No more Russian language on air in three months – Kiev
COMMENT: It is a sad thing to see the Western world, supposed bastion of freedom, individual rights, “multiculture”…. complacently agreeing with the cultural repression that is going on in Ukraine.
Ukraine has long been a bilingual country, and also a country which valued the very good parts of its Russian heritage.
It’s one thing to trash and destroy Ukrainian cultural history, like the memory of Catherine the Great – who promoted public health and education, especially for women, and who established Kiev as a centre of the arts.
Even worse is the frenzied nationalism that punishes the quite large minority of Russian-only speakers across Ukraine, and especially in the Donbass area.
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 , https://www.sott.net/article/490743-No-more-Russian-language-on-air-in-three-months-Kiev
Ukraine’s goal of eradicating bilingual media content has almost been achieved, the government has claimed
Ukraine’s ban on using the Russian language in the media will take full effect three months from now, Kiev’s state language protection commissioner, Taras Kremin, has said.
Since gaining independence, Ukraine has been a bilingual nation, with most citizens able to speak or understand both Russian and Ukrainian. After the US-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, the new nationalist authorities adopted policies aimed at suppressing the Russian language, on the grounds of national unity and security.
The restrictions include a requirement for national media to predominantly use Ukrainian in broadcasts. The permitted share of content in Russian has declined from 40% in 2016 to an almost complete ban, which will come into force in July – the deadline that Kremin referred to in his statement on Wednesday.
“Today national television channels practice bilingual Ukrainian-Russian programming, in which participants use the Russian language without a translation or subtitles,” he said. “Starting on July 17, this practice will end. There will be more Ukrainian language!”
The push by Ukrainian nationalist leaders to impose the state language on Russian-speakers living in the east of the country was a major reason for locals’ rejection of the post-coup authorities. One of the first acts of those who seized power in Kiev was to abolish a law adopted in 2012, which gave the Russian language official regional status.
The new authorities have been adopting laws to eradicate Russian from all spheres of public life, including education, entertainment, and even services provided by private businesses.
In an interview last year, Kremin denied that some Ukrainian citizens could be called Russian-speaking, describing the term was “a marker introduced by Russian ideology,” and declared that “everyone in the country must have a command of the Ukrainian language.”
In contrast, this week the leader of another post-Soviet nation, Kazakhstan, rejected the notion that one language spoken by his people should be favored over others.
“Young people now are fluent in the state [Kazakh] language, in Russian language, in English and other languages, and that is good,” President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Tuesday. “It’s ridiculous to ramp up hysterics over a language, let alone fight against one, as they did in some other states. We all see what they have now as a result.”
The Kazakh leader did not specify which other nations he was referring to.
Comment: The current policies of the Ukrainian government is what the collective west with few exceptions support. If voters in Western countries have difficulties finding out what their governments are about, keep the example of Ukraine in mind. if their government supports them, they might themselves not be far behind in how far they would be willing to go given the chance.
22 Nov, 2023 15:22
‘There are no Russian-speaking Ukrainians’ – Kiev
There is no such thing as a Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizen, Kiev’s state language protection commissioner, Taras Kremin, has declared. In recent years, the country has introduced a frenzy of measures to sever historical and cultural ties with Russia, as it scrambles to strengthen the status of its own language despite accusations of prejudice against national minorities.
In an interview aired by the Ukrainian branch of the US state-run Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Kremin rejected the suggestion that some Ukrainians could be called “Russophones,” describing the term as “a marker introduced by the Russian ideology.”
“We are all Ukrainian citizens… Ukrainian is the dominant language in all spheres of public life. Regardless of whether it is national communities or foreigners, everyone in the country must have a command of the Ukrainian language,” the ombudsman insisted.
Earlier this year, Kremin stated that Ukrainians who speak Russian should not be referred to as “Russian-speaking,” claiming that the term had been used for decades by “Russian propaganda” to promote internal divisions in Ukraine. Citing a 2021 Constitutional Court ruling, he also insisted there were only Ukrainian citizens who had been “Russianized.”
According to a March 2022 poll by the Sociological Group Rating, about 20% of Ukrainians considered Russian to be their native language. A Social Monitoring survey in 2021 suggested that more than 50% of Ukrainians were willing to read books and watch movies in Russian.
Ukrainian authorities embarked on a campaign to push Russian out of all areas of life immediately after the 2014 Western-backed Maidan coup. The measures sparked widespread public outrage and were among the key reasons behind the hostilities in Donbass.
