KyivPost / Opinion

Iryna Fedets : Oligarchs rule Ukraine’s heavily biased media
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/iryna-fedets-oligarchs-rule-ukraines-heavily-biased-media-401946.html

Oct. 19 turned out to be the last day of work for Roman Sukhan, who for years had worked as a TV anchor for Channel 5, one of Ukraine’s top news stations. “I’m fired. For what? I have no idea,” Sukhan wrote on Facebook on the same day, making his frustration with his former employers public. Not stopping there, he used the opportunity to accuse the channel of several unsavory practices.

According to Sukhan, while working at the station — which is owned by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko — he received under-the-table money transfers to his private bank card every month in addition to his regular salary. Unofficial salaries are widely used in Ukraine to evade taxation. It’s no wonder the country’s shadow economy is almost half the size of the official gross domestic product, according to government estimates.

More damning for Ukraine’s media industry — and perhaps, the future of its democracy — is Sukhan’s other accusation: that every show on Channel 5, except for the straight news programs, airs content for money. He did not provide specific examples, but described the practice using the slang word “#jeans,” which in Ukraine denotes one-sided stories that promote particular people, business interests, or political parties — who have paid for the privilege. Ukrainian journalists and media experts have learned to recognize jeans by a common set of features: they cover trivial events, such as ribbon cuttings; they fail to present opposing points of view; and they often feature quotes from dubious “experts” with little relevant experience.
[…]
It’s no wonder that Poroshenko did not sell Channel 5 after being elected president in 2014, all while promising that his channel would be independent. The channel is hardly a moneymaking asset, but in this it is not alone. According to some commentators, even some of the country’s top TV stations are subsidized by their owners. But the advantage of having a personal media outlet isn’t profit — it’s gaining leverage in the power struggle among big business players, all of which, in a country as corrupt as Ukraine, have ambitious political agendas. And in this regard, Poroshenko (who is worth over $900 million) has serious competition.

In fact, all 10 of the country’s most popular channels are owned by powerful oligarchs.
Of these top 10 channels, three are controlled by Viktor Pinchuk, three by Ihor Kolomoisky, three by Dmytro Firtash and one by Rinat Akhmetov. All four of these men, who are among Ukraine’s richest and most powerful, use their media might to advance their business and political interests. As Ukrainian media monitors have shown, most of the country’s top TV channels air political advertising promoted as “news.”

Chaînes possédées par les gros intérêts économiques, pseudo-débats sans vraie contradiction, pseudo-experts,… ouf, il s’agit des télés ukrainiennes.

Ce sont des méchants #oligarques, il n’y a pas ça chez nous.

Brian Bonner: Bandits of Ukraine, keep stealing with impunity
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/bandits-of-ukraine-keep-stealing-with-impunity-398150.html

Bandits of Ukraine, keep stealing with impunity. Nobody in authority is going to stop you – especially if you’re rich, powerful or able to pay hefty bribes to the right person.

That’s my conclusion after listening to panel discussions at the 12th annual Yalta European Strategy from Sept. 10-12, taking place for the second year in Kyiv since Crimea’s Yalta remains under Russian occupation.

I have been in Ukraine for a long time. But I can still appreciate the sad irony of a conference run by a billionaire oligarch, Victor Pinchuk, with another billionaire oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK, as a special partner, organizing a round-table talk called: “Rule of Law, De-Oligarchization, Fighting Corruption: Any News?”

Let me answer the question: No. There is no news. There is no de-oligarchization campaign and there is no fight against corruption under way – at least not one from people in the institutions that should be waging it: judges, prosecutors and police.

Brian Bonner has served as the chief editor of the Kyiv Post since 2008.[…] He also worked as a member of the core teams with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe during six election observation missions in Ukraine, Belarus, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

Oleksiy Pavlenko: Reforms are happening in Ukraine’s agrarian sector
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/oleksiy-pavlenko-reforms-are-happening-in-ukraines-agrarian-sector-397953.

Let us start with the small and medium producers. Now, individual households, which are more than 3.5 million, produce more than a half of agricultural products in Ukraine. Moreover, they produce over 90% of potato, 85% of milk, 75% of beef, most of pork, vegetables and fruits.

Being perfectly aware of the fact that small and medium enterprises are the basis of the agrarian sector of Ukraine, at the same time, we have to admit that at present we have little possibility to render direct financial support to them. In the conditions of the defense budget, public expenditures on agriculture have been minimized.

