Tetiana Bezruk, a researcher of far right movements at the University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, offers a brief analysis of the Right Sector movement here (in Russian and in English).
In her view the movement grew not because of its ideology but because of its actions in the self-defense of the Maidan. The appeal of that message remains limited, and their most recent actions — notably March 28’s attempted “storming” of the Parliament — have marginalized them further.
Writing in Foreign Policy, Michael Weiss, editor of the Russian media analysis magazine The Interpreter, shares 10 reasons why Russia is likely to invade Ukraine.
The reasons include the recent Russian troop build-up along the border; the IMF bailout of Ukraine (which is now more than the $15 billion Russia had earlier promised Ukraine); Putin’s relationship with Obama; the West’s divided and weak response to what Russia has done so far; recent Kremlin signals; Russia’s military reliance on southern and eastern Ukrainian industries (an underacknowledged but important factor); Russian government and media distortions of events; and what Weiss calls “kombinatsiya” and “modernizatsiya.”
While there are also clear reasons for Russia not to invade, Weiss makes a good case. The full article is worth reading.
Below is a link to the presentation I gave at a teach-in on Ukraine and Crimea at the University of Vermont this past Wednesday.
My presentation focused on the dominant media frames of the crisis, with “ground-truthing” based on my research of the events over the last 4 months. (The other speakers dealt, respectively, with social media use, geopolitics, and Russian media perspectives.)
The slides were just a starting point, and much of my commentary (not included) consisted of critical and contextual interpretation of the images. But there are some minimal explanatory notes below the images (if you open the file in Power Point), and the fifth last slide provides a brief summary of my comments and analysis.
http://www.uvm.edu/~aivakhiv/Ukraine-2014.pptx
Worrying developments in Ukraine over the last few days include the killing of far-right leader Olexander Muzychko, a.k.a. Sashko Bilyj, in a shoot-out with police; the attempted storming of Parliament by armed Right Sector militants today; the growing presence of Russian armies alongside Ukraine’s eastern border (along with persistent and growing rumors of an impending invasion); and preparation for war on both sides.
Here are some English-language sources with useful background information on these events.
Linguistic anthropologist Laada Bilaniuk, author of Contested Tongues: Language Politics and Cultural Correction in Ukraine, writes perceptively about the rise of Ukrainian civic nationalism (as opposed to ethnic nationalism) in the wake of the Russian military threat to Ukraine’s borders, here.
This video is an example of many that I myself have come across in Ukrainian social media in recent weeks:
The line — “I never thought of nationality until the present moment. We have no such line in our passports, thank God” — strikes me as a poignant one, since it is this that the Svoboda (Freedom) party would like to introduce. Despite their representation in the current coalition government, however, Svoboda’s support is not very high: their leader Oleh Tiahnybok is polling at 1.7%.
Energy developer and Ukrainian energy security advisor Robert Bensh discusses the future of shale gas development, liquefied natural gas shipping, and related topics in light of the Ukrainian and Crimean crises, here.
In “The Ukrainian Revolution and the Future of Social Movements,” U.S.-based collective Crimethinc provides a relatively nuanced anarchist perspective on the Ukrainian revolution.
They write:
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 a detailed and fascinating analysis of Vladimir Putin’s speech marking Russia’s seizure of the Crimean peninsula, geopolitical analyst Gerald Toal (Gearóid Ó Tuathail) assesses five competing theories about Russia’s move.
“Why did Russia seize Crimea, and why did it do so when it did? These are questions scholars will debate for some time. There are competing hypotheses:
“1. The Geostrategic Explanation.
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: