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Statues and busts of Vladimir Lenin, once ubiquitous in Ukraine, have been torn down in every city across the country as part of a decommunisation drive.

Volodymyr Vyatrovych, head of Ukraine's institute of national memory, said in aninterviewwith local publication Liga.net that 2,389 monuments, including 1,320 monuments to Mr Lenin, have been razed across Ukraine.

Lenin is no more in cities in Ukrainian-controlled territory, Mr Vyatrovych said.

However, some Lenins likely remain in villages or on factory grounds and can be dismantled only when found, since such statues were never registered with the government, he said. The communist leader also lives on in the breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists prize the Soviet past and decry the pro-Western Kiev government as a fascist regime.

Most of the Lenin statues were gypsum figures with no historical value, Mr Vyatrovych claimed, and were simply destroyed. Those made of valuable metals were melted down, while a few dozen large monuments were saved for a museum of Soviet propaganda to be established in Kiev.

The latest toppling of Lenin statues, known colloquially as the Leninfall,began when protestors pulled down a Lenin in Kiev during the Euromaidan demonstrations that eventually toppled president Viktor Yanukovych.

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Lenin becomes Lennon: As US struggles with Confederate legacy Ukraine announces end to communist monuments - Telegraph.co.uk

The decision whether or not to provide Ukraine with weapons has now reached the White House. Both the State Department and Pentagon approved this policy and Kurt Volker, President Trumps special envoy for Ukraine, has also done so.

Nevertheless, opponents of this policy have again flooded the media arguing against giving Ukraine these weapons. Their arguments boil down into three categories: Russia allegedly retains escalation dominance and will be provoked if we do so, our allies oppose this move and in any event Ukraine does not merit these weapons due to its democratic or other capability deficits. Unfortunately, all three arguments are unfounded.

Russia commits daily major violations of the Minsk accords x and its forces have killed about 10,000 Ukrainians, devastated eastern and southern Ukraine, imposed ethnic purges if not ethnic cleansing on Crimea and shot down unarmed civilian airliners. Beyond this it has sponsored terrorism in Ukraine and wages an unrelenting information and economic warfare against Ukraine. Finally, it has launched information warfare and constant threats against all of Europe and the U.S.

Yet Russia cannot and dare not launch an all out war against Ukraine because of the limits to its own military capability which amounts to about 100,000 men capable of being operationally deployed against a resolute and steadily improving Ukrainian army. Indeed, these opponents of helping Ukraine refuse to acknowledge the progress made by this army or the resolute fighting spirit of the Ukrainian people lest that detract from their narrative of a Russia unlimited by its own economic weakness and military capabilities. Actually Putin himself had to announce defense cutbacks on August 14.

Russia cannot and dare not sustain a protracted war that would lead to many fatalities and is the inevitable cost of further escalation even though it can always make life miserable for Ukraine.

By giving Ukraine weapons we raise the cost to Russia when it can least afford it and adopt Moscows long-standing tactic by helping Ukraine fight and talk simultaneously. We thus replicate the way we helped drive Soviet forces from Afghanistan and fully accords with our policy since 1947 of helping people who wish to be free defend themselves against naked aggression.

Second, although our allies have decided not to offer weapons, they have stated that they would accept it if we decided to do so. Clearly this is an amber flashing light, not a stop sign. Neither will they pressure Ukraine to accept the Minsk accords when Russia violated them before the ink was dry and still does so. Therefore alleged allied opposition is not only no argument, it is utterly unfounded.

If anything, helping Ukraine defend itself and fulfilling our own prior assurances of its sovereignty and integrity in the 1994 Budapest document would strengthen allied confidence unlike the craven past policy of abandoning our commitments once Russia invaded Ukraine.

Third, admittedly Ukraine suffers from many well known and extensively reported democratic and other defects so do w , as recent events clearly show. Thus Ukraine is hardly unique. And in any case the quality of its governance and democratic credentials is ultimately irrelevant to the issue of a country struggling to build democracy that must fight for its life, freedom, territorial integrity and sovereignty against naked aggression.

