Blogging the democratic revolution
Here’s a roundup from the Ukrainian blogosphere, some reactions to the very good news! Scott Clark from Foreign Notes talks about the terrible behavior of Yanukovich’s lawyers. Members of the Supreme are purported to have been infuriated at the arguments made by Yanukovych’s attorneys. Apparently, the arguments were more heat and heated than logical or legal. And it couldn’t have helped that they brought in some Swiss attorneys to make a part of their case either. Because of the fact that they didn’t speak Russian or Ukrainian, any argument from them couldn’t have come over any better than a lecture.…
Veronica Khkhlova from Neeka’s Backlog has posted an incredibly detailed post describing why the N.Y. Times article about the Orange Revolution and the secret police was probably a big fake. She posts the recent interview with Mykola Melnychenko as well as many historical accounts of the events surrounding his flee to the U.S. What I find very interesting in all this is that the New York Times’ C. J. Chivers has been quite consistent if not truly successful in providing both the Russian and the Ukrainian security services with a rather cute human face: one of his Russian stories, co-authored…
Scott Clark has posted an article dealing with the challenge of the Tatar separatist movement from Ukraine. He also comments and relates some personal experience with the area.
Maidan is reporting that one of Yanukovich’s appeals has been turned over, but what is interesting about this appeal is that it was to prevent the publication of the election results. Therefore, they will be printed tomorrow. MPs are also predicting a January 22nd inauguration date. Bloggledygook has some more about the ruling and Ukraine’s standing with the EU.
Well, Discoshaman is right: not much is talked about Yushchenko’s actual platform in the main stream media. Lucky for us, he did a writeup cover all the main points. Oh, and they have Guiness now. This is definitely an indicator of economic health.
According to Orange Ukraine, the Supreme Court has rejected Yanukovich’s last appeal. I can’t seem to find verification of this through Maidan or Google News, or any other source. Closest thing I found was this but it says that they haven’t made a final, final ruling yet.
Terry Rogers has got the first financial report since the Orange Revolution. Seems to be a lot of confidence in the new leadership. Wish I had a few hundred thousand dollars to blow!
Dan McMinn over at Orange Ukraine has a huge roundup of articles regarding the years leading up to the Orange Revolution. They deal with Kuchma’s motives for firing Yushchenko, why Tymoshenko was throwin in jail, and voter preferences in previous years.
Terry Rogers from Notes From Kiev has found an interesting article about the relative difficulty of purging the bandits from Ukraine government post-election.
Via Instapundit, the New York Times reports on the actions behind the scenes of the Orange Revolution. It is an extremely detailed, seven page account of the story about how intelligence officials blocked the suppression of the opposition by the government. For a news story, it was a very exciting read… the kind of thing you would only expect in war novels. Update: But it looks like Daniel Drezner already predicted this!
David McDuff over at A Step At A Time came out with some great content today that I found very unique. He posted a translation of a post on a message board by a Russian man describing how he feels about the pensioner protests. Very, very profound. He also posts his translation of an interview done for a Russian newspaper with Vil Mirzayanov, who gives his expert opinion into the dioxin poisoning of Yushchenko. But again, McDuff is an expert in his own right, having done translations of many Russian works, making a very unique addition to the blogosphere with…
Putin says Israel funded Yushchenko victory. I think Bloggledygook said it perfectly: Notable here is the implication that Putin doesn’t consider Russian aid and support to be foreign per se. Indeed. And I’m not sure how anti-semitic Russians are, but this might be aimed at mobilizing people against Yushchenko on the basis of distaste for Jews or Israel. It has been a mighty political tool in the past. Can anyone comment on this?
Discoshaman has got an update on Ukraine news for January 17th.
The Kyiv Post has an editorial that makes a case against Tymoshenko and makes sthe case for its endorsement of Poroshenko. An interesting read with very good points, and definitely fair. They outline what Poroshenko has to do in order to be an effective Prime Minister, such as his business transparency and selling off Channel 5.
