I am from Western Ukraine and while I have seen women wear crowns of woven flowers I didn't know that there was such a beautiful wedding tradition. Or the fact that it's being resurrected for the sake of peacefully asserting Ukrainian nationalism in the face of armed conflict and occupation by Russia.
> what does any of this have to do with flower crowns?
the national embroidered dresses ("vyshivanki") are used as a symbol by those nationalists forces in Ukraine today who explicitly claim the heritage of the OUN/UPA (the organizations which intentionally performed the mentioned above genocide in order to advance the nationalist goals), and as the original comment and the article say the floral crowns are being added to that set of symbols. They look nice until you understand what they are just a beautiful facade for. Until you feel a smell of burnt flesh - in 2014 they burned alive (surrounded the building and thrown Molotov cocktails inside) 42 pro-Russian activists in Odessa - the popular "traditional" method of dealing with your opponents in Western Ukraine under the OUN/UPA. There is a popular these days Ukrainian song about a celebrated leader of UPA - Roman Shuskevich - and his forces grilling on fire and impaling alive communists and the members of NKVD (USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs who was fighting OUN/UPA left over after Red Army freed Ukraine from Nazi) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35JT6Ppvf-w - it isn't just imagination of the song's author, it is actually pretty correct historically. Also, in 199x the Western Ukraine nationalists fought Russians in Chechnya, and their treatment of Russian POWs is well known for the cruelty. So it is a little bit hard to appreciate the cuteness of something used a symbol for such history.
Again what does all this have to do with flower crowns and embroidered dresses? They predate the twentieth-century conflicts by hundreds of years. The shamrock is a national symbol of Ireland despite Irish nationalist atrocities throughout the years. The traditional ceremonial dress in Japan is used despite the crimes committed by the Japanese military. There is literally no society or culture in history that is blameless; why spout off about Ukrainian embroidery and floral arrangement?
Could it simply be another continuation of the centuries-long campaign to suppress Ukrainian culture?
>Again what does all this have to do with flower crowns and embroidered dresses?
ask the nationalists. It was the article and the original comment author who originally brought it up as a symbol of Ukranian nationalism. I just mentioned most notable examples of that nationalism.
>the centuries-long campaign to suppress Ukrainian culture
you obviously just don't know what you're talking about.
> you obviously just don't know what you're talking about.
I know you just called out all the stuff from my (DP/work camp prisoner) grandmother's house as some kind of crypto-genocidal symbols of pro-Fascist hate, which is one of more asinine things I've read this week. And this week involved a lot of news about Donald Trump.
>you just called out all the stuff from my (DP/work camp prisoner) grandmother's house as some kind of crypto-genocidal symbols of pro-Fascist hate
your indignation is completely misdirected. It is not me who appropriated all that stuff as symbols of Ukranian nationalistic movement. It is not me who made the Ukranian nationalistic movement a de-facto fascist movement, it is not me who committed all those atrocities and crimes in the name of it, who have been celebrating the "heroes" perpetrators of those atrocities and who have been faithfully trying to follow in the steps of those "heroes" - with the attempt at "pacification" of Russians in Donbass being a such example as recent as just 2 years ago.
Don't blame the messenger. You don't agree with that stuff being used as symbols - argue with the article or the original comment author who stated so, argue with "vyshivatniki" in Ukraine. You don't agree with the atrocities and the crimes, past and the current, or with celebrating of those "heroes" - argue with Wikipedia, historians, and leaders of the Ukraine nationalism who rules Ukraine today.
Your indignation directed at me is like indignation of a follower of the Hinduism or Buddhism (where "swastika" has been a sacred and auspicious symbol at least for couple thousand years before Hitler) at a person who would say that "swastika" is a symbol of Nazi movement and of related atrocities and hate.
>who shot down a civilian airliner using weapons borrowed from Russia
the Buk used by rebels was an Ukranian Buk captured by rebels on June 29 near Donetsk. It is well known, and the capture was in the news at least 2 weeks before the MH-17. The rest of the world is just too lazy to even check the Internet archive. Rebels were pounded from the air and they used whatever anti-aircraft weapons they could get. They used this Buk to shoot down 2 Ukranian fighters on July 16 (the shotdowns at 6 and 8 km altitude - well above MANPAD reachability - are clearly mentioned in the MH17 Dutch commission report). They shot down MH17 taking it for a military cargo plane - the two unfortunate factors played a role here 1. the MH17 was flying significantly north of the civilian corridor and thus it got into the Buk launcher's radar observation sector which was set up as to look toward typical route of Ukraine military planes approaching the rebel held territories 2. the rebels had only Buk launcher, not the complete full-functional Buk system, specifically they didn't have Buk's big radar vehicle, and the radar on the Buk launcher is limited - has shorter distance, handles only a sector of about 120 degrees, its main purpose is to track the assigned target and guide the missile to it, it isn't that suitable for identification, lacks transponder identification hardware, etc.
