Reply #41: true [View All]

But, from what little I know, Ukraine has consistently gotten the short end of the stick from Russia for the past 15 years. With friends like that Ukraine hasn't needed any enemies. They didn't have a Siberia to plunder for oil and ores and maintain a certain amount of wealth coming into the country, either. Getting stuck with the very useless and expensive Black Sea fleet was also not a good move.

But you're right. Neither of the two can actually do all that much to help average Ukrainians and both can do more to make conditions worse. But as you point out via your critique of Ms Timoshenkaya, there's a lot of social and political and economic detritus left from the USSR- bad alliances and stupid schisms and misdistributions of everything, people with marginal loyalties and interests- that will be dealt with piece by piece. All I can say is that Yanukovich winning is more of the pseudofeudal/oligarch system that emanates from Moscow being imposed and status quo in that manner.

Ukrainian society is a bit different, more 'European face' from what impression I've gotten. More Greek and Balkan influenced, for one thing, from the Black Sea cities, and more strongly defined by its particular steppe peoples (who weren't as Asiatic) overall than Russian society.