I think there is not "mystery" per se - all is in the plain sight.

Truth About 9/11 Would Take Down the US as a Global Empire: Dr. Kevin Barrett
http://www.globalresearch.ca/truth-about-911-would-take-down-the-us-as-a-global-empire-dr-kevin-barrett/

Magerini "was aksed" by EU Parliamentaries to start an initiative to create a "list of [protection of the cold-blooded murderess] Savchenko", modelled after the "list of Magnitskij".

John Kerry has also urged the Russian authorities to immediately release the murderer of the Russian journalists, "pilot" Savchenko.

https://rns.online/economy/Deputati-Evroparlamenta-poprosili-Mogerini-sozdat-spisok-Savchenko-2016-03-08/

See also:

‘Peaceful’ protest In Kiev, Ukraine: Ukro-Nazis attack Russian embassy twice in 24 hours
https://futuristrendcast.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/peaceful-protest-in-kiev-ukraine-ukro-nazis-attack-russian-embassy-twice-in-24-hours/

Wait! What?

Only In America: An Indiscreet Selfie Can Put A Kid In Prison
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/02/29/only-in-america-an-indiscreet-selfie-can-put-a-kid-in-prison-paul-craig-roberts/


I first thought that was a joke, when I read the title...

"Fascist" president, with whom the country had the best healthcare and education system in the region, while people of various religions lived peacefully side-by-side. You seem to be getting your perception of Assad from the Western MSM...

Btw, it were the Brits, who drew the current borders, violating some of the treaties.

And yes, Kurdish state is long overdue, and Assad basically agreed to Federalisation of the Kurdish province - a step in the right direction.

The following article allows to take a look at Ukranisation from a different angle - that of writing. I only present the translated article here.

Galician Intellectuals Wishing to Deprive Ukrainian of the Cyrillic Alphabet
http://stanislavs.org/galician-intellectuals-wishing-to-deprive-ukrainian-of-the-cyrillic-alphabet/

The essay below was published by a Ukrainian journalist and blogger Miroslava Berdnik in LiveJournal on the 7th of November 2014. It covers the history of attempts to replace the Cyrillic alphabet both in the lands, presently known as Ukraine, and also – after the revolution of 1917 – in Russia.

---

The idea of ​​replacing the Cyrillic alphabet in the Ukrainian language with the Latin one for the sake of “Eurointegration” is very close to heart of the Galician thinkers. Round table on the topic will be held on November the 9th (2014) in Lvov.

On the 9th of November, in the famous cult cafe “Dziga” in Lvov, there will be a discussion on whether it is possible to transfer the Ukrainian language from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet. News program “Facts” of the Ukrainian TV channel ICTV reports about it.

The main argument coming from local intellectuals in favour of switching to the Latin alphabet is a question of civilizations. Ukrainian people, or, more precisely, the western Ukrainians – are from “time immemorial the people of Europe. In this they differ from the Russians and the Malorossians (Trans-dnepr Ukrainians – Ed.), who in essence are the Russian people“. And Latin alphabet will be best suited to emphasize the affiliation of Western Ukrainians to the family of Central European nations.

Sooner or later, such a transition from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet will happen, postulates Lvov intelligentsia. The idea of ​​”Latinization of Ukrainian language” appeared already in the 90s among the Galician intellectuals who actively advocated the independence of Galicia. By 2000, the norms for Latin spelling of the Ukrainian language had already been developed. Among the developers was the most famous artist and publicist Vlodko (Vladimir – Ed.) Kostirko. In the early 2000s, he was already publishing his articles on the Ukrainian language, written in Latin, in the editions of the Lvov cultural almanac “Ї”.

Kostirko have long switched to the Latin alphabet in his Ukrainian-language texts. In this way he hopes to emphasize the intransigence and even hostility between the two cultures – the “European” Western Ukrainian and “Russian” Central Ukrainian.

He even once created a painting “Uniate killing a Cossack”. In this painting a Polish “bewinged” hussar is spearing the head of a Zaporozhje Cossack (Translator note: names “Cossack”, “Khazar” and “Hussar” are of the same origin. See Lada Ray’s ESR6: NEW KHAZARIAN KHAGANATE? for more info). This is a reminder that there was a war in the 17th century between the Greek Catholic Galicians and the Orthodox Trans-Dneprians, the descendants of the Cossacks.

