19 ms·

About Ukraine

85 points by blearyeyed 13y ago

nmc 13y ago
Are Americans so ignorant to justify the publication of such an article? (OK, I must admit, I had never heard of Mykola Lysenko before.) * * * EDIT: it seems this post is getting misunderstood, because I tried (and apparently failed) to shorten the following interrogation. 1. The Washington Post is an American newspaper. 2. The article explains a situation by giving a basic history lesson, and does not contain any new or exclusive information. 3. The title of the article, and the four first questions, are clearly aimed at people who ignore most about Ukraine, including its very existence. So the target audience is: Americans who do not know anything about Ukraine. My initial assumption would be that this is a small group. However, the average weekday circulation of The Washington Post is above 400,000. Summing up, it looks like some editors at The Washington Post believe that a lot of Americans are ignorant of facts about Ukraine, possibly including the very existence of a country called Ukraine. In my opinion, such a belief is questionable, hence my original interrogation. * * * To go further, I believe that another article could have been written, with all the interesting information from this one, and without the obvious in-case-you-are-not-aware-of-Ukraine part. I also believe that an equivalent event would not be published in an equivalent newspaper in France, Spain, or The Netherlands. This is why I am wondering whether that kind of articles is specific to American newspapers. * * * This all started with me having a question. Despite all the downvotes, I am happy about all the answers that help me better understand American press.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- hedgie13 13y ago
  > Are Americans so ignorant to justify the publication of such an article? Yes. They will also uncritically read everything what is written there.
  - nmc 13y ago
    Hard to tell because of the written means, but I hope you are being ironic.
- acqq 13y ago
  I guess you refer to "1. What is Ukraine? Ukraine – not "the Ukraine." Whoever got stuck there will miss the rest of the article which is quite good. If you actually got stuck there, please avoid claiming what others are. Disclaimer: not an American.
  - nmc 13y ago
    Yes, I mostly refer to that first question. I did not get stuck there. I believe you misunderstood my post. I do not claim Americans are ignorant — I was asking a question anyway, so not claiming anything. I believe that, by publishing such a basic article, The Washington Post is claiming Americans are ignorant. I am trying to understand that particular phenomenon: why would a respectable newspaper, made for educated people, publish an article intended to the ignorant?
    - acqq 13y ago
      Like you admitted yourself, you also didn't know everything from the article. So your added claim: "2. The article explains a situation by giving a basic history lesson, and does not contain any new or exclusive information." Doesn't hold in my opinion. The article is more than "basic" for anybody not following Ukraine permanently. Still can I agree with you if you consider the article tone a bit insulting to the reader. I find it a strange etiquette, openly writing to the reader as he's "too simple." But I believe enough readers consider it a joke, exactly on the topic "most Americans don't know anything about the World."
      - nmc 13y ago
        To be fair, I wrote "new or exclusive", not "unknown to me". The "strange etiquette" you mention is exactly what I was referring to. Except that, to me, it did not feel like a joke, so I wanted to be sure — I am probably not enough used to some aspects of American culture.
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      It is one of the maxims of US media. "No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby." H. L. Mencken, "Notes on Journalism" Personally, I think that this rule being taken seriously has done more damage for US culture than just about anything else.
- Jtsummers 13y ago
  > So the target audience is: Americans who do not know anything about Ukraine. My initial assumption would be that this is a small group. However, the average weekday circulation of The Washington Post is above 400,000. Keep in mind, there are presently (per Wikipedia) some 206 sovereign states. Excluding the numerous other states that have come and gone throughout history. I would expect, for any given country, most Americans to be ignorant of its history outside of those we have closer historical or geographical ties to (I'd expect more Americans to know the history of England, for instance, than of Bolivia; or Canada versus Nigeria).
- untog 13y ago
  So the target audience is: Americans who do not know anything about Ukraine. My initial assumption would be that this is a small group. Your initial assumption is incorrect. In any case, one of the great things about online news vs. newspapers is that an article like this doesn't steal page space from another. You can write this and a much deeper dive and release them both.
- kasey_junk 13y ago
  To clarify a few things: 1. This was not an article from the Washington Post newspaper. It was from their online blog group. In many news outfits this is a signal that the output can be in a less formal tone/pass a different set of editorial hurdles. 2. A maxim in the American newspaper business has historically been to write to an 8th grade (12 and 13 year old) audience. They have historically felt that the American newspaper buying audience is ignorant. 3. Ukrainian politics does not receive very much coverage from the mainstream news organizations in the United States. For instance, cnn.com only has 1 story on their front page about the Ukraine and it is well below the fold. Foxnews.com has 1 story but it is headlined with highly sensational text. So in short, yes I suspect a large part of the United States news paper reading public could use a refresher on the Ukraine protests. Curiously, in your country how much coverage do you receive of the politics of Texas? How much about the Philippines?
- dec0dedab0de 13y ago
  The only thing most Americans know about Ukraine is that it was former USSR. I actually tried talking about the protests to about 10 different people this past weekend, and none had even heard about them.
claudius 13y ago
Why is dividing the country peacefully apparently out of question? It seems to have worked somewhat decently for the Czech and Slovac republics.
