BS: Long Night in Ukraine - Feb. 23, 2022

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine - Feb. 23, 2022
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 08:57 PM

It's been a long day, and I haven't changed my mind much since this morning, except that I think I've underestimated the sentiment of the brave Ukrainians to fight back, which I respect greatly. We've had the telly on all day today, following all this, and rolling news isn't always as informative as you'd like it to be. But the brave BBC Moscow correspondent (Steve Rosenberg) has spoken to a lot of ordinary Russians and has tried to get the feel of their sentiment, and has come to the view that the majority of Russians are bitterly opposed to what Putin is doing. Putin is not Russia, and Russia does not want to be hated by the world. You can't protest openly in Russia without the risk of police thuggery, arrest then God knows what, but I still think that, in the end, the ordinary Russian people will win this.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine - Feb. 23, 2022
From: Monique
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 06:04 PM

Піккардійська терція / Плине кача = Pikkardiyska Tertsiya /Plyve kacha

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine - Feb. 23, 2022
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 04:22 PM

Usually we delete posts with those question marks - good thing we know who you are! I think if you go into an html directory you could find the code so those would display.

I started a thread for Ukrainian music so please also post your links to songs up there.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine - Feb. 23, 2022
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 01:40 PM

Sorry, those question marks came through instead of the cyrillic fonts. The song was aired a lot during the Ukrainian 'revolt' at the Maidan circa 2013-2014.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine - Feb. 23, 2022
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 01:38 PM

"Plyve Kacha"

You can search for it under:

Pikkardiyska Tertsiya / ????????????? ?????? - Plyve kacha / ????? ????

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine - Feb. 23, 2022
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 01:23 PM

There is an organization around Russian and Ukrainian music that is primarily east coast. The BDAA (Balalaika and Domra Association of America). Over 20 years ago I joined them for a dance class in Philadelphia. It was a wonderful and exhausting experience. Many Ukrainian Canadians showed up. It was a powerful example of people celebrating their related but distinctive cultures.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine - Feb. 23, 2022
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 01:09 PM

”I would recommend the book A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian for anyone who wants a view of the Ukraines relationship with the USSR. It's very funny and well written too.

Written by Marina Lewycka, who was a class-mate of mine through school. A very nice, well-spoken girl with a lovely Ukrainian accent! My dad worked with her dad for a short time - the stories he told about the Russians, and how he was treated by them during WW2, were toe-curling.

‘Tractors’ is an excellent read - thoroughly recommended!

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine - Feb. 23, 2022
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 01:07 PM

whitehouse.gov says Biden will address the nation 1:30 PM Eastern Time.

Great links being added to the thread!


Differences between Russian and Ukrainian languages


There is a haunting Ukrainian song that was being aired about eight years ago. It was a song from a dying soldier to his mother and her answer back but I haven't found it on the internet yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine - Feb. 23, 2022
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 12:45 PM

It's pretty clear from the justifications he offers and his rambling speeches that Putin caught whatever Trump has. Or vice-versa. It's personal, this assault on Ukraine.

And while I'm at posting articles, here's another one. Defend Chernobyl During an Invasion? Why Bother, Some Ukrainians Ask. Ukraine has initiated a defensive strategy for the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, one of the most radioactive places on Earth, which lies on the shortest path between Russia and Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine — Ukrainian soldiers, Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders, patrolled through a silent, snowy forest, passing homes so long abandoned that vines twirl through the broken windows.

The fields are fallow, the cities deserted and the entire Chernobyl zone in northern Ukraine is still so radioactive it would seem the last place on Earth anybody would want to conquer.

But while most of the attention around a potential invasion by Russia is focused on troop buildups and daily hostilities in the east, the shortest route from Russia to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, is from the north. And it passes through the isolated zone around the Chernobyl power plant, where the meltdown of a reactor in 1986 caused the worst nuclear disaster in history.

In one of the incongruities of war, that makes Chernobyl an area that Ukraine thinks it needs to defend, forcing its military to deploy security forces into the eerie and still radioactive forest, where they carry both weapons and equipment to detect radiation exposure. . . .Two months ago, the government deployed additional forces into the area, because of increased tensions with Russia and Belarus, a Kremlin ally whose border is five miles from the stricken reactor and where Russia has recently moved troops.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 12:43 PM

Fiona Hill was the State Department Russia expert who testified during the first Trump impeachment (and why the hell those didn't stick and solve some of this problem . . . )

Fiona Hill says that Trump emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine by treating the country like a 'playground'
Fiona Hill criticized Donald Trump's approach to foreign policy, especially regarding Russia.

In an interview with CNN, Hill, an expert on Russia who advised Trump, addressed the contrasts between Trump's approach to foreign policy and President Joe Biden's.

She said Trump's foreign policy had not been driven by concern about the US national interest, but by personal interests and impulses.

"There's no Team America for Trump," Hill said. "Not once did I see him do anything to put America first. Not once. Not for a single second."

Hill recalled Trump's praise for Russia's authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin, as well as his disdain for NATO. She also mentioned his campaign to pressure Ukraine for manufactured dirt about Biden in the run-up to the 2020 election. The Ukraine pressure campaign saw Trump threaten to withhold military aid from the nation, which led to his first impeachment.

