I lived in Ukraine for eight years. The country has done nothing but deteriorate since 2014. Take away foreign largesse and gas transit revenues and it would be far worse.
That said, I am sure that if you polled Germans in 1937 vs. 1927, you would find a touching outburst of sincere nationalistic sentiment. If you prefer a different case…
I lived in Ukraine for eight years. The country has done nothing but deteriorate since 2014. Take away foreign largesse and gas transit revenues and it would be far worse.
That said, I am sure that if you polled Germans in 1937 vs. 1927, you would find a touching outburst of sincere nationalistic sentiment. If you prefer a different case, the same could be said about Soviet citizens in 1981, who suddenly got a lot less patriotic in 1991.
You lived in a different country as progress in Ukraine is visible although slow. There is still a lot of work to be done to free the society from corruption, but with help of IMF and EU pressure this will succeed. The only one delaying this process is the pro-Russian part of society which cannot live without corruption and grafting.
Because "pro-Russian" inevitably means you have to be pro-corruption.
Yet this "different country", darling of the west, had some seven years, give or take, but is not able to achieve concrete results, not with respect to corruption or anything else. Just slogans.
Also, explain to me how this "fight against corruption " works, by electing a flagrantly corrupt oligarch, who proves wildly unpopular and who is replaced (over vociferous American objections) by the cutout of an even more wildly corrupt oligarch and is since shutting opposition websites, arresting political rivals, and plumbing similar depths of unpopularity.
These are very unique methods for "fighting corruption " and I wish to study them further.
False statements. Back to the original discussion, ever heard of the Budapest memorandum? The Russian representative at that time signed this guaranteeing the borders of Ukraine. Today's Russia, called Putinstan by some, is the party that actually retreated from its guarantee. Who is the unreliable party ?
Sweet gentleman, i'll let you in on a huge secret here! You see, without the ratification of any document, signed by the president, prime-minister, supreme leader or the master of the universe, by the parliament of the signatory state, said document isn't worth the paper it was written on. And now the funniest part: the only country's parliament that did ratify this pretty controversial and non-binding agreement, was that of the Russian Federation! Although, seeing that no one gives a damn about it, even ukrainians, they've rescinded on this rash deed some time later.
Moreover, i should remind you, that there is another, absolutely same agreement, signed in the same day and in the same place by the already involved "big" countries with.. Belarus! And the agreement, just like the one with the Ukraine, proclaims that unilateral sanctions are.. Well.. Kinda bad. As you well remember, the Us has imposed them in mid 00's, saying in its excuse that the agreement is non-binding and, in any case whatsoever, they're imposing restrictions on the people of Belarus specifically for the good of the people of Belarus and blahblah. Question: do you remember any ukrainian official say anything in protest or even to just appeal to the signatories, to anyone, really, to revise or the unratified non-binding agreement? Well i sure don't!
So what do you want now, after all of this and much more, like Kosovo, has been done?
US and all the other UN SC members also signed UNSC resolution 1244 which guarantees territorial integrity of Serbia, yet that has prevented them to carve out by force an "independent" statelet of Kosovo. Observers back then realized that this was a watershed moment of 21st century because big multiethnic countries (such as Russia and China, but also others) are clearly going to be targeted by US slicing tactic. We also see this in Syria when US is occupying almost a third and eventually wants to create a Kurdish "Kosovo".
Would that be the "Budapest memorandum" that the US declared to be "not legally binding" when they sanctioned Belarus in contravention of that memorandum?
There is no foreign largesse in Ukraine (unfortunately). So nothing to take away.
Gas transit revenue was $2B in 2020 and was projected to be $1.2B in 2021. Compare it to IT export revenue of ($6.8B, 2021), money transfers from emigrants (est.$13B, 2021), base metals export ($16B, 2021), agricultural export ($16B, 2021) and it becomes obvious that losing the gas transit revenue would be an annoyance from an economical standpoint but hardly a disaster. It would have much bigger national security implications, but that's another story.
PS. Your comments don't seem to be well grounded, so I will no longer reply.
Seems to disagree. Then there is the military assistance.
Then there is the IMF, which faced a staff revolt in providing aid to Ukraine in the first place, since the IMF's internal rules forbid it to lend to a country which is unlikely to be able to repay.
Soviet citizens? There were no Soviet citizens, dear. Countries were occupied by Russia but the true citizenship of the people living in those countries was never legally taken away. (E.g. Estonians were always Estonians, never Soviets). Additionally, seems that you lack knowledge of what happened between 1981-1991.
We'll argue semantics later, although it is sort of amusing that you apparently claim that there was no Soviet Union as a matter of law. So where did Ukraine get its borders, then?
And I am abundantly aware of what happened between 1981 and 1991, and in particular, the late 1980s through 1991.
I lived in Ukraine for eight years. The country has done nothing but deteriorate since 2014. Take away foreign largesse and gas transit revenues and it would be far worse.