- adwf 13y ago
  I think because the large majority of the wealth is in the south-eastern Russian-speaking section. From the article, it sounds like that is where all the coal and iron mines are. Not to mention the most productive farmland. The Russian-speaking section also encompasses the major ports of Odessa and Sevastopol. So a split down language lines would leave the Ukrainian segment landlocked and with a vastly weakened economy.
  - dmytrish 13y ago
    That was true about ten years ago and before. Now East has a very inefficient, power-hungry, noncompetitive economy that starts to eat more money for social subsidies than it produces (Yanukovych himself decided recently to make the "pride" of Donetsk regions, state-owned coal mines private because of their unprofitableness). Crimea has been always unprofitable even with its lucrative tourism industry. East views its post-soviet industry as asset whereas West often sees its as liability and drag to the burning need of industry modernization.
    - kutakbash 13y ago
      >starts to eat more money for social subsidies than it produces >Crimea has been always unprofitable even with its lucrative tourism industry Not a marker of anything, there are only a few oblasts in Ukraine that are profitable (taxes - government spending), until very recently none of them were in the Western part of the country. This may be not the best way to judge contribution of different parts of the country into the economy. If you give a look at exports structure (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Ukraine_Export_Treemap.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Ukraine_E...), you can clearly see that it is dominated by products of exclusively Eastern industries.
- 13y ago
empthought 13y ago
One other interesting fact about Ukraine: their national hero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko) is a poet.
- dmytrish 13y ago
  It's a common trait of Europe in XIX century: Pushkin in Russia, Adam Mickiewicz in Poland, Byron in England, Schiller/Goethe in Germany - they're all poets-heroes of the Romanticism Age - they all virtually determined their national cultures for decades. But I agree that Shevchenko's influence was much more profound for Ukraine than Pushkin's for Russia - maybe because the culture and language of Ukraine were the only its remnants at that time whereas Russia always had its state and its history, its army, bureaucracy and its own religion.
cliveowen 13y ago
So even the Washington Post has decided to adopt Upworthy-like titles, I guess that's the sad future of online news.
- Zikes 13y ago
  Headlines starting with numbers have been around for ages. Often they're seen as lazy or clickbait, but from time to time they can be used appropriately.
aaron351 13y ago
>8. Why haven't the U.S. or Europe fixed this? Seriously?
- adaml_623 13y ago
  That's truly a staggering heading to see in an article isn't it. People write scornful things about news services like the Washington Post but to write that in black and white is a sign that it's readership occupy a totally foreign planet to most of the world.
- tobiasu 13y ago
  Yes seriously. The US and EU are the reason why Russia sees the need to defends its western borders. This conflict is as much about internal politics in Ukraine as it is about geopolitical failures. If the EU members would cling less to the US (instead of letting them build a rocket shield in Poland), Russia would possibly have fewer reasons to keep a pro-Russian buffer zone.
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  Obama's administration has been getting hammered for getting involved in these types of conflicts. Not sure he wants to stretch the US resources any further and is already hesitant to involve US military resources.See Egypt as exhibit A. Also, it's pretty frustrating when you see countries crying for help, then when we finally send in military and financial aid, they're called "occupiers" and told to leave the country and stay out of their affairs. I'm of the opinion these places need to figure it out themselves. The US shouldn't be in the position of being a global police force and jumping in every time something breaks out somewhere.
  - shitgoose 13y ago
    I agree with you, except "countries crying for help" part. Did Afghanistan cry for help? Or Iraq?
    - at-fates-hands 13y ago
      Sometimes I wonder when people say, "Why isn't the US helping out in (insert country here)?" Then turn around and say, "Well, we never should have been in Iraq." and forget about all the things Saddam Hussein did to his people: http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/02/iraq99.htm#repression http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/02/iraq99.htm#repression Iraq has refused to allow the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights to return to Iraq since his first visit in 1992. The government of Iraq has refused to allow the stationing of human rights monitors as required by the resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the UN Commission on Human Rights. The regime expelled UN personnel and NGOs who, until 1992, ensured the delivery of humanitarian relief services throughout the country. Iraqi authorities routinely practice extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions throughout those parts of the country still under regime control. The total number of prisoners believed to have been executed since autumn 1997 exceeds 2,500. This includes hundreds of arbitrary executions in the last months of 1998 at Abu Ghraib and Radwaniyah prisons near Baghdad. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Iraqi regime destroyed over 3,000 Kurdish villages. The destruction of Kurdish and Turkomen homes is still going on in Iraqi-controlled areas of northern Iraq, as evidenced the destruction by Iraqi forces of civilian homes in the citadel of Kirkuk Iraq's 1988-89 Anfal campaign subjected the Kurdish people in northern Iraq to the most widespread attack of chemical weapons ever used against a civilian population. The Iraqi military attacked a number of towns and villages in northern Iraq with chemical weapons. In the town of Halabja alone, an estimated 5,000 civilians were killed and more than 10,000 were injured. Or maybe we should review life under the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to the invasion? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Human_rights_abuses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Human_rights_abuses According to a 55-page report by the United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic massacres against civilians UN officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001.[28][29] They also said, that "[t]hese have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the [Taliban] Ministry of Defense or to Mullah Omar himself."[28][29] "These are the same type of war crimes as were committed in Bosnia and should be prosecuted in international courts", one UN official was quoted as saying.[ n 1998, the United Nations accused the Taliban of denying emergency food by the UN's World Food Programme to 160,000 hungry and starving people "for political and military reasons".[152] The UN said the Taliban were starving people for their military agenda and using humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war. On August 8, 1998 the Taliban launched an attack on Mazar-i Sharif. Of 1500 defenders only 100 survived the engagement. Once in control the Taliban began to kill people indiscriminately. At first shooting people in the street, they soon began to target Hazaras. Women were raped, and thousands of people were locked in containers and left to suffocate. This ethnic cleansing left an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 dead. Maybe you're right, it would've been better to just stay out of both places. . .
cLeEOGPw 13y ago
One thing that wasn't mentioned in the article was about the reasoning behind Putin's customs union. Putin is very pro-Soviet Union. He wants to make customs union to make it resemble Soviet Union with Russia as the leader country and others (such as Belarus), former Soviet Union members as satellite countries. He also sees it, as mentioned in the article, as a counterweight to EU, which he views as a threat. So his personal interest in Ukraine goes beyond "care for Russians living in Ukraine". He basically wants to rebuild Soviet Union, and Ukraine is a key component.
- shitgoose 13y ago
  Putin's longing for USSR is overrated. I don't believe he gives a rat's ass about USSR. Customs Union is a block on countries that have deeply integrated economies, common language (unofficially it is Russian) and common background. CU is just as natural and logical as, for example, European Coal and Steel Community formed after 2nd World War. Whether CU will evolve into political union, like EU is trying to do, is unknown. Probably not. So there is no reason to freak out and fantasize about menace of USSR2.
  - cLeEOGPw 13y ago
    > Putin's longing for USSR is overrated. I don't believe he gives a rat's ass about USSR. I believe he gives quite a rat's ass about USSR. Remember that Putin saw USSR fall under his own eyes. He not only blames Gorbachev for the destruction for USSR, but basically considers him a traitor for things like not approving violence against occupied states during independence uprisings. Besides the sentiments for USSR, he also is aware that his political power is going to end in some, time, so he wants to be remembered for something big. And he believes that creating something that resembles USSR is that thing. That's why he cares so much about customs union and is willing to basically bribe other countries to join it despite lacking money for Russia itself. That's what happened with Armenia - he "bribed" the country by offering big loan and lower gas prices before it joined EU economic treaty, like Georgia, Moldova did. That's why he offered money for Ukraine in exchange not even for customs union, but just not signing EU economic treaty, which was already prepared and ratified by president of Ukraine.
chiph 13y ago
Besides the language issue and the politics, I suspect there's also an age issue. From talking to friends there, the younger people want to gravitate towards Europe, as Europe is seen as more progressive and open. While the older people prefer the stability of going with Russia.
anonemouscoward 13y ago
CIA shills shilling for civil war in Ukraine, just like they did for Syria (but let's forget that, shall we, since we know that Internet users have only a six-month-long memory), on my technology discussion board?? Thank you Sir, may I have another!
11001 13y ago
Here is an ELI5 version of what's going on in Ukraine: Ukraine doesn't have any money, it needs to borrow it. It can ask the west, but the west gives back a list of conditions to be satisfied (human rights, economical, etc) that are incredibly hard for the governmnet to achieve given deeply rooted corruption on all levels. There is another source for the money: Russia (which, despite some westerners' beliefs, is a very rich country). In return Russia's demands are to make sure that the deeply rooted corruption on all levels works in Russia's favour. That is much easier to achieve. Hence the recent $15 billion loan from Putin, that officially appears to be unconditional. Another point I'd like to make is that many people in the east (I come from one of the big industrial cities in the south-east), don't just dislike Europe and like Russia. It's that their jobs literally depend on Russia, most of the industrial exports go straight to Russia, that's why people there are terrified of any sanctions.
- withouted 13y ago
  sorry, what about policy brutality? kidnappings? tortures? murders? corruption? hiring of thugs? beating of journalists? Dmytro Bulatov was found with a part of his year cut off, cheek slashed and crucified by ukrainian police. The Cossak that was undressed? This isnt just an economic protest, dont reduce to such. Those tendencies finished a long time ago, it has now turned into something completely different.
  - 11001 13y ago
    Of course not. In fact the police brutality towards a few peaceful student protesters was what triggered the mass protests in Kiev and all over Ukraine, it wasn't about any particular agreement as many people wrongly believe. I'm just talking about the Russia vs the West politics in Ukraine.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  > Ukraine doesn't have any money, it needs to borrow it. Most of the places where something like that's said, it's disingenious. Are people there starving? (From the news, it does not look like so.) If they are not, they have no such need to borrow. Of course, even if they don't need it, it might actualy be a godd idea to borrow some money. But looks like the people don't think it is.
kushti 13y ago
