CCTV footage from Mezhyhirya proves that Yanukovych was already packing his bags during the negotiations on the resolution of the Ukraine crisis that he held with the French, German, and Polish foreign ministers on February 20–21, 2014. Some suggested that Yanukovych had to flee Kyiv because the agreement arranged by the international negotiators (which included limitations on presidential power and early elections) was broken by the opposition. But Mezhyhirya’s evidence proves that Yanukovych was about to flee anyway, with the intention of creating a pretext to undermine the agreement because of alleged security concerns.
See the National Museum’s website →.
See →.
See the first episode of Workingman’s Death (2005) by Michael Glawogger.
Despite all the shortcomings of representative democracy, it is ironic to see its mechanisms being despised in the West by those who still possess them, while being ridiculed by authoritarians in Russia who have effectively privatized the right to be elected. It’s obviously a trap to regard the Russian crackdown on representative democracy as an argument in its favor; according to this view, Western representative democracy is the only “still democratic” option available. But it’s far more dangerous to consider the Putinist system as a “counter-imperialist” alternative that could provide opportunities for reclaiming democracy.
“The Great Patriotic War” is the name given to WWII in the Soviet Union. According to Soviet history, the Great Patriotic War started in 1941, with the German attack on the USSR, rather than in 1939, with the division of Poland. (In this way, Soviet historiography tries to conceal the fact that the USSR made a deal with the German Nazis before the start of WWII to divide Poland.)
In an outstanding media prank on the day of the presidential election in Ukraine, Russian state TV announced that the Right Sector’s candidate was actually winning the election, with 37 per cent of the vote. See (in Russian) →.