Ukraine's European Revolution?

[DGuller]

There will definitely be no democracy in Ukraine if the army gets called upon, and even now there is only a tenuous pretext of it.

In that case, the protestors lose the moment the military is called on. You aren't going to integrate into Europe when you don't have democracy.

What I meant is that Yanukovich will cease to have any legitimacy as a democratically-elected leader.  It doesn't mean that Ukraine itself would permanently cease to be a democracy.

[DGuller]

A couple of Berkut guys were screaming in Russian at the film crews, and telling to get to get the fuck out, but generally, it did seem a little surreal.  Unless those Berkut guys went over on the other side, which is highly unlikely, the two sides did seem to at least cease fire after the bloodbath and work together on evacuating the wounded.

Actually, this now gets more confusing.  Here is a video as to how the situation got there, from one of the thugs who is literally running behind Berkut guys, and curses/mocks any protester who falls behind and is being beaten.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JqPZYTbJLY#t=131  It looks like at least some of the guys with the green surplus military helmets, if not all of them, are the pro-Yanukovich thugs.  Therefore, in the aftermath video that I linked earlier, I'm not sure that those not dressed in body armor are necessarily the good guys, and therefore the fact that they're walking side-by-side with Berkut may not be that weird.  In short, it's a fucking confusing situation.

[Razgovory]

Those look like the helmets the Red Army had in WWII.  I always thought when Berkut called himself a "Militant Moderate", he meant it metaphorically.  In practice this looks just as bad militant leftism or militant rightism.

[DGuller]

Those look like the helmets the Red Army had in WWII.  I always thought when Berkut called himself a "Militant Moderate", he meant it metaphorically.  In practice this looks just as bad militant leftism or militant rightism.

Soviet helmets didn't change since then, at least not visibly.

[Queequeg]

They're not as big, are they?  The WW2 ones kind of dwarfed most heads. 

[Razgovory]

Same size, Russian heads just got bigger.

[derspiess]

They went through a few changes but to me they looked the same since mid-WW2.

[Sahib]

Are you sure about that?  I always thought that the city of Lvov itself had a majority German, Polish and Jewish population until WW2.

The fact you're calling it L'vov speaks volumes.

This is one of those issues I wouldn't really trust wiki on, for either side.

Are you also distrusting Austrian censuses. The city itself was Polish (and Jewish) while the countryside was mostly Ukrainian. That's isn't even remotely controversial ffs 

[CountDeMoney]

That's isn't even remotely controversial ffs 

What's Lvov got to do got to do with it?

[Neil]

The proper name is Lemberg.

[Ed Anger]

That's isn't even remotely controversial ffs 

What's Lvov got to do got to do with it?

And if you think my puns are bad......

[Jacob]

That's isn't even remotely controversial ffs 

What's Lvov got to do got to do with it?

[DGuller]

Regardless of what culture Lviv belonged to, there wasn't any choice as to where it would go regardless.  There wasn't such a thing as Soviet-occupied Poland in 1939.  Soviet Union annexed everything into one of the adjoining republics, so in the case of Lviv, it would've been either Ukraine, Belorussia, or Moldavia.  Obviously Belorussia or Moldavia would've made much less sense than Ukraine.

[DGuller]

The one obvious thing about these video that just struck me is how the thugs are attacking the crowds while standing shoulder-to-shoulder with riot police.  I'm so jaded as to the nature of Berkut that something so obviously fucked up didn't register immediately.  That kind of throws any pretense of legitimacy of the action to "restore order" out the window. 

I wonder if that titushka that filmed the attack will come to regret handing such documented evidence to the world?  It may be that no one cares about pretense anymore by this point, so maybe not.

[Razgovory]

DG, this is your former country, what do you think is the optimal outcome?  What do you think is the likely outcome?