14 ms·
What is really happening in Ukraine
- higherpurpose 13y agoWhy do some keep calling it a civil war instead of a revolution? Sure, the government has hired/collaborated with non-government people to cause trouble/beat up the protesters, but which tyrannical government doesn't do that during a revolution? They all do it.
- kome 13y agoIt's a civil war because a lot of Ukrainians speaks Russian and want a "Russian" Ukraine.
- mtrimpe 13y agoIt's not so much about whether they speak Russian or not. Eastern Ukraine is just generally closer ideologically to Russia whereas Western Ukraine prefers to maintain close ties with Europe. You can see that reflected quite clearly in the split between west and east in where the protests are. In general the president is supported by the eastern part of Ukraine, but is also a convicted criminal who sent the previous president to jail on trumped up charges (which is what's blocking their entry into the EU.) FWIW, the linked presentation gives a pretty good overview of the dynamics at play at the moment... from the perspective of the protesters of course.
- piranha 13y ago> who sent the previous president to jail Not a previous president, but his political opponent.
- randomafrican 13y ago>who sent the previous president to jail on trumped up charges Previous Prime Minister. And I'm not 100% sure the charges are totally trumped up. Not that it changes anything.
- yazmeya 13y agoEven if the charges aren't all trumped up, Tymoshenko was singled out for prosecution for her politics, without a doubt. With corruption as rampant as it is, there's a criminal case waiting to be made against practically anyone in a position of power in Ukraine.
- dmytrish 13y agoYes, Tymoshenko is not an angel by any means, but her conviction was clearly a political act to frighten other possible rivals with selective justice. Also, this was a great deal to gain some Putin's favor.
- densh 13y agoThere is little connection if any between people speaking Russian and those wanting a "Russian" Ukraine. I come from russian-speaking part of Ukraine myself and hardly anyone here supports current government.
- IgorPartola 13y agoSeconded. Russian is my first language. I do not support this government.
- free652 13y agoMost Ukranians speak Russian due to eastern/southern parts larger than the western part. A lot of Ukranians speak "surjik" which is a mix between Russian and Ukranian and Western Ukranians speek a mix of Polish and Ukranian. I'd say there aren't many people that speak perfect Ukranian. Do you count people speaking "surjik" as Russian or Ukranian speakers? There is no civil war, if it was a civil war the western part wouldn't survive a day. Nor the Russian speaking Ukranians want "Russian" Ukraine.
- dmytrish 13y agoThis is a very simplified point of view. The eastern part is mostly Russian-speaking but that does not mean all they want to speak Russian, it is just a convention there that slowly breaks up. Ethnic Russians are only 17% of the population and mostly live in Crimea and Donetsk/Lugansk oblasts. Most of people in Kharkov, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa are still Ukrainians under heavy influence of Russian media and culture. "Russian Ukraine" is more of Crimea myth. People from all regions are ok with the existing Ukrainian state as far as they don't feel they are discriminated or demonized for other parts (it's a part of grudge between West Ukraine and Donetsk Ukraine, they often fault each other, Russia helps the latter much to do that, depicting evil Westerners as unbridled Nazi nationalists).
- nitid_name 13y agoIs there a significant difference between a civil war and a revolution without respect to the outcome?
- mapleoin 13y agoYes. In a revolution, the population is more or less united against the government. In a civil war, there are two opposing sides, both made up of the general population fighting against each other. One of the factions in a civil war can also be supported by the government, but the point is there are civilians fighting on both sides, whereas in a revolution there are civilians only on one side.
- stdbrouw 13y agoOr more broadly, civilians vs. people in power, whether they're a part of the government or not. (E.g. the French revolution which targeted the aristocracy.)
- twic 13y agoI think there is often mass support for the government during a revolution. There were Americans loyal to the crown during the American revolution, and no shortage of people at least opposed to the revolutionaries during the French revolution (War in the Vendée and so on). I would suggest the dual of your definition: in a revolution, there are established political actors only one side, whereas in a civil war, they are on both sides. The English civil war looks very much like a revolution (people vs king and nobility), but the fact that parliament was on the people's side makes it a civil war. The American civil war pitted various states against the United States.