Ivan Miroshnichenko: Ukraine cashing in on rising agricultural exports to China
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/ivan-miroshnichenko-ukraine-cashing-in-on-rising-agricultural-exports-to-c

The Chinese market may become a great platform for the development of Ukrainian farmers.

Ukraine has won a decisive battle for the Chinese market in December 2014. Ships fully loaded with our corn took the course to China, and the contract was completed with all the necessary support from the Ukrainian government.
[…]
Ukraine has an opportunity to win the competition and to use new opportunities. For example, in the 2014/15 marketing year, Ukrainian companies monopolized the whole export of corn to China – more than four million tons. Five years ago, the U.S. was home for 97 percent of corn imported to China. Today the same index belongs to Ukraine.
[…]
China is ready to buy our sugar, wine, flour, chicken, pork and confectionary products.
[…]
China has already become the world’s biggest manufacturer of pork. The Chinese nation annually consumes 39 kilos of meat per person, or one and a half times more than in Ukraine (25 kilograms a year).

On this scale, China’s increased consumption of meat just by 1 percent causes a tectonic market shift and these gaps should be filled by Ukrainian producers. The livestock of a half billion pigs needs a huge amount of feed. Its components include soybean, sunflower meal, barley and corn. Our task is to ensure that these components are of Ukrainian origin.

Armine Sahakyan : Armenian leaders need to launch economic reform — or the current protests could turn political
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/armine-sahakyan-armenian-leaders-need-to-launch-economic-reform-or-the-cur

And, in truth, the banana-republic model fits Armenia, except it does not have bananas.

We are one of the poorest countries in the former Soviet Union. So poor that much of our energy infrastructure is in Russia’s hands, and 1.5 million Armenians work abroad, mostly in Russia.
[…]
Although Russia is paranoid that the demonstrations in Yerevan and other cities are a political uprising that could lead to the kind of color revolutions that surfaced in Georgia and Ukraine, in truth the demonstrations are an anti-poverty movement — for the moment, at least.

Most Armenians are tired of being poor, tired of having no middle class to aspire to, tired of the disparity between rich and poor, and tired of rampant government corruption, which siphons off revenue that could go to development.
[…]
The worst thing Sargysan could do, besides nothing, is fake an economic-reform effort.

All too often in the former Soviet Union, regimes talk the talk but do not walk the walk.

A phony reform effort could be the breaking point for our fed-up people.

If Sargysan institutes the economic reform Armenia needs, he could become a leader for all Armenians, not just a handful of cronies who are already wealthy and getting richer by the minute.

Ben oui, qu’il prenne modèle sur la proche Ukraine qui, elle, met en œuvre un programme de vraies réformes…

Alexei Bayer: Does the success of Russian propaganda matter?
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/alexei-bayer-does-the-success-of-russian-propaganda-matter-388745.html

Russia is not a liberal democracy where the electorate can vote in a new government if it doesn’t like the old one. Russian so-called voters decide nothing, and there is no tradition of mass protests. In the final analysis, it probably makes little difference that 86% of Russians love and admire Putin and support his every policy initiative. If a similar proportion of Russians hated and despised him, Putin’s policies would not have changed materially.

Essai de traduction en français :

À la différence de la Russie, la France est une grande démocratie libérale où les choix politiques dépendent fondamentalement du vote des électeurs. C’est pour cela que le fait que moins de 30% des Français font confiance à François Hollande ne changera rigoureusement rien à la politique qu’il mène.

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/cw67q2o9wdfj2w3/LH_20150428.jpg

Armine Sahakyan: Decision to try murder case in Russian court is Kremlin’s latest outrage against Armenians
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/armine-sahakyan-decision-to-try-murder-case-in-russian-court-is-kremlins-l

Russian authorities have decreed that a soldier arrested in the murders of all seven members of an Armenian family will be tried in a Russian military court, not in an Armenian court.

The dictate is a slap in the face to the Armenian people.

Thousands of us had demonstrated after the murders in mid-January to demand that 19-year-old Valeri Permyakov be tried in Armenia. Russian officials rubbed salt in the wound by declaring that the offense Permyakov is accused of is a “military crime.”

It is nothing of the sort, many Armenians contend.

The murders were committed off Russia’s military base at #Gyumri, where Permyakov was stationed, and had nothing to do with any military matter. Russia’s defiance of Armenian popular will in refusing to hand Permyakov over for trial in Armenia has prompted many of us to contend that our government’s kowtowing to this powerful neighbor has gone too far.

