Ukraine: non-military aspects (2016 onwards)

[mirhond]

Poroshenko launches a large privatization campaign in Ukraine.

http://www.segodnya.ua/economics/ene...ne-697021.html

Poroshenko has launched large-scale privatization in Ukraine

[mirhond]

NYT: Ukraine’s Unyielding Corruption

Mr. Poroshenko, himself a product of the old system, has had his hands full with the Moscow-backed separatists in the east and unceasing political turmoil in Kiev, where Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s government is hanging by a thread.
In these circumstances, Mr. Poroshenko seems to have accepted continuing corruption as the price to pay for a modicum of maneuvering room. But the president, the prime minister and the Parliament must be made to understand that the International Monetary Fund and donor nations, including the United States, cannot continue to shovel money into a corrupt swamp unless the government starts shaping the democratic rule that Ukrainians demanded in their protests.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/01/op...tion.html?_r=0

[mirhond]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press...ukrainian-rada

Script of J. Biden speech in Rada, here are some good points

Because as all of you know the struggle for Ukraine’s freedom is not confined to the battlefields of the east. Constitutional reform that includes judicial reform and decentralization does not compromise your sovereignty. It enhances it. It’s an important step to building a strong, new nation. And it’s important to the Ukrainian-European future.

This issue of federalism is the thing that almost prevented our nation from coming into being. Autonomous independent states, their determination to have their own police forces, their determination to have their education system, to have their own government under the united Constitution.

But in addition, you also have a battle, a historic battle against corruption. Ukraine cannot afford for the people to lose hope again. The only thing worse than having no hope at all is having hopes rise and see them dashed repeatedly on the shoals of corruption.

[mirhond]

Police vs. "amber mafia" in W. Ukraine, video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlU72Snn4Zg

illegal amber digging brings hefty profits to local "businessmen" and corrupted officials, National Guard to the rescue.
http://gordonua.com/news/society/zam...ya-127156.html



the same region, one year ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9TDVM9Tk2o

[mirhond]

Newest additions to Ukrainian "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" are here:

comin.kmu.gov.ua/document/135398/ban.xls

reminder: Ukraine banned "anti-Ukrainian literature" (whatever it means) and effectively halted allmost all books export from Russia.

Some particular positions caught my attention

2. Сталинград Энтони Бивор 2016 - Anthony Beevor "Stalingrad" - probably because Beevor's book contains this passage:
"Ukrainian nationalists were tasked with shooting the children" in order to "spare the feelings of SS Sonderkommando"

pretty anti-Ukrainian statement, no doubt, but another positions, like this:

12. 700 новых устных тем по английскому языку. Клім Я.О. - "700 new verbal topics in English"

or this:

13. Химия. M. Константиновский - "Chemistry"

don't look dangerously anti-Ukrainian.
What reservations Ukrainian [strikethrough]Ministry of Truth[/strikethrough] Commitee for TV and Radio holds against English and Chemistry - is beyond me.

[davidbfpo]

An academic article on the situation, the emphasis is not on the military aspects - hence being in this smaller thread. Here is a taster passage:

The dynamics playing out in Ukraine are the result of three interconnected factors: Western overconfidence since the end of the Cold War, Russia’s increasing determination to reassert itself as a global superpower, and the inability and unwillingness of countries like Ukraine to reform and strengthen their fragile institutions, which might help insulate them from external interference.

Link:https://theconversation.com/ukraine-...form=hootsuite

There is a thread on the war (last updated December 2017):http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...=25367&page=13