- randomafrican 13y agoThe length is more important than the outcome, IMO
- myth_drannon 13y agoBecause the descendands of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv_pogroms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv_pogroms perpetrators will want an ethnically pure Ukraine. And East/South of Ukraine will not allow it. US state department is interested in the break up and pushing west ukr down the throat of EU(Germany) which really is not interested in that right now (EU is going down with PIIGS, but US needs even weaker EU with +50mil dirt poor Ukrainians with extremely corrupt political system ). Russia probably wants the split too, east ukr will be easier to control and they get rid of western ultra-right/nazi/Bandera followers.
- leobelle 13y agoThere's no evidence the US wants a "weaker EU" and I doubt you personally have access to classified state department documents, and nothing of this sort was in any of the documents leaked by Manning. A weak EU is not in America's interest with a rising China and waning influence. The US has continuously asked allies to increase their military spending, so you are just spouting off run-of-the-mill incredulous and unthoughtful anti-american cynicism.
- choonkeymoonkey 13y agoOh, bless you. Just don't forget to open your mouth to breathe.
- dmytrish 13y agoThis is not correct. I don't know any influential Ukrainian nationalists who want ethnic purity to rule them all. Even Stepan Bandera welcomed Russians and Jews (!) who aren't enemies of Ukrainian state. Please stop this crazy Nazi bias and fear mongering. Yes, there were some parts of nationalist movements during WWII who tried to use Nazi force to establish Independent Ukraine, but this union was situational, tense and fragile (and I am not proud of it).
- myth_drannon 13y agoFrom the videos I saw and from what I tried to read on the subject, large portion of the black clad youth on the square belongs to ultra right "Svoboda" party ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svoboda_(political_party)#Ideology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svoboda_(political_party)#Ideol... ) and others . These are not your regular tired of corruption ukrainians but highly trained defacto militia. I just constantly compare it with Egypt's revolution and the people on the street looked very different from Maidan . It was more popular, spontaneous uprising , in ukraine it looks extremely organized and professional. The whole things smells heavy of outside intervention, just my personal opinion
- lmm 13y agoA revolution would have been over more quickly.
- stargazer-3 13y agoThis is much more informative and complete than any Western media news report. (Disclosure: I grew up in Kiev)
- mitchelllc 13y agoYanukovich refused to sign EU association in November. I am wondering if the EU association was approved by most of Ukrainian through voting (or other ways), and Yanukovich disobeyed the voting results.
- stargazer-3 13y agoAssociation pact is a purely economical agreement that is mediated by governments only. So no, he did not violate anything. However, 42% of the population supports European integration, while only 31% wants to join the Customs Union, seen as USSR v2.0
- egao1980 13y agoDon't forget the fact that Ukraine haven't declined signing, it was postponed. Government was just negotiating better terms for Ukraine. The thing they are responsible for. As a Ukrainian living in London I'd say that nobody in sane mind in UK, and probably in EU will let Ukraine join EU. Mind Greece and Cyprus. Check the numbers: http://atlas.media.mit.edu/country/ukr/ http://atlas.media.mit.edu/country/ukr/ 25% of export and 36% of import are Russian goods, several times more than EU combined. Sign that agreement as EU pushes it - Ukraine would be isolated, poor and really unhappy.
- aquadrop 13y agoCustoms union is just customs union, like Mercosur or Andean community or European customs union. Union State[1] is more like USSR v2.0 but still very far from it. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_State http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_State
- levosmetalo 13y agoAnd that is the problem here. No side has a clear majority, and any decision is going to be tough. Forcing the decision, either one, in this moment can lead only to country wide divide, since both parties feel stronly about this topic, and no compromise is possible. Whatever is my opinion is not important, but "huge majority" of 42% shouldn't be allowed to force their decision to "only" 31% minority. I think Janukovič got it right here, not wanting to side with any side and trying to just keep it as neutral as possible. It is not a good idea to decide about such a big topic like future of the whole country and which union to join based on such a small "majority". In the long run, the best thing is to just do nothing right now, and try to reach some kind of compromise in a deeply divided country that is equally acceptable to both sides. Whatever that compromise might be, going west, or going east, or peacefully splitting the country in two/three parts, everything is better than inevitable escalation that this leads to.
