Protasevich's selfie in an explicitly neo-Nazi brand Sva Stone. It's extremely unlikely that one can wear these T-shirts without being "in".
And my longer commentary on what it all means and whether it changes anything about Protasevich (no) and Belarusian opposition protests (more than you would think).
A pathetic charlatan attempt to refute the face identification on the "Black Sun" magazine cover, even after much better pictures of Protasevich in Azov uniform and other strong evidence appeared today. Ridiculously futile waste of one's own time. euromaidanpress.com/2021/05/26/pro…
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A very well researched article by @scharap and @DrRadchenko on the Istanbul talks based on previously unpublished drafts of the peace agreement. It argues against a number of myths and misconceptions about why the talks failed and also why the war started. foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/talks-…
In particular, they argue against the explanation that the talks failed because it was allegedly impossible to reach an agreement in Russia after the discovery of the war crimes in Bucha.
Unfortunately, the authors did not mention that the most systematic evidence we have shows that the public opinion in Ukraine was favorable to the negotiations with Russia to end the war even after Bucha
I have been working on the essay for about half a year, and it grew out of reflection and accumulated irritation about how Ukraine and Ukrainians have been represented in many public events. However, there was actually a specific trigger. newleftreview.org/issues/ii138/a…
Another event with all Ukrainian speakers, all but one from Western Ukraine, half from exactly the same region in Galicia, all graduates of the same small university, all knew each other personally and had worked together for decades. Of course, it was called "Ukrainian voices".
Of course, I said that I would not participate in this exoticizing ghetto, which represents no "voice" in Ukraine, but only a tiny fraction of a narrow elite layer. The way of presenting Ukraine internationally, talking about it and studying it should be completely different.
10 ys ago, some Euromaidan protesters made this leaflet to appeal to the top-down organized Anti-Maidan:
"Maidan does NOT stand for NATO, the US or Europe. We are NOT for Bandera, Shukhevych, Tymoshenko, Klychko, Poroshenko or Yatseniuk.
We are just tired of living in shit."
And then there is a list of many social inequality and corruption issues that have been unresolved so far.
If one needs a single illustration of what a maidan revolution is, and how contemporary protests achieve nothing they were really for, and bring with them everything they were NOT for, and so many other much worse things, this is it. ponarseurasia.org/how-maidan-rev…
"The number of Russian millionaires also rose by about 56,000 to 408,000 in 2022, while the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals — people worth over $50 million — jumped by nearly 4,500." businessinsider.in/policy/economy…
9 years ago the armed violence started on Euromaidan. The following avalanche of escalating events quickly overshadowed it. However, its significance and danger was understood very well by many commenters and participants on that day.
Of course, it upscaled, expanded, other dimensions became more salient. But on the fundamental level, this is still the same conflict, which started from police batons and bricks, proceeded to hunting rifles and machine guns, and is now resolved with tanks, jets, and rockets.
The essay in @NewLeftReview attracted far more attention than I expected. Especially grateful to those Ukrainian, other EE scholars, and regional experts, who, even if strongly disagree with me politically, saw that I addressed some real issues. Response to some criticism below
First thing first. Of course, this is not a call to stop including Ukrainians into the international discussions. I said exactly the opposite: "Certainly, Ukrainian scholars, artists and intellectuals should be included in international discussions—and not just about Ukraine"
This should be plainly evident to whoever read the essay in full. It starts with a question to Ukrainian scholars, intellectuals, artists whether we would like to participate in the self-defeating game of identity politics.