Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know - Serhy Yekelchyk

[Spekulatius]

Got this one on my birthday and finally got through reading it. It contains a wealth of information and background about recent Ukraine history (all pre-war) and helps to understand the situation better. It sort of a bone dry read though.

https://www.amazon.com/Ukraine-What-Everyone-Needs-Know®/dp/019753211X

[cubsfan]

^^ Thanks for the suggestion. It's certainly a complicated history. Poles, Jews, Germans, Cossacks, Russians, Ukrainians, partisans, etc - all fighting one another and changing side to the lessor enemy.....

 

It makes my head swim reading about it.

[Spekulatius]

18 hours ago, cubsfan said:

^^ Thanks for the suggestion. It's certainly a complicated history. Poles, Jews, Germans, Cossacks, Russians, Ukrainians, partisans, etc - all fighting one another and changing side to the lessor enemy.....

 

It makes my head swim reading about it.

The country has a tortured history that is very closely connected to Russia. it wasn't called Little Russia for no reason. Since the USSR broke apart, they have slowly moved away from Russia in fits and starts - 1992, 2004 (Euromaiden I, 2014 Euromaiden II, subsequent invasion of Crimea and Donbas, 2020 War are all steps towards independence and moving towards the West. Putin does not like it and tries to reverse it, but it seems to me that he is failing (hopefully).

 

Ukraine inherited some of the same baggage than Russia did - a dysfunctional economy, Oligarchism, Corruption, but much less resources, but they are trying. Russia isn't even trying, they have fallen back into some Czarist authoritarian state where I don't I don't see much of a future other than becoming perhaps a version of Venezuela in the long run.

 

The book gives you a better perspective where the Ukraine is coming from and where they might be going.

[cubsfan]

^^ Looking forward to reading it. If/when Ukraine frees the east - all of that will come back into play during the rebuilding phase.  IF the West funds the rebuilding - corruption probably will be massive, just like in South Korea after the war. I think the estimates were 40% of the rebuilding aid in Korea was stolen. We're just getting started on $$, and the war is not even decided!