Greek Catholics, recalls the artist, fought on the side of Catholic Poles. Ukrainisation of the Galicians was started over time, and especially after the 19th century, but it became somewhat forgotten now. Today Vlodko Kostirko openly pits against each other the residents of the East and the West of Ukraine, arguing that cultural and civilizational reconciliation between them cannot happen.

Let me remind that in March, a temporary special commission for preparation of a draft law “On the development and use of languages ​​in Ukraine” considered a gradual phasing out of the use of the Cyrillic alphabet on the territory of Ukraine.

Already in 2007 I wrote about the attempts during President Yushchenko’s rule to push through the replacement of the Cyrillic alphabet with “abetsadlo” (translator note: From the Polish word for “alphabet”). Back then those attempts were doomed.

Issues pertaining to the functioning of the language already had the political and civilizational colouring in the XX and XXI centuries. And recently, in various Internet resources, there appeared some sensational information – that the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ,for many months already, had a functioning commission on transfer of the Ukrainian language from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, and that it’s headed by the retired Supreme Rada Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk.

According to the Internet publications, the commission includes officials from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Culture and Tourism. In addition to the state of philologists and linguists, in the development of the project are also involved some of the deputies of the Supreme Rada from the faction “Our Ukraine”, in particular, Vyacheslav Koval and Nikolai (Mykola) Onischuk.

The idea of ​​creation of the commission allegedly occurred in early 2005 and was supported by President Yushchenko. But then it leaked to the media on the level of rumours, and after a series of critical articles in the press, the project became “forgotten”. However, scientists continued to work on the project. The idea of ​​a commission emerged anew after the parliamentary elections, which “Our Ukraine” failed. And in August 2006 the commission was created after all. The Moldavian nationalistic site Moldovatoday.net reported that the commission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs conducts regular consultations with the Moldavian colleagues, who were engaged in the transition of the Moldavian language to the Latin alphabet. It is also reported that the issue of transfer of the Ukrainian language to the Latin alphabet was discussed in backstage conversations of the Ukrainian and Moldavian delegation at the third meeting of the GUAM Parliamentary Assembly in October 2006.

I think that the constant experimentations with the Ukrainian language are conducted not only from a desire of som individual “свідомих” (translator note: Ukrainian for “conscious elements”, a term used by the nationalistically inclined Ukrainians) officials to grovel and earn the favours of the Western patrons. This is done in order to collapse the common cultural and civilizational space of the two peoples, who are close to each other. Slavic peoples adapted script, depending on the rite of Christianity, which they adopted – the Byzantine or Latin (Catholic). If it was the Latin, it determined the choice of writing – Latins used for their services the liturgical Vulgate – a version of the Bible, which was almost never translated into national languages, because that was the policy of the Western Church. Hence there was no need to adapt the script of the Cathilicised Slavs to the needs of their languages.

A different approach was taken by the Byzantium, so the missionaries Constantine Philosopher (Cyril) and his brother Methodius, who translated the Gospel to the Slavic (more precisely, its Old Bulgarian dialect), created a special script. This Slavic translation was accepted by all those Slavs who professed Orthodoxy. So our current writing system is determined by a choice we once made.

However, attacks on the Cyrillic alphabet were made repeatedly – in the XIX century in the Austro-Hungarian Galicia and in the XX century, this time by… the Bolsheviks.
Alphabet and abetsadlo

Already in 1823, the Viennese palace librarian and philologist, Bartholomew Kopitar – a Slovenian by nationality, wrote in a letter to the Czech linguist Josef Dobrovský: “My ideal for all Slavs – Latin letters, and a few letters of the Slavic Cyrillic as a supplement”. He proposed to introduce phonetic transcription in language practice, which would have lead to the individual writing system for almost every village in Galicia. In addition, he was going to replace the Cyrillic alphabet with Latin.

A compendium by the ethnographer and writer Vaclav Zaleski “Piesni polskie i ruskie ludu galicyjskiego” (“Polish and Russian Songs of the Galician People”) was published in Lemberg in 1833. For the alphabet he used not Russian, but Polish, a choice which he explained by the following reason: “I put before me a goal to, as far as possible, write as people speak, even if this would lead to any grammatical errors. As for the fact that to achieve this I used Polish letters, and not Cyrillic or Glagolic – well, everyone is obviously going to praise me for this later. I’m sure the time will come when all the Slavic people will leave behind those old letters that are the most hindering introduction of the Slavic literature to the collection of the European literature.”

