Ukraine and the Serbian Connection

(Click map to enlarge)

Most historians believe that the Serbs and other southern Slavs migrated to the Balkan peninsula from an area roughly where modern Ukraine is located today.  What many people do not realize, is that a migration of Serbs and other Balkan peoples contributed to the events that led to the emergence of this "krajina" or frontier on the south flank of the Russian Empire.

Besides the Serbian expats that can be found hanging out at a few Serbian restaurants in Kiev and Kharkov, one of the few remaining signs of once Serbian settlements in Ukraine is the village of "Slovianoserbsk" (Ukrainian: Слов'яносербськ/Russian: Славяносербск) located in the Lugansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine.  From 1753 to 1764, it was the capital of Slavo-Serbia, one of the Serbian military colonies on the Russian Empire's frontier.  

Another famous colony was located in the modern province of Kirovograd called "Nova Serbiya" or New Serbia (Ukrainian: Нова Сербія, Serbian: Нова Србија, Russian: Новая Сербия).  Today there still stands a museum with the gravestone and epitaph for Peter Tekeli (Russian: Петр Авраамович Текели, Serbian: Петар Поповић Текелија) a Russian General of Serb origins.

I'm Seeing Blue in Ukraine

Well I have to admit, the Ukrainian presidential elections once again held me in suspense as Viktor Yanukovych secures a victory over his Orange rival Yulia Tymoshenko. For the most part, the run-off election went off without much fan-fare and the Western countries who supported the Orange democracy, quickly conceded that this time Yanukovych won fairly.

Just a few years ago these same Western democracies were cheer leading the various "color" revolutions sweeping across the Post-Soviet space. After realizing the severe consequences these newly installed regimes would have on Russia's periphery, the Kremlin began to take action to turn the tables around culminating in the defeat of the Pentagon's Georgia project in the Caucuses, the a Blue Wave is sweeping across Eurasia.

Not so fast! - say some western observers. The same analysts that miss-calculated the rolling back of US/NATO influence in places like Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine, are now predicting that this is a temporary set-back. One argument I heard recently was that the problem with Russia is, they don't have much to offer in the long run in terms of economic, political, and social security, thus the pendulum will swing back the other way.

During the 1990's this was certainly true. As the Russian economy collapsed, the Euro-Atlantic powers swooped in to fill the vacuum. Economically and geopolitically, the US remained the single largest super power on the globe. As the Newly Independent States and other countries lost their socialists subsidies from Mother Russia, their expectations for what they will get from the West was high. All they had to do was pretend they are democrats and soon they would get an invitation to the all exclusive NATO club. For them, money in the U.S. grows on trees, and since paper really does come from trees, thus, the US printed allot of it!

How can the U.S. regain a foothold in Russia's back yard without economic clout? Russia's long term economic outlook is looking good if you see the recent financial reports coming from Fitch Ratings, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc. Here is why:

Russia is starting a second wave of privatization with an aim to ensure Russia is a huge benefactor of capital from the world's financial markets. This injection of cash is expected to cause the Russian economy to pass France and Germany in the next decade from industries outside the commodities. By 2030 Russia's economy is expected to surpass the EU. (It could pass by the EU sooner depending on how optimistic the EU's economy will grow. As this trend happens, you will see even countries like Poland move closer) these reports are very credible in the financial world.

What about the culture of democracy and freedom? On the cultural side, the government of Ukraine tried to discourage a visit last July by the new Russian Patriarch. The pro-Western government would not even guarantee his safety in the predominately Catholic western region. The Governor of the Rovno region declared "not over my dead body will the Patriarch come here." The Patriarch ignored the warning and ironically the Governor was struck by lightning and killed just before the visit! This is a true story. The Patriarch then visited Rovno and rest of Ukraine and was received by thousands, even during his visit to the western regions.

Former Ukrainian president Yushchenko who appointed the now dead governor and the Orange Revolution never achieved anything with substance in Ukraine. I am not sure if that is a pendulum or was just a temporary blip on the radar screen of recent history. As for Eastern and Central Europe, once they see the cracks in the EU's credibility, they will leave the EU faster than they arrived.

Demographically Russia has to turn itself around. However, this is a problem even worse in Ukraine and rest of Europe for that matter. Eurasia will rise pass the Euro-Atlantic powers by sheer economy of scale. Whether the Russians or somebody else is controlling Eurasia remains to be seen, but Eurasia will be the center of things for the next millennia.

If a Blue Wave can take root, there may still be hope for the survival of Christian Civilization.

Why the global elite do not like an economically strong Russia

I just had to comment on the Economist's Special Report on Russia by Arkady Ostrovsky. The report appears factual but it wreaks with propagandistic rhetoric evident from the so-called Western "commentariat" - a term I prefer to call the liberal globalist media as coined by Russia Today's Peter Lavelle.

Ostrovsky appears in various British print as an "expert" on Russian affairs but the rhetoric is typical of the Economist. I am sure the editor made sure of that since the Economist has always predicted for decades that "pro-Western" countries like Ukraine, Georgia, etc., would become economic successes whilst Russia remain a basket case. Just pick up any old Economist from the 1990's or early 2000's and you will see that the reality of today does not resemble their predictions then. This is what happens when people under the ideology of liberal globalism wrongly define what is right and what is wrong. Now they are faced to explain why Russia has been rising economically and politically. Anything you can find wrong with Russia on the other hand is Putin's fault. However, if there are positive economic reports, it means Putin is using nationalism and oil to allow Russians to get rich unfairly. It is all nonsense.

