Ukraine President Volodymr Zelensky, Reuters
Nicolai N. Petro, National Interest: Will Nationalism Poison Ukraine's New President?
Volodymr Zelensky’s election win was a result of Ukraine’s pent-up demand for normalcy with Russia. But now it looks like Ukraine's new president is succumbing to nationalist pressure.
Ever since Volodymyr Zelensky’s upset victory in April, Ukrainians have been wondering whether their newly elected president will take new approaches to resolve the conflict with Russia. His thumping victory over Petro Poroshenko, who tried to dismiss all of his opponents as puppets of Russian Vladimir Putin puppets, uncovered a strong, untapped desire to end the Russophobia that has been porminant with over the past five years. During that time, the Poroshenko and other senior government officials routinely referred to Ukrainians who wanted better relations with Russia as a “fifth column.”
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WNU Editor: The above post by Nicolai N. Petro is my must read post for today. Volodymr Zelensky won in a massive landslide on the promise of ending the war, getting rid of all the anti-Russian laws that were passed by former President Poroshenko and his parliament, and a return to normal relations with Russia. If he breaks these promises .... and it looks like he is .... the consequences will be the following. (1) Not only an intensification of the war in the eastern part of the country, but a conflict that will spread to the rest of eastern Ukraine and the southern part of the country where Ukrainian-Russians dominate. (2) In the past five years millions of young Ukrainians have left the country and/or planning to do so. Breaking these promises will only accelerate this migration. (3) If Ukraine hopes to achieve any level of prosperity, they must work with Russia. Persecuting and discriminating the Ukrainian-Russian population is not going to earn President Zelensky any friends in Russia, and definitely not in the Kremlin. Bottom line .... President Zelensky has 4-6 months to deliver on his promises. If he breaks them, the anger that will be directed at him and his government will be enormous.
7 comments:
Again.
Can you blame them for the anti-russian mentality?
Can you? Considering that Ukraine had a part of their country annexed by Russia, and Russia certainly hasn't helped the situation.
I'm all for peaceful resolution but it must be done with a fair exchange and I don't see Russia willing to conduct any fair exchanges with Ukraine.
Again, this is bizarre on WNU's part, so conservative on most things, yet a Putin fanboy on the Ukraine. You must really loathe the Ukraine.
The Ukrainian army is part of the American army. American Generals pinned American medals on Ukrainian soldiers which mean they are ours. The comedian has gotten the official talk to and now knows the real deal ,Russia go home!
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I like this blog, but the host's comments on Ukraine always seem off to me. His perspective is an important one, but I have the feeling he projects a lot of his (and his family's) wishes onto the rest of Ukraine.
The host has always insisted that Zelensky's biggest appeal is rebalancing towards Russian nationalist issues in Ukraine. And that if only the demands of the Russian nationalists, everything else will be made fine (I don't think the host is pro-Putin, but he seems to be very obtuse that Putin is not the dominant reason for the war in the Donbas). Every other reasonable commenter I've read says it's the chance for genuine anti-oligarchic reform which is Zelensky's biggest appeal, not the outreach to Russophone Ukrainians (although this is a factor).
I think the Ukrainian population clearly understands that Russia under Putin is a predatory power, and that no amount of internal dialogue with its Russophone and ethnic Russian minorities (the two are not the same thing, but there is overlap of course) will end Putin's predatory behavior.
Some kind of accommodation to the Russophone minority is good domestic politics. But the war in Donbas is happening not because of internal Ukrainian politics, but Russian interference. One can accomodate Russophone issues without capitulating to the Kremlin's puppets in Donbas. And I think Zelensky knows this. I suspect there will be improvement internally that satisfies much of the eastern Ukrainian population, but that it will have zero effect in the occupied Donbas because Putin won't break down unless Ukraine permits him to enslave them.
Chris
Thank you for your comment Chris, and yes, I have never supported Putin, even though I know many who do, including many family members.
My views on Ukraine comes from my family on my father's side whose roots I can trace back almost 3 centuries. I am also someone who lived there for a while, even once thinking of buying a home near Odessa for my retirement years. Canada, Russia, and Ukraine .... I am a product of these three countries. And I am passionate on all three.
Old time readers of this blog also know that I warned in 2013 that overthrowing the democratically elected President (Viktor Yanukovych) would fracture the country. In my own family the Maiden Revolution caused some serious splits that are only healing now. My cousin's daughter assisted the wounded in Kiev during the revolution, and even commandeered a building a few blocks from the square that her mom owned. Needless to say that this angered her mom, and other members of the family. She survived unscathed, and today she lives in Miami selling real-estate to Russian and Ukrainian businessmen/immigrants. She is also the poster child on what has gone wrong in Ukraine. She, like so many others .... lost faith in the revolution. This started when Ukrainian nationalists took control of parliament and passed legislation targeting Ukrainian-Russians, followed by President Poroshenko breaking his campaign promise to broker a deal with the separatists in the east.
It was also during this time that I was involved in helping two of my friends who were parliamentarians to push for a federated political system like Switzerland's or Canada's. To defuse a crisis and start a dialogue before it got out of control. This initiative failed, because the decision was already made to send in the soldiers. Oleksandr Turchynov was President Of Ukraine from the end of February (2014) to the beginning of June when Poroshenko took over, and it was during this time that the worst decisions that anyone could make were made. His commitment to banning Russian, a language that is widely spoken in Ukraine, and to purge government/media/industry of Russian-Ukrainians, precipitated a blow-back that we are still living today. Regions like Crimea that are 85% Russian were stunned with what had happened, and when given a choice between a nationalist government in Kiev hell bent on targeting their language and culture or a pro-Russian government in Moscow that would guarantee their language and culture, not surprisingly they overwhelmingly chose Moscow.
What happened in Donetsk and Luhansk was also predictable. People in the Donbas regard themselves as Russians first, with a history that goes back almost 1,000 years. They are also fiercely nationalistic, and as my father told me many times, stubborn as hell. The Germans during the Second World War regarded this part of occupied Soviet territory to be impossible to rule, and it is also in this region that the first labour strikes against Communist rule in the former Soviet Union started, precipitating more strikes throughout the Soviet Union that eventually led to the fracturing of the country.
That is why I always chuckle when I hear commentators say Putin is responsible for the mess that is Ukraine today. Yes .... he provides weapons and turns a blind eye to those who want to go there to fight for the cause, but bottom line the people in eastern Urkaine follow their own destiny, and if someone is willing to help them, they will grab that help and say thank you. Ukraine is in the mess that it is today because it is their fault. And to solve it they will need to come together and hash out their differences. That is why President Zelensky was elected with an overwhelming mandate. He needs to keep the promises that he made, and to turf out those who made the mess that is Ukraine today. Failure to do so will only depress his supporters, and as I have said in my commentary, escalate the war.
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