He was supported by a colleague August Belevsky – historian, publisher and translator of “The Tale Igor’s Campaign”. In a review of the compendium, he wrote: “One of the most important moments, touched by the publisher of the book, is using which letters and how to spell the songs of the Russian folk, who yet have no grammar nor vocabulary for their language…” (translator note: What?!)

However, neither Zaleski nor Belevsky (translator note: see a note on Latinisation of names after the article) had any political goals in their attempts to introduce the Latin alphabet for the Galician Ruthenian (Rusins). They just wanted to “bestow” the common people. Somewhat later started events, which subsequently were dubbed as the “alphabetic war”.

The Latinisation idea was picked up by a young Galician priest Joseph Lozinsky, who in a Lvov newspaper “Rozmaitosci” (1834, №29) published an article “O wprowadzeniu abecadla polskiego do pismiennictwa ruskiego” («On the introduction of the Polish alphabet in Russian writing”), and the following year published his ethnographic work “Russian wedding” using Latin alphabet.

A process of national revival has just taken place in Galicia of the 1830s. The heart of it were the “Galician adherents” – the youth of the Lvov University, headed by Markiyan Shashkevich, Ivan Vahylevich and Yakov Golovatsky, nicknamed at the University as “Ruska trinity”. It was they who gave the most harsh rebuke to attempt of the introduction of the Polish “abetsadlo”, considering it an attempt to tear off Galicia from the ancient historical and cultural roots. “That is an existential question: to be or not to be for the Rusins (Ruthenians) in Galicia” – Golovatsky wrote much later, – “If the Galicians were to accept the the Polish abetsadlo in the 1830s, the Russian nationalal individuality would have vanished, the Russian spirit would have been gone, and Galician Rus would turned into a second Kholmshchyna.” (Golovatsky Yakov, Notes and additions to the articles of Mr. Pypin, printed in the “Journal of Europe” during 1885 and 1886., Vilna, 1888). As a response, Markiyan Shashkevych published a pamphlet “Azbuka and abetsadlo” in 1836. (translator note: see a comment on Azbuka after the translation.) In it, he clearly and reasonably demonstrated that Lozinski’s offer was unfounded, unacceptable and directly harmful. He also argued that the departure from the Cyrillic alphabet would not have brought Galicians closer to the European culture, but only alienated them from the other Slavs. For some time the idea of ​​introducing the Latin alphabet was abandoned.

Next attempt by the Viennese authorities to transfer the Galician-Rusin language to Latin was made in 1859. In Vienna, an Austrian politician and senior official of the Ministry of Education Joseph Irechek published a brochure “Ueber den Vorschlag, das Ruthenische mit lateinischen Schriftzeishen zu schreiben” (“On the Proposal for Rusins to write in Latin letters”). The author very clearly outlined the purpose of spelling reform: “The healthy development of Ukrainian literature will find a very strong support in use of the Latin letters. While Rusins write and print in Cyrillic, they will demonstrate a tendency to lean to the Church-Slavinism and thus to Russianism, and thus the very existence of the Ukrainian literature would be called into question. Church Slavic and Russian influence is so great that it threatens to completely displace the local language and local literature.” And further: “Apart from the rejection of the Russianism, the transition to the Latin alphabet would help Galician Ukrainians later on in their study of the Polish and German languages, without which they will not be able to survive.”

Such influential in the Galician-Russian community people, like Bishop Litvinovich and philologist Joseph Lozinski – who by then switched over to a Russophile position – voted against this reform in the Seim. They argued that this reform “is detrimental to the Rus nation, because with the Latin alphabet, the spirit and faith of the Ukrainian people will vanish.”

Already in the summer, Irechek was going to come to Lemberg and lead the Alphabetical Commission, while from October 1859 all the children in Galicia were to begin studying by the new ABC books. But the scale of popular demonstrations against the reform frightened the central powers. The population of Galicia conducted spontaneous meetings, there were articles in the press, they were writing petitions and sending delegations. And the Austrian authorities, well remembering the Hungarian revolution of 1848, retreated.

