Inside East Ukraine’s Make-Believe Republics -- Jamie Dettmer, Daily Beast
A journey through the looking glass into the fake states run by losers who claim they’ve just won independence (with a little help from Mother Russia).
SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — Two months ago a band of chanting pro-Russian separatists marched past commuter traffic into the state treasury building in Donetsk—the east Ukrainian city they now say they rule following Sunday’s flawed secession referendum. Their first order of business: instructing startled officials to stop transferring the region’s tax money to Kiev and to give it to them instead.
Twelve days before, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had fled Kiev, ousted after months-long protests by pro-European agitators. Revolution was in the air and now a bunch of pro-Russian protesters faced the state treasurer of Donetsk oblast, a province with 4.3 million people—10 percent of Ukraine’s population—and much of the country’s heavy industry. At first nervous, the portly state treasurer’s confidence grew as he realized the emphatic would-be revolutionaries were ignorant of the complexity of state finance and didn’t even realize revenues were not physically stored in the treasury but were deposited in various commercial bank accounts.
Read more ....
My Comment: Since the fall of the Soviet Union .... this region has been in decline and a breeding ground of dissent. With the fall of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych .... who was strongly supported by voters in this region .... was the "straw that broke the camels back". As you can tell I am not optimistic on the future for this region .... and Jamie Dettmer from the Daily Beast does an OK job on explaining why times are going to be even more difficult for this region .... and why Russia is hesitant to intervene.
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