- bitL 13y agoWhy don't you guys split Ukraine into two parts? The western part (pre-WW2's part of Poland) is pro-western, speaking Ukrainian, the eastern part is mostly inhabited by Russians that gravitate towards Moscow. Why nobody suggests this solution?
- V-2 13y ago"Why nobody suggests this solution?" - I don't know what your definition of "nobody" is, but eg. Dmytro Tabachnyk did suggest that
- stargazer-3 13y agoWhy don't Americans split the USA into two parts, the red one and the blue one?
- pdwetz 13y agoIt was attempted once before.
- maxmcd 13y agoThe divide between "red" and "blue" is not geographically consistent. The general political views of both groups are similar. They're not in active conflict at the moment.
- panarky 13y agoHere's one way to split the US into two (mostly) contiguous regions. United States of Canada vs. Jesusland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesusland_map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesusland_map
- hackerboos 13y agoMore than 2 parts: http://www.clevelandleader.com/files/splitus.JPG http://www.clevelandleader.com/files/splitus.JPG
- 13y ago
- steven2012 13y agoI heard that there are a lot of nukes in Ukraine and the last thing the world wants is those split off into separate hands. I would harbor a guess that the US would rather have those nukes in the hands of Russia, who is a known evil but rational, vs someone else entirely new. I read on Stratfor that Russia does not want Ukraine to become independent because it's basically the "soft underbelly" leading into Russia. It's basically the equivalent of letting Texas become independent. With Putin in control, there's no way he's letting Ukraine go free, especially given all the nukes, its strategic location, etc.
- IgorPartola 13y agoYou heard wrong: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine. There are no nukes in Ukraine.
- hodgesmr 13y agoUhm, Ukraine is an independent, sovereign country. Comparing Ukraine to Texas makes no sense.
- egao1980 13y agoSome Texans wouldn't agree with you :)
- stargazer-3 13y agoUkraine has no nukes. They were disarmed in exchange for security assurances from both Russia and USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine
- adobriyan 13y agoNukes were transferred from soviet republics to Russia exactly because western world didn't trust newly founded random goverments.
- kenster07 13y agoI'm curious as to what you mean when you say Russia is a "known evil." Are you alluding to real life? Movies? The Cold War? It would seem that true rationality and evil have little to do with one another.
- Igor_TN 13y agoI also grew up in central Ukraine and have my close relatives there. As much as I despise the current government, I must say that this "beautifully done" presentation is completely one-sided, unbalanced, and manipulates with both real and made-up facts. And, this is always non-constructive and even dangerous. The situation is much more complicated. I am really afraid that this is going closer and closer towards a civil war and split of the country. Presentations like this one only work in favor of that.
- stargazer-3 13y agoI have to disagree with you. Care to elaborate on what facts are made-up?
- mratzloff 13y ago> I must say that this "beautifully done" presentation is completely one-sided, unbalanced, and manipulates with both real and made-up facts. OK... How?
- malkung 13y agoI am always suspicious about a story where there are goodies and baddies.
- polymatter 13y agoI am biased against the Ukrainian government, but this entire thing reads as a propaganda piece so much I can't trust a single 'fact'. It uses lots of appeals to emotion with vague, subjective terms. To anyone biased to support the government, its not exactly persuasive is it?
- gkoz 13y agoIs there any evidence or confirmation by the press of 'dozens of unidentified dead bodies?'
- darkbot 13y agoNot that I am aware of.