“…books written in the Russian alphabet, will be the subject of history”

In 1919, in a March publication of “Izvestia” there was published an article “On the Latin alphabet” signed with frivolous pseudonym “old schoolboy”. It was a letter to the editor, playful in its form, but with a serious question in its essence. It claimed: “Our alphabet is too complicated and is so different from that in Western Europe, that foreigners become horrified by it. We should switch to the Latin script, simple and elegant, just as we have moved from the Russian calendar to the pan-European (translator note: see comments after the article for the calendar discussion), and to the metric system from the ‘pounds’ and ‘arshin'”. And it explains how one can transfer specific Russian sounds to the Latin alphabet. There were also references to Slavic peoples, for example the Poles, who have long used the Latin alphabet.

Who hid behind that pseudonym – contemporaries deducted that easily. It was either Lunacharsky, or Bukharin – the main Red intellectuals, who later became active promoters of the “new alphabet”. But what kind of a whim it is – to transfer Russian to Latin?

Everything is, however, very simple: the ardent revolutionaries considered a common alphabet as one of the tools to create a new trans-ethnic community. Why Latin? Firstly, the new leaders were, of course, the people of Western civilization in their spirit. And secondly, because the world revolution was to follow the Russian one! We renounce the old world and start everything with a clean slate.

And in 1922 they started with such clean slate in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani CEC chairman Samad Agamali-oglu, having previously spoken with Lenin, created in Baku “the Committee of NTA (New Turkic Alphabet).” Lenin, according to Lunacharsky, strongly approved the idea of Latinasation, though he thought that it was necessary to do this “later, once we become stronger”. Soon the Latin alphabet became the state alphabet of Azerbaijan. The previous script was declared as “feudal-reactionary”. Especially since Kemal Ataturk, who was then regarded as a strategic ally, was in full swing Latinising Turkey.

It was conceived to gradually turn the Latin alphabet into the basis for all non-Slavic peoples of USSR. VTsKNA (ВЦКНА) – The All-Union Central Committee of the New Alphabet – was created under the jurisdiction of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Council of Nationalities in 1927. By the beginning of the 30s the languages of ​​17 Muslim peoples were transferred to Latin, and by 1936 – of already 68 different nationalities. All this occurred against the backdrop of indigenization (in our country, Ukrainisation was carried out under the supervision of Kaganovich).

In 1930, on Lunacharsky’s initiative, the question of latinasation of the Russian alphabet (as well as Ukraine and Russia) was put forth. In the article “Latinisation of the Russian Writing”, published in the journal “Culture and literature of the East”, he wrote: “From now on our Russian alphabet has alienated us not only from the West, but also from the East which to a large extent was awakened by our own efforts… Gradually the books, written in the Russian alphabet, will be the subject of history. Of course it will always be useful to study Russian letters in order to have access to them. It will be a perceptible benefit for those, who deal with the history of literature, but in any case, it will be less and less necessary for a new generation… The benefits, presented by the introduction of the Latin alphabet, are enormous. It gives us the most of internationalisation, thus linking us not only with the West, but also with the renewed East.” (translator note: What a beautiful example of circular logic. First Latinise the East, then use it as an argument that Russia also needs to be Latinised. Also note the accent on the “new generation”, which is to be torn away from its roots.)

Established then in Glavnauka Narcompros (Head Department of Science in the jurisdiction of the People’s Committee of Education) a subcommittee on the Latinisation of Russian writing, announced that the Russian alphabet is “a form of graphics, ideologically alien to the socialist construct”, “a relic of class graphic of the Russian feudal landowners and the bourgeoisie of the XVIII – XIX centuries”, “graphics of the autocratic oppression, missionary propaganda, Greater-Russian nationalistic chauvinism and forced Russification”. (Translator note: In other words: let’s kill all that is Russian or somehow connected to Russia. It goes well with the obfuscation of Russia itself in the USSR, where it always went by an acronym RSFSR, and never by its full name. In USSR it was frowned upon mention anything to do with “Russian”.)

In the mid-1930s, the more ardent Latinisers were starting to get reined in. Stalin was able to defeat his Trotskyist opponents, so the idea of ​​the world revolution lost its relevance. A big war was looming over the the country, and it was necessary that the peoples felt themselves in a common cultural space.

