2. President Poroshenko has disclosed that 17 EU countries agreed to supply weapons to the Ukraine.
3. The US is delivering Humvees, drones and programs to pinpoint the position of enemy guns.
4. Russia warns US about supplying weapons to Ukraine.
5. President Poroshenko boasts of new lines of defense being built by Ukrainian troops.
6. Ruthenians ("Little Russians" of about 4 M) want autonomy as well. There are also 500,000 Hungarians on the Western edge of Ukraine.
Here is an interview by a transplanted Russian Noveliest.
"corruption, says Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov.
“Ukraine will never be the same state as before. But Russia will not change.”
Andrey Kurkov
Ukrainian novelist
Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov’s irony cuts as elegantly as a scalpel, and the blade is aimed at the corrupt, ignorant, money-grabbing, power-seeking and sometimes brutal authorities who have dominated the territory of the former Soviet Union.
Born in what was then Leningrad — his father was a Soviet test pilot — Kurkov came to Kyiv as a toddler, and he speaks both Russian and Ukrainian. That gave him an ideal vantage point on the year-old “Euromaidan” uprising, with its violent aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
While his earlier books — like Death and the Penguin — are works of dark, surreal satire recalling Russian writers Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Bulgakov, his most recent work is the non-fiction Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches From Kiev.
It records how growing unease with the leadership of Viktor Yanukovych slid into protests, violent clashes and national disaster, through the eyes of a wry observer who is also struggling to live a normal life. In Toronto last week for a speaking engagement at U of T, Kurkov said that in this disorienting landscape, life now trumps art.
“On Nov. 21, I stopped writing my novel. I’ve tried many times to continue but it doesn’t work. I cannot get detached from reality.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Ukraine’s “Euromaidan” revolt is described as the European Union vs. Russia: is that an oversimplification?
That’s a cliché many journalists use for a very complex situation. For Ukrainians, Europe doesn’t mean the EU, it means a country without corruption: with rule of law, civil society, civilized life with European standards. The Euromaidan wasn’t a unified movement, it was dozens of groups with different interests. Almost nobody writes that the famous (radical) “Right Sector” has an ideology that is anti-Russian, anti-European and anti-NATO.
What about the propaganda war — Russian-speakers vs. Ukrainian speakers, “fascists” vs. “terrorists?”
On language, one example explains everything. About seven to eight million Russian speakers live in Ukraine, and about 50 per cent of the population speaks Russian. About 80 per cent of people in Kyiv speak Russian, but you’ll not find any pro-Russian movements or Putinophiles there. Another complex issue.
As for the rhetoric, it has toned down in the past month or so. It’s now “separatists” and “pro-Ukrainians.” That doesn’t sound so abusive.
So what really divides Ukraine?
It’s a clash of two mentalities — the post-Soviet collective mentality, where people lack initiative and are taught to depend on the boss or factory owner for perks. And people who start businesses and take responsibility themselves.
In Donbass (in the east) you won’t find many small businesses. But if you check the register in Lvov, you’ll see tens of thousands.
Many outside Kyiv saw the Euromaidan as a far-right coup. How large a role did it play in ousting Yanukovych?
They played quite a large role. After the Orange Revolution (which began in 2004) young patriots said that it came to nothing because there was no physical struggle. Without removal of the corrupt officials and politicians there will be no change. Ten years later they united under the Right Sector (banner.)
The (Euromaidan) was associated with peaceful protest. But the radicals built their own barricades on Grushevsky Street leading to the cabinet and parliament. The first deaths occurred there. But even if there was no violence on the side of the Right Sector sooner or later there would have been violence from Yanukovych.
Did Russian President Vladimir Putin intervene because Yanukovych was his close ally?
We should remember that it was Yanukovych who suddenly decided to sign an agreement with Europe.
He was blackmailing Russia, trying to get a special deal on (natural) gas and other things. There was a conflict for three years between Putin and Yanukovych — Putin hates him.
The first thing Yanukovych did as president was sign a prolongation (of the lease for the Russian naval base in Crimea) for another 25 years in exchange for promised lower gas prices. Putin deceived him many times. Yanukovych said publicly, in front of his own party, that he was fed up with Putin. He said he was not in love with Europe, but felt betrayed by Putin.
How important was the annexation of Crimea for Ukraine? President Petro Poroshenko has said Ukraine would never give it up.
The Crimea (invasion) marked the beginning of the war. The lack of reaction from the West gave Putin the idea that he could expand his territory, plan the occupation of the southeast and the unification of Transnistria (a separatist region of Moldova). After the annexation of Crimea, Transnistria asked the Kremlin to accept it as part of the Russian Federation. So obviously there were plans to disintegrate Ukraine.
However, there was nothing much Ukrainian about Crimea. It had only one newspaper in Ukrainian with a circulation of about 2,000. There were three schools in Ukrainian for 2 million people. It was always deeply Soviet.
You point out that a root cause of the Euromaidan was corruption. New laws to target corruption have just been signed. But how hard will it be to bring in real reform?
There are two kinds of corruption in Ukraine: low level, like paying doctors who demand money for treatment or paying off local police. Then there are fixed schemes between business, ministries, customs etc. A lot of those big schemes are still running. That is the worst danger. The information is there and always available. But action is never taken.
If you don’t have official investigations and trials there will be no trust for Poroshenko or any reforms he tries to bring in.
So Ukrainians are faced with a devil’s choice — they don’t want to be part of Russia’s kleptocratic system, but they don’t trust their own country?
There are two enemies: inside and outside the country. Reforms face huge sabotage by civil servants who were there for 20 years running corruption schemes and are trying to stop the reforms brought in by top managers coming from abroad. And at the same time the economy is in difficulty.
If Russia’s forces — and Russian-backed forces — withdrew from Ukrainian territory, would Ukraine be the same country it was before the Euromaidan?
Ukraine will never be the same state as before. But Russia will not change. Even if Putin is removed there is no democratic force that would try to change Russian politics. However, the more Putin becomes the more chance there will be of a new (Nikita) Khrushchev — someone who wants to reconstruct relations with the West.
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