- arca_vorago 13y agoThat's actually a very well done summary. I have an acquaintance that is Ukrainian and I have been asking her about it. Pretty much what happened so far can be summed up as "The leadership betrayed the Ukrainian people to Russia under pressure from Putin" and both of generally agree that it's too late now to stop, and that the protesters have to be at least partially successful or else it is likely there will be more bloodshed. Being self designated geopolitics guy though, my curiosity is "Where is the US?" We know they were involved in Georgia in 08, and we know the US has a vested interest in giving the Russians a black eye, so I would think they would be involved somehow, but have not seen as such.
- Demiurge 13y agoI wonder what you'll think if you have another friend who is saying completely the opposite.
- gtaylor 13y agoI can't help but notice you replying to basically everyone with how wrong they are without providing specifics. Can you either provide some substance or find something more constructive to do?
- arca_vorago 13y agoPoint taken, but as a person who tries very hard to not let my filter bubble be too small, I am surprised at the lack of people talking about what I suppose could be considered the North Ukrainian point of view. I did see a few mentions that they would be more aligned to Russia, but haven't seen any in depth reporting from that perspective. Have you seen such?
- Demiurge 13y agoYes, the issue is, this is quiet majority. The subject is contentious enough that people who are not pro EU keep quiet about it, because they don't feel as strongly about it as the 'revolution' people. On one hand, you have people say "the problem is clear, hang Putin, hang Yanukovich! If we join EU we will be transported to Paris!". On the other hand you have people who just think that's unrealistic, but they can't put it in a slogan.
- yawz 13y agoVery scary similarities with what has happened in Turkey. I have amazing respect for all those brave people risking their lives to say "No!" to tyranny. They are the modern day heroes.
- Demiurge 13y agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuO53xeZkm8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuO53xeZkm8 Does this look like brave people risking their lives to say "No!" to tyranny, or like a bunch of young energetic people who have no idea about whats going on in politics throwing molotov cocktails at police?
- mathetic 13y agoI cannot account for what's happening in Ukraine but last time a video like this one released in Istanbul during protests, it was undercover police throwing molotov cocktails to armoured police vehicles. It was the only video shown by all the news agencies [0]. It is quite funny that a community of skeptics being pedantic on silliest social networking apps takes what they see in a video for granted and makes harsh judgements about people. EDIT after citation request: So this is the famous video. The masks they are wearing are identified to be standard police issue. They are also holding radio transmitters similar to used by police but that would not prove anything. However, this is the only instance where the police have not heavily "interfered" to the event. The pressure they use on these guys is one tenth of what they use against unarmed civilians. There are quite few videos showing how they shoot people with water canon and literally threw them away. These plus the fact that this is literally the only video shown by all news agencies clearly indicate that the whole thing is staged. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxuOmnQpu8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxuOmnQpu8E
- Demiurge 13y agoThis is a video of something NO ONE is disputing. People just say "revolution" and "saying NO to tyranny", but what do you think that means in practice? What ELSE could there be on the video? It's people making molotov cocktails, stones, and throwing them at police. That's how it looks like, regardless if it was staged or not, which, to me, it seems obvious it's not. The crowds shown are huge, and the acting would be Oscar winning.
- Demiurge 13y agoThis is propaganda and has no place on Hacker News. Anything that says 'Civil War Has Been Ignited", when there is no civil war YET, is war mongering for some cause.
- milkshakes 13y agohow would you define "Civil War"?
- Demiurge 13y agohow would you? if a demonstration turning violent is "Civil War", they should take notice at the G8.
- akjj 13y agoProtestors weren't taking over government buildings during G8 conferences.
- Demiurge 13y agoThat's a good point, but they would have, if they had lots of small unguarded municipal buildings. Not to be sarcastic, this is still just a few thousands of extremists being destructive. A Civil War is when you have armed forces on both sides, a big population willing to take arms. Most adult people want this to stop and get back to work.
