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**tomt** · March 6th, 2014, 01:27 AM

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http://data2.whicdn.com/

https://www.google.com/search?q=This...w=1109&bih=493

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**tomt** · March 6th, 2014, 05:41 AM

**tomt** · March 6th, 2014, 08:59 AM

Daniel King
2 weeks ago

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7 months ago
in reply to kelly cross

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8 months ago

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1 year ago

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1 year ago

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1 year ago

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1 year ago

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1 year ago

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2 years ago

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large

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**tomt** · March 7th, 2014, 01:39 AM

https://www.google.com/search?q=497+...m=122&ie=UTF-8

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**tomt** · March 7th, 2014, 05:01 AM

a few notes about events in this and a neighboring galaxy

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https://twitter.com/freetronics

**tomt** · March 7th, 2014, 11:25 PM

bs from 'ft'

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. How Putin miscalculated in the struggle for Ukraine - FT.com

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December 2, 2013 4:58 pm
How Putin miscalculated in the struggle for Ukraine

Gideon Rachman By Gideon Rachman
To Moscow the ?colour revolutions? were sinister, threatening its sphere of influence
Ingram Pinn illustration

No event has done more to spook the Kremlin, over the last decade, than the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004. Now Vladimir Putin?s worst moment looks like turning into a recurring nightmare as demonstrators once again fill Kiev?s Independence Square, demanding that their country move closer to the EU and further away from Russia.

The demonstrations in Ukraine are both a humiliation and a threat to Mr Putin. While the Russian president may laud the deep cultural and historical ties between Ukraine and Russia, he is discovering that tens of thousands of Ukrainians would prefer to brave freezing temperatures and flying truncheons rather than be drawn closer into the Russian sphere of influence.

More
On this story

Editorial Protests deserve solidarity
Mary Dejevsky A lesson for Brussels
Four emerging leaders of Ukraine protests
Ukraine turmoil adds to default fears
Ukraine on brink of upheaval

On this topic

Editorial Belligerence cannot hide Russia?s frailty
Timothy Garton Ash Accident and ardour
Focus on French/Russian military deal
Ukraine sparks battle at home for Obama

Gideon Rachman

A new cold war is old hat
Battle over Ukraine can be avoided
A model for how to handle a split
The Diary ? Gideon Rachman

What is more, if a popular uprising can once again threaten to topple a corrupt and intermittently despotic government in Ukraine, then the potential lesson for Russia is clear. After all, it is less than two years ago that demonstrators filled the streets of Moscow to protest against the Putin restoration and to label his United Russia party as the ?party of crooks and thieves?.

A pro-EU uprising in Ukraine also threatens President Putin?s vision for Russia in the world. His main foreign-policy goal is the construction of a sphere of influence for Russia, covering most of the old Soviet Union. Ukraine ? with its 45m people, large territory, economic resources and longstanding links to Russia ? is meant to be the jewel in the crown. It matters far more than Moldova or Belarus. If the Ukrainians turn west, not east, Mr Putin?s foreign policy is in tatters.

And yet the Russian government has only itself to blame for this turn of events. It has set up a crude tug-of-war with the EU over the fate of its neighbour, while forgetting the obvious lesson of the original Orange Revolution ? that if you try to settle the future of Ukraine, over the heads of its people, they can take to the streets in numbers so massive that they can change the political direction of their nation.

In an effort to persuade Ukraine to look to Moscow, not Brussels, the Russians approached the Yanukovich government with cash in one hand and a cosh in the other. Over the summer, trade restrictions were placed on Ukrainian goods to make the point that the country could expect to pay a heavy price if it turned its back on Russia. At the same time the Russians made a direct appeal to the financial interests of Ukraine ? and, more pertinently, of the Ukrainian elite.

Two recent meetings between Mr Putin and President Viktor Yanukovich seem to have been decisive in persuading the Ukrainian leader that his interests ? and those of his family and close associates ? lay in siding with Moscow. Proximity to power is often a route to wealth in Ukraine. The president?s son, Alexander, who trained as a dentist, is now a very rich and well-connected businessman.

The moment when the Ukrainian leader announced that he would not be signing an association agreement with the EU must have felt like a sweet victory in Moscow. But the triumph has been shortlived. Even if Mr Yanukovich?s thuggish police manage to bludgeon the opposition into silence, the Ukrainian government will be gravely wounded ? and the whole idea of a Eurasian Union will be damaged.

Mr Putin may have miscalculated because he believed his own propaganda about the Orange Revolution. In his view, far from being a genuine popular uprising, it was an event manufactured by western intelligence agencies, using US and EU-funded non-governmental organisations as their tools. For Mr Putin, the so-called ?colour revolutions? were doubly sinister. First, they threatened to pull nations out of the natural Russian sphere of influence and into the orbit of the west. Second, they might serve as a template for similar uprisings in Russia itself. Indeed when demonstrations broke out against dubious elections in Russia in the winter of 2011-12, the Kremlin?s reaction was to crack down on the western NGOs that it alleged were stirring things up.

The idea that a popular revolt could be genuinely popular ? rather than the product of a behind-the-scenes manipulation ? seems to be one that the Putin government finds hard to grasp. (In some ways this is surprising, given Russia?s own history ? although perhaps not so surprising, considering the role that conspiracy played in the Bolsheviks? seizure of power in October 1917.)

