Sounds like from twitter, that the Right Sector's 'Donbass Special Battalion' (feat. in the VICE film below) got surrounded in an ambush by separatists near Krasnamorsk, with 50% of their officers killed and no help provided by the Ukranian army: phpBB [media]This is one of a series of ambushes that have seen pro-Ukrainian forces taking losses.

And while this idea of a strong "left" in Ukraine is a very pleasant thought, I don't think Moscow's aggression and opportunism would magically disappear if such a movement were to suddenly gain traction. (Never mind the question of how it would gain traction.) It's arguable that Putin would react w/just as much force if Maidan's character were more purely "leftist," in fact Russian state media has already latched hard onto certain left-leaning elements w/in both the uprising and the provisional government as being "decadent." If you're familiar w/the last 20 years of Ukrainian history (never mind the last hundred), it's just too hypothetical and simplistic to think this is some kind of all-purpose solution to the problem, even though yes, it's something that could be quite good for the country in the longer term.

Series of opinions on the crisis in South Eastern Ukraine from contributors to Openleft.ru, attempting to summarise the situation post-Maidan, basically claiming that the concerns of separatists in the East are similar to those of the anti-elite protestors in Kiev, yet they lack crucial political and financial support:Eastern Ukraine: Popular Uprising, Conspiracy, or Civil War?The social composition of the southeastern uprising also resembles that of Kyiv. We are witnessing a large movement that includes all social sectors: from marginal social rejects to businessmen, from intellectuals to retirees (although in the East the lower-class element is more prevalent, since the more privileged social groups that congregate in Kyiv are thinner on the ground here). But the main difference between the participants of Maidan and the southeasterern anti-Maidan lies in the structure and organization of their protests. Maidan, despite its democratic rhetoric, was much more authoritarian. A coalition of three parties had control over the protest s mise-en-scene. All attempts to bring in new banners led to severe reprisals.The situation in the East is currently much freer and more chaotic, because no one group is in charge. It s a real collage with all sorts of ideas on one canvas: Russian nationalists stand with the radical left, moderate supporters of federalization with criminal gangs lacking any ideological purpose. But whereas Maidan received enormous support and help from the press and even parts of the government [i.e. the parliamentary opposition “ n+1], the anti-Maidan movement in the East is taking a stand against all those in power, globally. At the pinnacle of Maidan, each citizen of Kyiv received an invitation in the mail, and the TV channels incessantly called for action and mobilization in unison ” but no information penetrates the vacuum in which Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Odessa currently reside. And if Kyiv s city administration “ as well as some western governors “ openly took the side of the protesters at Maidan, eastern Ukraine is becoming an open conflict between the protesters and the local elite.

I think you need to read the articles to understand what that means, that aspect is discussed in a fair amount of detail. The Cossack, Chechen and Ossetian fighters are only a part of the picture; and as several commentators point out, Moscow's intention is unclear (mostly since the whole situation is fractured and confused). Russia is pursuing a 'wait-and-see' policy since the situation is so fluid and dangerous. Putin and the Chocoligarch Poroshenko have a previous history and look like that they can do business. South Eastern Ukraine looks like it's been left dangling.

Cranius wrote:yet they lack crucial political and financial support.The spin on this one is downright dizzying.I guess the Russian military (never mind the paid Chechen mercenaries) funding, arming, and, on occasion, openly fighting alongside many of them don't count for anything? Do note that the east has plenty of shadowy oligarchs w/vested financial interests in the current Russia-centric system who back these separatists, as well. The implied goal seems to be to turn eastern Ukraine into a monopoly/mafia/bizniz state propped up by Russian dough, a la the curious evolution of the artificial republic of Transdniestria that is located w/in Moldova. To me, anyway, this is not exactly the stuff that class struggles are made of.

Cranius wrote:I think you need to read the articles to understand what that means, that aspect is discussed in a fair amount of detail. The Cossack, Chechen and Ossetian fighters are only a part of the picture; and as several commentators point out, Moscow's intention is unclear (mostly since the whole situation is fractured and confused). Russia is pursuing a 'wait-and-see' policy since the situation is so fluid and dangerous. Putin and the Chocoligarch Poroshenko have a previous history and look like that they can do business. South Eastern Ukraine looks like it's been left dangling.Was simply basing the reply on what you'd extracted from the piece.But yes, it does look like Putin may be hanging eastern Ukraine out to dry after getting the hopes up of an easily excited minority there. As for Poroshenko, who knows? He might balance things out and provide a way forward, or he might just pursue a policy of corruption-as-usual w/some vaguely "Western" overtures. His track record does not give me much cause to celebrate, but the situation is pretty wide open.

With the elections over earlier in the week, fighting begins in earnest around Donetsk airport, with Ukrainian forces showing clear air superiority (warning: gore): phpBB [media]Interesting interview with the woman towards the end explaining sheer amount of propaganda the local population is facing, making it difficult to speak out.

OrthodoxEaster wrote:...Meanwhile, 13,000 people or so have died in a pseudo-war that almost nobody outside of Ukraine and Russia still cares about. And the country in which my mother and grandparents were born continues to do what it has historically done best: suffer while using black humor to make it thru the day. I hope that (former?) FM @traktor is doing ok. Happy election weekend, Ukraine!I'm embarrassed to say that I'm only aware of the basic details surrounding Russia's invasion of Crimea, and more so to say that it's something that has since been something I've not thought a great deal about nor read much about. Are there some good informational/news sources/articles you'd recommend for following this stuff?

