UKR-TAZ

In “Putin, Crimea, and the Legitimacy Trap,” international affairs scholars J. Paul Goode and Marlene Laruelle outline some of the other contexts around Russia’s move into Crimea.

Read the article in Open Democracy.

In “Dangerous Liaisons: Ukraine and the Western Slavists,” Rossen Djagalov calls for “a certain minimum of political hygiene and scholarly honesty” among observers of the Ukraine crisis. The article provides an example of the kind of nuanced reflection that navigates the terrain between the perspectives of Snyder and McGovern (see previous post).

A few excerpts:

Read the rest of this entry »

People have sometimes been asking me, “So, what do you think about Ukraine?” as if I can summarize that in 30 seconds or less. Readers of this blog know that such a summary is impossible, and that any attempt will be laughably partial, biased, and rapidly outdated by developing events.

But, for what it’s worth, here is the 2-minute version of my current response:

The Maidan was a popular revolt that turned into a revolution. It successfully overthrew an unpopular, elected but increasingly authoritarian president, who fled the capital when he saw the opposition was too strong and his supporters were abandoning him.

The core of Maidan aims for a democratic transformation of a politically corrupt, oligarchic order. While the opposition included Ukrainians from the entire country and from all across the political spectrum, it was more strongly supported in western and central Ukraine, and the nationalist right wing took advantage of it to gain prominence and legitimacy. Read the rest of this entry »

Writing in Foreign Policy, Alexander Motyl presents a most reasonable idea: an internationally monitored referendum on secession in all the southeastern provinces of Ukraine.

If Russia is wrong about how “threatening” the central Ukrainian government is, this would call Russia’s bluff. And if they are right, well, then many of us will be surprised.

Read the article here.