Ukraine didn't close the airspace for commercial airlines in the war zone even though Ukraine was using military airplanes in that war and those planes were receiving fire back from the ground. Ukraine didn't close the airspace even after loosing Buk batteries to rebels at 2 different military anti-aircraft bases. They didn't close airspace even after loosing 2 fighters on July 16 at the altitudes well above MANPAD ceiling. Why loose all these money the airlines pay for use of the corridor! The MH17 victims relatives has recently filed a case against Ukraine for that in the high court of the EU.
Russian Buk from 53-rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, from Kursk. There were many witnesses on the land, who paid attention, and shared their evidences.
>Russian Buk from 53-rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, from Kursk. There were many witnesses on the land, who paid attention, and shared their evidences.
of course there were a lot of Buk systems there, in the Rostov region right across the border from Ukraine. After all, back then Russia amassed a [potentially invasion] force of 40K with all the hardware, tanks, etc. right there on the border with Ukraine. Buk is a standard component of such a force designed to cover it on the move and on the battlefield.
The Buk system is designed as multiple vehicles system, too much for rebels to handle, and military wouldn't give just one launcher - it isn't how military works, and Buk isn't intended to be used for the tasks the rebels had. When Russia finally gave powerful anti-airctaft systems to the rebels it were single-vehicle highly automated Pantsir-S1.
The pieces of shrapnel found in MH17 clearly indicated that the missile which hit MH17 was from the first version of the Buk system. Ukraine had only the first version while Russia has moved onto the second version more than a decade before.
So why would Russia dig up old missiles and give one launcher to rebels when rebels got a bunch of that hardware themselves?
All the accounts clearly describe the movement of the rebels' Buk launcher, under its own power, not on trailer, on July 17 in the direction from Donetsk into Torez, rebels having launch there and in the afternoon getting into position 20 km north, just south-east of Debaltsevo (superposition a 120 degree sector looking straight West from that position with the Flightradar24 path of MH17 - you'll understand why MH17 got on their radar). The plane damage is consistent with the Buk missile coming from that position. Nor Dutch report, nor Russian alternative version specify correct firing position, ie. position that would match the plane damage and the Buk missile behavior and warhead explosion shrapnel distribution pattern. The Dutch report shows incorrect behavior of the missile, while the Russian is just a pure fantasy.
“there were a lot of Buk systems there” the exact machine has been identified and tracked.
“Russia amassed a [potentially invasion] force of 40K with all the hardware, tanks, etc.” Some of those forces have actually invaded Ukraine.
For example, here’s international correspondents directly witnessed one small episode of the invasion: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/110...
“too much for rebels to handle” there’re little to no rebels. But there’re lots of Russian military personnel.
“Russia has moved onto the second version more than a decade before” — true, they have a newer version developed. They did not however scrapped the older ones. Here you’ll find multiple recent photos of the older Buk-M1 complex with older 9M38-series missiles still on active service in Russian military forces: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/06/03/evi...
“regiment A-1402 in Donetsk” there was only one Buk there, and it was broken beyond repair.
“why would Russia dig up old missiles” — no need to dig up anything, the older missiles are on active service.
“when rebels got a bunch of that hardware themselves?” In this war, Russians frequently use this tactic to hide their invasion. They capture (or claim to capture) one instance of military hardware from Ukraine, smuggle extra copies of the equipment to Ukraine, and claim “rebels” are using the hardware they captured. They already played that trick earlier with e.g. 2S9 Nona mortar.
>“regiment A-1402 in Donetsk” there was only one Buk there, and it was broken beyond repair.
nobody said that back then. What was said by Ukraine ATO representative according to Ukraine newspaper http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2014/06/29/7030482/ is that the captured launcher vehicle wasn't in working condition, and answering question "Can the rebels repair it?" he said "I don't think they would need it" (my understanding of that short phrase is that the "need" he meant is the need for the launcher at all)
you're right about M1 missiles availability - i never paid much attention to it as i haven't bought into the whole idea of Russia sending that one BUK. I'm not even sure why such an emphasis on it - for example I still remember my frustration with Russia that they'd allow the rebels to be pounded from the air and wouldn't send them capable anti-aircraft weapons (it didn't even cross my mind back then that civilians would still be allowed to fly over the war zone especially given the use of military aviation - i mean that would be beyond stupid, wouldn't it? yet here we're...)