This limited and conspiratorial view of the original colour revolutions may have made Moscow vulnerable to another unpleasant surprise on the streets of Ukraine, as ordinary people have moved to undo deals made over their heads by leaders they regard as corrupt and illegitimate.

As a Russian nationalist, Mr Putin likes to argue that Russia is a unique ?civilisation? ? distinct from that of Europe. As a result the struggle for Ukraine is, for him, not just about wealth or power politics ? it is civilisational. The notion that the Ukrainian middle-class, at least in the capital city and the more developed western half of the country, feels more attracted to the civilisations of Warsaw, Berlin and London ? rather than Moscow ? is offensive to Russian nationalists in the Kremlin and beyond.

Yet, in reality, the prospect of Ukraine drawing closer to the rest of Europe ? and becoming wealthier and better-governed in the process ? would ultimately be in the interests of Russia. It might serve as a template for the future development of Russia itself. But, for that very reason, events in Ukraine are profoundly threatening to the personal interests and ideology of President Putin and his circle.

[email protected]

-------------------------------------------

Letter in response to this column:

It is a mistake to treat Russia as a fading actor / From Sir Tony Brenton
Related Topics

European Union,
Vladimir Putin,
Russian politics,
EU enlargement

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Report Henry Law | March 3 12:07pm | Permalink
How about a Swiss-style postcode referendum to re-draw the boundaries?
Report UsurLoser | March 3 11:23am | Permalink
I think, based on recent events, the author miscalculated. Also, it's not about "believing your own propaganda" about protests - it's about not caring one bit about them. What good have those same Russian protests done? Thus far, zilch.
Report Eastern Bank | December 5 3:23pm | Permalink
I read this loose cannon's book "zero sum world"... all re-hashed common sense stuff put together and sold as revolutionary ideas.

This guy knows nothing about geopolitics.. his a historian... should really be working in a library.
Report Eastern Bank | December 5 3:09pm | Permalink
Who writes this drivel.. he is mixing reality with conspiracy.
Report Jeannick | December 4 7:36pm | Permalink
I'm still at a loss to understand the burst of venom which flared up

it remind me of Napoleon dictum that a battle sometimes happen without the participants wanting one

Ukraine has very big budgetary problems
Putin did not miscalculate, he simply pointed out that Kiev is on life support

it would be so much better to avoid those either or choices
as for the European pact, the parts about eliminating subsidies, reducing the public services ,
privatizations and tighter governance should proceed.

As for Lwow Lvow, Lviv or Lemberg ,
appropriately enough its prominent citizen is Sacher-Masoch
father figure for the masochists

I would be hard put to work out if it's an Austrian, Polish or Russin city .

@ Maljoffre, Den xiaoping worked in Lyon in the 20ies, he was reportedly fond of croissants
Report maljoffre | December 4 7:24pm | Permalink
EU officials, including the vice-president of the European Parliament, have gone to Kiev and are exhorting the crowds screaming for "revolution."
Report Cameron Mackay | December 4 4:25pm | Permalink
Let us hope that you are not counting your chickens before they are hatched. Putin's bosses in the KGB could soon sort it all out with a few political assassinations.
Report smoothoperator says: | December 4 2:52pm | Permalink
What's wrong with everybody trading with everybody else? Course the devil may be in the details as they
say, and we doubt USA stupid enough to promote trouble even with guys like CNBC Kudlow are running their mouth. Poor boy, his hero(POPE) crapped right on his head,(COMPLAINTS IN SOUTH AMRICA ABOUT KUDLOW'S BRAND OF CAPIITOLISM) which caused Larry to foment on air. DON'T
YOU REMEMBER ALL THE GOOD THINGS I DID FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH?

WHERE IS THE LOVE?
Report Bertz | December 4 3:55am | Permalink
May be the long distance does it, e.g. that of England to Russia. May be the differing cultures and cultural heritage, but for the British intellectuals it has always been hard to ascertain the basic accommodation and structure of the Russian society. Cold war or later, it just does not make any difference. Sadly, Mr. Rachmann failed to understand the crux of the political constellation between Russia and Ukraine, and with his article he joined the long queue of kremlinologists who knew nothing but guessed a lot.
Mr. Putin did not miscalculate anything, sooner or later he takes what he wants.
Report geoslv | December 4 12:39am | Permalink
The talk about eastern Ukraine being Russian etc.
About 20% of the nation is ethnically Russian. I think most of those were brought in under communism to work coal mines and so on. I would guess the majority in the east are ethnic Ukrainians. Yes glory be there are Ukrainians in the east. The nation's borders are based on ethnicity.
Russians and Uks are completely different ethnic groups with completely different genealogies. Can we get that straight? Russia harps too much about Kievan Rus. Those princes were Scandinavians. And in past centuries when Russia and Ukraine were at war, Sweden would send its armies to ally with Ukraine. Yes Ukraine was independent for a couple centuries around 1600.
As for Yanukovich, how can such an ally of Russia not be ethnically Russian.
Report maljoffre | December 3 6:48pm | Permalink

No, Jeannick, I didn't.
But I suspect you know that Ho Chi Minh once worked as an elevator operator in a department store in Paris (true).

Imagine taking the lift to lingerie with Ho.

I beg, at this point, to be allowed the irrelevancy of mentioning Vo Nguyen Giap for no other reason than he is one of the very few individuals I still find enthralling. Even the FT gave him a respectful obituary recently. It was Giap and Ho who made me realise we were fighting on the wrong side. Pity that truly great men are discounted so severely when they come from small countries.