- mathetic 13y agoYou are correct from an historian's point of view. If one side is asymmetrically stronger than the other one, the powerful side simple destroys the other side and declare them terrorists (or extremists). When you are in hell rather than a history textbook, however, what you care is whether your most basic rights are violated or not eg. torture, kidnap, murder. In that case you take whatever you have at hand go outside and do what you think is right. The majority may want to get back to work and that might be the sustainable/profitable/reasonable thing to do. The question is whether it is the right thing or not?
- Phil_Latio 13y agoAll of this while the EU transforms into an EUDSSR where unelected bureaucrats decide everything (EU commission). Good luck...
- vixen99 13y agoThe European Elections are in May 2014 so make your voice heard.
- Phil_Latio 13y agoI can not elect the european commission. If the european parliament decides something, this may happen: > The European Commission said Wednesday it will not suspend the safe harbor data privacy agreement with the U.S. despite calls from the European Parliament.
- grey-area 13y agoLike the king and his parliament in the uk, there will one day be a reckoning between the eu parliament and the commission. The reality today of course is that the commission holds all the power, but that balance is shifting.
- anovikov 13y agoThat has some elements of propaganda yes, but from my talks with many Ukrainians including several of my employees, this seem to be more or less fair depiction of the facts. Nobody calls protesters Nazis, but Russian media view of the subject is indeed extremely biased. What's worst of this is that the view of it from Eastern and Western sides of Ukraine is totally different, too (while both dislike Yanukovich strongly, which is a big difference from the state of things just 3 months ago). West dislikes him for being evil, East dislikes him from being stupid and not protecting their case strongly enough.
- agrostis 13y agoRe. Russian media: I wonder, why their view (extremely biased, no doubt) could be of any concern to HN readers who are predominantly English-speaking and get much of their information from Internet sources?
- ash 13y agoBecause there are Russian-speaking HNers too. And Ukrainian topic certainly attracted more of them to this thread.
- TausAmmer 13y agoLook at it, at many angles as possible, don't be a ram. http://zyalt.livejournal.com/984735.html http://zyalt.livejournal.com/984735.html
- darkbot 13y agoExactly: http://zyalt.livejournal.com/985632.html http://zyalt.livejournal.com/985632.html
- gtrubetskoy 13y agoWhat is really happening in Ukraine is that both sides of this conflict (pro-Euro and against) are absolutely corrupt and the people know it. The tragedy of this is that no one from the government or opposition represents the will of the people. The population of Ukraine really just wants an end to corruption and a better national identity, euro-integration was just the last straw, but not fundamental to this crisis (as much as we in the west would like to believe that).
- choonkeymoonkey 13y agoWait, aren't the people fighting in the streets?
- simonh 13y agoSome people are fighting in the streets. Some other people support them, some other people oppose them, some other people are the police officers breaking their heads. What percentage of the population of Ukraine are actually out fighting in the streets? I'm not many any point at all about who is or isn't in the right or wrong here, I'm not Ukrainian, don't know anyone Ukrainian and have minimal knowledge of the situation out there. But who you consider to be 'the people' is usually a matter of point of view. For example I have been to Egypt, do know Egyptians and have a fair basic understanding of the situation out there which is complex and tragic. I had hopes the brothers would form a competent administration, but they didn't and now they I think deservedly got booted out. But take a popular chant 'The people and the Army are one hand'. Which people? The Muslim Brotherhood somehow aren't people? The only way you can ever know what 'the people' really think is in a free and fair election, but the results can often be surprising to outsiders.
- dmytrish 13y agoYes, you're right that Ukrainian opposition is still a part of the corrupt system, but there's a hope that Klichko (who lived in Europe for a long time) is a fresh blood here. Also, current Yanukovych's and Party of Regions corruption is outrageous even for Ukraine. This is the true reason of the revolution. People fight with the state sincerely, I don't see much sane people who are sincerely supporting Yanukovych now.
- Aoyagi 13y agoNot another piece of news that makes the protesters seem like pure white knights that peacefully protest... Can we have some news about Ukraine that isn't totally biased, please?