That said, I am sure that if you polled Germans in 1937 vs. 1927, you would find a touching outburst of sincere nationalistic sentiment. If you prefer a different case, the same could be said about Soviet citizens in 1981, who suddenly got a lot less patriotic in 1991.
You lived in a different country as progress in Ukraine is visible although slow. There is still a lot of work to be done to free the society from corruption, but with help of IMF and EU pressure this will succeed. The only one delaying this process is the pro-Russian part of society which cannot live without corruption and grafting.
Because "pro-Russian" inevitably means you have to be pro-corruption.
Yet this "different country", darling of the west, had some seven years, give or take, but is not able to achieve concrete results, not with respect to corruption or anything else. Just slogans.
Also, explain to me how this "fight against corruption " works, by electing a flagrantly corrupt oligarch, who proves wildly unpopular and who is replaced (over vociferous American objections) by the cutout of an even more wildly corrupt oligarch and is since shutting opposition websites, arresting political rivals, and plumbing similar depths of unpopularity.
These are very unique methods for "fighting corruption " and I wish to study them further.
False statements. Back to the original discussion, ever heard of the Budapest memorandum? The Russian representative at that time signed this guaranteeing the borders of Ukraine. Today's Russia, called Putinstan by some, is the party that actually retreated from its guarantee. Who is the unreliable party ?
Sweet gentleman, i'll let you in on a huge secret here! You see, without the ratification of any document, signed by the president, prime-minister, supreme leader or the master of the universe, by the parliament of the signatory state, said document isn't worth the paper it was written on. And now the funniest part: the only country's parliament that did ratify this pretty controversial and non-binding agreement, was that of the Russian Federation! Although, seeing that no one gives a damn about it, even ukrainians, they've rescinded on this rash deed some time later.
Moreover, i should remind you, that there is another, absolutely same agreement, signed in the same day and in the same place by the already involved "big" countries with.. Belarus! And the agreement, just like the one with the Ukraine, proclaims that unilateral sanctions are.. Well.. Kinda bad. As you well remember, the Us has imposed them in mid 00's, saying in its excuse that the agreement is non-binding and, in any case whatsoever, they're imposing restrictions on the people of Belarus specifically for the good of the people of Belarus and blahblah. Question: do you remember any ukrainian official say anything in protest or even to just appeal to the signatories, to anyone, really, to revise or the unratified non-binding agreement? Well i sure don't!
So what do you want now, after all of this and much more, like Kosovo, has been done?
US and all the other UN SC members also signed UNSC resolution 1244 which guarantees territorial integrity of Serbia, yet that has prevented them to carve out by force an "independent" statelet of Kosovo. Observers back then realized that this was a watershed moment of 21st century because big multiethnic countries (such as Russia and China, but also others) are clearly going to be targeted by US slicing tactic. We also see this in Syria when US is occupying almost a third and eventually wants to create a Kurdish "Kosovo".
The United States carved up Serbia, but Ukraine's borders are sacred and inviolate.
Hypocrisy, meet thy maker.
Would that be the "Budapest memorandum" that the US declared to be "not legally binding" when they sanctioned Belarus in contravention of that memorandum?
You are trying to change the subject.
That said, the Budapest Memorandum was predicated upon Ukrainian neutrality.
Not true, no reservations were made at the signing of the Budapest Memorandum.
The United had promised that NATO would not expand to the east.
EU membership is not a panacea for corruption - if anything, it seems to be getting worse: https://www.transparency.org/en/news/gcb-eu-2021-survey-people-worry-corruption-unchecked-impunity-business-politics
There is no foreign largesse in Ukraine (unfortunately). So nothing to take away.
Gas transit revenue was $2B in 2020 and was projected to be $1.2B in 2021. Compare it to IT export revenue of ($6.8B, 2021), money transfers from emigrants (est.$13B, 2021), base metals export ($16B, 2021), agricultural export ($16B, 2021) and it becomes obvious that losing the gas transit revenue would be an annoyance from an economical standpoint but hardly a disaster. It would have much bigger national security implications, but that's another story.
PS. Your comments don't seem to be well grounded, so I will no longer reply.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Ukraine/foreign_aid/
Seems to disagree. Then there is the military assistance.
Then there is the IMF, which faced a staff revolt in providing aid to Ukraine in the first place, since the IMF's internal rules forbid it to lend to a country which is unlikely to be able to repay.
Soviet citizens? There were no Soviet citizens, dear. Countries were occupied by Russia but the true citizenship of the people living in those countries was never legally taken away. (E.g. Estonians were always Estonians, never Soviets). Additionally, seems that you lack knowledge of what happened between 1981-1991.
We'll argue semantics later, although it is sort of amusing that you apparently claim that there was no Soviet Union as a matter of law. So where did Ukraine get its borders, then?
And I am abundantly aware of what happened between 1981 and 1991, and in particular, the late 1980s through 1991.