In 1936, a top-secret report N ОБ-322 was submitted to the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b), in which, among other things, it was stated: “The enemies of the Soviet government and the CPSU(b) tried to use Latinisation for the purpose of segregation of the working people of those republics and regions from the total family of the peoples of the Soviet Union. While using the talk of an “international character” of the Latin base as a cover, they defended the course on bourgeois culture of the Western Europe, in contrast to the developing culture, national in form and socialist in content… As a result of the active elimination of the Russian alphabet, VTsKNA and local committees created 10 Latinised alphabets for the people with Russian script… The situation with the terminological construction of the languages ​​of many peoples of the USSR is unfortunate. Especially unfortunate it is in this regard among the border peoples and nations, where the “Latinisation” is simply an instrument of the large and small imperialists. For example, Romanisation of the terminology has been openly carried out over a number of years in Soviet Moldavia, while in the Soviet Karelia (under the old leadership) – was the case of the most active Finnisation. And all this is happening in spite of the resistance of the broad masses of the population.”

Today, only a phrase from the book “The Golden Calf” reminds of those times: “‘Herculeans’, in response to someone’s intrigues, promised to answer with a mass Latinisation of the official documents.” The meaning of the joke becomes clear only if we remember about that unfinished Latinisation campaign. But the case of the enthusiasts for “coming closer to the West” was not lost…

Why mobile operators need transliteration?

When you read the program article for Latinisation of the Ukrainian language “Ukrolatinitsa: simple and tasteful” in the “Mirror of the week” (№28 (453), 26.07-1.08 ’03), you get the impression that you ended up in the distant 30s. The same argument – “coming closer the civilized West.” The same enemy – the “Greater-Russian chauvinism” and Orthodox Christianity. As well as the main target group – the younger generation: “…not in this generation, but in the coming ones. Because already from the cradle, not yet realizing what these squiggles mean, the baby will get used to the Latin alphabet. It will pay off when the time comes to learn a foreign language: the little Ukrainians will not be breaking over the font.” (translator note: see a comment after the translation)

As we know, children’s mouth speaketh oft the truth. My daughter recently asked me a surprising question: “Мамо, чому оператори мобільного зв’язку надсилають SMS-повідомлення не українською мовою, але латинськими літерами?” (“Mom, why mobile operators send SMS-messages not in Ukrainian, but in Latin?”) Why indeed? After all, every keyboard has not only Latin, but also Cyrillic script. But, as is known, the majority of the mobile operators’ customers are young people. And they gradually get used to the Latin alphabet.

As mentioned above, on-line editions reported about the consultations of our developers with the Moldavian colleagues, who in the early 90’s Latinised Moldavian language, using the work of Lunacharsky’s commission as a foundation.

I got in touch with the first secretary of the press service of Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, Natalia Zhitaryuk. She “in the working order” refuted this information, adding that “якщо газета «2000» претендує на те, щоб бути серйозною газетою, то вона не буде дезінформувати читачів і писати про те, що не відповідає дійсності” (“If newspaper “2000” pretends to be a serious newspaper, it will not be misleading its readers and writing something that is not true”).

Although the foreign ministry’s press service denies the existence of the Commission for Latin transliteration of the Ukrainian language, one is greatly worried by the fact that over the last few years, the on-line editions as well as reputable newspapers constantly “inject” this topic into the information space. On the “orange” youth forums this topic is discussed quite aggressively. Here one just ought to remember, that the prelude to the war, which split the former Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic into two irreconcilable parts, was precisely the Latinisation of the language.

---

My leading comments and the postscriptum notes can be read here:
http://stanislavs.org/galician-intellectuals-wishing-to-deprive-ukrainian-of-the-cyrillic-alphabet/

Varjag - from Slavic/Rus verb "Varit'" - "to cook", related to the trade of those people, cooking salt. Varjagi were a Slavic people.
Khazars or Hussars or Cossacks (Kazaki) - same people of the Slavic origin.

If you start to go into genetics, maybe I should reiterate the following:
http://stanislavs.org/how-malorossia-was-turned-into-the-patch-quilt-of-discord-that-is-ukraine/

The publication from 27.07.2014 in KM.ru, which presents the research by Anatoly Klyosov. My translation of that article below:

    A leading scientist of the scientific direction of “DNA genealogy”, Doctor of Chemistry, professor of Moscow State University and Harvard University, Anatoly Klyosov in an exclusive interview KM.RU denied allegations of genetic differences between the Russians and Ukrainians.

    Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians represent a set of the same genera

    Nationalist school of Western Ukraine promotes the idea that the Russian and Ukrainian peoples are not closely related. This point of view is “based” on the fact that although once upon a time, Russians moved from what is now Ukraine, later they allegedly severely mingled with representatives of the Mongoloid race and are no longer Slavs.

    There is virtually no truth in this statement. Russians, Ukrainians and Beloarussians represent a set of the same genera, it is one and the same people from the genetic point of view. They have almost the same origin. Ethnic Russians have three main lines: R1a, I and N. 48% of Russians and 45% of Ukrainians are in haplogroup R1a. 22% of Russians and 24% of Ukrainians are in haplogroup I. Depending on sampling, these parameters may vary up to 4%.

    A more noticeable difference between our peoples is observed in haplogroup N, which is common in Northern Europe. It includes, in particular, a portion of Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians, part of the Russian population of the Baltic states and the Russian north-east. 14% of Russians, 10% of Belarusians, and 1% to 4% of Ukrainians are in haplogroup N. Such a significant difference is due to the fact that Ukraine is located more south of the Baltic states, than Russia and Belarus. If we take the Belarusians, 52% belong to R1a, 22-24% belong to I, and as I said, 10% belong to N.

    I want to stress that when I say “Ukrainians”, I am referring to the inhabitants of the western regions. Furthermore, we specifically took the data from Lvov. Of course, we have somewhat different cultures, and different language, but not the origin.

    Assertions about the differences of our people is a part of the information war

    There is such a thing as a “haplotype tree”. It is formed by different means. The first option is for the population genetics specialists to go to the field, go to the cities and villages with a test tube. Researchers collect saliva or blood from the representatives of certain ethnic category and determine DNA by it. From the point of view of the academic science such data is considered to be more accurate. The second option is when people send their samples to commercial organizations. Science generally shuns such data, but in the end the results obtained by scientists and commercial companies, is approximately the same, and often times simply identical.

    So, we modelled this haplotypes tree , including to data on Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians. To do this, we did a DNA analysis based on 111 parameters (DNA Y-chromosome markers), whereas normal “academic” analysis only takes into account 17 parameters or less – often 7-8 parameters. We tracked such details, that the researchers do not usually go into. We superimposed the haplogroups of our peoples, and found that there is a match everywhere. Again, the difference is observed only in haplogroup N. It is connected solely with the geographical reasons.

    Thus, the question of the common origin of the Russian, Belorussians and Ukrainians is closed, although I am familiar with the “works” that deny this fact. They caused in me a great scientific and social resentment. These “scientists” spew nonsense and distort objective data. I regard such activities as a part of the information war.

No, he was Malorossian.

"Ukrainian is NO nationality. There is real Taras Shevchenko's passport in his museum in Kiev and in it it's clearly written: Orthodox Malorossian (aka, Malorussian). Passports of Ivan Franko and Lesia Ukrainka (Kosach) say: Rusin and Rusinka (for Lesia, who's a female). Ivan Franko wrote in hid diary: “Someone bloodily (terribly) insulted me today, they called me Ukrainian! Although everyone knows I am RUSIN.' FYI: before the 1917 Revolution (meaning Lenin's November 1917 Bolshevik coup as a result of which the USSR was formed in 1922) only those who betrayed the Russian Orthodox faith and converted into Greek Catholicism (Uniats). The word 'ukrainian' signified not nationality, but religious association. In the Universal Call to the Cossack World Bogdan Khmelnitsky writes: “I, the hereditary Russian Shliakhtich, hereby command!..”


Polish phase of Ukranisation occurred before 1772. Then the Austrians took over..
Bandera was just a bandit, who used nationalistic ideas as a front for his atrocities.


Yes, I deny that. There are Novorossians, Malorossians, Galicians (Rusins) - and even this is more of a geographic, than national separation. They all have their dialects, but so do people, who live in Moscow and Rostov-on-Don... I can freely read Rusin (Galician) publications from mid 1800, using only my contemporary knowledge of Russian.


You forgot the map with Kievan Rus and Galician Rus from before the Tara-Mongol invasion and the split of those lands... Russia suffered a period of feudal split-up, but it happened and was over much earlier than in the rest of Europe.