- solyanyk 13y agoYou can find tons of alternative views, with little effort. But let me save you some time and present the brief summary here: the protesters are, in fact, not all white knights. Moreover, it is by now rather clear that they don't all smell like roses and talk like fairies. More than one breach of gentlemanly conduct have been reported by independent sources, and I think it is now safe to say that each and every of them has some kind of agenda and personal goals. Now what? Does it mean that they have no right to protest? Or that they should stop fighting and go home until they reach perfect enlightenment? What does being or not being white knights have to do with the matter?
- Aoyagi 13y agoHeh, thanks, but I already knew that. That's why I'm disappointed to see so biased 'article' at the top of HN today. As for the last line: It matters because most popular media I've seen portray them as peaceful activists that are beaten by vicious police commandos armed with assault rifles and grenades. And I'll resent violence no matter who it comes from, but I guess it's the easiest way to get attention, huh? Not paying taxes could take a while to get through. It's the bias what annoys me. What's happening there is another thing (though there is a nice video of it http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=959_1390672028 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=959_1390672028 ). If both sides weren't corrupt as hell, they'd make open transparent referendum for the whole thing and be done with it. Edit: The top comment right now (people being kidnapped) is a nice example. There is no proof of that as far as I know and people already talk about it as facts...
- solyanyk 13y agoWhen the government controls all the power, including judicial system, refuses to acknowledge peaceful demonstrations for months, and then swiftly passes the law which pretty much outlaws protest (including, by the way, over the internet), how exactly are you going to arrange that "open transparent referendum" you are talking about?
- sethbannon 13y agoPeople being kidnapped from hospital beds and tortured by their own government. It's hard to imagine a more depraved situation.
- D9u 13y agoHow about drone strikes which target and kill a US citizen and his teenage son?
- galenko 13y agoYou stood up for your country, then the government hurt you so bad, that you were taken to the hospital, the government then came to the hospital, took you from there, proceeded to undress and torture you. They then threw you out on a cold field to die (it's -14C there). That vs. Walking down the road, boom, a lot of me is missing, shock, I'm gonna die, ouch, ouch, dead. I know which way I'd prefer to go if it was down to these two choices.
- hobbes 13y agoThe choice you are making between different ways of dying has nothing do to with the point being made.
- gfodor 13y agoAnd the point being made has nothing to do with the protests in Ukraine.
- LekkoscPiwa 13y agoHowever, it is shocking that in America governed by a Nobel Peace Prize Winner we do things that put us on the level of Ukrainian Government, i.e. killing your own citizens without trial based on President's "gut feeling". Disgusting.
- rayiner 13y ago
- egao1980 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_National_Assembly_%E2%80%93_Ukrainian_National_Self_Defence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_National_Assembly_%E2... Nazis are all over the barricades. Ukrainian riot police is more than capable of doing European G8 style riot control but is ordered not to do so because of the huge pressure from EU and USA. Finally, imagine Ukrainian or Russian officials going into crowds of Occupy Wall Street or Paris protests urging to overthrow the government and giving their support to protests.
- choonkeymoonkey 13y agoCould you please explain, how you exactly base your argument on the link above? Please, show us your reasoning.
- egao1980 13y ago1) .. far-right party... 2) The party maintains a close relationship with the National Democratic Party of Germany which is considered to be a promoter of a neo-Nazi ideology by some. UNA-UNSO has been widely considered to have employed neo-Fascist and neo-Nazi methods and ideologies.[23][24][25] 3) And easy guess - concealed swastika as a logo
- xentronium 13y agoEveryone is over the barricades now, left, right, centrists, politically unaffiliated.
- darkbot 13y agoNot true. The barricades are guarded by the "Right Sector", who will only let their own ranks come near it to, quote, "[not] to prevent them from interfering with work."
- caiob 13y agoWhat do we have governments for again?
- arethuza 13y agoMostly to protect us from other governments.