It is clearly in our interest as the guarantor of European and Ukrainian security as well as as the upholder of a liberal world order that aggression not be rewarded. Therefore failure to act not only rewards Russian aggression it actually increases the chances of U.S. troops fighting in Europe.

Ukraine may not be perfect. But it will defend its freedom and only wants us to give it the tools to finish the job as we assured Ukraine we would. Moreover, the longer this war drags on the less likely it is that Ukraine will become more democratic or that it will be able to reform its economy by itself. That would be impossible in wartime. Neither does giving Ukraine the means of self-defense prevent us and our allies from leaning on Kyiv to continue reforms. If anything, doing so gives us more leverage for Ukraine will not long heed people whom it feels abandoned it during its crisis. Thus the arguments for opposition lack a basis in reality and should be dismissed.

President Trump should authorize the provision of these weapons for Ukraine today, just like Polish members of Solidarity in the 1980s are not only fighting for their freedom, they are fighting for ours.

Stephen Blank is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. He is the author of numerous foreign policy-related articles, white papers and monographs, specifically focused on the geopolitics and geostrategy of the former Soviet Union, Russia and Eurasia. He is a former MacArthur Fellow at the U.S. Army War College.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

Read more from the original source:
Why we should help Ukraine defend itself - The Hill (blog)

Between 2014 and 2017, Ukraines leadership failed to transform the countrys old post-Soviet Russia oligarchic system into a European and Western-style democracy. The transformation isinefficient and slow, and this entails risk, writes Roman Rukomeda.

Roman Rukomeda is a political expert.

There is no doubt that Russia continues to influence Ukraine by all possible means available. Cyber warfare became the main direction of Russias undeclared war against Ukraine in the first half of 2017.

However, the Ukrainian authorities are alleged to be using the undeclared war with Russia as the main reason for the lack of reforms and transformations in the country.

One of the key risks in Ukraine is the perception of people of the absence of effective efforts to fight corruption on all levels. During the July EU-Ukraine summit in Kyiv, President of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker said Ukraine needs to speed up its fight against corruption.

Otherwise, there will be no serious progress in the dialogue with the EU regarding financial support (the next 600 million tranche from the EU to Ukraine is dependent on real results in the fight against corruption).

For that reason, the Ukrainian president will be keen to show some results in fighting corruption at the middle level. However, without any major agreements with internal players in Ukraine, it is rather unlikely that real measures to fight corruption on the top level will be carried out.

Another important risk for Ukraine is retaining an oligarchic model of power that does not promote the development of strong and transparent democratic institutions, an advanced level of political institutional culture, or build integrity and implement European values.

President Poroshenko is criticised for playing the role of the chief oligarch in Ukraine, using his political position to secure strong influence over the media, various industries, the financial sector, security, law enforcement and the courts.

At the same time, as President, he exercises informal control over the somewhat unstable coalition in Parliament and over the cabinet of ministers. Consequently, all the other main oligarchs in Ukraine now either support the president or oppose him, resulting in several challenges in sorting out the national economy properly.

The third most important risk is the open threat from Russia. It is present not only in the form of military operations in Donbas but also potentially in the spheres of economy, media, information technology and energy, to mention but a few.

It is very clear that Russia is currently by no means ready to recognise the independence of the Ukraine state and its right to decide on what level of relationship it would have and what position it would take on the issue of integration with the EU and the Euro-Atlantic community. Consequently, this complicated situation will continue for quite some time.

I see three scenarios. Lets start withthe optimistic one. Following his declarations, Ukraine will intensify its internal reforms and transformations. Besides the implementation of NATO approaches and standards in the defence and security sector, the Ukrainian authorities will initiate a real and massive fight against corruption.

For that purpose, the judicial reform will be urgently conducted and the first wave of high-level corrupt officials (MPs, ministers and deputy ministers, prosecutors, judges etc.) will go to jail after open court trials, with transparency for public decisions. The rule of law will be strengthened, and the oligarchic model will start to shift towards a democratic model.

This will ruin the existing monopolistic schemes in the national economy and open up markets, making Ukraine attractive for foreign investors. NATO will continue to support Ukraineand will start discussing the possibility of a Membership Action Plan for Kyiv after 2020.

