Frustrations Grow In Ukraine's Second Largest City

BBC

Fred Weir, CSM: Walled off: In non-rebel eastern Ukraine, frustrations with Kiev mount

No one in Russian-speaking Kharkiv wants to follow rebels into open revolt. But locals say Kiev has no idea how badly it's aggravating the region with its initiatives, including the 'Great Wall of Ukraine.'

Kharkiv, Ukraine — It's been nicknamed the "Great Wall of Ukraine." Its planned combination of barbed-wire fences, watchtowers, berms, and tank traps along Ukraine's 1,300-mile border with Russia look like something you'd find on one of Israel's borders with its hostile neighbors.

If it's ever completed, the wall will seal a frontier that, until last year, had always been wide open. Inaugurating construction here last fall, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk indicated that much more than just a physical barrier was intended. "This will be the eastern border of Europe," he said.

But in nearby Kharkiv, an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking city of one-and-a-half million, mention of the wall is mostly greeted with snorts of irritation. The idea of splitting permanently and irrevocably from Russia wins virtually no acceptance. Many people here have family and friends in Russia, the local economy is heavily dependent on trade with Russia, and some say they just can't wrap their heads around the idea of a frontier being there in the first place.

WNU Editor: Regular readers of this blog know that I have an aunt in Kharkiv .... and until recently .... a few cousins who decided to leave the city with their families last year. The situation in Kharkiv is nowhere near calm. There is a huge security presence throughout the city, and anyone suspected of being a collaborator with the rebels in the east will be arrested ASAP. The local economy has crumbled, and with more economic barriers being put up between Russia and Ukraine .... this will all but guarantee tougher times ahead. And while I do not expect an armed rebellion to occur in the Kharkiv region, I also do not see any lessening in the tensions and hostilities between the Russian Ukrainians who live there and with the central authorities back in Kiev.