We Just Lost Ukraine

Well, that famine was all about providing grain for Soviet exports--just trade.
Moldova is expected to initial an Association Agreement with the European Union at an Eastern
Partnership summit in Vilnius next week.
Yeah, be good subjects and just line up like you're told, eh?
We'll need more exercises in eastern NATO as the Baltic states and former Warsaw Pact countries of
eastern Europe become NATO's new front line.
. "Everything changed after the meeting."
Remember, Ukrainian authorities say this cancellation of the EU deal is just about trade. Russian
pressure and threats against Ukrainians led Ukrainians to rally around the flag, all right--right
around Russia's flag. Putin won't be twiddling his thumbs with the time he bought, as Syria shows.
Similar demonstrations were held in other cities around the country. It seems more brutal than
romantic. But the West was unable to pull Kiev west before the Russians revived to seek a new
empire.
As bad as the EU is, it was Ukraine's best hope to break free of Russia's pressure to be reabsorbed
into Russia.
Some 3,000 people turned out on the evening of Novermber 22 in Kyiv to express their
dissatisfaction with the government's decision the previous day to suspend talks with the European
Union on signing an Association Agreement.
Meanwhile, Moldova seems intent on getting away while they can:
UPDATE: A number of Ukrainians don't seem to be happy about renewing their membership on the
Soviet Union:
About 50,000 demonstrators rallied in the center of Kiev on Sunday to demand that the Ukrainian
government reverse course and sign a landmark agreement with the European Union in defiance of
Russia.
Ukraine's prime minister said the signing deal was merely put off 6 months. In the western city of
Lviv, several thousand people protested, chanting "Glory to Ukraine."
Kulaks are still unavailable for comment.
The protest was the biggest Ukraine has seen since the peaceful 2004 Orange Revolution, which
overturned a fraudulent presidential election result and brought a Western-leaning government to
power.
Thousands of Ukrainians marched Saturday through central Kiev to commemorate the 80th
anniversary of a devastating Soviet-era famine that killed millions amid public anger over the
government's decision to snub a potential landmark deal with the European Union and tilt toward
Moscow.
Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko was among the demonstrators in Kyiv and said the crowd wants
Ukraine's government to sign the agreement at an EU Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius next
week.
Ukraine just fell back into Russia's orbit for the rest of my lifetime, anyway.
The famine was engineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1932-33, in an attempt to force
peasants to join collective farms. Perhaps they really do just want to get through the winter without
a Russian energy blockade.
If Ukraine can't manage to move west now with the most powerful military alliance ever built-
-NATO--on its border, when will it be able to engineer the switch to the West?
http://thedignifiedrant.blogspot.com/2013/11/we-just-lost-ukraine.html
Ukraine's abrupt decision to return to Mother Russia's bear hug after a flirtation with western
Europe can be traced back to a secretive meeting of their two presidents two weeks ago. This isn't
exactly Sleepless in Kiev material, eh?
Is that history now repeating itself?
Some minor clashes with police were reported.
Yeah, lovely little province you got there. ...
UPDATE: Bigger demonstrations:
We'll see if it even matters to the government and their new friend Putin.
It's been nearly a century since Ukraine's last effort to decisively embed itself in the West ended up
instead with the country being subsumed by Moscow.
The empire is sneaking back, pulling Ukraine (how long before they have "The" back in front of their
name, as in Soviet times?) and Belarus back into Mother Russia.
Of course, you have to admit that the Ukrainians were pretty much asking for it.
But Russian government sources said President Viktor Yanukovich's decision had become all but
inevitable after a mysterious meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on
November 9 about which almost nothing has been reported.
Ukraine's kulaks were unavailable for comment.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, a veteran of east-west diplomacy on the continent, was blunter:
"Ukraine government suddenly bows deeply to the Kremlin," he tweeted. Ukraine's parliament has
labeled the famine, known here as Holodomor -- or death by hunger -- as genocide.
Yanukovich's prime minister issued the dramatic order to suspend the process in the interests of
"national security" and renew "active dialogue" with Moscow. ...
Stealing a bride is an interesting simile. This should also be a lesson that the Arab Spring needs our
support to continue the fight against both autocrats and Islamists. We really need to approach our
nuclear talks with Iran differently, don't we?
UPDATE: A walk down memory lane for Ukraine:
We'll see if the Ukrainians merely bought some time until 2015 elections to pass before risking
Russia's wrath as they hope, or whether the best chance Ukraine has had in a century to steer away
from Moscow was just lost.
"It turned out beautifully - like stealing the bride at the altar," an unnamed government official told
the Russian business daily Vedomosti. Back in the day, the Orange Revolution offered real hope to
Ukrainians to be free to choose their friends. "Politics of brutal pressure evidently works."
UPDATE: Say, let's remember the price of Soviet control, shall we?
Ukraine abruptly abandoned a historic new alliance with its western neighbors on Thursday, halting
plans for an imminent trade pact with the European Union and saying it would instead revive talks
with Russia.
UPDATE: That was a heck of a meeting lasting to 5:00 a.m.:
Voronin told the ITAR-TASS news agency that Moldova "should follow in Ukraine's footsteps" by
suspending preparations for the agreement.
We'll see if the spring brings a better climate for escaping Moscow's orbit.
EU officials, who had been preparing to sign the long-negotiated deal at the end of next week, said
President Viktor Yanukovich cited fears of losing massive trade with Russia when he told an EU
envoy this week that he could not agree terms.
Funny. It would be a shame if something was to happen to it.
Fear of Russia has won out in Kiev over hope for a better future in the West:
Ah well