The EU will confirm that Ukraines reforms are satisfactory and launch the new plan of economic support for Ukraine in autumn of 2017. Russia will slowly prepare the withdrawal of its troops from Donbas under pressure from Western sanctions and growing internal problems.

The pessimistic scenario.

Ukraine will sink into deep internal controversy. The fight for the decreasing amount of state resources between the oligarchic groups will escalate, resulting in political instability (early parliamentarian or even presidential elections).

Massive internal protests (partly inspired by different oligarchic groups) could lead to serious unrest, conflicts with the police or National Guard and civilian casualties. Ukraine could once again move towards a new internal revolution on the basis of total war between different oligarchic groups that will try to seek support from outside players (EU, USA and Russia).

Consequently, the state system will become less effective and economic, social and technological development will fail, as will integration into the EU and NATO. Ukraine will effectively follow the pattern of third world countries, creating a large number of security risks in the region for all of its neighbours.

Russia will exploit this situation and try to launch a new military offensive in Donbas or establish control over the Ukrainian authorities through political, economic, media and other ways of manipulation. The state will be seized from the Ukrainian people by oligarchs.

The realistic scenario.

This scenario is the most probable and will combine elements of the two scenarios mentioned above. It is more likely that the current Ukrainian government will continue to reform the country, but at a slow pace, preparing the grounds for controlling key media actors as well as continuing to exercise control over major economic and financial resources in the country.

The main political partner will continue to be the National Front party. Oligarchs will redirect business to the west. The Government will try to fight corruption at a low and medium level, but impunity for corruption will continue at a high level.

The EU and NATO will nevertheless continue to support Ukraine but without deep integration in the absence of structural internal changes. Ukraine will slowly move along the path of a developing democracy, but the road will be long and painful. A joint solution on Donbas may eventually be reached in the conflict with Russia, while the issue of Crimea will be put on hold indefinitely.

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Three risks and three scenarios for Ukraine - EURACTIV

Yesterday I went into detail about the founding father of modern Ukraine, Stepan Bandera, who is seen as a hero in western Ukraine but deemed a Nazi collaborator in the eastern part of the country.

For decades, Ukraine has been deeply divided both historically and culturally between its east and west. That deep division actually dates back long before both Bandera and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

Today western Ukraine generally refers to the area that was formerly known as Galicia in history textbooks. Inhabited predominantly by ethnic Ukrainians, Galicia, along with the nearby Lodomeria, formed an autonomous kingdom under the Austro-Hungarian Empire through the 19th century right until the end of the First World War.

The kingdom adopted Ukrainian, Polish and German as its official languages simultaneously, and was among the most populous and prosperous areas within the Habsburg empire in those days.

However, the end of the First World War and the subsequent disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire spelt a sudden end to the golden era of Galicia.

Under the Treaty of Riga concluded in 1921 among the European powers, Galicia was officially incorporated into the newly independent Poland, despite the fact that the majority of Galicians at that time actually preferred to build an independent state of their own.

During the inter-war years, a series of military clashes broke out between Poland and the independent Ukraine over the sovereignty of Galicia, with the latter seeking to build a greater Ukraine and unify with the former autonomous kingdom.

However, in face of growing Soviet aggression in the east, both Kiev and Warsaw quickly set aside their differences and formed an alliance against Moscow. And under their bilateral deal, Warsaw agreed to grant Galicia a high degree of autonomy as long as it remained in Poland.

Unfortunately, Galicias fate once again took a nasty twist in August 1939 when the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact.

Under the secret pact, Berlin and Moscow agreed that they would divide up Poland, after which Galicia would become part of Ukraine, which itself had already become a member republic of the Soviet Union by the time the treaty was signed.

During the Second World War, Galicia, which had then already become the western part of Ukraine, was subject to totalitarian and brutal rule by Moscow, during which an estimated 200,000 ethnic Ukrainians were forced into exile in Siberia, and the vast majority of them were eventually massacred by the Soviet secret police.

