Death Throes of the Grivnya

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On 20 February, silent panic reigned at Ukrainian currency exchanges; at times, it became outright hysteria. During the day, the grivnya fell in value against all major currencies. Bidding opened relatively “low”, 1 USD bought 27.5 grivnya. By midday, the USD stormed the mark, reaching a level of 30 grivnya per dollar. By the end of trading, the situation “stabilised”… 1 USD bought 29.7 grivnya… a result of the “greenback” sliding a bit, adding 2.20 grivnya to its value. The rouble and the euro also reached new heights against the grivnya. Immediately, financiers commented that the Cabinet and the National Bank are looking for new ways to save the situation… the people and importers weren’t ready for such ruinous forex rates. The latter is true… companies that previously yielded generous foreign currency earnings are now idle, but the country is critically dependent on many imported goods, including energy. Energy is a major factor… price increases in energy automatically tote up higher prices for everything else.

Experts consider the rate of 30 grivnya to 1 USD to be critical. If it goes higher, there’s serious risk of total economic collapse, coupled with rampant hyperinflation. At the same time, the Ukrainian treasury is broke and can’t support the currency. Now, the Ukraine is very close to the mark that the rouble was a year ago. In principle, the rate of 30 roubles per 1 USD in the Russian case was less serious than the situation with the grivnya. Let’s start with the fact that, in absolute terms, Russian salaries and pensions are higher than those in the Ukraine are. For example, a Russian provincial pensioner gets 5,000 roubles (500 Renminbi. 5,020 INR. 80 USD. 102 CAD. 104 AUD. 70 Euros. 52 UK Pounds), and an unskilled manual labourer gets 7,000 roubles (700 Renminbi. 7,028 INR. 112 USD. 143 CAD. 146 AUD. 98 Euros. 73 UK Pounds). In the Ukraine, a pensioner gets around 1,000 grivnya (2,210 Roubles. 224 Renminbi. 2,220 INR. 36 USD. 45 CAD. 46 AUD. 32 Euros. 24 UK Pounds); a worker gets about two to three times more (4,410-6,630 Roubles. 448-672 Renminbi. 4,440-6,660 INR. 72-108 USD. 90-135 CAD. 92-138 AUD. 64-96 Euros. 48-72 UK Pounds). Of course, Ukrainian food prices are lower, but gasoline is higher… add 5-10 roubles per litre to the price over the Russian amount. As for rent and utilities, the IMF demands in the near future will make it cheaper for the average Ukrainian to rent a flat somewhere in Russia instead of paying post-Maidan prices in the Ukraine. A year ago, the Ukrainian living standard wasn’t much worse than the Russian was. Lower prices offset lower salaries, but now prices will rise to at least the Russian level. As income stagnates, salaries will become worthless. This is a logical outcome of the European dream and the demonic goat dances on the square… the dreams of a Western living standard… well, that evaporated…

21 February 2015

Viktor Pastushenko

Segodnya.ru

http://www.segodnia.ru/print/156891

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21 February 2015. A Map Well-Worth Pondering

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Linguistic Map of the post-Soviet successor-state Ukraine based on 2009 information from the Kiev National Linguistic University and 2001 Ukrainian census data. Note, one only finds concentrations of “Ukrainian” (Galician-Polish dialectical pidgin) speakers only in the yellow areas. The Russian-Ukrainian creole Surzhik is in orange, Russian is in red, and Rusin (spoken in Podkarpatskaya) is in red-violet. The map also highlights the Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Crimean Tatar, and Belarusian minorities. In short… there’s NO “Ukrainian” nationality. After all, the main distinguishing point of a “people” is a distinct and specific language. Today is International Mother Language Day… the “Ukraine” doesn’t have a “mother language”… therefore, it doesn’t go bump in the night, and never did.

BMD

Disunity and Vacillation… Neofascists To Set Up Rival Military Command in the Ukraine… the Jabberwocky Lives and You Can See Him in Kiev!

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Avowed Banderovtsy “Semyon Semyonchenko” and D A Yarosh announced that they’d create their own General Staff, parallel to the official junta armed forces establishment. The Nazi cadre of the Donbass, Krivbas, Poltava, Dnepr, Sicheslav, Aidar, and Right Sector irregular battalions, along with smaller Banderovtsy factions, supported their move. They plan that their “Alternative General Staff”, like its real army counterpart, will have 13 departments focusing on specialised aspects of military planning. Its offices would be in Dnepropetrovsk; it’d have a seven-person presidium, which would make all decisions collectively. Semyonchenko stated that the “Alternative General Staff” would be a public organisation.

Almost immediately, it came out that the idea of ​​creating an alternative military structure was a controversial topic… some factions support it, others oppose it. In other words, there’s an open schism in the ranks of the punishers… Yarosh and Semyonchenko are for it… as are people close to the oligarch Kolomoisky’s circle, but not all Banderovtsy support this move. Creating parallel structures to existing ones is often a sign of an impending coup d’état; we saw similar things during the so-called “Euromaidan”. As you know, the Banderovtsy rebels created their own “parliament”… a so-called “People’s Rada”… as well as setting up similar bodies in the Western Ukraine. The alternative structures weren’t in existence for long… Oblsoviets and the Verkhovnaya Rada quickly went over to side of the “Evromaidantsy”, so, there wasn’t a need for an alternative leadership structure. Why create something new, if you have the high seat of your defeated enemy as a trophy?

Today, the Banderovtsy are trying hard to create an alternative military command. This is understandable… Ukrainian staff “rats” show blatant incompetence. The officer corps, especially in senior ranks, has a Soviet mentality; a quarter-century of corruption corroded what remained of the war machine that the Ukraine received at the dawn of “independence”. In addition, the ideological motivation of Ukrainian soldiers is extremely low; they’re not ready to die for the ideals of Bandera and Shukhevich, leading to repeated conflicts in the ranks of the forces in Novorossiya.

In the coming days, some predict that there’d be a “revolution of the battalions”. However, it isn’t clear if the coup would be a success… since the plans of the conspirators are an open secret, it allows the other side to take countermeasures. However, in the Ukrainian reality, everything depends on the behaviour of the leadership… Yanukovich must have known the plans of the “Evromaidantsy”, but he did absolutely nothing to ensure his retention of power. It’s likely that if similar events take place, the “Alternative General Staff” would create new bandit units… essentially, a private army not under state control. One way or another, but the next step for the Banderovtsy is a return to rule of the atamans seen in the Ukraine a century ago. Therefore, very soon, we’ll see the birth of new Burnashevtsy, Angels (Whites), Greens (Anarchists), and other similar historical characters.

21 February 2015

Aleksandr Dmitrievsky

Segodnya.ru

http://www.segodnia.ru/print/156890