Why so much Ukraine on HN? Protests are happening almost everyday in some european country. No Thailand protests covered here. Why the hysteria about Ukraine here?
- 001sky 13y ago
  Ukraine is geo-politically an important region, and has long history of being a part of the chess-board of empire building in Europe. It's not a value judgemnet, it's just more things are in play and the outcomes are more consequential. Thailand is a unique place, and is historically more self-contained, so the politics of Thailand don't have the ripple-effects, in terms of security implications for the region. Thailand, for example, was never conquered by a European power. So it lacks the baggage of post-colonialism, and whilst has its own intriques, they are more unique to the country iMHO. (You were probably asking a rhetorical question, but these are worth considering for those who are not aware of them.)
- vonmoltke 13y ago
  Thailand notwithstanding, are any of these other protests building improvised forts in the streets of a major city or taking over government buildings around the country? Edit: 001sky has the better, less flippant reason.
  - saganus 13y ago
    Well, it might not be the same, but in Mexico there are so called self-defense groups, that try to fight against organized crime. They are armed groups of civilians that took control of entire towns and their surrounding areas, to stop the cartels from doing as they please. They have gunfights with cartels and when they successfully drive them away, they pickup armored vehicles, guns and money, and everything else the crime groups leave behind. The situation is so delicate that not even the army wants to try to fight these groups. They are negotiating and having meetings and all (I'm guessing the social cost of just obliterating these groups is too high; we are talking about 3 thousand armed people ready to get into action in 15 minutes, that's a lot of guns and civilians that you just can't bomb away with no repercusions. Not that the government can't, but it's too pollitically and socially costly), but the army nor the police or any other government authority have control of those areas. I believe that's a notch above improvised forts in the city's streets. So, my point is not to compare both conflicts as if one was "above" the other, both problems are nasty and very bad things that are happening right now, however like someone said in a similar story posted days ago, this is not a political forum to the extent where it has nothing to do with technology or hacking, in any sense of the word, unless you want to consider social protest as a form of "government hacking" or "societal hacking", but then not only one country's conflict should be posted, but conflicts from all over the world. I'm guessing part of this trend of having social and political issues popping up in technology news sites (HN, Slashdot, etc) is that, as would be expected, social unrest is highly tied to communication technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc, and that overlap is what brings social unrest news to the frontpages of techonology-related sites. The most obvious example I can think of is the conflicts in Egypt and how they came to be. But alas, I think my point still stands in that Ukraine's conflicts are in no way (that I can see) more related to techonology news, than say Mexico's conflicts, and those haven't been covered in HN, so I fail to see what is so special about Ukraine that gets to be posted several times in the past few days. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this? I don't intend to underestimate what's happening there or to dismiss the conflicts, but I, like someone else already said, don't come to HN for political news, unless they are somehow related to technology (NSA antics, Wikileaks, etc)
iopq 13y ago
'(Other scholars, though, believe it means "homeland.")' krai means "country", not homeland etymologically speaking, all of these words come from kroiti "to cut" - okraina is literally "the edge resulting from a cut, border" while kraina is literally "cut out piece, area, country"
robbiep 13y ago
The fact that his article has made it so high on HN is interesting to me 1) is it a sad reflection on society today, and an early sign of monetisation of the WP, that a 'distractify/mashable/tweetable' title makes it up the ranks 2) is it scary that a east-west divide story makes it higher than a 'Syria torn in half' story? 3) ... Why am I afraid that intellectually vacuous titles such as ELI5 actually get upvoted?
skylan_q 13y ago
Even if Putin can't bring Ukraine in, he'd like to keep it out of the European Union, which he sees as an extension of a century-old Western conspiracy against Russia. It's no secret that U.S. foreign policy is guided by The Grand Chessboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard U.S. control over Ukraine would be a checkmate in controlling Europe and the middle east. I hate to use the old adage, but this crisis presents a real opportunity. Russia and the EU could work together to sort this out instead of remaining divided. I don't see why the US has a say in the destiny of a country that's divided between Russia and the rest of Europe.
clockworkelf 13y ago
This is a 'color revolution' instigated by George Soros' Open Society Foundation and other Western-backed foundations, plain and simple. Soros has been quite open about his intentions to more or less flip this country.
trurl123 13y ago
Much of true and much of false. E.g. that Stalin is the cause of starvation. Note that starvation was at Europe and America too at that time.
vdm 13y ago
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/perspectives-ukrainian-protests http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/perspectives-ukrainian-protes...
sologoub 13y ago
Strangely, the article seems to omit this one detail that Kiev is the birth place of Rus (Русь) statehood. Russia, as ruled by the Rurik family begun there. Moscow only came to prominence because the Tatars/Mongols burned other great cities of the time. This makes assertions of Russian conquest a lot less black and white. Even the languages diverged relatively recently. When you look at spelling of Russian pre-Soviets, same mix of Cyrillic and Latin letters can be seen. This article presents the narrative from the Zapadentsi (Western Ukraine) view point, but does little to present the other side of the story. It is an incredibly difficult and complex matter, and the opportunistic politicians and outright crooks are taking advantage of the strife of the population.

