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For Free Distribution #4 (86) April 2015 Sabotage in the reform How real is the battle against What kind of war Belarus of the energy sector oligarchs? is preparing for WWW.UKRAINIANWEEK.COM Featuring selected content from The Economist FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION |CONTENTS BRIEFING NEIGHBOURS No Plain Truths Allowed: Adrift in Washington: Yuriy Makarov American Foreign Policy on the newly-passed Council’s Stephen Blank law banning totalitarian on the reasons for symbols American inaction 4 28 Philippe de Lara on how the John Herbst: “The Administration does not understand that Mr. Kremlin succeeds in luring supporters from ideologies and Putin’s ambitions are not limited to Ukraine” groups that have nothing in common Director of Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council 7 on factors that shape the US’ foreign policy FOCUS 30 The Thorny Path to Reform: MP Aleksander Motyl on Washington’s policy Yehor Firsov on what hampers towards Ukraine and the perception reforms of Ukrainian politicians in the US 8 32 A Blend of Pressure, Edward Lucas on why Europe Procrastination and Neighbors’ is losing to Russia Best Practices: 35 Economic and financial Desperate Times: A Greek gets no gifts in Moscow transformations of the past year 34 10 SECURITY If Not Bread, Then Circuses: The Feat of the Donbas Battalion: Iryna Bekeshkina from the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic New proofs of Russia’s war aggression in Ukraine Initiative sociology group on the public’s perceptions of reforms and expectations of change 36 Muscle Flexing in the North: What challenges the army 13 of Belarus if preparing for Free Energy and Its Enemies: 40 Reforms in Ukraine’s SOCIETY energy sector and their Left Turn for Ukraine: Which outlook political force will make the most 14 of Ukrainians’ appetite for the adequate left Showcase vs Show What stands in the way 44 of police and judiciary reforms HISTORY Cossacks or Kozaks: 18 No Russians We Sergii Ivanov: “The year after Maidan was one of missed Moscow’s opportunities in reform of the prosecution” myths about Blogger and ex-investigating prosecutor on changes the Russian nature in Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office of the steppe 20 warriors Mykola Sunhurovsky, Director of Military 46 Programmes at the Razumkov Center, CULTURE & ARTS on Ukraine’s security and defense sector Warzone, and modernization of the Army jazz love songs and time travel: 22 The Ukrainian Week offers POLITICS a selection The Phantom of Deoligarchization: of events to visit How the government vs big capital interaction has changed in April and May in the past year 24 50 E-mail [email protected] www.ukrainianweek.com Tel. (044) 351-13-87 The Ukrainian Week № 4 (86) April 2015 Editors address 37 Mashynobudivna str., Kyiv, 03067, Ukraine Founder ECEM Media GmbH. Publisher ECEM Media GmbH Print run 15 000. Free distribution Address Austria, Am Gestade,1, 1010 Vienna Our partner State registration certificate КВ № 19823-9623ПР 19.03.2013 Chief Editor Dmytro Krapyvenko Editors Anna Korbut, Lidia Wolanskyj, Shaun Williams № 4 (86) APRIL 2015|THE UKRAINIAN WEEK|3 BRIEFING | 4|THE UKRAINIAN WEEK|№ 4 (86) APRIL 2015 |BRIEFING No Plain Truths Allowed Author: Yuriy Makarov f it weren’t for the war, perhaps Ukrainians would have had to wait a long, long time for the Verkhovna Rada to adopt laws condemning com- Imunism alongside nazism. To recognize the long series of usurpers, from Lenin to Andropov, Chern- enko and Shcherbytskiy as ghouls and their sym- bols—the pentagram together with the hammer and sickle (pardon me, the star on its own is above sus- picion)—as the mark of Cain should have been done long ago, as it was in other post-communist coun- tries. This would not only have cleared the air but would also have restored the political landscape to good health by preventing the moral heirs of the criminal regime from participating in various op- portunistic pairings with their material heirs. Recall how the nominally opposition Communist Party of Ukraine obediently supported the policy of robbing the country and betraying its interests to Ukraine’s PHOTO BY ANDRIY LOMAKIN BY PHOTO № 4 (86) APRIL 2015|THE UKRAINIAN WEEK|5 BRIEFING | just future requires that all “bour- geois, kurkuls, priests, rotten in- tellectuals and opposition fellow- travelers” be killed, that future isn’t worth a broken brass penny, especially since the only ones that will survive to see it are the party nomenklatura in unfashionable suits, chekists with their “honest eyes” and a confused lumpen pro- letariat. – That people who are nostal- gic for law and order, 100% em- ployment and cheap kovbasa (sausage), exhibit classic Freud- ian symptoms, longing to “return to their mother’s