a regime that represented, at an extreme, the inequalities that we criticize at home.
FEBRUARY 19, 2014
Timothy Snyder
Ukraine is not a theater for the historical propaganda of others or a puzzle from which pieces can be removed. It is a major European country whose citizens have important cultural and economic ties with both the European Union and Russia. To set its own course, Ukraine needs normal public debate, the restoration of parliamentary democracy, and workable relations with all of its neighbors.
JANUARY 18, 2014
Timothy Snyder
President Viktor Yanukovych, in having the deputies of his Party of Regions endorse an extraordinary packet of legislation, has arrogated decisive political power to himself. In procedure and in content the laws “passed” by the Ukrainian parliament this week contravene the most basic rights of modern constitutional democracies: to speech, assembly, and representation.
DECEMBER 19, 2013
Fighting for the Soul of Ukraine
Tim Judah
“Revolution!” This is what they are shouting in Kiev. Ever since November 21 tens of thousands have been on the streets of the capital of Ukraine, defying the police and bans on demonstrations. On December 8 hundreds of thousands packed the city center, and a granite statue of Lenin was toppled in a scene recalling both Europe’s anti-Communist revolutions of 1989 and the symbolic fall of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad in 2003. Especially at the beginning of the demonstrations the riot police have reacted brutally, which brought out many more protesters. At times hard-liners among the demonstrators have resorted to violence but some of the violent actions seem to have been led by government-paid provocateurs.
DECEMBER 13, 2013
Timothy Snyder
Asked about the turmoil in Ukraine, Alexander Orlov, the Russian Ambassador to France, declared: “Russians and Ukrainians are one nation. It’s like the Bretons and the Normans in France. You can’t separate them.” In denying the existence of a Ukrainian nation, he was echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin.
DECEMBER 5, 2013
Timothy Snyder
The hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets in Ukraine have few options. They cannot force their own officials to sign a trade agreement with the EU. No elections are on the horizon, and Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych has no interest in calling them—unless a deal can be struck. But the Ukrainian constitution may offer a way out.
NOVEMBER 9, 2011
Timothy Snyder
Ukraine has long been a borderland between greater powers. What is different about the present moment is that it is now an independent state, and that it has become a borderland between two authentically different approaches to foreign relations. The European Union has no interest in admitting Ukraine as it is today, but might be interested in admitting the orderly, lawful eastern neighbor it might one day become. Russia has no interest in the rule of law in Ukraine, but is happy to exert influence upon its territory as part of its efforts to control the distribution of natural resources and reassert its power in the post-Soviet space.
by Alexander J. Motyl
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/index.php?q=blog/alexander-j-motyl/separatists-terrorizing-kidnapping-beating-citizens-ukraine&utm_source=World+Affairs+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e4f025e846-May_13_2014_Blogs_Kara-Murza_Motyl&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f83b38c5c7-e4f025e846-294641057
Hitler and Putin: A Tale of Two Authoritarians
‘Criminal in the Kremlin’: An Interview with Professor Walter Clemens
Recriminations and Denials After Putin
An Interview with Jiri Valenta
How Much Are Ukrainian and Malaysian Lives Worth?
Contradictions Define Kremlin Apologists
Ukrainians Die, as Europe Coos
Bawdy Lyrics Mock Putin in Ukraine
World Affairs Journal has plenty articles about Ukraine and Russia
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/search/site/Ukraine
Timothy Snyder Discusses "Bloodlands" at The Ukrainian Museum of Modern Art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcXMV-4HfXs&feature=em-subs_digest-vrecs
Timothy Snyder, "Disjuncture Between History and Memory in Ukraine and Eastern Europe"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArB3xpbtVyM
Who Is Provoking the Unrest in Ukraine? A Debate on Role of Russia, United States in Regional Crisis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxuOwGeaRII
Peter Hitchens 'Why I Like Vladimir Putin' at the University of Bristol
Very Pro-Russian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeO44STvnJw
How Vladimir Putin came to power (full documentary) Russia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpiZw1R8w-c
Next Time You Hear About a “Fascist Coup” in Ukraine, Remember This Chart
(a chart about pro-fascist parties that came to power in Europe recently – compared to Ukraine)
Richard Rozwadowski: Putin is not going to stop
http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/richard-rozwadowski-putin-is-not-going-to-stop-361144.html
Kyiv Post reprints a lot of articles from English-language magazines with good reputation
Russia Pines for the 19th Century
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/russia-pines-for-the-19th-century/505208.html
Stop provoking the bear
TOM SWITZER
http://ussc.edu.au/news-room/Stop-provoking-the-bear
He writes a lot about Ukraine, Russia and the West
As author of both The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, and Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot, Gessen is well-place to tackle the topic.
“We co-operate with Melbourne Writers Festival which is happening around the same time, and we saw Masha Gessen would be speaking,” Mossop said.
“We have tried to get Pussy Riot at our festival before, and we were finally able to through her help.”
Gessen will also debate Spectator Australia editor and research associate at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Tom Switzer, on the topic Appeasing Putin.
For his part, Switzer will be arguing that the US and EU should not be interfering with Russia’s military incursion into the Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
“The West has aggravated this situation by interfering in the internal affairs of a democratically elected pro-Russian government in Kiev,” he said.
“At first glance, festival attendees will probably denounce my ‘dangerous’ idea that the West should appease Putin. But I hope that after hearing me they will recognise that my case for Washington and Brussels to take into account Russian susceptibilities is plausible.”
The Festival of Dangerous Ideas will take place at the Sydney Opera House from August 30-31.