85 points by blearyeyed 13y ago

nmc 13y ago

Are Americans so ignorant to justify the publication of such an article? (OK, I must admit, I had never heard of Mykola Lysenko before.) * * * EDIT: it seems this post is getting misunderstood, because I tried (and apparently failed) to shorten the following interrogation. 1. The Washington Post is an American newspaper. 2. The article explains a situation by giving a basic history lesson, and does not contain any new or exclusive information. 3. The title of the article, and the four first questions, are clearly aimed at people who ignore most about Ukraine, including its very existence. So the target audience is: Americans who do not know anything about Ukraine. My initial assumption would be that this is a small group. However, the average weekday circulation of The Washington Post is above 400,000. Summing up, it looks like some editors at The Washington Post believe that a lot of Americans are ignorant of facts about Ukraine, possibly including the very existence of a country called Ukraine. In my opinion, such a belief is questionable, hence my original interrogation. * * * To go further, I believe that another article could have been written, with all the interesting information from this one, and without the obvious in-case-you-are-not-aware-of-Ukraine part. I also believe that an equivalent event would not be published in an equivalent newspaper in France, Spain, or The Netherlands. This is why I am wondering whether that kind of articles is specific to American newspapers. * * * This all started with me having a question. Despite all the downvotes, I am happy about all the answers that help me better understand American press.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
hedgie13 13y ago
> Are Americans so ignorant to justify the publication of such an article? Yes. They will also uncritically read everything what is written there.
- nmc 13y ago
  Hard to tell because of the written means, but I hope you are being ironic.
acqq 13y ago
I guess you refer to "1. What is Ukraine? Ukraine – not "the Ukraine." Whoever got stuck there will miss the rest of the article which is quite good. If you actually got stuck there, please avoid claiming what others are. Disclaimer: not an American.
- nmc 13y ago
  Yes, I mostly refer to that first question. I did not get stuck there. I believe you misunderstood my post. I do not claim Americans are ignorant — I was asking a question anyway, so not claiming anything. I believe that, by publishing such a basic article, The Washington Post is claiming Americans are ignorant. I am trying to understand that particular phenomenon: why would a respectable newspaper, made for educated people, publish an article intended to the ignorant?
  - acqq 13y ago
    Like you admitted yourself, you also didn't know everything from the article. So your added claim: "2. The article explains a situation by giving a basic history lesson, and does not contain any new or exclusive information." Doesn't hold in my opinion. The article is more than "basic" for anybody not following Ukraine permanently. Still can I agree with you if you consider the article tone a bit insulting to the reader. I find it a strange etiquette, openly writing to the reader as he's "too simple." But I believe enough readers consider it a joke, exactly on the topic "most Americans don't know anything about the World."
    - nmc 13y ago
      To be fair, I wrote "new or exclusive", not "unknown to me". The "strange etiquette" you mention is exactly what I was referring to. Except that, to me, it did not feel like a joke, so I wanted to be sure — I am probably not enough used to some aspects of American culture.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    It is one of the maxims of US media. "No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby." H. L. Mencken, "Notes on Journalism" Personally, I think that this rule being taken seriously has done more damage for US culture than just about anything else.
Jtsummers 13y ago
> So the target audience is: Americans who do not know anything about Ukraine. My initial assumption would be that this is a small group. However, the average weekday circulation of The Washington Post is above 400,000. Keep in mind, there are presently (per Wikipedia) some 206 sovereign states. Excluding the numerous other states that have come and gone throughout history. I would expect, for any given country, most Americans to be ignorant of its history outside of those we have closer historical or geographical ties to (I'd expect more Americans to know the history of England, for instance, than of Bolivia; or Canada versus Nigeria).
untog 13y ago
So the target audience is: Americans who do not know anything about Ukraine. My initial assumption would be that this is a small group. Your initial assumption is incorrect. In any case, one of the great things about online news vs. newspapers is that an article like this doesn't steal page space from another. You can write this and a much deeper dive and release them both.
kasey_junk 13y ago
To clarify a few things: 1. This was not an article from the Washington Post newspaper. It was from their online blog group. In many news outfits this is a signal that the output can be in a less formal tone/pass a different set of editorial hurdles. 2. A maxim in the American newspaper business has historically been to write to an 8th grade (12 and 13 year old) audience. They have historically felt that the American newspaper buying audience is ignorant. 3. Ukrainian politics does not receive very much coverage from the mainstream news organizations in the United States. For instance, cnn.com only has 1 story on their front page about the Ukraine and it is well below the fold. Foxnews.com has 1 story but it is headlined with highly sensational text. So in short, yes I suspect a large part of the United States news paper reading public could use a refresher on the Ukraine protests. Curiously, in your country how much coverage do you receive of the politics of Texas? How much about the Philippines?
dec0dedab0de 13y ago
The only thing most Americans know about Ukraine is that it was former USSR. I actually tried talking about the protests to about 10 different people this past weekend, and none had even heard about them.

claudius 13y ago

Why is dividing the country peacefully apparently out of question? It seems to have worked somewhat decently for the Czech and Slovac republics.

