Mongolia's ex-President. Arguments we must answer. Confucius say. From 2013 - Ukraine's oligarchs put in charge
20240216. Taken from 20240211d and 12/05/2013
Streamfortyseven finds another very useful bit. This piece by Mongolia's ex-President on his (negative!) experiences dealing with Putin. Here is Edward Slavsquat on Putin's (shifting) justifications for his SMO.
And lastly, a powerful piece from the other side. I have subscribed to this Substack for quite a while. I agreed with her pretty much about the lies the Bіden administration was feeding us about climate, Covid, inflation and may other things. I'm not surprised she thinks they are lying about Ukraine. I find her posts here and here frighteningly thorough and well-argued. I of course don't agree, but I do think we need to make equally strong arguments from our side. I think she is an American patriot and not a Russian stooge.
She is just one of a large number of such people on the Internet. The administration is working overtime to find a way to shut them up – their usual approach to voices they don't want to hear. I think it is not only wrong but impossible. We have to make our own calm voices of reason heard. Not very easy, for people used to having the heavy hand of government simply deplatform the other side.
Here is a bit of wisdom from 2500 years ago. Though it applies to both, it probably fits the EU equally well as it does Russia as things go today. Our governments need to pay attention to the people.
Lastly, here is a piece I wrote in December 2013, amidst the chaos after Yanukovych had fled.
Ukraine's temporary President has acted decisively, bringing in two oligarchs to govern volatile Eastern oblasts. Thanks to the Kyiv Post for unlocking their content in this hour of crisis – you can read the full thing here.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/business/oligarchs-step-in-to-save-ukraines-sovereignty-338116.html
The article notes the significance of this move. The oligarchs have business interests to protect. They can be expected to defend their own interests as the defend Ukraine. They certainly know the opinion leaders in the areas they will govern, and this will be a decided advantage.
Not mentioned in the article, but very significant, is the fact that one of the ways Yanukovych lost power was by alienating these men. Taruta lived up the street from my house. One night about two years ago the tax police stormed his house, shooting live ammunition, in order to seize his records and place him in some sort of detention. They went after Kolomoisky's airline interests in a savage, illegal, and also stupid and clumsy way. Kolomoisky had time enough to hollow out the company before Yanukovych's "family" got it. Passengers were vastly inconvenienced, and they didn't forget. Yanukovych lost support of the oligarchs and goodwill among the people.
Kolomoisky is the founder of the European Jewish Union, headquartered in London. It rather rudely displaces the far better established but less well funded European Jewish Congress. That's how things are done here.
In the lawless 90s there was a bloody gang war between Jews and Muslim descendants – Tatars and others. Read "Abuse of Power – Corruption in the Office of the President." The Jewish mafia was pretty much wiped out. Many Jews, mafia and other, fled to Israel or elsewhere.
The small remaining Jewish community long vacillated, opportunistically supporting whichever thug seemed appropriate. Vadim Rabinovych touted Yanukovych for a Nobel Prize four years ago. Yanukovych paid several Jews, notably Alexander Feldman, to stir up fears of anti-Semitism in order to discredit the nationalist Svoboda Party. There were three editorials written about whether how one Svoboda member referred to Mila Kunis was pejorative or not.
In my opinion, it is a smart political move to appoint a prominent Jew, one abused by the old government, to the new government. Kolomoisky appears, among other things, to be a bright and capable man. We know he has the self-interest and the connections. Maybe, sobered by the treatment oligarchs received at the hands of both Yanukovych and Putin, he has matured into a Ukrainian patriot. It is in his self-interest, and one hopes, that of Ukraine.