Discoshaman has posted his Ukraine news roundup for January 16th. – Katerinchuk, from Yushchenko’s HQ, spoke today about the unprofessioanl nature of Yanukovych’s Supreme Court complaint. Remember, that this is coming from a partisan source. Here’s what he had to say: 1. The majority of the complaints are identical, regardless of their ostensible city of origin. They’re also mostly photocopies. 2. The “Tomes” of the complaint aren’t as Tome-ish as one might think — Tome #10 consists of 1 page, #3 – 9 pages, #6- 8 pages. . . 3. Most of the complaints center on alleged election-day “agitations.” One…
Just yesterday, there were only 18 tents erected. That has grown to 50 tents and 8000 people. Of course, that’s nothing. This comes on the heels of the Supreme Court agreeing to investigate to Yanukovich’s complaints today. In response, Maidan is collecting evidence of falsification of complaint allegations by Yanukovich.
As seen here. “I don????????t have any doubt that parliament will support my candidacy if Yushchenko will propose it to the parliament,” Tymoshenko said. And due to a written agreement with Yushchenko, she’ll have no problem getting the nomination either. Nice to hear. But there was something I found somewhat misleading about the article: Some critics have suggested that naming Tymoshenko, a Western-leaning former deputy prime minister, to the premier????????s job could deepen the division between western and eastern Ukraine, a rift vividly exposed during the election. “A rift vividly exposed”? You mean, the all of 18 tents set up…
Discoshaman has your Ukraine news roundup for both the fourteenth and the fifteenth. And just in case you’re wondering what music he listens to. The brief about Yushchenko being pushed as a potential Nobel peace prize winner is interesting. I hope it will not be rushed and be based upon the merit of his presidency, and not simply the revolution in itself. The first shipments of Orange Ukraine stuff is in the mail! The EU Parliament voted to recognize Ukraine for the possibility of a “clear European perspective, possibly leading to EU membership.” A better article can be found at…
-Scott Clark at Foreign Notes has some commentary about Kuchma in reference to a Financial Times article calling Kuchma a statesman. -Discoshaman has his daily Ukraine roundup (and sometimes juicy gossip!) available at Le Sabot Post-Moderne. -Dan McMinn of Orange Ukraine has a long post about how Yushchenko needs a sidekick. -Central Election Commission declares Yushchenko the victor of the presidential election. In other news, Yanukovich plans an appeal to the European Court. This after the Ukraine Supreme Court refused to see his last four complains. Maybe that’s because they were unsubstantiated. -The U.S. is praising Ukraine for having commited…
Maidan broke this story today with a quote by Yuschenko’s press office: “Withdrawing Ukraine’s peacekeeping contingent from Iraq remains one of Yushchenko’s priorities once he takes the office,” a statement released by his press office January 10 says. For Ukraine, I hope this doesn’t hurt diplomatic relations with the U.S. I think after all their country has been through in these past couple of months that withdrawing from Iraq and concentrating on their internal affairs are much more important. While they might no longer be able to contribute to the success of democracy in Iraq, at the very least, they…
-Discoshaman has your January 9th update here, complete with pictures. And to think we have to wait 24 hours for each update! -Terry Rogers has a roundup of articles about the reaction in Russia to Yanukovich’s defeat. -And before I forget, don’t you forget to buy your Orange Revolution gear.
For those of you who don’t know the inscrutable Discoshaman, he is the owner of the blog Le Sabot Post-Moderne. For the past two months, he has become a daily read for me without hesitation. This is a man who is in Kiev and truly blogging the revolution. He is joined by his lovely wife TulipGirl and Orange Ukraine with stirring up all kinds of revolutionary trouble in Ukraine. On January 7, the Supreme Court of Ukraine threw out the last of Yanukovich’s claims to election fraud against Yuschenko. Isn’t that ironic? Now, according to Maidan, the Central Election Commission…