- ommunist 13y agoOK, lets also discuss Iran, Syria, Israel vs Palestine and all other bloody conflicts here. Is this political forum or what? With regard to Ukraine, I have a message to "protesters". Lads, instead of getting 30EUR per day of "protest", do some real coding for the benefit of your society.
- zxcdw 13y agoI challenge everyone to read your past comments and reflect this one with the fact that you're Russian. Now it would be a good time to stop your nationalistic dishonesty, when politics and people as human beings are against your views.
- ommunist 13y agoDude, I am Soviet engineer. I remember times when we called each other brothers. Kiev is mother of Russian urban culture. Do not mix politics with code and you will be all right.
- shomyo 13y agoStop posting this stuff. This is not reddit.
- euphemize 13y agoI wish those underlined words were links to sources or any kind of data. I haven't been following very closely and although I'm not putting in doubt what's on the slides (people on here seem to be more or less corroborating the data), there are lots of claims I'd like to read up on. Maybe a slide at the end with more info?
- LaGrange 13y agoThis is your data. Yeah, the quality of this data is rather poor. This is not a time when you can count on balanced, slow research. That will be something historians will hopefully eventually do, but meanwhile people have act on what they have. Because there is no such thing as „inaction”.
- euphemize 13y agoI'm not talking about a peer-reviewed report here - I'd appreciate just a link to a shitty youtube video, an audio clip of an interview, raw chat log, etc. - anything else than the claim itself. This slideshow isn't data, it's a report of "what's really going on". As I said earlier I'm not really familiar with the events, those numbers could have a few more trailing zeroes and I wouldn't know the difference until I see something that gives me an order of magnitude.
- darkbot 13y agoWell, there are no links because a lot these claims can not be verified.
- versale 13y ago"Journalists are asked to watch closely the airports for possible Russian police coming to Ukraine and changing into Ukrainian police." Oh, c'mon... Why are these speculations on HN?
- lhgaghl 13y agoCan't watch any of the videos linked because youtube asks me to sign in to prove my age. And to sign up, it asks for cell phone number to send an SMS to verify. Perhaps because I use tor. Anyone have a usable source? If you have the viewtube greasemonkey plugin, you can download the video from youtube and upload it somewhere else (e.g mediafire, zippyshare). Would be good if someone does that.
- slig 13y agoReplace the "/watch?=$id" with "/v/$id" in the URL and it should work.
- lhgaghl 13y agoI tried and it just asks me to download a .SWF file: www.youtube.com/v/z0zD3pOG-Tk
- disposablename 13y ago/embed/$id will give you HTML5
- lhgaghl 13y agothat worked. thanks!
- aestra 13y agoIn the video link, where it says www.youtube.com/blahblahblha just replace the youtube.com part with pwnyoutube.com and leave the rest of the link the same. So this new link will be www.pwnyoutube.com/blahblahblha From there there's a few links to watch the video without logging in - clean viewer or loop or full page or to download the video.
- crypt1d 13y agoFrankly, this "presentation" feels like a 13-year old made it for his homework assignment. Poor language skills, not many details and unreliable evidence. I got to the 10th slide and gave up. This is definitely not something I would use to form an opinion on the current situation in Ukraine.
- curtis 13y ago> Poor language skills ... Poor English skills. However, there's a good chance that the writer is not a native English speaker.
- imdsm 13y ago> Poor language skills Or English is their second language? So Poor English language skills?
- crypt1d 13y agoYes, they are probably not native English speakers. But then again, this is a major topic so I would expect that anyone who presents it to a broad audience at least makes the effort to do it properly. The language used here is just one of many things that give the impression that the person who made it has no idea what he/she is talking about.
- pinaceae 13y agodid you check the declaration of independence for errors as well? jefferson spelt british with two TTs in there. the US constitution? "pensylvania". so complete bullshit then as well, right? your horse is so high you shit into space.