One thing the skeptics have asked is why the government handed Permyakov over to Russia in the first place. Armenian border guards arrested him the day after the murders as he was trying to slip across the border into Turkey.

Rather than surrender the soldier to Armenian police, the border guards gave him to Russian authorities. He is now in confinement on the base at Gyumri, where Russian authorities said he will be tried.

Alexei Bayer : Building fascism
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/alexei-bayer-building-fascism-382918.html

http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2015/03/08/p19ft0fqrdup01jttp031q3mkbn4/original_big.jpg

Labelling its opponents fascists is an old Soviet trick.
(…)
In the end, however, it turned out that the 1991 revolution merely eliminated the Marxist-Leninist elements of the hybrid state. Gone was the creaking Marxist-Leninist philosophy, the primitive “scientific atheism” and the fake “proletarian nationalism”. Russia abandoned hare-brained attempts to build a working economy without private property and private enterprise. The field was suddenly clear for Russian nationalism, Orthodox obscurantism and nostalgia for the old greatness.

Russia now has a new, very popular and populist national leader. Not an intellectual by any stretch of the imagination, but a youthful, energetic, sexually active expert in judo, who, like Mussolini, is happy to bare a powerful torso at the first opportunity.

Completing the picture is a war in Ukraine, in which the virile, potent Russia, like Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy before it, confidently expects to kick the butt of those weak, divided, effeminate democratic states.

Le début et la fin de cet article, illustré d’un poster du XIV Congrès des Komsomols (16-20 avril 1962), dans l’orbite du XXIIe congrès du PCUS.

Joseph LeGasse: No reason to give corrupt Ukraine more arms, it will only lead to thousands of more deaths
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/joseph-legasse-no-reason-to-give-corrupt-ukraine-more-arms-it-will-only-le

Politicians and advocates everywhere to take a step back and understand what is at risk in the continuing crisis precipitated by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. My position is as follows:

1. Ukraine had a chance to help itself, didn’t and still won’t—there has been no substantive change in Ukraine’s handling of oligarchs, of re-engineering and deploying a substantially uncorrupted military-industrial infrastructure;

2. Ukraine is moving to a military law and conscription model that will do nothing more than sacrifice the lives of hundreds and thousands of Ukraine young in a kinetic operation they can’t win while realizing that front page photos of more dead will actually work against Ukraine receiving needed long-range development assistance;

3. Outside supporters of increased military and financial support to Ukraine so as to escalate the engagement in the east aren’t clear on their motives. It is especially easy for North American advocates supporting the escalation to do so because they themselves are ensured the fight won’t be on our lands nor will they themselves be put in harm’s way. Do advocates of kinetic escalation want to build a truly progressive and independent nature while adjusting Russian President Vladimir Putin & his judo mafia’s behavior or do they just want to use Ukraine as a proxy for showdown with Putin. These are mutually exclusive positions.

4. There is not a single organization nor person other than our team who has sat down and put together a engagement model based on the world class business and military principles that we all espouse to follow so as to understand the cause & effect or return on investment of various scenarios. 

Joseph LeGasse is an intelligence and defense expert and former special adviser to the White House. He was a speaker on the security panel of the 2014 Kyiv Post Tiger Conference.

(intégralité de l’article)

Utile contrepoint à Roger Cohen…

Statement by the Chairmanship on the Trilateral Contact Group consultations in Minsk
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/osce-statement-by-the-chairmanship-on-the-trilateral-contact-group-consult

The participants in the Trilateral Contact Group came to Minsk for consultations with the representatives of certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The TCG had prepared a detailed plan for the concrete implementation of the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum, which continue to be the indispensable basis for any peaceful settlement.

Unfortunately, the signatories of these documents from Donetsk and Luhansk did not participate, although they had been personally invited by the Trilateral Contract Group. Their representatives who were present were not in a position to discuss the proposal put forward by the TCG. In fact, they were not even prepared to discuss implementation of a ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons. Instead, they called for revision of the Protocol and Memorandum. The meeting was adjourned.

The TCG remains open to continuing consultations at any time. In view of the seriously deteriorating situation and growing numbers of casualties, the TCG calls on all actors involved to engage responsibly in the comprehensive implementation of the Minsk documents with no further delays.

Communiqué diffusé par l’OSCE

Échec des pourparlers de Minsk. Dû au refus des séparatistes ; ils seraient en train d’achever la conquête de Debaltseve et en profiteraient pour augmenter leurs exigence.

