Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Is The Ukraine Revolution Doomed?

An anti-government protester holds a Ukranian flag as he advances through burning barricades in Kiev's Independence Square in this February 20, 2014 file photo. Reuters/Yannis Behrakis/Files

Lucian Kim, Reuters: Why this Ukrainian ‘revolution’ may be doomed, too

Ukrainians may be eager to shed their Soviet past, but an old joke from Communist times is making the rounds in Kiev these days. “How’s it going?” a man asks a friend. “Why are you asking?” he replies. “We live in the same country.”

Most Ukrainians wanted their country to be different by now. Even those who didn’t support the Maidan protest two winters ago were fed up with living in Europe’s most corrupt country. When then-President Viktor Yanukovych fled office after the demonstrations turned bloody in February 2014, the civic activists behind the protest movement hoped to turn their country from a dysfunctional kleptocracy into a rule-of-law democracy worthy of European Union membership.

WNU Editor: An interesting analysis from Reuters .... it tries to be positive while listing all of the insurmountable problems that Ukraine is now facing. Bottom line .... the war/conscription/security laws are bad enough, but it is the economy that is becoming a real problem for the Ukraine government and a real medium to long term threat to its position .... and they have no idea on how to fix it, nor the political will to even try.

1 comment:

Jay Farquharson said...

WNU Editor,

As der Spiegle noted almost a year ago, the Ukraine Revolution was always doomed.

Replacing €60 billion in trade with Russia with €16 billion in loans from the EU is economic suicide, almost Greek.