November 24, 2004
Ukraine, briefly
Wild stuff is happening in the Ukraine right now.
You can find an overview, updated a couple of times per day, over at A Fistful of Euros. Some good Ukrainian blogs are also posting on this, more or less live: Neeka's Backlog (in English), Abdymak (mixed English and Ukrainian -- if you can't understand it, scroll down a bit) and Obdymok.
Slow-motion revolution, exercise in political futility, or prelude to big trouble? Too soon to tell -- but I have to say, it's really, really hard to see how Vladimir Putin can allow this to go forward. Last year Georgia, this year Ukraine... the progression is a little too obvious. Scary stuff, if you're sitting in the Kremlin. So, I'm finding it hard to be optimistic.
Not too many Romanians seem interested, BTW. Ukraine is Romania's largest neighbor, but events there don't seem to have captured the popular imagination. (Any of our Romanian readers care to comment on this?)
Posted by douglas at November 24, 2004 10:14 AMI'm just afraid that this will happen here too if our beloved ruling communist party cheats on the vote count next sunday and "wins" again.
What happens now in Ukraine happened back in 1990 in Romania, see "Golaniada", "Piata revolutiei" when Iliescu brought in the miners from Valea Jiului to beat up students and people who were really sick of communists. Hope we don't get there again and get rid of them in normal way.
Posted by: Patric Ionescu at November 24, 2004 12:48 PMYes, it's very worrisome. I, too, hope that Putin will show some restraint, and that the Ukrainian election votes will be recounted without disaster in-country.
Posted by: Lorraine at November 24, 2004 05:54 PM