

Protests in Ukraine - nmbdesign
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/aronets

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friendly_chap
We have these kind of riots in Hungary (pretty close to Ukraine) as well. They
are not really revolutions, but they are a good indicator that the people are
extremely fed up with current government policies, which may lead to a
revolution.

Exciting times to live in, hopefully the people will be able to get rid of the
corrupt ruling class.

EDIT:

Just to give you bit of context on corruption... in the UK where I currently
live, politicians are going into prisons for faking a couple of thousands of
pounds as expense and profiting from that... A couple of thousands...

Compared to that, a couple of years ago, a guy called Bajnai Gordon was the
prime minister in Hungary, who is well known by everyone for his act of
destroying the whole agricultural economy of eastern Hungary. He did stole all
the money from one of the largest companies at the time. Multiple farmers
committed suicide, etc.

Years after that, he became a prime minister. Truly mind blowing. Those people
are evil, and have cheeks, they deserve to spend the rest of their lives in
prisons.

If you are interested about (the politically correct version of) the story,
search for "Hajdu-Bet" here:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Bajnai](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Bajnai)

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twoodfin
_Exciting times to live in, hopefully the people will be able to get rid of
the corrupt ruling class._

In democracies, the people typically do this by voting for someone else. Why
isn't that an option in Hungary?

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drinchev
In eastern-european democracies ( like mine in Bulgaria ) your voting options
are limited to parties that has stable corruption background, which pay media
and poor citizen to vote for them. In this sense there is no way honest people
to get involve in the government affairs, because they lack resources ( money,
connections, etc. ) that are needed for wining ( even partly ) elections.

~~~
foobarian
You can delete words up to "Your voting options..." and you will have
described the political situation in the USA.

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gkoz
There are no riots. It's sad that this word is used to label what's happening
here. No one is burning cars, smashing up stores etc.

~~~
jeena
Yeah I'm confused too, it kind of looks like a peacefull protest, at least
right now while I'm watching.

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yeppers8
The capitol is more on the west side of the country which has more people that
are pro-west, and most people there didn't want the more Russian influenced
leader Yanukovych become president in the first place. Now he's doing things
to make people pretty upset (not signing the EU agreement). I'm guessing a
good deal of the eastern (more pro-Russian) side of the country still supports
him though.

The person that is live streaming said this is on street Bankova, I think this
is it:
[https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d30....](https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d30.52992!3d50.446413!2m2!1f217.7!2f63.03!4f90!2m7!1e1!2m2!1s83HPVKxL1RQuVl5iHNb_AA!2e0!5m2!1s83HPVKxL1RQuVl5iHNb_AA!2e0&fid=5)

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rodrigocoelho
Someone who speaks the language or is there could please give us some context?

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aquadrop
There's crowd of people who wants to enter president's administration building
and 'berkut' police protects the building. Some fights were going on. I don't
actually understand what exactly do those people want.

~~~
wavefunction
They want the Ukranian government to enter into an agreement of cooperation
with the EU (a first step to becoming a full member).

Putin doesn't want Ukraine joining the EU since it would put "Europe" right on
the Russian porch, whereas Putin would prefer to have a buffer of client-
states who take their orders from the Kremlin. Ukraine gets most of its energy
supplies from Russian natgas, which has been the main "stick" Putin has used
to get the Ukraine to toe his line.

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ghostdiver
This country is pretty much fucked up, criminal as a president, lack of
resources, poor people and also European Union bureaucrats are not really
interested in Ukraine in its current state. Half of citizines do not speak
ukraininan language, they identify themselves as Russians. The other part is
only waiting for a moment to gtfo there.

~~~
lcedp
> lack of resources

which kind of resources?

> Half of citizines do not speak ukraininan language, they identify themselves
> as Russians.

2/3 declared Ukrainian an their native, moreover there is distinct movement of
Russian(!)-speaking anti-Russia(!) pro-Ukraine people. Source: living in
Russian speaking Ukrainian city

>The other part is only waiting for a moment to gtfo there.

meh

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kovalkos
This is my rough understanding of what's going on:

Ukraine wants to increase cooperation with Europe, and possibly join EU. This
would undermine it's relationship with Russia.

The previous Ukranian president, Viktor Yushchenko, usually sided with the
West, and current president, Viktor Yanukovych, wants to preserve friendship
with Russia.

Russia obviously doesn't want to lose allies, so it threatened to stop
trading, and impose strict sanctions on Ukraine if they agreed to partnership
with Europe.

Some Ukrainians dislike Yanukovych for siding with Russia instead of Europe,
thus causing protests.

If you have more knowledge about this situation, feel free to correct me if I
err.

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computer
When you say "Ukraine wants to increase cooperation with Europe", who do you
mean by "Ukraine"?

The president? The people in the west (i.e. the ones protesting here)? The
people in the east who only speak Russian?

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budnyk
Everybody does! Here on east of Ukraine everybody wants freedom of speech,
goverment w/o corruption, 3g internet.

~~~
oddx
You should also add that everybody wants to have well payed job. Question is
"Which move would be better?". I think problem is that Ukrainians split in two
roughly equal parts: pro-EU and pro-Russia (Yanukovych would not win recent
election otherwise) and it's almost impossible to have consensus.

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huhtenberg
A mass protest is not a revolution.

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Nux
I'm hopeful Eastern Europe will regrow the spine half a century of so called
communism destroyed.

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sdpope
I'm not a Soviet apologist, but the state of eastern europe has roots that
predate the 20th century. Bear in mind that even before communism, much of it
had been part of Tsarist Russia in the 19th century or earlier.

It's inaccurate to think of pre-soviet europe as composed of western european
style states.

~~~
Nux
I'm not implying pre-soviet era Eastern Europe had a western style. That would
not have been possible, not locked between the west and a hard place. Looks
like Ukraine is still there.

Geopolitically and historically this (I'm Romanian) has been one shitty place
with a lot of influences: Tsarist Russia, Soviet Union, Ottoman Empire, the
Huns, the Mongols, the Romans etc. You could not have developed a western
style state in this environment.

I'm not implying western Europe had it easier, but just different and it
benefited them by the looks of things.

However, from history lessons, at least in my own country things were starting
to pick up and it's my belief the situation would've been much better without
WWII and especially without the communists.

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skryshtafovych
Please share with everyone and help Ukrainians get rid of this Russian rule

