moroz20140324WinnipegFreePress.html

Russian language thrives in Ukraine

Trudy Rubin, in her column "West needs strategy when Crimea's lost" (March 15, 2014; Winnipeg Free Press), called the "dismemberment" of Ukraine a fait accompli and advised the West to put certain conditions -- pressure on Ukraine to protect Russians and the Russian language -- on future financial assistance to Ukraine.

When was the Russian language in Ukraine threatened? Did the world forget the term "russification," which the Kremlin imposed on Ukraine during the whole time of the U.S.S.R. (daycares, schools, all higher education -- almost all were carried out in Russian)?

For opposing russification, hundreds of Ukrainian political prisoners were imprisoned and died in the gulags. Today, if any language needs protection, it is first of all the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture.

Under former president Viktor Yushchenko, some change was made in this direction, but in the last four years under Viktor Yanukovych, this progress was stopped.

I finished school in the Donetsk province in a town with a mostly Greek population where there was no Ukrainian school, all the schools being in the Russian language. This situation remains and is characteristic of eastern Ukraine.

I do not know what nationalism means in the West, but in Ukraine this word does not contain any sense of xenophobia or anti-Semitism. Nationalism is patriotism and means love for one's country and readiness to protect it, with weapons if necessary.

This was stated in an interview for the Russian opposition Internet site Dozhd by Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector, almost half of which speaks Russian. Rubin warns against this organization. This interview, which indicated no anti-Semitism and no russophobia, was not to the liking of the authorities and this site is threatened with cancellation.

Rubin describes Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator, killing Poles and Jews. But right after he and his associates declared an Independent Ukraine on June 30, 1941, the Germans incarcerated him in Sachsenhausen, a Nazi concentration camp until 1944. His two brothers died in a Nazi concentration camp.

I am of Greek descent, one of the national minorities in Ukraine. Our Greek schools were closed by Stalin in the 1930s. I graduated from Lviv University in western Ukraine in the very centre of the "banderites" and "radicals," according to Russian propaganda. I never felt any pressure from these "radicals" and "banderites." As you see, I am still alive and well.

Winnipegger Raisa Moroz was married to Valentyn Moroz, a Ukrainian dissident and an almost 14-year political prisoner in the gulags. In 1979, he was released in a major exchange, along with dissidents Aleksandr Ginzburg, Mark Dymshits, George P. Vins and Edward S. Kuznetsov, for two convicted Soviet spies.

[W.Z. In 1983, Vera Moroz (presumably a relative of Valentyn/Raisa Moroz) translated the book "Witness" by Pavlo Makohon on the Holodomor in Ukraine during 1932-33.]

Winnipeg Free Press | 15Mar2014 |Trudy Rubin
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/west-needs-strategy-when-crimeas-lost-250436001.html

West needs strategy when Crimea's lost

It will take cool heads to deal with Vladimir Putin after he dismembers Ukraine. And that moment is coming soon.

Even as U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed Ukraine's acting prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, to the White House, the Russian leader moved toward annexation of Crimea. Putin continues to deny what the world sees -- that Russian troops have invaded Crimea -- while hinting he might send forces to eastern Ukraine to "protect" ethnic Russians.

It's time for Obama and European leaders to look beyond Crimea to how they can prevent Putin from making even more dangerous moves.

Of course, the situation in Crimea remains extremely troubling. On Sunday, under the "protective" eyes of Russian troops, Crimeans will vote on whether they want to become independent and join up with Russia. Russians are 60 per cent of Crimea's population, and the region has historic ties to Russia, but only a minority wants to unite with Moscow, according to recent polls.

But Moscow's minions will guarantee the outcome of Sunday's vote.

Despite any legitimate gripes Putin may have with the West, the invasion of Crimea is blatantly illegal. In 1994, Russian, U.S., and European leaders pledged to respect Ukraine's borders in return for that country's surrendering its nuclear weapons. Moreover, the 1997 agreement with Ukraine that permits its ships to base in Crimea requires the approval of the Kyiv government for any Russian troops to operate outside the port city of Sevastopol. Clearly that accord has been breached.

Still, the consequences of losing Crimea, which only became part of Ukraine in 1954, pale beside what would happen if Russia invades mainland Ukraine. The Crimean takeover has seen little violence; a Russian invasion of the Ukrainian mainland would be bloody and shake all of Ukraine's neighbours. It would blow up a manageable crisis into a military threat that could destabilize Europe.

The West's response to Putin's land grab must be firm enough to prevent him from making such a mistake.

Economic sanctions and visa restrictions on Russian officials are already on the table. There will be costs to western businesses with investments in Russia, much more onerous to Europeans, with their heavy energy links to Moscow. But without sanctions, Putin may think he has a green light in Ukraine.

Beyond sanctions, Washington and the European Union also must make a firm commitment to help Ukraine's bankrupt economy recover. This will be painful, since Ukraine has developed a corrupt, oligarch-ridden economy dependent on Russian gas.

U.S. and EU officials must also press Ukrainians to reassure ethnic Russians they have a future in Ukraine. One of Putin's strongest cards in stirring up trouble in Ukraine is to persuade ethnic Russians Ukrainian "fascists" threaten their future. That distorted message is spewed non-stop by Russian TV and is the excuse Putin might use to invade eastern Ukraine.

The months-long popular revolt that toppled former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was fuelled by widespread revulsion at corruption.

It comprised members of every ethnic group from across the political spectrum. But toward the end, right-wing nationalist groups played a larger role.

[W.Z. Trudy Rubin is more of a "Jewish right-wing nationalist" than the so-called "right-wing nationalist groups" that she demonizes. These people are neither left-wing nor right-wing. In Ukraine "nationalism" equates to "patriotism". These people are simply patriotic Ukrainians (speaking both Ukrainian and Russian), who refuse to sell their souls for money and insist that corruption within Ukraine be eradicated. They have no intention of promoting ethnic cleansing or language suppression. It appears that Ms. Rubin's goal is to safeguard and preserve the corruption amongst some of her co-religionists within Ukraine. To parrot the NKVD/KGB/FSB propaganda from WW2 to demonize the Ukrainian Independence Movement is a complete cop-out.]

In Ukraine's transitional government, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych is a member of the nationalist Svoboda party. Its leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, famously argued in 2004 a "Moscow-Jewish mafia" was ruling Ukraine.

Several other interim ministers are current or former members of Svoboda, and the deputy secretary of national security, Dmytro Yarosh, is the leader of Right Sector, a group even more nationalist than Svoboda.

Such groups glorify Stepan Bandera, a nationalist who battled Soviet domination during and after the Second World War, but is also accused of collaborating with the Nazis and killing Poles and Jews.

With Crimea lost and Putin threatening the Ukrainian mainland, far-right groups may gain traction. Already, Ukraine's transitional government briefly tried to drop Russian as one of Ukraine's official languages, before reversing course.

Policies that make Russian citizens feel threatened will play into Putin's game plan. Western governments should strongly advise their Ukrainian counterparts to avoid such mistakes. Yatsenyuk did just that in Washington, insisting close ties with Europe would not rule out friendship with Russia.

"We will preserve the rights of all minorities," he added.

Still, said Columbia University professor Tarik Cyril Amar, "There should be conditionality on western aid. They should insist that far-right tendencies be kept in check. This would be doing Ukraine a great favour."

Putin will try to terrify Ukraine's ethnic Russians into begging for Russian help. Ukraine must deprive him of that possibility -- with western help.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

-- The Philadelphia Inquirer