By singling out Moskovia, Novgorod and other feudal counties, you commit the same error as those, who single out Galicia, Malorossia, etc. The peope living in those counties were the same, it's the Counts possessing the land, who were different and fighting between themselves.

Russian general Rustam Muratov, who is in Donetsk as a Russian representative in the coordination centre for ceasefire, came under artillery shelling. Shelling lasted for 15-20 minutes, according t Basurin:
https://rns.online/military/Predstavitel-Rossii-v-tsentre-po-kontrolyu-prekrascheniya-ognya-popal-pod-obstrel-v-Donbasse-2016-03-06/?

Belorussian borderguards do not recognise the new Ukrainian electronic passports, shaped as credit cards, which came into circulation in January 2016:
http://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2016/03/05/n_8333903.shtml

Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Crimean Republic, Ruslan Balbek, said that they have verified information that Turkish military instructors are dislocated in Kherson oblast and that they are preparing mercenaries for warfare in both open landscape and in urban conditions:

http://lenta.ru/news/2016/03/05/crimea/

Looks like the following article belongs here.

‘Efficient, accurate’: Russian air warfare in Syria praised in classified NATO report
https://www.rt.com/news/334642-russia-efficient-syria-nato/

Exactly. An why would I deny Golodomor - my great-grandmother from Siberia died of hunger in those years, as did a large number of residents of her village.

Ukrainians, trying to monopolise on the right to be the "martyrs", even "Ukranised" the name...

A small linguistic digression: Golodomor (Голодомор) - translated from Russian, means "mass death from hunger" from "Golod" - "hunger and "Mor" - "mass death". Ukrainisation of it into Holodomor (Холодомор) sounds absurd as it literally translates as "mass death from freezing", from "Holod" - "cold". It like the case, when Ukranisation turned a "male cat" (Rus: Кот, Ukr: Кiт) into a "whale" (Russian and Ukrainian: Кит [pronounced: Rus: kit, Ukr: kyt])

To be fair, Stalin is only partially to blame for the deaths of the Russian people from hunger (and I am not separating between Russian from Siberia, Russian from Novorossia, Russian from Malorossia (Galicia was not in USSR at that time, though they now do the most of screaming about "Holodomor")).

The West was as much to blame. After the desolation and the destruction of the Russian industry after the 1917 coup d'etat, Stalin needed to re-industrialise the country. The West refused to sell anything for rouble (even in gold), but would take grain as payment. So it was a choice of dies from hunger or die from an imminent invasion due to weakened industry and defence.

Anyway, I see af_newbie is changing the subject, when he became uncomfortable with the one discussed. A typical logical fallacy.

---

There is an irony connected to Ukrainisation during the Soviet time. When part of Malorossia and Galicia were under Poland, and then Galicia was a part of Austria, both countries conducted Ukranisation of the borderlands to keep control over them and to stop them from looking towards Russia. But in both cases the efforts were quite half-baked and inconsistent. They supported some nationalistic movements, printed some brochures, and that's that.

It was in USSR that Ukranisation took on a massive scale. First, the very state of Ukraine was created (and represented in UN) by USSR, lands that were never a part of the borderland - Novorossia - were given to Ukraine and its residents were forced to adopt the Galician - Ukrainian - dialect. Lenin justified that transfer as a wish to give the new Ukrainian state an industrial base.

The official reason for the massive propaganda-machine-driven Ukranisation: by creating Ukraine they were making all of the nationalistic demands moot. I am not so sure. Lenin, and later Kaganovich, were Russophobes, and there may have been an anti-Russian agenda there. This is supported by the attempts to Latinise Russian and Ukrainian by the Communists in the 1918-1930, by the way Russia was obfuscated on the political arena, by the fact that to conduct the 1917 coup d'etat Lenin recieved funds from the West.

Female Ukrainian TV journalist tells that the son of Avakov was threatening her:
http://ria.ru/world/20160304/1384268838.html

I found The Masks of Revolution on RuTube:

In French:
http://rutube.ru/video/11b2e424f8b8186d2168a66045ac49e4/

Full professional Russian translation (dub + subtitles):
http://rutube.ru/video/ebf657119ed2d3344366cff75c44b9a1/

Alas, not the English version.