In 2018, the Ukrainian Constitutional Court overturned a 2012 law granting regional status to the Russian language, while at the same time Kiev adopted initiatives seeking to curb its use in education, mass media, business, and culture.
Russia has repeatedly denounced Ukraine’s language policies. President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow’s military operation against its neighbor was partly to protect people who consider themselves part of Russian culture.
On Monday, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, went as far as to deny the existence of Russian ethnic minorities, arguing that they had no special rights. The statement sparked outrage in Moscow, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying the remarks came from “the Nazis of the 21st century.”
4 Apr, 2024 20:19
Zelensky’s comedy partner slams campaign against Russian language
Boris Shefir co-founded the Kvartal 95 (District 95) comedy studio in 2003 with Zelensky and a group of their school friends. Most of these comedians and producers – including Shefir’s brother, Sergey – followed Zelensky into politics, taking prime positions in his administration after he was elected president of Ukraine in 2019.
Shefir was not among them.Speaking to the Ukrainian branch of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) outlet on Thursday, he said that he has had “no relationship” with Zelensky since the conflict with Russia began in 2022.
“For two years, I have not called or talked to him,” Shefir said. “He is working with other people now. He does not communicate with me, does not call me. My calls remain unanswered.”
“Well, you see, I speak Russian,” he explained. “I love the Russian language, Russian culture…I can’t watch Pushkin’s monuments being destroyed in my country.”
The Longer it Takes the West to Accept that Ukraine is Losing, the Worse Things Will Get for Ukraine
Our leaders keep warning us that Putin will roll his tanks into the Baltic States and maybe even Poland should the Russians be successful in beating the Ukrainians. France’s President Macron is even telling us that we may have to send NATO troops to fight in Ukraine. Everyone seems to automatically assume that Putin’s ambition is still to conquer all of Ukraine and incorporate it in the Russian Federation. This is despite the fact that he said that it was to keep Ukraine out of NATO and to safeguard the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine from Ukrainian nationalist militias.
Well, we do seem to have got ourselves into a bit of a pickle in Ukraine. How we get out of it is not immediately obvious.
Like many wars, this one seems to have started due to catastrophic blunders by the ruling elites on both sides. To simplify a rather complex situation, I believe that there were two massive blunders.
The West’s blunder – for several years Putin has warned NATO “not one inch further” – that he would not accept further NATO expansion eastwards and would not allow countries like Ukraine and Georgia, both with long borders with Russia, to join NATO. In 2008, Putin even attended a NATO summit during which he gave a speech warning NATO that Russia would not accept Ukraine’s and Georgia’s admission to NATO. To me that seems reasonable. After all, the U.S. would hardly accept Russia doing a deal with, say, Mexico which would allow Russia to establish bases close to the U.S.-Mexico border (although it’s also understandable that Ukraine and Georgia wanted to join NATO, given Putin’s sabre-rattling). And, of course, there was the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the USA was not too pleased about Russian missiles being situated close to the American mainland. Probably due to stupidity, hubris or a belief that Putin was bluffing, NATO delivered a diplomatic note to the Kremlin reiterating NATO’s view that countries like Ukraine and Georgia could join the Alliance if they wished. The result – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Putin’s blunder – Putin seems to have believed that it would only take a couple of weeks for the Russian army to get to Kiev, overthrow and murder the Zelensky Government and install a Russian-friendly regime. He got that one wrong and several hundred thousand Russians have been wounded or killed as a result. Moreover, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted Sweden and Finland to join NATO – another consequence Putin seems to have failed to foresee.
The war seemed to have started well for Ukraine. The Ukrainian army surprised the Russians and the world by fighting off the initial Russian invasion. Then the success of the summer 2022 Ukrainian offensive appeared to suggest that Ukraine might even be able to push the Russians out of Eastern Ukraine, retake Crimea and, by humiliating Putin, maybe even cause a coup in Russia which could overthrow Putin and his mafia cronies.
But after the 2022 Ukraine summer offensive, the Russians built formidable defensive lines protected by miles of minefields, dragon’s teeth and trench systems. So, when the 2023 Ukrainian combined operations offensive was launched, the Ukrainians were caught in a death trap and suffered huge losses of personnel and equipment while making little progress
We are now in a third phase of the war – the war of attrition – in which Russia is gaining the upper hand. Russia can massively out-produce Ukraine (and the quivering West) in terms of munitions, tanks, planes, missiles, artillery systems, drones and numbers of soldiers. Moreover, Russia has also received military material from North Korea, Iran, Syria and probably China. Meanwhile, Ukraine is running out of ammunition and troops. Some sources have suggested that the average age of Ukrainian forces is a worrying 43. And Ukraine doesn’t have time to mobilise, equip and train the numbers necessary to stem the Russian advance. In a war of attrition, the side with the greatest resources usually wins by grinding down its opponent. And that’s what we’re seeing now with small but continual Russian advances and Ukrainian retreats.
