I often get quite desperate after reading my news feed because so much really stupid stuff gets published concerning the events in Ukraine. But there are people who write intelligently about Ukraine, even though they are very few.
First of all, see this inspiring photo provided by a blogger writing from Africa.
And here is some intelligent analysis:
In so far as the Russian Empire and later the USSR were great world powers, possession of Ukraine was absolutely vital to their global status. Without the population and resources of Ukraine Moscow could not even afford to keep subsidizing the Central Asian republics yet alone clients in far a way places like Cuba, Vietnam, and Ethiopia. The USSR was a state that systematically transferred resources from the richer western republics including Ukraine as well as the even richer, but much smaller Baltic States to poorer republics in Central Asia.
This should be enough for those who keep hoping that Russia will tire of its aggression against Ukraine and just go away. Putin is not an idiot. He knows that relying solely on oil and gas is a shitty long-term strategy. He needs some area of the Russian federation actually to produce something. At least, the most basic food and consumer goods, which right now Russia overwhelmingly imports.
And somebody else makes a good point:
I subscribe to the New York Times on-line. Twice this week I received notifications that there was breaking news. My fear was that the “Breaking News” was something about the United Soviet Socialist Republic restructuring and that the Ukraine was now part of the New USSR — shades of Uncle Joe Stalin. But, no. The breaking news was that David Letterman had announced when he would retire from Late Night with David Letterman.
I had the exact same experience this week.
Everything else that’s good on the subject is written either in Ukrainian or in Russian.
And to conclude, here are some beautiful photos of Kharkov:
If you follow the link to the blog of the talented photographer who took this photo, you can see more, including a photo of the Kharkov synagogue.
Clarissa's Blog 
For what it’s worth, I’ve seen plenty of good stuff being written on the subject in Romanian. The English-language press, however, does seem to be singularly stupid. Pretty much the only half-decent stuff I’ve read in English (your blog excluded) is 20committee, and, while he does occasionally hit on good stuff (gay rights and identity with regard to current-day Russia, for example), quite a few of his stuff sounds to me like the one-eyed leading the blind – a vast improvement to the previous state of affairs, but still lacking perspective.
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Euromaidan in English has a lot of stuff translated from Russian and Ukrainian into English.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/333027573505745/
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“Everything else that’s good on the subject is written either in Ukrainian or in Russian.”
Apart from Clarissa’s Blog, of course.
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Exactly. We are all very fortunate to have me. 🙂
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The Polish media is also way ahead of any anglophone media, though not very accesible on a broader scale.
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Very weird story on Polish wire service (couldn’t find confirmation in Latvian English media and can’t read Latvian at all or Russian well enough).
Russian conducting stealth opinion polls among ethnic Russians (some of whom are officially stateless) in eastern Latvia similar to stealth polling carried out in… Crimea before Putin made his move there.
http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/swiat/lotewska-telewizja-rosja-potajemnie-przeprowadza-sondaze-na-lotwie/nb656
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I can understand Polish only if I read the text aloud. Then I understand it quite well. 🙂
For now, Putin is concentrating on Ukraine. But as soon as he’s done, I believe that Latvia is definitely next. They were very hard hit by the economic crisis.
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