Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
My feeling, based on the pro-Russian provocations in Donetsk and Lugansk, is that Russia is about to invade these regions of Ukraine, and possibly the whole of Southern and Southeastern Ukraine. Much as Edward Luttwak hypothesized in the TNR and…
Lucien Kim writes in Slate: Crimea’s actual conflict isn’t ethnic; it’s the split between the suspicious, fearful sovok, or Soviet, mentality and a new generation of free minds. It’s little surprise that tearing down statues of Vladimir Lenin, founder of the…
A picture of – apparently – Crimea ballots with pre-printed “Yes” for succession. Like an old card sharpie who has already made a fortune with his tricks but cannot help cheating any time he touches a deck.
Today’s rally against Russian military intervention in Ukraine was a march across central Moscow, from the Pushkin Square to the Sakharov Avenue (prospect), where the crowd was to stop and listen to the speakers. Here is the approximate route on…
Two picture galleries from Russian media: Two Armies of the Same Peninsula in the Russian Forbes. The unglamorous, amaterish- and/or provincial-looking guys with not so great physique, some still wearing Soviet-style regulation fur hats, are Ukrainian soldiers. The balaclava-wearing commandos…
There’s a rumor in Kyiv and Moscow that the full-scale Russian invasion of Crimea will begin within hours. The Russian Channel 1 has canceled a live broadcast of the Oscar ceremony citing the need to update viewers on Ukraine Apparently…
Consider the following: Sergei Aksyonov (Aksenov), a shady guy with a criminal background and the leader of a party with 4% of the vote in the latest regional election, was appointed “prime minister” of Crimea on Feb. 27. That day, a…
I understand the US has the military capacity to promptly pulverize the Russian Black Sea fleet but Russia is still a nuclear power. However there is a way to either change Putin’s mind or provoke a coup d’état in Moscow.…
Russia’s Federation Council, the upper chamber of the parliament, has authorized Putin, as the commander-in-chief, to use military force in Crimea. I didn’t expect the invasion of Ukraine to start so soon and to look so brazen. Are the US…
Lenta.ru is providing decent coverage of the Crimean crisis as it unfolds. There’s also Ekho Moskvy and grani.ru, all in Russian. For all I know at the moment, the Crimean regional parliament has been seized by unknown men in an…
Links to live cams in Kiev can be found on Voices of Ukraine, an opposition-friendly site.
Ukraine’s hardline PM, Nikolai (Mykola) Azarov, has submitted his resignation. Sounds promising but I won’t pretend I have any idea what comes next. Here’s an interesting thread on Ukraine on Crooked Timber, showing how much and how little intellectuals know…