Agnieszka Piasecka: Ministry of propaganda in the 21st century
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/agnieszka-piasecka-ministry-of-propaganda-in-the-21st-century-374068.html

On Dec. 2, 2014 the new post-Maidan government has been sworn-in by Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The government includes a new minister to lead the Ministry of Information Policy, yet to be created. The new minister Yuriy Stets argues that the ministry will protect the state from the devastating influence of Russian propaganda.

Yuriy Lutsenko, the head of the faction of the presidential party Block Petro Poroshenko, has publicly expressed support for the new ministry and declared that it will never engage in censorship of Ukrainian media. Instead, the ministry will be responsible for counteracting the Russian propaganda by providing accurate information.

I have read the project of the law about the ministry and have noticed a couple of intriguing passages suggesting the ministry will be able to exercise direct control over content of the media, their structure, and even their employment decisions:

Article 3: “…implementation of state policy in the field of information dissemination…” -

Article 4 Section 38 “…establish, abolish, reorganize enterprises, institutions and organizations, adopt their position (statutes), in the prescribed manner appoint and dismiss their heads, create talent pool as head of enterprises, institutions and organizations under authority of the IIP Ukraine…_”

These passages justify a concern that the ministry will have direct and indirect censorship powers.

(…)

Yet, there is a simple solution. If you want to have a good information policy for a governmental agency, hire a good PR company, design a professional website, set up social network accounts, create a hot-line, and make sure your secretary actually answer your emails. The informational policy on the national level can and should be implemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Institute of National Remembrance or any other government body. These bodies can fight misrepresentations and propaganda in courts, can prepare press releases their interpretations of the events, and serve the public with the facts that prove the informational enemy false.

These things are definitely not a rocket science and do not need any new government body to be implemented, just common sense. Of course good public relations is expensive, but there is a reason – talent is not free, and if the government would like to improve its information policy, it has to pay.

The issue is that the Ukraine lacks an informational strategy rather than an informational ministry and the Ukrainian authorities seem to continuously confuse one with the other.

L’accord tripartite Ukraine-Russie-OSCE
(traduction non officielle par le Kyiv Post)
OSCE releases the 12-point protocol agreements reached between Ukraine, Russia and separatists in Minsk
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/osce-releases-the-12-point-protocol-agreements-reached-between-ukraine-rus

As a result of consideration and discussion of the proposals from members of consultations in Minsk on Sept. 1. 2014, the Trilateral contact group composed of representatives from Ukraine, Russian Federation and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an understanding was reached regarding the need to take the following steps:

1. Provide for immediate and two-sided ceasefire.
2. Provide monitoring and verification from the side of OSCE of the ceasefire.
3. Conduct decentralization of power, including through approval of the Law of Ukraine “On temporary order of local self-government in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions” (Law on special status)
4. Provide permanent monitoring at the Ukrainian-Russian state border, and verification by OSCE, with creation of a safety zone in the areas adjacent to the border in Ukraine and Russian Federation.
5. Immediately free all hostages and illegally held persons.
6. Approve a law to prevent persecution and punishment of persons in relation to events that took place in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
7. Continue an inclusive national dialogue.
8. Take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Donbas.
9. Conduct early local elections in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On temporary order of local self-government in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions” (Law on special status).
10. Remove illegal military formations, military equipment and militants and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine.
11. Approve a program for economic development of Donbas and renew the vital functions of the region.
12. Give guarantees of personal security for participants of consultations.

Hand back Donetsk its original British name
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/andy-hunder-hand-back-donetsk-its-original-british-name-361024.html

“Donetsk is a British city! God Save the Queen!” – so an online social media referendum campaign, slightly tongue-in-cheek, promulgated earlier this year. The link with Britain comes from John Hughes, a Welsh businessman, the city’s founder, who launched the first iron-works at the end of the 19th century and subsequently built a steel plant and opened several coal mines in the region. The town was consequently named Yuzovka, or Hughesovka (“Юз” being a Cyrillic approximation of Hughes).

Today, the eastern Ukrainian city of 1 million residents is seeing intense military confrontation, where Ukrainian troops are fighting off and closing in on the Russian backed and funded mercenaries and terrorists.

During the 19th century, Hughesovka received numerous immigrants from Wales, especially from the town of Merthyr Tydfil. By the beginning of the 20th century its main district was named English Colony, with the British origin of the city reflected in its layout and architecture.