At the Yalta Conference held in February 1945, the sovereignty of Galicia became a major sticking point among Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. However, eventually both the US and Britain decided that it would be in their best interests to acknowledge Moscows sovereignty over Galicia because they still very much needed the partnership of the Soviet Union to defeat both Germany and Japan.

As we can see, Galicia, or the modern western Ukraine, used to be an independent political entity in its own right and had a unique sense of national identity of its own. And that sense of national identity has survived the entire Soviet era and remains strong even to this day.

Given their unique historical background, western Ukrainians today still identify themselves strongly with western Europeans culturally and religiously, with the majority of them being Catholics. They strongly resist being assimilated into Russia like the eastern Ukrainians have been, and hence the current divisions and tensions between western and eastern Ukraine.

After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, there were calls among western Ukrainian nationalists for seceding from the rest of Ukraine and re-establishing an independent Galicia.

Galicia independence is not necessarily a wild dream. It is because as long as the western Ukrainians are able to gain the support of the European Union, they could press ahead with their independence plan like the people in Kosovo did back in 2008, although it would inevitably further undermine the political stability of Ukraine.

Ironically, however, unlike in the past, this time Moscow is likely to throw its weight behind the separatist movement in western Ukraine.

It is because a weakened, volatile and politically divided Ukraine is exactly what Russian President Vladimir Putin wants, so that it can continue to serve as a buffer state between Russia and NATO countries.

This article appeared in the Hong Kong Economic Journal on Aug 17

Translation by Alan Lee

[Chinese version ]

Contact us at [emailprotected]

RC

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Can western Ukraine re-establish an independent Galicia? - EJ Insight

By Michael Eric Dyson By Michael Eric Dyson August 18 at 7:00 AM

After eight years of Obama, America was not ready to declare a cease-fire in the perpetual war over race, Peter Baker writes in Obama: The Call of History, his compelling and concise survey of the first black presidents two terms in office. If anything, it seemed to be escalating again.

Journalism may be historys first draft, but Bakers words might qualify as prophecys first blush. To be sure, it wasnt hard to see that Barack Obamas successor, Donald Trump, would plumb the depths of racial animus to paint his twisted vision of America. Hed offered us a foreboding sketch of his insidious views when he hatefully scorned Obama, arguing that he wasnt a true American, saying, with no proof, that Obama was a Kenyan citizen, a Muslim interloper who was not to be trusted.

But little prepared us for the full bore of Trumps belligerent bigotry, the stunning scope of which swept into full view this past week when he drew false equivalence between white supremacists in Charlottesville and their vigilant protesters. Baker argues that Obamas scorn for Trump grew more visceral in the final days of the [2016] campaign and that it was hard [for Obama] to picture a President Trump.

Yet, Obamas initial reluctance to address race, the outlines of which Baker briefly traces, left an interpretive void that was grievously, and gleefully, filled by his successor, who is all too eager to ply his poisonous perspective. Baker argues that Obama picked up the pace of race talk in his second term, but it may have been far too little, far too late. When it came to race, Obama, as he did in his foreign policy, led from behind.

Baker, the chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, spends the bulk of his book writing about Obamas accomplishments getting the economy on good footing after the greatest financial collapse since the Depression, bailing out the automobile industry, passing a health-care overhaul, killing Osama bin Laden and his virtues, above all a self-discipline that, for all the controversies, allowed him to emerge from eight years in office without a hint of personal scandal. The book is both a compelling biography and a coffee-table, large-format work with beautiful photography commemorating the Obama years.

Baker also tackles the former presidents idiosyncrasies, including a much-discussed antipathy to politics, symbolized in an aloofness that spoiled his chances of backroom glad-handing and arm-twisting. And Baker touches on Obamas flaws, not least his inviolable and unwarranted belief that his oratory could inspire people from opposite ends of the political spectrum to forge bipartisan agreement. That idea quickly dissolved into rancorous resistance from Republicans during his tenure.

Baker tries to be fair about the matter: He measures the racial hostility Obama faced, while noting that presidents including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also had their share of hatemongers and conspiracy theorists.

