The Economist: Eastern Ukraine: In the fold
Ukraine’s second city shows no risk of rebelling, but it is far from secure
AFTER Viktor Yanukovych, who was then president, fled Ukraine in February 2014, Russian flags began appearing around the Lenin statue in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Pro-Russian activists clashed with supporters of the Maidan revolution, and some spoke of a “Kharkiv People’s Republic”. But while separatism caught fire in Donetsk and Luhansk, it faltered in Kharkiv. Ukrainian nationalists felled the Lenin statue last autumn, leaving only a shoe. Sergei Yangolenko, commander of the Kharkiv-1 national-guard battalion, says the days when the city might have joined the rebels are over. He keeps Lenin’s giant ear in his office as a trophy.
Nonetheless, Kharkiv, just 40km (25 miles) from the Russian border, remains tense. Dozens of bombings in recent months have unsettled the city. Ukrainian authorities say the attacks are part of a Russian terror campaign. The leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic has threatened to come for Kharkiv, where, he says, supporters “are waiting for us”. The governor, Ihor Rainin, says he spends three-quarters of his time on security issues.
WNU Editor: I am very familiar with this city. My aunt lives there, and until recently .... so did some of my cousins (my Kharkiv cousins are now all in Russia). This city and the regions around it are deeply divided, and with a heavy Ukrainian police and military presence throughout the city ... it is raising tensions and animosities. For the moment I do not see this part of Ukraine exploding into the type of separatist violence that occurred in the Donbass region of the country .... but the Ukraine government does have a long term problem in this part of the country. Many Russian Ukrainians who live there now feel like second class citizens, and as long as the Ukraine government continues its policies of restricting Russian in schools and government services, conducting mass arrests .... coupled with an economy that is now in a deep depression resulting in mass unemployment .... there will be no peace in this part of the country. Instead .... what I do see (and predicted last year) .... is a low level insurgency (assassinations, bombings, etc.) becoming the norm rather than the exception.
Update: A regular reader just asked me on what is my solution. My solution has always been the same .... a federal system based on the Canadian model. In such a system minorities will have a say on protecting their linguistic and cultural identity .... while still a member of a larger state (i.e. French Quebec in an English Canada). Unfortunately .... the people who now run Ukraine (from President Poroshenko on down) have made it very clear that aside from all of their talk on decentralizing power .... such a federal option is not on the table.
1 comment:
So the Ukrainians and Russians are going to do what the Nazis could not.
I would say that if the amonut of diplomatic effort spent on Iran and been spent on this situation maybe something good would come of it, but ... I know that is not true.
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