Like five years ago - when there was a window of opportunity to implement the Minsk agreements and we were closer to peace than at any time since 2014 - the literally Orwellian "peace is war" arguments are back on the surface. Some of the same people who had been shitting all over the public space about such an irrelevant far right were reminding us of the danger that armed radical nationalists posed to the peace process.

There are several typical arguments to deny ethnonationalist assimilationist policies in Ukraine:
1. Sheer denial
2. Justification
3. Downplaying.
They all share a major blindspot.
A thread inspired by this new bill and Marta's comments.

https://x.com/HavryshkoMarta/status/1841212676892213585

1. Sheer denial
Last year I told an academic superstar that there are almost no schools left in Ukraine that teach Russian even as an elective, even in the overwhelmingly Russian-speaking cities like Odessa. She said to my face, "That can't be true!"

A very well researched article by @scharap and @DrRadchenko on the Istanbul talks based on previously unpublished drafts of the peace agreement.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.

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".

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.

"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… On why this should not be surprising at all
jacobin.com/2022/10/russia…

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"

9 years ago Euromaidan triggered the last cycle of the post-Soviet crisis process that culminated in the invasion of Ukraine. The dynamics and outcomes of this revolution, violence, the role of right and left were the main topic of my studies these years. Most important below It's amazing how many worrying signs were evident even before the violent radicalization of Euromaidan protests, although I did not anticipate HOW disastrously they may develop. Not so many people did, especially among the intellectuals.

lefteast.org/support-ukrain…

For decades, social scientists questioned the ideological argument that there are "good" civic inclusive pluralistic and "bad" ethnic exclusive monistic nationalisms. It's been ironic to see how this binary got a second breath in relation to Ukraine

https://twitter.com/DavidKlion/status/1592914478165020674

A classic rebuttal is, of course, Rogers Brubaker's “The Manichean Myth: Rethinking the Distinction Between ‘Civic’ and ‘Ethnic’ Nationalism" sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/br….”

My new for Al Jazeera on how Russian military Keynesianism changes the economy and society, turns a significant minority of Russians into direct beneficiaries of the invasion, and creates a basis for active and conscious support for a much longer war.
aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/… It's also a sharp contrast with Ukraine’s sticking to neoliberal dogmas of privatisation, lowering taxes and extreme labour deregulation, despite the objective imperatives of the war economy, what @adam_tooze just termed “warfare without the state”
adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-16…

There's a discussion about my argument that the war is driven by the rational collective interests of the Russian ruling class, not necessarily by national security concerns but also not by some ideological bigotry. Some recent complementary materials 👇
crossbordertalks.eu/2022/07/29/rus… A good discussion in and around @samagreene thread that Putin fights for the regime's security not for Russian national security and is also driven by geoeconomic conflict. Although I am more with @scharap on the question of negotiations.

https://twitter.com/samagreene/status/1552818628625588226

Almost half a year since the start of the invasion, Ukraine is far from a typical war economy. The invasion "justifies" political repression and discrimination but it is not used to push for the measures that could actually strengthen Ukraine economically.
jacobin.com/2022/07/ukrain… Instead of strategic nationalizations, price controls, increasing taxes, and support for domestic producers, Ukraine rather goes with privatizations, lowers taxes, and prioritizes the "transparent" international businesses instead of the "corrupt" domestic.

While these questions are considered closed in some echo chambers, up to ostracism, they look open to the majority of Ukrainians, according to the recent Info-Sapiens survey commissioned by Wall Street Journal. It's plausible that many understand the US/NATO responsibility as sending weapons "too little too late" and Ukraine's for not preparing enough. It's difficult though to interpret the 35% allocating responsibility to "Ukraine's ultra-right nationalists" in a different way.

A very misleading presentation of the Ukrainian left parties as created by "Russian spin-doctors" in this article. Especially, considering their ban and repression. I've studied the left in Ukraine for 20 years. Some links below
theguardian.com/world/2022/may… A long review on the background of the diverse Ukrainian left from large parties to small groups, a review of their positions and activities during the Euromaidan and the war in Donbass.

academia.edu/20445056/The_U…

The Kiev International Institute of Sociology, one of the oldest and most professional polling companies in Ukraine, published the results of their first survey since the start of the invasion. Ukrainians are still split on NATO but oppose the territorial concessions. KIIS notes the massive population displacement, connection problems, and the spiral of silence as the main problems that significantly influence the error of the surveys now. The problems I've discussed in a couple of earlier threads.

https://twitter.com/Volod_Ishchenko/status/1513573357953896453

My new
"Today, Ukraine is facing an existential threat. The Ukrainian government needs to understand that moves such as these suspensions that alienate parts of the Ukrainian public make the country weaker not stronger, and only serve the enemy."
aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/… On how meaningless is the "pro-Russian" label in the Ukrainian context. Recall how widely Zelenskyi was seen as "pro-Russian" himself even though he spoke for the EU, NATO, and even called Stepan Bandera a "hero" during the election campaign.
foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/01/ukr…

Survey reported here (conducted at the end of 2018) fully confirms our conclusions about the limited and contradictory effects of Euromaidan eventful nationalism with both unifying and polarizing trends and mutually reinforcing civic and ethnic elements.
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108… Only 23% reported that their attachment to Ukraine was stronger, while over 25% said it was weaker. Only 38% agreed that Ukraine should join NATO, while 40% disagreed. 53% agreed that the Russian language should have some official status, at least on the regional level.

This is exactly what coup plotters usually do: openly boast about their plans on TV well in advance. In fact, whether Zelenskyi would stay in the office till the end of his cadence has been discussed widely from the moment Z. was elected. First, by the nationalist opposition.

https://twitter.com/IMatviyishyn/status/1485181905167343618

By Poroshenko "25%" supporters, by the "anti-capitulation" campaign who openly called for violent revolt in case Z. would proceed with Minsk accords. "Vova (meaning Z.), go to Rostov (the city Yanukovych escaped in 2014 to)". There were public violent threats to Z. himself.

Some theory-driven and comparative thoughts on violence, geography, and political regime in #Kazakhstan uprising. There is no actual "youth bulge", it's not from the peripheries to the capital, the "authoritarian modernization" is overrated. The Kazakhstan uprising very quickly escalated to violence in comparison with most other post-Soviet revolutions. The younger is the population, the likelier is political violence in the country. The median age in Kazakhstan - 32. In Russia, Ukraine, Belarus: 40-41.

The highest popularity of pro-Soviet attitudes in the history of Levada-Center surveys in Russia has no relation at all to the popularity of left identity. In August, 49% supported "the Soviet system as it was before the 90s", 18% - "the current system", 19% - "Western-style democracy".