Redstate

Ukraine means 'frontier, borderland', so the phrase 'the Ukraine' was semantically correct.  It did, however, tend to ignore the old Kievian state which was destroyed by the Mongols in favor of a Moscow-centric tsarate, so in that sense you are right that the phrase de-emphasized Ukrainian identity and independence.

Many Ukrainians came to the US and Canada BTW rather than be forbidden to worship and speak in their own language under the Soviets - among them my father's parents.

Robin Stephanovna Kowalchuka Burk

here at Redstate; however, I'll weigh in anyway, as the crisis in Ukraine is not only significant, but subject to considerable lapses in reporting and comprehension.

The crisis in being presented as an almost manichean struggle between corrupt, retrograde pro-Russian elements and reformist democrats; and the protests of the dubious election as the patriotic uprising of the Ukrainian people.  As to the first element of the Western media portrayal, it is patently false; the second is partially true.

As I have already expressed my opinion on the Russian political scene in a comment in a member's diary, I will not repeat what I wrote there.  I will only elaborate by stating that the Russian political environment in obviously not analogous to our own; many of the misunderstandings of Russian politics so common in America are the result of the projection of American and cold war categories upon the Russian context.  A case in point is the widespread American assumption that Russian political parties, such as Yabloko, that advocate relatively Western-style economic and political reforms represent the path of progress and enlightenment for Russian.  Except that those policies did not embody viable reform when translated into the Russian context in the form of the "shock therapy" of the early to mid 90s.  Anyone truly conversant with the literature on the development of free market institutions (say, Hayek, for example) would have understood that such institutions emerge within specific cultures over time, and that any notion of a rapid, engineered transition to "capitalism" is not merely oxymoronic, but destined to fail.  Like shock therapy in Russia, which impoverished tens of millions of families and facilitated the rise of the oligarch/mafiya economy in the FSU.  

   When Russians treat such political parties with contempt and scorn, they are not acting irrationally; they are behaving much as rational actors in any culture will when confronted with circumstances that recall learned experience.  That means that there can be no "Western-style" capitalism in Russia until the oligarchs and bandits can be reined in; they will not be reined in by a political system in which parties are fronts for oligarchic interests, and media outlets are the PR agencies for those same interests.  Like it or not, Western cousel simply does not translate, because the historical experiences of the West and Russia are vastly different, as are the current political and economic realities with which each must wrestle.

Having said all that by way of prologue, it must be noted that the Ukrainian situation is no different.  There is NO Ukrainian politician capable of campaigning on a nationwide basis who does not have as a basis of power either control of, or ties to, one or more of the oligarchic clans.  Period.  Much has been made in Western media of the oligarchic ties of Yanukovych, as well as the interests which bind those clans to Russia.  However, that is simply only half of the story.  Yushchenko, a former head of the Ukrainian National Bank, and his primary backer, Yulia Tymoshenko, represent another group of oligarchic interests based in Western Ukraine.  They have also received the backing of Russian oligarchs in competition with the Donetsk-based clans represented by Yanukovych.

What is transpiring in Ukraine is, fundamentally, a struggle between competing oligarchic interests, with Russian and Ukrainian nationalisms leavening the whole moldy loaf.  There is, also, the matter of the mass protests to consider.  And there is no truer statement than that no such protests spontaneously generate, especially not in a nation like Ukraine.  There is, aside from the general poverty of the people, the matter of the comparatively vast distances involved.  Ukraine is not a small nation like Serbia or Georgia, in which similar protests toppled old regimes, and in which a trip to the capital for a little demonstration amounts to barely more than a day trip.  All of which indicates that it would be worthwhile to investigate the interests putting up the funding for the rather well organized, well supplied demonstrations in Kyiv; some of the money has undoubtedly been put up by Tymoshenko and other interests backing Yushchenko.  Much of that money, including the money required for the support of the 10,000+ election observers deployed almost exclusively in the regions of Ukraine most likely to vote for Yanukovych, was provided by Western governments and aid agencies, as well as NGOs and foundations, such as those of George Soros.  

   Given that there are no clean hands in the Ukrainian crisis, one should inquire as to the interests Western nations and NGOs have in seeing one group of bandits triumph over another.  That is a riddle the solution to which may have something to do with the curious support for the islamist, OBL backed Chechen jihad in Western governments and think-tanks:  Any stick with which to beat the Russian dog?