It's election time again in Ukraine. The choices are basically Poroshenko (corruption as usual), Tymoshenko (also corruption as usual), and, in a case of life imitating bullshit, a tv comedian w/no clear platform best known for playing a teacher who unexpectedly becomes president of Ukraine. Can't make this shit up! Meanwhile, upon rereading some of this thread, my cynicism regarding the shortsighted knee-jerk tendencies of certain factions of the American/Western European "far left" has pretty much calcified. (Even though I pretty much agree w/much of what these people stand for domestically speaking.) But so naive, much of the shameful shit that people wrote here. It's almost comically sad how some even questioned Russia's predatory involvement in fully propelling the so-called "separatists" in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, never mind its forces' role in shooting down that fucking passenger jet. This was a case of the Russian disinformation machine basically pumping out bullshit that they knew certain factions on the Western left would eagerly lap up, playing on ignorant biases about Eastern Europe that predate WWII. Those cries of "fascist" and "CIA coup" all seem pretty quaint and misguided about now.Five years later, pointing the finger at an opportunistic Russia for invading Crimea, ruining lives in Donetsk/Luhansk, starting a frozen conflict, and downing a passenger jet has pretty well been accepted as hard fact via independent investigations and history itself. The Tatar minority has zero meaningful representation in Russia's Crimean puppet state and their leader was put away in a sham trial in 2017. And even many of the nationalist Russo-Ukrainians in Donetsk and Luhansk who eagerly embraced the invasion feel hung out to dry and betrayed by a Russian government that has shown little intention of actually helping them.Meanwhile, 13,000 people or so have died in a pseudo-war that almost nobody outside of Ukraine and Russia still cares about. And the country in which my mother and grandparents were born continues to do what it has historically done best: suffer while using black humor to make it thru the day. I hope that (former?) FM @traktor is doing ok. Happy election weekend, Ukraine!

mrcancelled wrote:OrthodoxEaster wrote:...Meanwhile, 13,000 people or so have died in a pseudo-war that almost nobody outside of Ukraine and Russia still cares about. And the country in which my mother and grandparents were born continues to do what it has historically done best: suffer while using black humor to make it thru the day. I hope that (former?) FM @traktor is doing ok. Happy election weekend, Ukraine!I'm embarrassed to say that I'm only aware of the basic details surrounding Russia's invasion of Crimea, and more so to say that it's something that has since been something I've not thought a great deal about nor read much about. Are there some good informational/news sources/articles you'd recommend for following this stuff?Good question. But first, some longwinded context:Well, Crimea was shocking but somehow less galling than the stalled state of constant war that's been ongoing in slivers of the country's far eastern areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. In Crimea, at least, there was widespread popular support for Russia's invasion, although not among the area's native Tatars/Tartars (a Turkic people, already ejected once from the region under Soviet rule) nor the many ethnic Ukrainians also living there. But Crimea was, at least, a part of Russia until 1954. And the Russian logic for taking it back--plans that pre-date Maidan revolution in Ukraine, in turns out--was to basically maintain Moscow's only ice-free naval port. Of course, that doesn't remotely justify "taking back" Crimea and either persecuting or kicking out at least a third of the people who have been living there for more than 60 years.The real galling action was Russia's follow-up: pumping troops and supplies into some ethnically Russo-Ukrainian areas of the east of the country--into what became a failed attempt to "connect" Russia to Crimea. Ukraine put up way more of a fight than was expected and most of the local population, despite a massive propaganda effort on Russia's part, didn't have the stomach for it. So it ended up as a "frozen conflict" just like in the fake republic of Transdniestria (w/in Moldova, stoked by Russia in the 1990s) and Abkhazia and South Ossetia w/in the Republic of Georgia (both stoked by Russia in the 1990s and 2000s, respectively). If your family hails from Eastern Europe or Central Asia, Russia's actions in Ukraine are actually not all that surprising. It's been an ongoing, dare I say, imperialist foreign policy on Russia's part for decades, even centuries, one might argue. What was interesting and sad about Ukraine was the Russian disinformation machine and how the Western news media often bought into the propaganda b/c it was largely ignorant of the region and its culture. There's this stupid tendency here to simplify things as a game of Axis & Allies--fascists vs. commies--when that idea is so outdated and far from the truth. Was this the first fully global, social media-era test run for the Kremlin's disinformation machine? I think so.I'm sorry, but I can't think of a single great source of reporting on the matter. For a while, Yale professor Timothy Snyder was writing some informed stuff. But lately, he's lost his focus. Been going broader and trying too hard (albeit admirably) to link this mess to Trump's America and etc. Too "pop" and too domestic. Probably b/c it keeps people reading.I've got a neighbor and a local cook from the affected provinces of east Ukraine. And I tend to keep my eyes open when The Guardian, Al Jazeera, or The New York Times, flawed as they are, publish occasional reports from the front. I kinda read about Ukraine wherever I can. Again, it's very sad that after the "hot" portion of the conflict cooled, the whole thing was relegated to marginal status. Significant drop-off in reporting and editorials after about 2015.