Briar King, on 27 March 2014 - 12:02 AM, said:
So what are people's thoughts still in Crimea?
I just saw that Russia is conducting "exercises" near the border of several other parts of Ukraine.
According to Russian media, all's fine and dandy, everyone's happy as a clam.
According to Uki media, there are incoming gasoline shortages, due to the introduction of the ruble prices on everything skyrocketed (not helped by the overall scarcity, since most food and household items and consumer goods come from the mainland and there are large holdups on the new "border"). Pensioners received the Ukrainian value-equivalent of their pension in rubles, rather than Russian-standard pension they were expecting. Govt services aren't getting paid since the mainland govt has no way to transfer money from the treasury to Crimea. Biggest UA bank has frozen all Crimeans' accounts, unless they access its services on the mainland. EU has declared that Crimeans with Russian passports will be denied visas, unless they apply in Kyiv or Moscow. International flights to Simferopol' have been cancelled, it only services flights to Moscow now. Medvedev's visit yielded many promises, including "solving the dependency on the mainland for freshwater by building factories to process sea water"--an incredibly costly long-term solution. There's also complete legal chaos, as Crimea tries to implement Russian laws. UA has blocked Crimea all access to land registry, so it's impossible to do any real estate transactions atm. There's also popular fearmongering that crimeans getting Russian passports have Siberian adresses listed, and rumours of Chechens flooding in and taking over real estate, but that's most likely pushing it.
UA's military has been overrun and is in the process of slow evacuation (those units that haven't switched sides, that is. Even among those, some already expressed a desire to re-enlist. whether they'll be accepted remains to be seen). There are also talks of Russia allowing UA's military to take back its materiel, including the captured navy ships, but despite the ministry's upbeat reports, that remains an issue to resolve.
On the mainland, things are settling down somewhat. presidential campaign has begun, and the govt has declared a witchhunt against the Right Sector. RS demands the resignation of the Minister of Interior (police), citing his incompetence and participation in ongoing corruption in the police force. Situation made all the more complicated since Right Sector has its own candidate for president, while the minister in question is from the party of a formerly jailed Prime minister and Yanukovych's opposition in the last pres election. With a few relatively "clean", somewhat fresh faces being overshadowed by "Brand" candidates, who all have roots in the oligarchic corrupt political establishment, with just under 2 months to go, its really hard to say how the election will play out.
At the same time, the Cabinet is slaving away in an attempt to secure that sweet, sweet IMF funding, making "unpopular decisions", but somehow completely foregoing making the oligarchic "big business" carry the brunt of the austerity policies. How well that will sink in also remains to be seen.
While the Cabinet and Rada of cadre politicians are trying to usurp the Revolution for their own needs, civil society groups are hard at work lobbying anti corruption and transparency legislature in an attempt to codify the Constituion section that reads "the only source of governance in Ukraine are the Ukrainian People", by installing various mechanisms of civic oversight over pretty much everything govt officials may do.
Out East, every weekend there are pro-Russian rallies but intensity seems to be dying down as it becomes obvious no immediate "liberation" is forthcoming. The fact that such activiies continue especially on the Donbass are an indication that the local "elites" (oligarchs) are still sewriously considerign tossing their lot with Putin. which is worrying, obviously, given how weak the influence of Kyiv is out there. Nonetheless, the SBU (security service) continuously reports that it is apprehending separatist ringleaders and Russian diversants, so it remains to be seen if this separatism can turn into any serious threat.
On the international stage, Russia seemingly backed off the idea of trying to "liberate" the South and East of Ukraine. The UN's General Assembly vote upholding UA's territorial integrity and condemning the annexation sure seems convincing-100 yes v 11 no, but the devil's in the details-in particular in those who abstained-the Rest of BRIC, South Africa, Argentina, Egypt--all the big "middle powers". Their indication that they refuse to cease doing business with Russia means the West's declared plan to submit Russia to isolation punishment won't be a resounding success. nonetheless, the West is doing its part- NATO taking an aggressive stance, and EU starting serious talks with USA re: using US' shale gas to replace Russian gas.
Russia's word of the week is "federalization"--their new intent is to impose a federal constitution onto UA, while making Russian an official second language. They feel that with establishment of local rulers in the East they will have stronger leverage, since "federalization" is seen as shortcut for "legitimate excuse for secession". This plan isn't getting much traction as of yet, though it's the main platform of the Party of Regions' (Yanukovych's former party) candidate for the pres. election.
All in all, both worldwide and in UA itself, the situation's pretty unpredictable. A lot may depend on Russia's whims, but also in UA itself, due to the pres. campaign public sentiments can swing every which way, so it's difficult to predict who will become a total dissapointment, who may gain political capital, and who is bound to remain an outsider. And whether or not the pres election (which is just a prelude for a parliamentary one to be held in the fall) will actually reflect the Maydan slogan of "Government, Reloaded", or we are to expect further unrest.
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