adwf 13y ago
I think because the large majority of the wealth is in the south-eastern Russian-speaking section. From the article, it sounds like that is where all the coal and iron mines are. Not to mention the most productive farmland. The Russian-speaking section also encompasses the major ports of Odessa and Sevastopol. So a split down language lines would leave the Ukrainian segment landlocked and with a vastly weakened economy.
- dmytrish 13y ago
  That was true about ten years ago and before. Now East has a very inefficient, power-hungry, noncompetitive economy that starts to eat more money for social subsidies than it produces (Yanukovych himself decided recently to make the "pride" of Donetsk regions, state-owned coal mines private because of their unprofitableness). Crimea has been always unprofitable even with its lucrative tourism industry. East views its post-soviet industry as asset whereas West often sees its as liability and drag to the burning need of industry modernization.
  - kutakbash 13y ago
    >starts to eat more money for social subsidies than it produces >Crimea has been always unprofitable even with its lucrative tourism industry Not a marker of anything, there are only a few oblasts in Ukraine that are profitable (taxes - government spending), until very recently none of them were in the Western part of the country. This may be not the best way to judge contribution of different parts of the country into the economy. If you give a look at exports structure (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Ukraine_Export_Treemap.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Ukraine_E...), you can clearly see that it is dominated by products of exclusively Eastern industries.
13y ago

empthought 13y ago

One other interesting fact about Ukraine: their national hero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko) is a poet.

dmytrish 13y ago
It's a common trait of Europe in XIX century: Pushkin in Russia, Adam Mickiewicz in Poland, Byron in England, Schiller/Goethe in Germany - they're all poets-heroes of the Romanticism Age - they all virtually determined their national cultures for decades. But I agree that Shevchenko's influence was much more profound for Ukraine than Pushkin's for Russia - maybe because the culture and language of Ukraine were the only its remnants at that time whereas Russia always had its state and its history, its army, bureaucracy and its own religion.

cliveowen 13y ago

So even the Washington Post has decided to adopt Upworthy-like titles, I guess that's the sad future of online news.

Zikes 13y ago
Headlines starting with numbers have been around for ages. Often they're seen as lazy or clickbait, but from time to time they can be used appropriately.

aaron351 13y ago

>8. Why haven't the U.S. or Europe fixed this? Seriously?

adaml_623 13y ago
That's truly a staggering heading to see in an article isn't it. People write scornful things about news services like the Washington Post but to write that in black and white is a sign that it's readership occupy a totally foreign planet to most of the world.
tobiasu 13y ago
Yes seriously. The US and EU are the reason why Russia sees the need to defends its western borders. This conflict is as much about internal politics in Ukraine as it is about geopolitical failures. If the EU members would cling less to the US (instead of letting them build a rocket shield in Poland), Russia would possibly have fewer reasons to keep a pro-Russian buffer zone.
at-fates-hands 13y ago
Obama's administration has been getting hammered for getting involved in these types of conflicts. Not sure he wants to stretch the US resources any further and is already hesitant to involve US military resources.See Egypt as exhibit A. Also, it's pretty frustrating when you see countries crying for help, then when we finally send in military and financial aid, they're called "occupiers" and told to leave the country and stay out of their affairs. I'm of the opinion these places need to figure it out themselves. The US shouldn't be in the position of being a global police force and jumping in every time something breaks out somewhere.
- shitgoose 13y ago
  I agree with you, except "countries crying for help" part. Did Afghanistan cry for help? Or Iraq?
  - at-fates-hands 13y ago
    Sometimes I wonder when people say, "Why isn't the US helping out in (insert country here)?" Then turn around and say, "Well, we never should have been in Iraq." and forget about all the things Saddam Hussein did to his people: http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/02/iraq99.htm#repression http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/02/iraq99.htm#repression Iraq has refused to allow the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights to return to Iraq since his first visit in 1992. The government of Iraq has refused to allow the stationing of human rights monitors as required by the resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the UN Commission on Human Rights. The regime expelled UN personnel and NGOs who, until 1992, ensured the delivery of humanitarian relief services throughout the country. Iraqi authorities routinely practice extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions throughout those parts of the country still under regime control. The total number of prisoners believed to have been executed since autumn 1997 exceeds 2,500. This includes hundreds of arbitrary executions in the last months of 1998 at Abu Ghraib and Radwaniyah prisons near Baghdad. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Iraqi regime destroyed over 3,000 Kurdish villages. The destruction of Kurdish and Turkomen homes is still going on in Iraqi-controlled areas of northern Iraq, as evidenced the destruction by Iraqi forces of civilian homes in the citadel of Kirkuk Iraq's 1988-89 Anfal campaign subjected the Kurdish people in northern Iraq to the most widespread attack of chemical weapons ever used against a civilian population. The Iraqi military attacked a number of towns and villages in northern Iraq with chemical weapons. In the town of Halabja alone, an estimated 5,000 civilians were killed and more than 10,000 were injured. Or maybe we should review life under the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to the invasion? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Human_rights_abuses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Human_rights_abuses According to a 55-page report by the United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic massacres against civilians UN officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001.[28][29] They also said, that "[t]hese have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the [Taliban] Ministry of Defense or to Mullah Omar himself."[28][29] "These are the same type of war crimes as were committed in Bosnia and should be prosecuted in international courts", one UN official was quoted as saying.[ n 1998, the United Nations accused the Taliban of denying emergency food by the UN's World Food Programme to 160,000 hungry and starving people "for political and military reasons".[152] The UN said the Taliban were starving people for their military agenda and using humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war. On August 8, 1998 the Taliban launched an attack on Mazar-i Sharif. Of 1500 defenders only 100 survived the engagement. Once in control the Taliban began to kill people indiscriminately. At first shooting people in the street, they soon began to target Hazaras. Women were raped, and thousands of people were locked in containers and left to suffocate. This ethnic cleansing left an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 dead. Maybe you're right, it would've been better to just stay out of both places. . .

