War in Ukraine

Sadly, I wish I could say I didnt expect to see political prisoners in 2013, but I cant...

BTW, is the Euromaidan a common name for the protests now? Wikipedia's page on it has been renamed to that effect.

Also, anyone placing bets on how this all turns out?

I'm predicting that the protests will be forcibly broken up in the next few days, there will then be a sense of outrage among much of the country, but it eventually will die down as the country shifts more towards a Russia/Belarus model of governance. At the same time, the oligarchs might no longer back Yanukovych, throwing their support to another easily pliable leader who can take control in 2015. I'm pretty confident about the first part of this, not so much about the rest.

edited 9th Dec '13 10:04:35 AM by BokhuraBurnes

Dont be so confident. The protests reflect an east/west split within Ukraine that isnt going to go away, no matter what happens to the protests.

BTW: "Maiden" is evidently the name for "Plaza" and the central plaza is where the protests are taking place. It's a nickname.

I'm aware of the East/West divide...I'm just not sure of the extent to which it will influence events. Let's say, for example, that the protests are violently repressed. What happens then? Armed rebellion a la Syria? People in the West, for the most part, don't want to have an independent country (they consider themselves Ukrainian, not Galician) — they just want to take the government in a different direction. For this reason, I think it would be difficult to imagine them jumping over the high hurdles (such as obtaining arms, organizing attacks, and so on) that could take the protests to the next stage.

Now, support for Western independence could grow if the government moves away from democracy and takes a reliably pro-Moscow stance a la Belarus, but this would likely be a longer-term process, lasting a number of years before it results in action.

Just for the record, there are plenty of Galicians who wouldn't mind (and some would even want to join) Portugal rather than being part of Spain.

Regarding Ukraine: there won't be a massive split, but it will generate some more bad blood for months (and maybe years) to come.

edited 9th Dec '13 12:25:24 PM by Quag15

There's more than one Galicia

Huh, who would've thunk... Well, The More You Know...

edited 9th Dec '13 1:52:29 PM by Quag15

From all reports, most of the protests are either in Kiev (for obvious reasons) or in Lviv. Anyone hear anything from the countryside?

I've heard some reports about people from the countryside in the West travelling to Kyiv/Lviv to take part in protests. I think it's a division of labor — it makes more sense for them to go to where the action is than to hold small-scale protests where they are. (Although there have been some protests in smaller cities as well).

If there's an actual East/West split expect the eastern part to become a de facto, though not de jure part of Russia ala Abkhazia or Eastern Ossetia.

edited 10th Dec '13 9:19:33 AM by tricksterson

I think you mean the Eastern half. It so happens they are making a play for the entire country (the current government is pro-Russia).

Ukrainian opposition party's offices raided as protesters dig in.

Nobody will accept a split, unless I've badly misjudged the Galician half's motivations.

edited 9th Dec '13 7:09:15 PM by Ramidel

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

West Ukraine might not intend it, but if things grow further out of control and this becomes a split or worse, it might be the only way. After all, Ukraine as it currently exists was not immune to Stalin's nonsense border drawing skills that were more obvious in the Turkestan region.

Crimea, for example, continues to chafe under Kiev's rule.

I see no evidence that anyone is calling for a split. The protesters seem to want a political solution. I doubt anyone has anything to gain from splitting the country- both halves would be significantly weaker, and it would be extremely difficult to divy up the countries resources, industrial sectors, ports and such.

There's been a flurry of diplomatic activity: Ukraine protesters hold firm as U.S., EU step up diplomacy "...Yanukovich is due to hold talks with three former Ukrainian presidents to try and find a basis for wider talks involving the opposition parties.

In a flurry of diplomacy highlighting the struggle between East and West over Ukraine, which scrapped a trade pact with Europe last month and opted to rebuild ties with Moscow instead, U.S. assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland flew to Kiev.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was also due to arrive later on Tuesday and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke to Yanukovich by telephone."

Whether all this scurrying around will result in anything remains to be seen.

x5 You're right, pardom my geographic dyslexia.

I'm not saying anyone IS calling for a split, just that if this goes on too long, it'll happen. No one was calling for a split in Syria either initially, but its looking increasingly splintered anyway.

A bunch of Anti-EU folks in Ukraine pretending to be a gay pride parade in favour of the EU.

Riot police are moving on the Maidan.

Outrage as police attack Kiev barricades - only a few hours after President Viktor Yanukovych pledged restraint to EU foreign policy chief.

According to CNN the police have backed off, despite making some gains, when the protestors refused to be forced out of Independence Square. There are an unknown number of injuries on both sides.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/11/world/europe/ukraine-protests/index.html?hpt=wo_c1

Obama administration threatens sanctions against Ukraine.

Oh that's gonna send them crawling back to the west. /sarcasm

Especially when Ukraine needs 10 billion dollars like yesterday to keep the currency from collapsing. Obama follows through on that, he's gonna gift wrap Kiev to Putin.

...seriously, I get the feeling that the EU ought to tell Obama to bugger off and let them handle this one.

I mean, it's really the EU's job to take the lead in dealing with this.