ePoshta pointed out this great article by the Guardian as Russia imperliasm eyes Ukraine’s Crimea:

The message was blunt: whoever wins Ukraine’s presidential election in January has to accept Russia’s veto over the country’s strategic direction

Medvedev’s video was an ultimatum, the diplomat added: accept Russian domination, voluntarily renounce plans to join Nato and renew the lease on Russia’s naval base.

In recent weeks, pro-Kremlin newspapers have been speculating that Crimea might soon be “reunited” with mother Russia, solving the fleet issue. The best-selling Komsomolskaya Pravda even printed a map showing Europe in 2015. The Russian Federation had swallowed Crimea, together with eastern and central Ukraine. Ukraine still existed, but it was a small chunk of territory around the western town of Lviv.

In a symbolic gesture, several Russian restaurants in Moscow have stopped selling Ukrainian borsch. They are still serving up the dishes of tasty purple beetroot soup, but they have renamed it “Little Russia” soup. Little Russia, or Malorossiya, is what Kremlin ideologists are now calling a post-independent Ukraine, back under Russia’s grasp.

According to Gorbulin, Europe’s apparent abandonment of Ukraine is as pernicious as America’s. He points out that Nato countries have “stopped the struggle” for Ukraine in order to preserve good relations with Russia. France and Germany, especially, have rebuffed Yushchenko’s attempts to join Nato. Gorbulin dubs the Europeans’ informal deal with Moscow “Munich Agreement 2”, comparing it to the notorious September 1938 Anglo-French deal that allowed Hitler to seize the Sudetenland, the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia

Yanukovich lost in a re-run to Yushchenko. Yanukovich is ahead in the polls, but Putin has better relations with the populist Tymoshenko, who may steal through to win in a run-off second vote.

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While the article touched  upon many areas, it had some errors that I’d like to point out:

To a large extent, Ukraine has itself to blame for the mess. Since the 2004 pro-western Orange Revolution Kiev has been in a state of political crisis. Yushchenko has fallen out with his one-time ally, Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister. They have been involved in a power struggle that has paralysed governance and brought the economy to the brink of default.

I’m not sure why the author, Luke Harding, needs to feel apologetic for Russia’s imperialist bullying. Many countries that undergo reform like the Orange Revolution have problems internally as old regime structures are (painfully) removed, but what makes Ukraine’s so unique is that it is one of the few that has constant meddling from its neighbour – Russia.

Finally, the article’s ‘A short history of Ukraine’ contains a major historical inaccuracy:

â–  Ukraine’s history stretches back to the ninth century, when it was part of a Byzantine Russian dynasty centred on Kiev. But despite its ancient origins Ukraine only emerged as a fully independent state in the 20th century, after long periods of foreign domination.

Not sure where Luke is getting his history lessons from but if he thinks the Byzantine dynasty was so ‘Russian’, why did it take only 400 years for it to spread from Ukraine to the establishment of what’s known as Russia today – Muscovy?

Great Russian is a name Tsarist Russian imperialists decided to give themselves when Peter the Great renamed Muscovy as Russia, intending to usurp the legacy of Kyivan Rus — the original Ukrainian state. The purpose was to deny Ukrainians their own national identity, relegating them to the role of an inferior “little Russian” branch of the “Great Russian” nation. As such, it must be categorically rejected.

That’s a question you can e-mail the Guardian to find out.

On August 24, 2001 the Ukrainian parliament passed a declaration of independence, establishing Ukraine as a democratic state.

President Victor Yushchenko criticised domestic and foreign detractors on Monday and said Ukraine needed strong institutions to parry threats to its future prosperity.

…

"I choose a strong state, strength and dignity, to put in their place not only our local feudals but also foreign overlords who want to set down how we should live," Yushchenko said in his 25-minute address. "I choose a full-fledged future for our country in the future of a united Europe."

For the second year running, several thousand servicemen paraded down Kiev’s main thoroughfare, Khreshchatyk Street, and about three dozen aircraft, fighters, bombers and large military transports, roared overhead.

Kyiv Post

Taras (as usual) provides excellent local coverage of the military parade. Also, Putin congratulates Tymoshenko on Ukraine’s Independence Day. Science Centric looks at Russian-Ukrainian inter-ethnic relations 18 years on:

Continue reading Ukraine celebrates its 18th independence day →

From Associated Press:

The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church has arrived in Kiev for a 10-day visit aimed at reasserting Moscow’s dominance over the church’s leaders in Ukraine.

Patriarch Kirill said Monday he would pray for the two nations’ "unbreakable spiritual and church unity." The statement was a reference to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s efforts to establish an independent Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

The country’s main Orthodox church answers to Kirill, but some church leaders have proclaimed themselves independent of Moscow and have been gaining popularity and political support from Yushchenko.

The president is encouraging church leaders in Ukraine to shake off Russia’s spiritual and political grip.

(Wow the Associated Press got it right!). And while the President is trying to establish an independent church free from Muscovy rule, the pro-Russian opposition has a different view of the Patriarch’s visit:

The visit by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to Kiev will unite the Ukrainian people, said leader of Ukraine’s Party of Regions Viktor Yanukovich.
"I think this very landmark visit will unite the Ukrainian people, unite the Orthodoxy. I think new and better times are coming," he told journalists on Tuesday at the Kiev Monastery on the Caves where Patriarch Kirill had performed a church service.
Yanukovich said he has not spoken personally to the Russian Church Primate yet. "I think this will happen at today’s function," he said.

Gladly, the BBC among other news outlets can see this visit for what it truly is:

Thousands marched through the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday to protest against the patriarch’s visit.

Demonstrators carried placards denouncing what they see as Russian interference in their country, and in support of the Kiev Patriarchate.

…

However, BBC Russian affairs analyst Steven Eke says the Russian Orthodox Church wields considerable political weight, and plays a role in the Kremlin’s policies aimed at strengthening the Russian state and its influence abroad.

This is what makes Patriarch Kirill’s visit to Ukraine so divisive, our correspondent says.

Nationalist groups, many Ukrainian-speakers and the congregations of the Kiev Patriarchate see him less as a religious pastor, and more as a political activist seeking to boost the Kremlin’s influence in their land, he adds.

For anyone who’s unfamiliar with Ukraine’s church politics:

Since the 90s, there are three different churches: the Ukraine-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), the Ukraine-Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous (UAOC). They are in stark contrast with one another, staunchly oppose to the rebirth of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and only the UOC-MP is recognised by Moscow and in full canonical communion with the Patriarchate.

What’s more interesting is the Patriarch’s anti-genocide position on the Holodomor:

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has said that the Holodomor (the 1932-1933 Ukrainian famine) is one common historical tragedy both for Russians and Ukrainians.
"This [Holodomor] was a common misfortune for all the people who lived in the same country at the time," the Patriarch said on Monday after visiting together with Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko a monument to the famine victims in Kiev.
The Patriarch urged all believers to pray so that this tragedy never happens again and "so that none of these tragic events of our history hampers our fraternal communication," Patriarch said.
Hopefully, the Holodomor and related "tragic circumstances of our history" will not encourage the development of the "fratriphobic philosophy of history," the Patriarch also said.