"All this did was say to Russia that Ukraine was a playground," Hill said, drawing a direct line to events today, as Russia has amassed a huge military force around Ukraine, prompting fears in the US and European countries that a military strike is imminent.

Hill shot to prominence when she testified during Trump's 2019 impeachment hearings, rebutting conspiracy theories promoted by Trump allies that sought to excuse Russia of blame for interfering in the 2016 election, and explaining how Russia was seeking to sow domestic discord in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 12:20 PM

I would recommend the book A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian for anyone who wants a view of the Ukraines relationship with the USSR. It's very funny and well written too.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: meself
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 11:05 AM

I think it was a mistake for Biden to be so forthright about not sending American troops into Ukraine; he could have kept Putin - and his cronies - wondering.

Interesting that Putin made such a show of humiliating that govt minister in his televised cabinet meeting - he seemed to feel the need to make it clear that he's the boss. Almost as if not everybody's heart is really in this adventure ....

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 10:57 AM

I shared this in a new thread above. Suffering, a Ukrainian song performed by the late (and very great!) Ukrainian-American Peter Ostroushko in 2014 at The Concert for Ukraine.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 09:11 AM

From from British Pathe, The Atlantic Pact 1949. NATO.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 08:09 AM

Very worrying to hear Putin making thinly disguised threats of the use of nuclear weapons against any country who attempts ‘interference’ with his invasion of the Ukraine.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 07:40 AM

I might be crediting the allies a bit much, here, but I think the heavy use of media to throw light on Russia acting out "false flag" operations and keeping up the hue and cry is a tactic to avoid military confrontation. Sending Americans to the local NATO member states shows we're serious without the kind of bluster the Russians and FOX are employing.

I suspect that Putin is not as sane as he appears, although I think he is trying to capture a land bridge to Crimea, which might seem to be a practical goal in a context more suitable to Germany and the Sudetenland in 1938.

Our local NPR plays BBC World Service through the night. Right now "Hard Talk" is on with a Russian MP Vitaly Millonov spouting utter rubbish. I might have to turn this off for sleep and sanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 07:13 AM

I didn't say roll over. I said avoid bloodshed and hit Russia as hard as is humanly possible with sanctions.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 07:07 AM

Trump gave Putin ideas, I am sure. Since Trump didn't just hand over Ukraine by completely shutting down NATO (he did gut it), Putin's acting now before NATO gains its full strength. This isn't difficult to read.

Not fight? Just roll over? I think not.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 06:19 AM

Don't underestimate his ambition. When the Wall came down he was one of the most bitter men in Russia and his bitterness at the loss of the USSR has not diminished.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 06:00 AM

I don't think he wants to reinstate the USSR but rather the Russian Empire with him as Tzar. His biggest fear is that the Russian people will revolt again so, yes, they are definitely our best hope at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 05:25 AM

I suppose that the downside of what I've just said is that such an approach might embolden him. But the next step in his mission to reinstate the USSR (there's little doubt that that's what he's up to) would be to invade a NATO country, and that would mean a world war...

With the toughest sanctions in place, including lots of steps that would hurt us as well as him, and a massive commitment needed from him to ramping up his military, he will eventually impoverish his own country to the point of starvation. In the long run, the ordinary Russian people could be our best friends...

Something inside me tells me that the very last thing we want to see right now is bloodshed in every news bulletin for weeks or months...

Subject: RE: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 05:12 AM

I might find myself in a horrid, disparaged minority here, but my first reaction to this is to avoid a military fightback at all costs, both from Ukraine and most definitely from the west. I think that, for Ukraine, that would be a bloody and hopeless cause. Over the coming days and weeks we can talk about ramping up sanctions and sending Russia to Coventry. We are dealing with an unstable maniac with a nuclear trigger at his disposal, and nobody but nobody can ever tell him what he can and can't do. That should inform our response, which should be measured and without kneejerk.

Subject: BS: Long Night in Ukraine 2022
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Feb 22 - 02:58 AM

Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Putin, long serving president of Russia, does not want Ukraine to EVER be a member of NATO. This may be related to the fact that he seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 after Ukraine voted for their own president who favored a closer connection with western Europe.

Now, Ukrainians and Russians are two separate peoples with two separate languages and a host of religious distinctions. It is like but distinct from the relationship between Ireland and England. There is a lot of cultural crossover and cultural 'take'over along with a lot of love and hate, including a shared history with a lot of bitterness and yet a lot of intermarriage.

But the distinctions remain. In the 80s I was at an aircraft convention visited by one of the second-largest cargo planes in the world, the Antonov 124. I tried to speak to the crew in Russian only to be told with a smile but firmly "we are all Ukrainians!".
There are many places in the U.S. and Canada with large Slavic populations, and while they will organize that way the cultural distinctions are never forgot.

There has been a low level war being waged by Russian imported militiamen that have kept the Ukrainians on a slow bleed. It seems to me along the lines of a fat playground bully grabbing a small child and telling him to "stop hitting yourself!"

Ukraine has its own problems but has been struggling with some success on getting itself out of the morass of political corruption that has embedded its much larger neighbor. But its paying the price in blood and land.

So Ukraine is on my mind tonight.