Ostrovsky at least is more realistic than most of the commentariat that the current Russia is not the Second Soviet Union. The commentariat has led the average American to believe that Putin is trying to re-create another Soviet Union through the KGB. Firstly, Putin is not the Commander in Chief any longer, and secondly as even Ostrovsky rightfully reports, Russia does have a market economy moving away from socialism.

Ostrovsky is wrong on other points as well. Mainly he is wrong by saying that Russia is merely copying the West by "unilaterally" invading Georgia, and suggesting that Russian style capitalism is leaving out the "masses" in the cold who are falling into poverty. Firstly, I don't think Russia had any other choice than to attack Georgia in order to protect its own security. Instead it was the unilateral intention of the U.S. to interfere with Georgian-Russian relations. Secondly, there does not seem to be any dispute in regards to fact the quantity of millionaires and billionaires in Russia is growing. Where do these millionaires come from? Of course we all know a good number of billionaires or oligarchs as the Russians call them got rich in the 1990's by pillaging Russia. Men like Berezovsky or the jailed Khodorkovsky got rich without really creating anything. However, there are plenty of newly created legitimate millionaires who during the same 1990's were making $40 per month, then $100 per month, etc., but used their great talents to harness opportunities that built the consumer economy now present in Russia. Prosperity has only until recently begun to spread to the provincial areas of Russia which in time will also see their standards of living improve. There is much evidence of this happening already. However, there will always be certain Russians, especially older retirees of the USSR era who will be just happy living in their villages and dachas as long as nobody bothers them. Whereas oil and gas has helped make some very rich billionaires in the energy sector and caused state coffers to fill with mountains of cash which the Kremlin has put in its reserves, the implementation of a flat tax, reduction of government and establishment of private property are the real reasons for the rise of the middle class and why there is a growing legitimate millionaire class.

What is lacking in the Economist and most other reports on Russia coming from the commentariat is that they never use real logic or investigate why things are really the way they are. They cannot report the real story because they know that the opposite is happening in the West where there is an unprecedented economic crisis. If you report the facts in Russia, you would discredit the entire elite establishment and their policies of the last 20 or so years.

And lastly the author is dead wrong on the facts about the population decreasing in Russia. According to what I have read, Russia has begun to report positive demographic growth. In fact, Russia (and Ukraine, Belarus, etc.) is among the few European countries with positive birth-rate growth. It is true that Russia has a high mortality rate, but the generation dying currently were born during the 1930's and 40's. Much of this population did not have basics like baby's milk or proper food and were living under severe trauma from the Nazis and the policies of Stalin. Babies exposed to malnutrition may have shorter life spans which now is affecting Russian demographic statistics. But this does not take into consideration the health of young people today who will most certainly enjoy longer life spans.

The Economist and rest of the commentariat love to preach about how Russia is just dying off when it is the West that is really dying off - literally with negative demographic growth in the United Kingdom and all the rest of the major Western nations. It is true, that Russia will need to increase its population in order to survive the realignment of the world order, and that is still to early to tell if Russia will succeed in this arena. While Russia is at least trying to address this problem, the West has not even acknowledged that this as a problem.

First Ossetia/Abkhazia, is Crimea next?

I love Ukraine. It is like my second homeland. I studied in Ukraine, got married in Ukraine, and have invested in Ukraine. Sometimes however, I wonder if there are two or even three Ukraines. It is not unusual with all the confusion and instability with the Ukrainian government that you can find yourself among friends or family having dinner and drinking Ukrainian horilka (vodka) and find yourself taking one of two or even the third side to political arguments.

After the recent war in the south Caucuses where Russia crushed the US backed Georgian army, I again was caught between the differing views in in Ukraine. My friend Andrey who is from Crimea said his fellow Crimeans were next. He warned that Russia is passing out passports and will soon use the same argument as an excuse to invade and conquer Ukraine. I then mentioned that many if not the majority of Crimean citizens claim they are ethnic Russian and mostly speak Russian so what is the big deal?

He replied with an analogy: "What if the U.S. decided to hand out passports to some Canadians just because they look and speak like Americans."

After thinking about this I could not help but tell him that if some Americans in Washington had their way, Canada may become part of the United States. One might ask, how can this be?

It is the so called North America Treaty or proposed Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. The proposal would diminish much of Canadian sovereignty if it was ever implemented. It would definitely make Canada less sovereign than Ukraine should Russia make a move on its fellow Slavic neighbor. So I told my friend that if he wishes to use the US-Canadian analogy in regards to Ukraine, then he should keep in mind that Canada and the US have very close military cooperation in addition to sharing membership in NATO. Because they are predominately English speaking, and they are closer to each other than US is with Mexico. It is only natural relationship and therefore would be also natural for Russia and Ukraine to have close ties on many spheres as well.

So I instead decided to counter with a better analogy: "Now imagine if Canada opted to join the Shanghai Group with Russia. And now lets say that Russian military forces were allowed to enter into Canadian airspace with Russian jet fighterpatrolling the skies along the US-Canadian border. Then lets imagine they deploy missile sites and bases," I replied. We all know this would sound alarm bells in Washington. If Ukraine wasn't striving to join NATO, a military alliance that attacked the sovereignty of Serbia, and which has become increasingly belligerent towards Russia, I don't think the Crimea issue would even be relevant....