You are viewing the definition of the term "win" from an American standpoint, to mean "total annihilation of the opponent". Russian standpoint on "win" is "to use enough force to allow diplomacy to take over and minimise the loss of life". That was true even with regard to the German Nazis, when USSR was pushing West to Berlin.

If Russia sees an opportunity to achieve peace without using excessive force, it will grab it. Such an opportunity was presented by Obama. If USA will hold their promise (they won't as usual) is another matter. The ball is now in the US court.

The stakes are no less smaller for Russia in Syria, as Syria was used by US-backed ISIS as a staging platform for terrorist activity within Russia.

It's been a while since I posted here. Most discussions went in other topics.

In the meantime, I did a few translations and publications, pertaining to various periods from the Russian history.

USSR:
http://stanislavs.org/who-and-how-transferred-crimea-into-ukrainian-soviet-socialist-republic-in-1952-1954/

The Wild 90's and Desolation of Yeltsin:
http://stanislavs.org/for-russia-90s-were-worse-than-wwii/
http://stanislavs.org/the-wild-90s-in-russia-as-reflected-in-peoples-memory/
http://stanislavs.org/boris-yeltsin-demon-or-hero/

WWII:
http://stanislavs.org/sophie-against-canaris-she-fought-for-ussr-but-became-hero-of-russia/
http://stanislavs.org/wwii-veteran-stanislav-lapin-i-had-my-own-score-with-hitler/
http://stanislavs.org/life-is-such-a-simple-yet-cruel-thing/

The history of the Borderlands, aka Ukraine - both past and present:
http://stanislavs.org/denouncing-everything-soviet-then-return-the-territories/
http://stanislavs.org/and-what-about-restoration-of-territorial-integrity-of-russia/
http://stanislavs.org/how-malorossia-was-turned-into-the-patch-quilt-of-discord-that-is-ukraine/

Various:
http://stanislavs.org/nikolay-starikov-estonia-should-pay-back-the-money-for-which-peter-the-great-bought-it-from-sweden-300-years-ago/
http://stanislavs.org/russia-means-peace/
http://stanislavs.org/birds-eye-perspective-on-the-russian-federation/

And a little extra about writing off various debts, which Russia is too generous with.
A translation from the following article in AiF (in Russian):
http://www.aif.ru/politics/world/attrakcion_nevidannoy_shchedrosti_komu_vygodna_restrukturizaciya_kreditov

In 2008 Russia forgave $12 billion of Iraqi debt; $4.5 billion to Libya, $4.7 billion to Algiers. See infographics for the last 10 years:


But what about Russia itself? Russia repaid all Soviet debts, took on all the debts of the former republics, and more:

Bryant, when it comes to af_newbie - he is a lost case, a lost generation, who will repeat ad nauseum like a mantra, what he was taught by the Soros-funded schoolbooks in Ukraine, and despite all the historical documented facts staring in his face.

He does not care that, contrary to what he states, Ukanisation reached its peak during Soviet rule - simply because this does not tow the current party line.

To be fair, the map above is too coarse-grained. It does not reflect all the transitions of the lands that are now part of Western Ukraine. How it formed into Galicia Rus after the Tatar-Mongol invasion divided Rus in two, how those lands ended up in Lithuania, then came into Poland as part of the Commonwealth that he mentions, and then to Austria.

Each new master of those lands went out of their ways (with varying degree of success) to convince the local Russian population that they are not Russian. Austrians introduced the term Rusins (Ruthenians) around 1850s to segregate Galician Russians from other Russians.

No one "brought Russians into Ukraine" becase 1) there was no "Ukraine" and 2) Russians were already living there. And despite the hard-pressed Ukranisations, many there still identify themselves as Russians, or a part of the Russian world.

I'll have more on this topic later in a separate post...

Something's a'brewing in Novorossia.

Basurin said yesterday, referring to the intelligence service of the Donetsk Republic, that Ukrainian SBU started door-to-door arrests of residents on the Kiev controlled territories in the style of the 1930 Stalin's arrests of the Nazi German arrests on the occupied territories of the 1941...

In the meantime OCSE general secretary said that the "peace" in Donbass becomes shakier by the minute.

That was quick! Earlier YouTube killed the version with Russian subtitles.

"Ukraine: Les masques de la ..." This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by PREMIÈRES LIGNES TÉLÉVISION.