cLeEOGPw 13y ago

One thing that wasn't mentioned in the article was about the reasoning behind Putin's customs union. Putin is very pro-Soviet Union. He wants to make customs union to make it resemble Soviet Union with Russia as the leader country and others (such as Belarus), former Soviet Union members as satellite countries. He also sees it, as mentioned in the article, as a counterweight to EU, which he views as a threat. So his personal interest in Ukraine goes beyond "care for Russians living in Ukraine". He basically wants to rebuild Soviet Union, and Ukraine is a key component.

shitgoose 13y ago
Putin's longing for USSR is overrated. I don't believe he gives a rat's ass about USSR. Customs Union is a block on countries that have deeply integrated economies, common language (unofficially it is Russian) and common background. CU is just as natural and logical as, for example, European Coal and Steel Community formed after 2nd World War. Whether CU will evolve into political union, like EU is trying to do, is unknown. Probably not. So there is no reason to freak out and fantasize about menace of USSR2.
- cLeEOGPw 13y ago
  > Putin's longing for USSR is overrated. I don't believe he gives a rat's ass about USSR. I believe he gives quite a rat's ass about USSR. Remember that Putin saw USSR fall under his own eyes. He not only blames Gorbachev for the destruction for USSR, but basically considers him a traitor for things like not approving violence against occupied states during independence uprisings. Besides the sentiments for USSR, he also is aware that his political power is going to end in some, time, so he wants to be remembered for something big. And he believes that creating something that resembles USSR is that thing. That's why he cares so much about customs union and is willing to basically bribe other countries to join it despite lacking money for Russia itself. That's what happened with Armenia - he "bribed" the country by offering big loan and lower gas prices before it joined EU economic treaty, like Georgia, Moldova did. That's why he offered money for Ukraine in exchange not even for customs union, but just not signing EU economic treaty, which was already prepared and ratified by president of Ukraine.

chiph 13y ago

Besides the language issue and the politics, I suspect there's also an age issue. From talking to friends there, the younger people want to gravitate towards Europe, as Europe is seen as more progressive and open. While the older people prefer the stability of going with Russia.

anonemouscoward 13y ago

CIA shills shilling for civil war in Ukraine, just like they did for Syria (but let's forget that, shall we, since we know that Internet users have only a six-month-long memory), on my technology discussion board?? Thank you Sir, may I have another!

11001 13y ago

Here is an ELI5 version of what's going on in Ukraine: Ukraine doesn't have any money, it needs to borrow it. It can ask the west, but the west gives back a list of conditions to be satisfied (human rights, economical, etc) that are incredibly hard for the governmnet to achieve given deeply rooted corruption on all levels. There is another source for the money: Russia (which, despite some westerners' beliefs, is a very rich country). In return Russia's demands are to make sure that the deeply rooted corruption on all levels works in Russia's favour. That is much easier to achieve. Hence the recent $15 billion loan from Putin, that officially appears to be unconditional. Another point I'd like to make is that many people in the east (I come from one of the big industrial cities in the south-east), don't just dislike Europe and like Russia. It's that their jobs literally depend on Russia, most of the industrial exports go straight to Russia, that's why people there are terrified of any sanctions.

withouted 13y ago
sorry, what about policy brutality? kidnappings? tortures? murders? corruption? hiring of thugs? beating of journalists? Dmytro Bulatov was found with a part of his year cut off, cheek slashed and crucified by ukrainian police. The Cossak that was undressed? This isnt just an economic protest, dont reduce to such. Those tendencies finished a long time ago, it has now turned into something completely different.
- 11001 13y ago
  Of course not. In fact the police brutality towards a few peaceful student protesters was what triggered the mass protests in Kiev and all over Ukraine, it wasn't about any particular agreement as many people wrongly believe. I'm just talking about the Russia vs the West politics in Ukraine.
marcosdumay 13y ago
> Ukraine doesn't have any money, it needs to borrow it. Most of the places where something like that's said, it's disingenious. Are people there starving? (From the news, it does not look like so.) If they are not, they have no such need to borrow. Of course, even if they don't need it, it might actualy be a godd idea to borrow some money. But looks like the people don't think it is.

kushti 13y ago

Why so much Ukraine on HN? Protests are happening almost everyday in some european country. No Thailand protests covered here. Why the hysteria about Ukraine here?