Our leaders keep warning us that Putin will roll his tanks into the Baltic States and maybe even Poland should the Russians be successful in beating the Ukrainians. France’s President Macron is even telling us that we may have to send NATO troops to fight in Ukraine. Everyone seems to automatically assume that Putin’s ambition is still to conquer all of Ukraine and incorporate it in the Russian Federation. This is despite the fact that he said that it was to keep Ukraine out of NATO and to safeguard the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine from Ukrainian nationalist militias.
By the end of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, Putin’s forces could have walked into the Georgian capital Tbilisi. Instead, they withdrew and merely stayed on to guard the Russian-speaking enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia – the equivalent of the similar enclaves in Ukraine.
Putin has the habit of doing exactly what he says he’s going to do. This is a concept which contemporary Western politicians find so alien to their natures, of course, that they’re totally unable to grasp it (although their distrust of Putin is understandable).
Moreover, if we look at military budgets, you might wonder who is actually threatening whom. The USA’s military budget is around $877 billion. The total NATO military budget in 2023 (including the USA) a cool $1.3 trillion. The Russian Federation military budget prior to the Ukraine invasion? Just $86 billion a year.
Our rulers have repeatedly told us that we must “do whatever it takes” to stop Putin and that the West will support Ukraine for “however long is necessary”. But it seems to be becoming clear to everyone except our rulers that Ukraine is losing and can now never win if winning means expelling all Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.
The best Ukraine can now hope for is an untidy truce which involves a loss of the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine – at least 20% of Ukrainian territory. Though the longer this war goes on, the more territory Ukraine will lose.
So, what will our rulers choose – humiliation or annihilation?
Will our rulers accept total humiliation by pushing Ukraine to do a deal with Russia in which Ukraine will have to hand over at least 20% of its land area to the Russian Federation and agree that what little is left of Ukraine will be a neutral country and never join NATO? And how will our rulers explain this defeat to us, their electorates? Moreover, what will the West’s defeat do to the global balance of power? It will, of course, embolden those in the anti-Western bloc – Russia, China, Iran and North Korea – who wish to do us harm. Moreover, it will convince many non-aligned countries that their future lies in alliances with the resurgent and increasingly powerful autocratic anti-Western bloc rather than with the declining, defeated, war-weary, supposedly democratic West.
Or will our rulers decide to try and save face and their own careers by ‘upping the ante’ – getting us more involved in helping Ukraine? Thanks to the incompetence of the head of the German air force, whose unsecured phone conference was recorded by Russian spies, we now know that British troops are apparently in Ukraine already, possibly helping with the loading and targeting of Storm Shadow missiles. It’s a pity our politicians ‘forgot’ to tell us that British troops are actually operating in Ukraine. Moreover, the New York Times recently revealed that the CIA has between 12 and 14 bases in Ukraine where it trains Ukrainian soldiers. If our rulers do get Western troops directly involved in killing Russians, as France’s President Macron has repeatedly proposed, we would risk the possibility of a nuclear war between Russia and the West.
I’m no military strategist. But it seems obvious to me that our rulers have blundered into a situation without any plan for how to extricate us in the event of things not turning out as they planned, thus forgetting the most basic rule of war – that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Or, as boxer Mike Tyson explained, “Everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face.”
It will be interesting to see whether our rulers choose humiliation by accepting Ukraine’s and, by extension, NATO’s defeat, or instead go for escalation which could lead to nuclear annihilation.
US Secretary of State Blinken says Ukraine will be NATO member
Ukraine, if/when it enters NATO, will have “unresolved” territorial issues. Crime and the Donbass are in Russian hands and will remain in Russian hands. If Ukraine enters NATO with that being the case, border conflicts over that territory could spark war, which would then drag in NATO through Article V. Such a war would be extremely bloody and potentially escalate to nuclear armageddon.
Reuters, Thu, 04 Apr 2024 https://www.sott.net/article/490373-US-Secretary-of-State-Blinken-says-Ukraine-WILL-be-NATO-member
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that Ukraine will eventually join NATO as support for the country remains “rock solid” among member states.