During Soviet times, the city’s steel industry expanded and in 1924 it was renamed Stalino. In 1961, Nikita Krushchev, in order to distance it from the out-of-favour former leader Joseph Stalin, gave the city a new name – Donetsk, named after the Seversky Donets River. Apart from today being twinned with Sheffield in the UK, it is also twinned with the US steel city of Pittsburgh.

Yuzovka -> Stalino -> Donetsk -> ? (Hughesovka)

Pour effacer l’empreinte du passé, rien de mieux que le retour au passé. L’époque (bénie) de l’entrée des capitaux occidentaux en Russie.

http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2014/08/18/p18vkbp8pj1cc4q50dgvdvbr124/content.jpg

Boris Danik : Imagining Donbas vote for Ukraine’s parliament
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/boris-danik-imagining-donbas-vote-for-ukraines-parliament-359055.html

No one should discount the possibility of the makeup of the next Rada showing a nearly a 50-50 divide, similar to that marking all previous regimes in the independent Ukraine. This divide essentially exists into this day, with deputies now committed to the oligarchs able to swing the outcomes. Having little choice after the ouster of Yanukovych, they have swung to shape a pro-Ukrainian majority.

Looking with open eyes, it is impossible to deny that elections for Ukraine’s parliament in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, if they take place there, would be for a party agenda similar to that of the Party of Regions.

Notwithstanding Russia’s role in stimulating the Donbas separatism, large segments of population in that area didn’t need much stimulation to vote with guns against the new Ukrainian government which they detested. And many still feel the same way, embittered by urban destruction and civilian casualties for which they blame Ukrainian troops.

Denial of the evidence of hate which is there for all to see doesn’t help. Patriotically-inclined citizens who avoid a reality check can only lead to collective mistakes and exaggerated expectations.
(…)
From a Ukrainian point of view, the question is not what would be best (the pace of war is hardly under Kyiv’s control), but rather what options not to take. Attempts to crush the rebels in their city stronghold would be countered by more firepower from Russia, including direct across-border shelling.

Hypothetically, reconquering all of Donbas would open a plethora of problems for Ukraine’s democratic government, how to accommodate the traditionally pro-Russian population that basically despises Ukraine not of their own making, with Russian civilization attributes.

Perhaps the best realizable outcome could be a semi-permanent ceasefire if all sides would be willing to accept it. After all, a ceasefire in Korea has held a long time. Or think of Transnistria, and don’t reject it out of hand. It may be a puny model but better than the non-stop war. Again, this is hypothetical, but so are most other solutions.
Boris Danik is a retired Ukrainian-American living in North Caldwell, New Jersey.

Un point de vue plutôt mesuré sur le Kyiv Post.

Brian Bonner : Kerry tells Ukraine ‘​what will happen, will happen​​’
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/brian-bonner-kerry-tells-ukraine-what-will-happen-will-happen-358501.html

Kerry didn’t sound convincing.

“With respect to Ukraine, we are in the process of preparing additional sanctions with Europe… what will happen will happen,” Kerry said.

Doris Day, L’Homme qui en savait trop, 1956
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbKHDPPrrc

version française de Jacqueline François, 1956
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOwUxV0z-6k

José Feliciano, Che sarà, 1971
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfiPKNyEvaY

Le Monde devient vraiment un torchon !

Sloviansk pilonnée par les séparatistes
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/video/2014/06/09/slaviansk-pilonnee-par-les-separatistes_4434475_3214.html

A Sloviansk, le pillonage de la ville par des séparatistes prorusses a provoqué dimanche 8 juin de nombreux incendies.

Pour mémoire, Sloviansk est toujours tenue par les « séparatistes prorusses »…

Version de #bullhorn_propaganda

ITAR-TASS : World - At least several civilians were killed in east Ukraine’s Sloviansk
▻http://en.itar-tass.com/world/735307

At least several civilians were killed and many were wounded as Ukraine’s military subjected the center of the east Ukrainian city of Sloviansk to artillery fire, local self-defense forces said on Sunday.

“There were many people in the center of the city during these hours as a festive service had just ended in the church located in the square,” the self-defense forces said. “There are victims among civilians and many received fragmentation wounds,” the self-defense forces said, without specifying the number of those killed and wounded.
The shells exploded in the area of the central square, the city administration building and the communications center, the self-defense forces said.

NB : sur la vidéo mise en ligne par LM, on voit en effet longuement un bâtiment administratif (mairie ?)