001sky 13y ago
Ukraine is geo-politically an important region, and has long history of being a part of the chess-board of empire building in Europe. It's not a value judgemnet, it's just more things are in play and the outcomes are more consequential. Thailand is a unique place, and is historically more self-contained, so the politics of Thailand don't have the ripple-effects, in terms of security implications for the region. Thailand, for example, was never conquered by a European power. So it lacks the baggage of post-colonialism, and whilst has its own intriques, they are more unique to the country iMHO. (You were probably asking a rhetorical question, but these are worth considering for those who are not aware of them.)
vonmoltke 13y ago
Thailand notwithstanding, are any of these other protests building improvised forts in the streets of a major city or taking over government buildings around the country? Edit: 001sky has the better, less flippant reason.
- saganus 13y ago
  Well, it might not be the same, but in Mexico there are so called self-defense groups, that try to fight against organized crime. They are armed groups of civilians that took control of entire towns and their surrounding areas, to stop the cartels from doing as they please. They have gunfights with cartels and when they successfully drive them away, they pickup armored vehicles, guns and money, and everything else the crime groups leave behind. The situation is so delicate that not even the army wants to try to fight these groups. They are negotiating and having meetings and all (I'm guessing the social cost of just obliterating these groups is too high; we are talking about 3 thousand armed people ready to get into action in 15 minutes, that's a lot of guns and civilians that you just can't bomb away with no repercusions. Not that the government can't, but it's too pollitically and socially costly), but the army nor the police or any other government authority have control of those areas. I believe that's a notch above improvised forts in the city's streets. So, my point is not to compare both conflicts as if one was "above" the other, both problems are nasty and very bad things that are happening right now, however like someone said in a similar story posted days ago, this is not a political forum to the extent where it has nothing to do with technology or hacking, in any sense of the word, unless you want to consider social protest as a form of "government hacking" or "societal hacking", but then not only one country's conflict should be posted, but conflicts from all over the world. I'm guessing part of this trend of having social and political issues popping up in technology news sites (HN, Slashdot, etc) is that, as would be expected, social unrest is highly tied to communication technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc, and that overlap is what brings social unrest news to the frontpages of techonology-related sites. The most obvious example I can think of is the conflicts in Egypt and how they came to be. But alas, I think my point still stands in that Ukraine's conflicts are in no way (that I can see) more related to techonology news, than say Mexico's conflicts, and those haven't been covered in HN, so I fail to see what is so special about Ukraine that gets to be posted several times in the past few days. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this? I don't intend to underestimate what's happening there or to dismiss the conflicts, but I, like someone else already said, don't come to HN for political news, unless they are somehow related to technology (NSA antics, Wikileaks, etc)

iopq 13y ago

'(Other scholars, though, believe it means "homeland.")' krai means "country", not homeland etymologically speaking, all of these words come from kroiti "to cut" - okraina is literally "the edge resulting from a cut, border" while kraina is literally "cut out piece, area, country"

robbiep 13y ago

The fact that his article has made it so high on HN is interesting to me 1) is it a sad reflection on society today, and an early sign of monetisation of the WP, that a 'distractify/mashable/tweetable' title makes it up the ranks 2) is it scary that a east-west divide story makes it higher than a 'Syria torn in half' story? 3) ... Why am I afraid that intellectually vacuous titles such as ELI5 actually get upvoted?

skylan_q 13y ago

Even if Putin can't bring Ukraine in, he'd like to keep it out of the European Union, which he sees as an extension of a century-old Western conspiracy against Russia. It's no secret that U.S. foreign policy is guided by The Grand Chessboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard U.S. control over Ukraine would be a checkmate in controlling Europe and the middle east. I hate to use the old adage, but this crisis presents a real opportunity. Russia and the EU could work together to sort this out instead of remaining divided. I don't see why the US has a say in the destiny of a country that's divided between Russia and the rest of Europe.

clockworkelf 13y ago

This is a 'color revolution' instigated by George Soros' Open Society Foundation and other Western-backed foundations, plain and simple. Soros has been quite open about his intentions to more or less flip this country.

trurl123 13y ago

Much of true and much of false. E.g. that Stalin is the cause of starvation. Note that starvation was at Europe and America too at that time.

vdm 13y ago

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/perspectives-ukrainian-protests http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/perspectives-ukrainian-protes...

sologoub 13y ago

Strangely, the article seems to omit this one detail that Kiev is the birth place of Rus (Русь) statehood. Russia, as ruled by the Rurik family begun there. Moscow only came to prominence because the Tatars/Mongols burned other great cities of the time. This makes assertions of Russian conquest a lot less black and white. Even the languages diverged relatively recently. When you look at spelling of Russian pre-Soviets, same mix of Cyrillic and Latin letters can be seen. This article presents the narrative from the Zapadentsi (Western Ukraine) view point, but does little to present the other side of the story. It is an incredibly difficult and complex matter, and the opportunistic politicians and outright crooks are taking advantage of the strife of the population.