womb”—such was the literal statement of some fans of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The fact that this ideal place exists, not even in an unde- fined past, but in an imaginary one, makes the diagnosis even more obvious. aggressive neighbor. The very Whenever Federation, I hope, where people –That evil is a hundredfold anti-Ukrainian disturbances in the a doctrine are taken to court for selling col- more dangerous when it is cov- East of the country, which made promising some lections of soldiers with swastikas ered by good. Communism is one Russia’s invasion so much easier, kind of bright but the state turns a blind eye on of the greatest truly satanic temp- would have been very much more and just future gatherings of real nazis. To defend tations, if we consider how such complicated if not made impossi- requires that against excesses by literally de- peerless intellectuals and artists ble. all “bourgeois, claring war on every manifestation were taken by it at various times: Yet any ban in today’s politi- kurkuls, of idiocy is simply not within the H.G. Wells and Bernard Shaw, cally correct world is perceived as priests, rotten power of Ukrainian society today. Theodore Dreiser and Lion intellectuals the weapon of the weak and there and opposition It’s understandable—and written Feuchtwanger, Anatole France were plenty of opponents of the fellow- into the new law—that museum- and Pablo Picasso, André Mal- new law. Critics specifically point travelers” be quality monuments do not come raux and Frédéric Joliot-Curie. to the fact that it was poorly killed, that under the ban. They did not recognize that to drafted and that Europe will not future isn’t Unfortunately, all too many seek refuge in the seeming sim- support any attempts to stifle free- worth a broken red stains from the past have wo- plicity of the myth of communism dom of convictions, freedom of ex- brass penny ven their way into our daily lives meant inevitably to reject the pression of opinion, and other and will not be rid of so easily. In freedom of living in a real but achievements of democracy. fact, the interior of the legislature complex world. Ukraine will have to simply re- is decorated with lively frescoes –That nearly all European mind everybody that in “Old” Eu- using red flags and other such at- countries “caught” communism, rope itself, they are very good at tributes. Symbols are extremely like a childhood case of measles, defending their principles when significant, but they are not the and we were no exception. It the smell of singeing arises. As one root of all evil. would obviously be a lot more brilliant example: less than a What’s important for us to un- pleasant and convenient to declare month ago, France sentenced to derstand is that real “de-commu- that the ideas of the left were im- two months in jail, albeit sus- nization” is a long and winding ported artificially by some inter- pended, a television host who had road, and new laws are not the lopers and we Ukrainians, white expressed doubts about the pur- and fluffy as the driven snow, did pose of all the protests over the Real de-communiZation everything in our power to resist it acts of terror at the Charlie Hebdo is A long road. all along. All we have to do is pre- editorial offices and a Jewish tend that there were no leftists store... on his private page in a so- New laws are not among the founding fathers of the cial network. It seems that a ma- the destination but Ukrainian National Republic, and ture state is quite capable of deter- no completely loyal red activists in mining the level of social risk be- the starting point the Assassinated Renaissance, and hind one or another “free destination but the starting point. that the genius poet Pavlo Ty- expression of opinion.” We need serious and not always chyna never wrote, “The Party On the other hand, in terms of easy or comfortable work in our leads.” This would simply be the a specific Ukraine and its ignorant entire society, work aimed at be- latest self-deception. Right now practice of human rights, any rea- coming aware of certain funda- the last thing Ukrainians need is sonable endeavor can be reduced mental truths. sedatives. We need tonics. Not to to the point of absurdity. Perhaps —That whenever a doctrine stop, but to start, or rather never not to the point of the Russian promising some kind of bright and cease, thinking. 6|THE UKRAINIAN WEEK|№ 4 (86) APRIL 2015 OPINION|BRIEFING The Kremlin Force Field hilippe Raynaud, the French philosopher, military and political support in the clash of civili- has coined the pro-Putin public in France zation: war on terrorism or the rise of Asian pow- (the same holds for all western countries) as ers. The Islamic war against Eastern Christians is Pa “force field”.
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