Hello! This is Alexandra Prokopenko with your weekly guide to the Russian economy — brought to you by The Bell. I am joined this time by analyst Alexander Kolyandr. We focus this week on how the Ukraine war is gradually becoming key to both Russia’s economy and its politics and

Russia’s war in Ukraine is already in its 17th month. In that time, President Vladimir Putin has clearly demonstrated that he is not bothered by losses — whether they be financial, material, or human. His war will go on as long as he needs. And, judging by how the authorities have woven the so-called “special military operation” into Russian life, that will be a long time.

  • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@lemmy.ml
    1·
    1 year ago

    Maidan Coup happened in 2013 because the former president Yanukovych wanted to postpone signing the EU association trade agreement

    In defiance of the Ukrainian Parliament and the majority will of ukrainian people. and it wasn’t a coup. a coup is “a sudden, violent, and unlawful seizure of power from a government.” Yanukovych was removed after losing the confidence of both the people and his party through legal processes already afforded to the Ukrainian legislatured. Enough of his party defected to the opposition to the point where he no longer commanded a majority.

    Which was an economic warfare against both Ukraine and Russia

    Not economic warefare, a trade agreement which the Ukrainian parliament voted for. Russia had the option of cancelling it’s own trade deal with Ukraine if it did not approve of Ukraines trade deal with Europe. The choice of who Ukraine creates trade deals with entirely rests with Ukraine.

    The Maiden protests also were about a lot more that just a trade deal with europe. The protesters also took issue with the endemic corruption and the growing oligopoly like the one in Russia.

    Second, the Donbass separatists rebelled because immediately after the coup, one of the first things the coup regime did was to initiate a ban on Russian language to lash out against ethnic Russians.

    The Russian language was not, nor has it ever been, banned. The Ukrainian parliament attempted to repeal a law that granted minority languages such as Russian regional status but it was vetoed by the then president of Ukraine. It’s wasn’t until 2018 that the law was deemed to be unconstitutional but even then, the Russian language was not banned

    Third, the Minsk agreements showed that Russia was absolutely willing to return Donbass (but not Crimea for obvious reasons) to Ukraine

    The Minsk agreements were signed under duress AFTER Russia invaded their neighbor, seizing Crimea and kicking off a civil war in Donbas. The war in Donbas is entirely down to Russia.

    but not Crimea for obvious reasons

    I see no reason why it shouldnt have been, Crimea is part of Ukraine and has been since the dissolution of the USSR.

    Both Merkel and Hollande, guarantors of Minsk II, have admitted publicly in 2022 that Minsk was simply to buy time for Ukraine to militarize

    If i kept being invaded by a neighboring country i would want to militarize too