Local commie leader Aleksandrovskaya detained in #Kharkiv, known for '#Ukraine isn't a state' position. Pic @itsector pic.twitter.com/crfBwaxHM3
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) September 27, 2014
Gregory Feifer -- formerly of this parish -- has been writing for The Global Post on how the Ukraine crisis is helping to forge a new national identity in the country:
In cities such as Mariupol in the east and Odessa in the west, residents worry about Russian-backed attacks coming at any moment.
But such threats, many people here say, are helping Ukraine form its own identity for the first time since the end of communism. “If suffering and sacrifice forms a nation,” Kuzakova says, “it’s happening now.”
Although Russian is still spoken everywhere, more people insist on speaking Ukrainian, especially the young. Shirts decorated with traditional Ukrainian embroidery are selling out. Crews of men are painting roadside railings yellow and blue, the colors of the national flag.
Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko says the new identity is forming after two decades during which Ukrainians felt pulled between loyalties to their new post-communist country, Russia, the West and nostalgia for the Soviet past.
“The national hymn is no longer abstract, but a very real signifier of unity with one’s own people,” he says. “The same for the flag’s colors and other national symbols.”
That process is forcing choices on the many people here with deep ties to Russia, including relatives and friends living there.
Among them, Alexander Loginov, a third-generation ethnic Russian in Kyiv, says he’s not sure who’s to blame for the conflict. “I don’t know how it started,” he says, “but it makes you want to cry.”
Despite or perhaps because of the gritty nature of life in the typically bleak industrial regions of the east, many there tended to look down on western Ukrainians, often seen as unfairly benefitting from their hard work.
Appealing to them represents one of the government’s most delicate challenges. “They must feel Ukraine is their country, too, and that they have a future within it,” Fesenko says, adding that anti-corruption and modernization reform will be crucial for that.
Read the entire article here
Illegal Russian intervention in Ukraine;# President Poroshenko slams #Russian 'aid convoy' http://t.co/Ed3ZP6gkr7
— Kyiv Post (@KyivPost) September 27, 2014
20ppl detained at a communist party demo in #Kharkiv - Interior minister. Protest was banned by court. Pic @itsector pic.twitter.com/nR3ALaO09H
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) September 27, 2014
Ppl with communist party flags,separatist slogans protest in #Kharkiv.There's more police than protesters v @itsector pic.twitter.com/w1VzAPCh3K
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) September 27, 2014
Here is the latest map of the situation in eastern Ukraine, issued today by Kyiv's National Security and Defense Council:
Video appears to show Oplot-operated Grad rockets fired inside residential #Dokuchaievsk S of #Donetsk https://t.co/60mli8kMQn #ceasefire
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) September 27, 2014
Entrance bridge to my hometown TT @agap7180 Welcome to #Chernihiv pic.twitter.com/OAAEQw7Wqh
— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) September 27, 2014
@myroslavapetsa @agap7180 Whoa. That is intense.
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) September 27, 2014
[VIDEO] Rebels in eastern Ukraine keep border with Russia open http://t.co/d4wP3ZqcUX
— Paul Gypteau (@paulgypteau) September 27, 2014
Ukraine's Anti-terrorist Operation & Donetsk city hall both report shelling continues around Debaltseve, Donetsk and other sites. #ceasefire
— Gulliver Cragg (@gullivercragg) September 27, 2014
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with a hat tip to Bloomberg View, whose editors have been forthrightly arguing against Ukraine's joining NATO.
Of the many reasons it is a bad idea for Ukraine to attempt to join NATO, the most obvious is that NATO does not want it. This much was clear at the recent alliance summit in the U.K., where an uncomfortable Poroshenko had to bat away questions about potential membership. When Poroshenko then traveled to Washington to ask President Barack Obama for special status as a "major non-NATO ally," the answer was a blunt no.
To understand why the NATO members are so opposed, consider two very hypothetical scenarios: First, imagine for a moment that NATO, which is already struggling to convince its easternmost members that it would indeed fight for them if Russia should attack, were foolish enough to encourage Ukraine to join. Ukraine, a divided and almost bankrupt nation of 45 million, would first have to receive a Membership Action Plan and then meet its conditions -- a process that would take many years. (Albania, which joined NATO in 2009, got its MAP in 1999.) So starting the process would merely set the clock ticking for Russia to do whatever it takes to prevent its neighbor from joining -- from rekindling the war to eastern Ukraine to making a full-scale invasion.
Next, imagine that Ukraine were, miraculously, to succeed in joining NATO. It would only further destabilize the country. Even though Russia has lately done much to unite most Ukrainians against it, the east of the country still has strong cultural and historical ties to Russia. As long as the Kremlin sees and portrays NATO as a threat, a substantial share of Ukraine's population will want no part of it. Before the annexation of Crimea, in 2010, 51 percent of Ukrainians opposed joining NATO. (In the east, 72 percent did.) Even today, polls suggest that less than half of Ukrainians want to join the alliance.
Ukraine deserves U.S. and European support in its effort to ward off a predatory power next door and remain truly independent. It should have the right to develop ties and common standards with the European Union if it wants. Yet a country with Ukraine's history cannot suddenly join a military alliance that was formed to confront Russia, without asking for trouble.
Read the entire Bloomberg View editorial here