But Obamas time in office evoked a unique hatred that undoubtedly rested in race, if not alone, then at least primarily. No amount of ideological dispute or partisan disagreement could account for the relentless assault on his being president and on his being as president there was an ontological raid on the idea that a body and brain like his should exist and have the nerve to darken the Oval Office. Obama tapped something deep and enduring in the American soul some positive valve of renewable hopefulness that was improbably pitched against the horizon of American cynicism. By the same token, he pushed racial levers and buttons that seemed to irrationally infuriate and unite masses of white folk in opposition to his cause. Despite the celebrated multiracial coalition he summoned, the bulk of white America never cast a vote for Obama.

As much as it acknowledged his genius, this nation also punished Obama for existing at all. It viciously took him to task for being cosmopolitan and having political couth. Sure, like most presidents, Obama may have been arrogant, as Baker notes, but it was, finally, in part at least, a redemptive self-confidence that hoisted a faltering nation atop his thin shoulders. Yet many white Americans resented him for saving them, resented him for holding our fragile union together until it was, alas, fractured into a million prejudiced pieces by an inept caricature of a leader who is allergic to gravitas.

No matter the warts and blemishes Baker explores Obamas continuation and expansion of Bushs use of drones and his massive deportation of immigrants suggest he didnt deserve a Nobel Peace Prize there is little denying that Obama remains a remarkable figure, a dignified embodiment of the decorum that ought to attend the presidency.

And yet, as much damage as Trump has wrought, as perilous and vexing as his bitterly ignorant views on race manage to be, Obama must be held to account for failing to sow as widely as he might have the seeds of racial justice. Thats in part because he truly believed he was the smartest man in the room when it came to race he was high on race-neutral policies that he thought would tame a skeptical public and raise black boats as the nations tide of prosperity rose. He kept his own counsel and refused to listen to challenging black voices that may have sanctioned his willfully oblivious or naive views.

But there were more sinister undertones to Obamas rhetoric, more flaws in his outlook, than Baker acknowledges. Obama often enough lashed black folk in public belittling Morehouse College graduates in a commencement speech, blaming black people for using poverty as an excuse to commit crime in his address at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, needling black members of Congress with the condescending exhortation to stop complaining, take off their bedroom slippers and put on their marching boots. Obama could identify what he thought of as black pathology in remorselessly granular detail. Yet he could hardly utter a discouraging word to white America, wouldnt dare take the same liberties with them as he did with his own.

That seems to make sense you can say to your kinfolk what you cant say to company except it doesnt, because Obama went out of his way to proclaim himself not black Americas president but everybodys president: everybody, it seemed, except black folk. The paradox is that he was our benighted symbol of progress, yet his greatest swagger may have flashed as he reprimanded rather than represented us.

Trump is a churlish, indecent man. He is a pitiful president who amplifies racist ignobility and echoes the harangues of the brutish bigots who declare their hate as a tarnished badge of courage. As Bakers eloquent account of Obamas sometimes majestic, always complicated presidency makes plain, Obama is a brilliant, decent and sometimes noble man who graced his office with intelligence and humanity, qualities that fled the scene when he left the White House.

It is a shame that he failed to engage race with the sensitivity, balance, candor, intricacy, insight and enormous comprehension of which he was capable. There were dire consequences when a man of superior talent failed to talk about race though, it must be admitted, his supporters did him no favor by saying he was hemmed in and couldnt speak about such things because it would upset white folk. That ignores how Obamas very being, his very breath, his very body, upset white folk.

Obamas refusal to admit that and therefore, to offer our fatally fractured country the tough wisdom he might have given us had he surrendered the fantasy of massive white support is a national tragedy. More tragic still is that his unwillingness for much of his term in office to talk about race left a derisive vacuum for a village idiot to slip right in and willingly spew vile unlearnedness. Baker may be right that Obama detested Trump as the 2016 campaign wore on, but the first black president must reckon with the fact that he helped put the greatest threat to his legacy in office.

Obama

The Call of History

By Peter Baker

New York Times/Callaway. 319 pp. $50

Read more:
Is Obama to blame for Trump and the revival of white supremacist hate? - Washington Post