Re: some thoughts

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: : This topic is very interesting, here are some of my thoughts. : : 1. Right now Ukraine is pretty much a sattelite of Russia, heavily dependant on russian : : oil and gas : Wrong. What Ukraine is heavily dependent on is Ukrainian oil and gas traders connected with Kuchma's administration. These guys draw huge profits : from this "dependency on Russia". : (and "good will" I might add - should Russia discontinue giving gas and : : oil basically for free - Ukraine is in for some cold winter). : "Basically for free" is three times more expensive than what Western Europe pays. You may call it good will if you wish, but to me it looks more like : enormous theft. : : Some areas of the industry, especially in the Eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian plants : : were tightly integrated with Russian counterparts are in a huge decline since the break-up : : of the Soviet Union, largely due to Kravchuk's policy of not-cooperation with Russia, : : the plant I worked at was working at a 10% capacity after we were prohibited to sell : : stuff to Russians. : This part is very interesting. Do you have anything to support your claim that you were "prohibited to sell to Russians". : : I've heard it is completely shut down now. : : I guess that makes Ukraine less of a "sattelite" , but is it good for Ukraine? : : I doubt that. : AFAICT, most state enterprises were victms of the red directors in charge of those enterprises. In the beginning the main activity was to transfer : equipment to privately-owned small enterprises, or simply sell the equipment and pocket the money. Of course, to steal the equipment, it was necessary to : stop production (or else, how do you explain to a workers that the machines they worked on yesterday are not there any more?). Thus all the bullshit about : "lost connetcions with Russia" was nothing but a pretext to stop production. : Since the time privatization started, another mechanism became popular: run the enterprise into debts and then get it essentially for free as an "investor". : : In the military sphere, Ukraine is also, pretty much, a sattelite of Russia. : In what way? : :Another choice would : : be joining NATO, however I am not sure if this perspective is realistic at all. : : Russia will of course oppose that and quite possibly Crimea will be gone in no time. : : This knot is too tough, I don't think NATO would want to deal with it, unless Russia : : joins NATO (Putin said something about a possibility of that happening). : Russia joining NATO? You are certainly joking, as Putin did. : : 2. There is nothing bad in being a "cheap labor source" : But of course you prefer not to be one. I wonder why? : : 3. I just can't share the optimizm of the majority of people who have voted on this topic. : : What had happened in Ukraine in the last 10 years that makes you think it is going to : : become a prosperous country? Wishful thinking, nothing else. : Let's say, almost everythig that could be stolen, is already stolen. Supposedly, not all the : perpetrators want to share Lazarenko's fate. An alternative is to make that money work : in Ukraine. Does this sound plausible to you? : : When USSR broke up, Ukraine was one of the most potent from the new countries that : : emerged on the ruins of the Soviet Empire. Now, according to Western Analysts : : (unfortunately I don't have a refernce, but I have seen a very detailed review on : : the american TV) it is one of the worst in the european part of the former USSR. : : Baltic countries and Russia are far ahead. : I would not be so sure about Russia. : : 4. Most likely Ukraine will not "disappear", however some loss of the territory is quite : : possible. Separatist tendencies in the Crimea and some regions of the Eastern Ukraine : : grow fast, and will grow if the economical situation will not improve and the pressure : : from the Western Ukraine will not decline. : Now, that is wishful thinking. Russian wishful thinking, to be more precise.

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