“Ukraine will become a member of NATO. Our purpose at the summit is to help build a bridge to that membership,” Blinken told reporters in Brussels.
Comment: For now, this appears to primarily be belligerent rhetoric, because at least some analysts say that Ukraine can’t join whilst involved in a conflict and with ongoing border disputes.
However, Russia has discussed creating a demilitarised zone, and so it is possible that this will compel it to neutralise Ukrainian regions even further West than they would have otherwise. Furthermore, this speaks more to the desperation of the West, and to Russia’s upper hand, which it could maintain so long as it doesn’t, precipitously, escalate the situation. And, amidst all this, the West ruins itself, its position on the global stage, and its ability to provoke the rising multipolar world.
Footage, and relevant snippet from the X post, below:
Will Tanner:
Secretary of State Blinken says that Ukraine will be joining NATO This is insane. This is insane. This is intentionally starting WWIII to help Hunter Biden’s paymasters level of insane 1) Ukraine, if/when it enters NATO, will have “unresolved” territorial issues.
1) Ukraine, if/when it enters NATO, will have “unresolved” territorial issues. Crime and the Donbass are in Russian hands and will remain in Russian hands. If Ukraine enters NATO with that being the case, border conflicts over that territory could spark war, which would then drag in NATO through Article V. Such a war would be extremely bloody and potentially escalate to nuclear armageddon.
2) This is Putin’s red line. In the 90s, when the USSR fell, America promised the Russians that NATO wouldn’t expand to the East. Then, in Russia’s weakness (created in large part by Goldman Sachs helping the oligarchs loot the country through privatization), it expanded to the East, doing just what it promised it wouldn’t, much to Russia’s chagrin. But Putin, while upset, has made it clear that Ukrainian membership in NATO is his red line that would mean war, potentially nuclear. It is utterly unacceptable and would have been like Ireland or Canada joining the Warsaw Pact. That’s why he launched the war; by “demilitarizing” Ukraine by shelling its army into oblivion and by creating a constant conflict, he wants to keep Ukraine out of NATO without going to war with NATO. He thought we wouldn’t be so dumb as to bring it into the alliance if it is fighting a war with Russia.
More NATO involvement in Ukraine doesn’t bode well, as the following highlights:
NATO chief, Jens Stoltenberg, admitting that the war did start in 2014. And from that same year, 2014, NATO has been busy training and arming the Ukraine armed forces
TODAY. Alexei Navalny – the paradox of his legacy
Whatever you think of Alexei Navalny, he didn’t deserve what was done to him. I’ve written before on how the USA government prefers to kill people slowly, with finesse – as in the case of Julian Assange, (.and way way back, Wilfred Burchett.)
The czarist way is more blunt and definite, as in the case of Alexander Litvinenko – a cruel poisoning.
Now Alexei Navalny, a determined opponent of Vladimir Putin, has died suddenly at 47. We’re supposed to believe “of natural causes” – yeah, right, when you’ve been persecuted and ill-treated for years, you might die of a heart problem, anyway. But who believes the Kremlin?
Navalny fought courageously against corruption, and the rule of Putin. He has the guts to come back to Russia, and keep up the fight, even after a previous near-fatal poisoning.
There is another side to the Navalny story. He was an ultra-right racist and Russian nationalist, who railed against immigration and compared Muslims to “flies and cockroaches”. He joined in the fascist “Russian March” along with Monarchist, fascist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant organizations.
In earlier years he worked on the stock market, aligning himself with the liberal pro-market party “Yabloko” (The Apple), known for its long-standing relations with Washington’s State Department and the CIA. He had close links with influential bankers, and the support of a wealthy right-wing movement against Putin, which would be aimed at installing a pro-US puppet regime.
So, the traditional Czarist cruel and clumsy removal of Alexei Navalny has played right into the hands of the USA government. A very timely occasion for much propaganda for Ukraine’s irrational and doomed military fight against Russia, – and for buckets of crocodile tears.
Well, the pro Russisan propagandists will keep bleating about Navalny as a puppet of the USA.
And the “respectable” corporate English-language press will regurgitate the glorious pro – Zelensky and Ukraine stuff coming from Biden etc, (the Navalny death a boon to their story)
But the truth must be somewhere in between, and Navalny has to be remembered as a brave man, who fought for what he believed in, – but by no means as a model of a true democrat.
Antinuclear 