O/T:- Ukraine [Incorporating 'Congrats to Russia' thread]

[andy6025]

Ok well about Pilger, yes I am familiar with his work. I think it is interesting, but I think it's a stretch to say 'he writes the truth'.

IMO he falls into the category of people who think the West is bad, and all bad comes from the West. He was always going to be in favour of throwing Ukraine under the bus as it now favours ties with the West, while Russia is anti-West (therefore good).

I have seen the angle that 'Ukraine is corrupt so shouldn't be helped' quite a few times, particularly on social media. I really don't understand it.

Here's a list of the most corrupt countries in Europe. I'm sure there are other lists but I'm also sure they would be quite similar to this one.

1- Russia
2- Ukraine
3- Bosnia
4- Albania
5- Moldova
6- Turkey
7- Serbia
8- Macedonia
9- Kosovo
10- Belarus

Two things strike me. The first is very simply that the big daddy of corruption is Russia. When you look at its large military budget, then look at the living conditions and equipment of its new recruits, this makes sense.

The second is that nine of the ten most corrupt European countries are either:

Russia itself

Very close allies of Russia (Belarus)

Former Soviet republics with heavy Russian influence (aka currently partly occupied by Russia) (Ukraine, Moldova)

Former Warsaw Pact country (Albania)

Countries in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, which was aligned with Russia although more loosely than the Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact countries (Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo).

How anyone can look at that and not understand why most Ukranians want to leave the 'Russian World' and align with the West, is beyond me. Russian influence is a cancer that almost guarantees a high level of corruption.

I find this post to be disingenuous. It erroneously suggests that Ukrainians are a political (and ethnic) monolith that sought closer ties with Europe in order to distance themselves from the ever corrupt Russia.

Ukraine is politically, ethnically and linguistically diverse. Western Ukrainians, who are predominantly Polish and Ukrainian, typically look to seek closer ties to Europe. Eastern Ukrainians, who are predominantly Russian, tend to look to seek closer ties to Russia. Ukraine also has minority groups that consider themselves Hungarians, Romanians, Belarusians, and others.

In most Ukrainian national elections, the voting patterns typically follow these lines accordingly.

Zalensky, himself an ethnic Russian, came to power in 2019. By then the civil war had been raging for 5 years. By Feb of this year, it had claimed the lives of approximately 14,000 people, the majority of whom were ethnic Russians killed by Ukrainian government and ultranationalist forces.

Despite the patently false common western narrative, Russian president Vladimir Putin did not seek to pull the ethnic Russian regions away from Ukraine and absorb them into Russia - despite his own parliament wishing him to do so. As maddogslater’s article attests, Putin was long opposed the early independence referendums conducted in these regions. Instead, Putin sought an end to the civil war in the context of a peace accord (The Minsk II agreement) that would keep these regions *as part of Ukraine*. Recently, the Ukrainian president at the time, Petro Poreshenko, has admitted that Ukraine never intended to adhere to the very peace agreement that they signed, and which was brokered by France and Germany - but rather he saw it as a means to buy time to build the Ukrainian army and smash the ethnic Russians in the Donbas.

As mentioned, Zalensky came to power in 2019. He won over 70% of the popular vote in a landslide victory. This meant that he had a tremendous opportunity to put an end to the civil war and unify the country. What’s more, this is exactly what he campaigned on. His platform had two central themes: crack down on corruption, and end the civil war by means of direct negotiations with Russia. He had the popular mandate to do this.

When he got into power, he did neither of these. And his popularity rating quickly found itself in the toilet. What’s more is that in the two weeks prior to the Russian invasion, Ukrainian government shelling of their own people in the Donbas *increased* dramatically. It went from less than 50 shells being fired per day to over 1,400.

In March and April of this year, Russia and Ukraine engaged in direct peace negotiations, brokered by Turkey. As we know, they reached an agreement in spirit and we’re about to conclude when Boris Johnson suddenly made an appearance in Kiev and torpedoed any hopes. Some of the relevant details of that have agreement emerged, namely that Ukraine would remain militarily neutral (ie. they would not join NATO), but they could pursue membership in the European Union if they so desired.