- egao1980 13y agoSimple question - if somebody is protesting for more than 2 month where does he/she get money from? Leaving us with 2 major groups - unemployed/homeless and students. Unemployed people are suffering in every country, but putting enthusiasm into looking for a job for 2.5 months would most likely solve their problem. Students are stupid, and gullible, I know, I've been one :)
- GhotiFish 13y ago? This is the first time I've heard jobs mentioned about the protest.
- ben0x539 13y agoAre you saying unemployed, homeless and students are better equipped to do without an income for two months of protesting than well-off people with savings? I can see prolonged protesting making people unemployed or homeless, though probably not into students...
- darkbot 13y agoWow, some this is some epic propaganda. Closer to truth is that this is more a coup-d'etat by the Ukrainian fascist paramilitary. The liberal Ukrainian opposition has been chased out of greater parts of the Maidan square and is now in control of "Right Sector", a loosely based umbrella coalition between various fascist and nazi organisations and parties. These extremist wants to ignite a civil war to "cleanse Ukraine from all Russian elements". Pretty scary shit, regarding that a lot of people in Ukraine has Russian as their main language. The media has mainly filtered this out so far, because they favor anything that destabilize Ukraina in fear of Russia. I wish that western media would stop feed a biased and false view of what's really happening in Ukraine. Right now their a fueling a fire that could get out of hand with disastrous results. The current situation is in dire need of de-escalation. Here are few rare articles that's shedding some light in to the situation: Ukraine: far-right extremists at core of 'democracy' protest http://www.channel4.com/news/kiev-svoboda-far-right-protests-right-sector-riot-police http://www.channel4.com/news/kiev-svoboda-far-right-protests... Ukrainian far-right group claims to be co-ordinating violence in Kiev http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/23/ukrainian-far-right-groups-violence-kiev-pravy-sektor http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/23/ukrainian-far-r... Far-right extremists staged a paramilitary funeral for shot Ukrainian protester (and the media didn't notice) http://imgur.com/a/LSvOk http://imgur.com/a/LSvOk EDIT: There is a lot of unfounded rumors about the government cracking down on the protestors in Ukraine on Twitter. There's also a lot of old images, videos and news that are being recirculated that does not reflect the current situation. Please, double or triple check facts and sources before retweeting any (dis)info. EDIT2: No, I am not Ukranian, nor Russian. Also I don't support either side. I think either regime is equally corrupted.
- vdaniuk 13y agoAs a Russian speaking Ukrainian, participating in protests, living in Kiev that considers this quote by Albert Einstein to be very true "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind", you are so full of shit.
- shitgoose 13y agoWould you dare to go to Lvov these days and speak Russian there, your native language?
- desireco42 13y agoI see this attempts to drum up support for protesters in Ukraine, even here on HackerNews and this is not the place. Also I personally don't want to support civil way anywhere, which is what they are trying to create. One look at Syria should be enough for normal people to try to seek better solution. So called protestors are no angels.
- solyanyk 13y agoI'm sorry that there is not enough angelic protesters in Ukraine to conform to your high standards. Not only that, but apparently Ukrainians don't even qualify as "normal people", since no matter how many times we look at Syria it doesn't become obvious that the "better solution" is to yield to the government and abandon our constitutional rights.
- dfkf 13y agoFor God's sake, how is this piece of propaganda relevant to hacker news? This is not reddit.
- skryshtafovych 13y agoPLEASE DONATE..What you can to help the people of Ukraine fight against this Dictatorship Regime.Anything helps. Thank you 1GdXz5PD149fe3gQrK8RBJd6S422B7AxSm--bitcoin DKMUaPiYn1Ui4j4mpoDMpTTiGHjr2ocub4---doge
- skryshtafovych 13y agoPLEASE DONATE..What you can to help the people of Ukraine fight against this Dictatorship Regime.Anything helps. Thank you 1GdXz5PD149fe3gQrK8RBJd6S422B7AxSm--bitcoin DKMUaPiYn1Ui4j4mpoDMpTTiGHjr2ocub4---doge