Anyway, giving the state of shock the catastrophe put everybody into and its huge political ramifications, no evidence produced after the catastrophe can be trusted without good cross-check verification. Everybody was lying, altering and producing fake evidence after the catastrophe. There is no need to even try to discuss Russian "photos" of Ukranian SU-25 shooting MH-17 with something looking like Star Wars laser canon. The rebels deleted tweets and posts made in the half-hour after MH17 where they were celebrating shooting down of another Ukraine military cargo plane. On the other side things weren't much better. Immediately after MH17 went down, Ukraine government produced that famous wiretap of cell phone conversation between a leader of rebels and his Moscow handler where the rebel reported about discovery that the shot down plane was a civilian plane and that the plane was shot down by the "cossaks from Chernuhino roadblock". Chernuhino is 70km+ from the firing position specified in the Dutch report. So either Dutch are lying (why would they?) or the Ukraine government falsified the evidence. For the couple weeks before July 17 Ukraine was deploying the Buks all around the warzone - the on duty systems were reported on Ukranian state TV with the military leaders of the Ukranian "Anti-Terrorist Operation" talking in front of them, and the Ukranian journalists published photos of deployed Buks from the ATO zone, not counting multiple pre-July 17 social posts related to those deployment. Well, next day after MH17, on July 18, Ukraine clearly stated that no Buks were deployed before July 17 in the ATO zone, only MANPADs.
So, the only evidence that can reasonably be taken into account is the one that was published before the downing of MH17 (i don't know about any evidence published after the shot down that has been cross-verified).
So, this is what we have as evidence from the pre-MH17:
1. At least 2 Ukranian bases with Buks - the bases A1402 and A0194 of the 156th anti-aircraft regiment were captured by rebels before July 17. At least one launcher, on A1402, fell into the rebels hands. My comment here: military hardware is repaired by replacing modules. Ie. it is pretty easy - go to the storage, pick the module and replace. Engine, etc. is easy too. Definitely repairs could have been carried out between June 29 (the capture, actually June 27/28) and the July 16 when the Ukranian SU-25 was shot down between 6 and 8 km altitude near Amvrosievka.
2. A Buk launcher on low-ride trailer was seen around 9am July 17 in Donetsk. It was accompanied by gray RAV4, Russian made SUV and mini-van. Those cars were seen in a convoy of several tanks, etc. on July 15/16 that was going to and coming into Donetsk from direction of Enakievo, and the convoy may have been from Russia. That convoy didn't had Buk. My comment: bellingcat considers that it is the evidence that Buk came from Russia, ie. it was going separately from that convoy. I think it is completely opposite - you wouldn't let your extremely important asset to separate from convoy, especially on the road that was close to and contested at times with Ukranian forces. The cars - SUVs and minivan may have been carrying related rebel commanders/coordinators and the crew for the Buk. There is no evidence connecting that Buk in anyway to all those Russian Buks across the border.
3. MH17 was shot down by Buk from a position, according to the Dutch report, south of the road between Torez and Snezhnoe.
That is basically all the evidence that is known. All the rest of the stuff - given for example how fast Ukraine produced the [falsified if you believe Dutch findings] wiretap which i listened to on California morning of July 17 - could have been easily falsified.
> So either Dutch are lying (why would they?) or the Ukraine government falsified the evidence.
Just because the terrorists lied, mistaken, or used a cryptonym in their phone conversation does not mean Dutch lied or Ukrainians tampered with the evidence.
Coming from an obvious sympathizer to Putin's Russia, calling the current Ukrainian leadership fascists is like the pot calling the daffodil black. Svoboda is the closest thing to a far-right party in Ukraine and it has but a handful of seats.
You're bringing up Ukrainian atrocities against Poles 70 years ago in a thread about crowns made of flowers and trying to somehow draw a line to current Ukrainian politics and conflict. It's basically straight from the Russian state media propaganda handbook.
again, it wasn't me who brought the current Ukrainian politics and conflict in the thread about crowns made of flowers - read the article and the original top comment in the thread. It is not my fault that the current Ukrainian politics and conflict is due to the current regime celebrating the perpetrators of those atrocities and trying to follow the same policies.
And Wikipedia isn't Russian propaganda, well at least i hope so.
> the current Ukrainian politics and conflict is due to the current regime celebrating the perpetrators of those atrocities and trying to follow the same policies.
This is propaganda pure and simple. There is no one in any position of power in Ukraine celebrating any of these things you have brought up. You are either a troll from Olgino or have been taken in by their garbage.
>There is no one in any position of power in Ukraine celebrating any of these things you have brought up.
that is one big lie. Until of course you're trying to say that awarding the highest official national title of "Hero" to, building monuments to and naming streets after a person doesn't mean the celebration of the mass atrocities systematically committed by and under command of that person. Imagine how stupid that argument would sound if say Munich would have decided to have a Hitler-strasse today just to celebrate the great autobahn network construction performed by Hitler.
"We had to write ‘ordinary posts’, about making cakes or music tracks we liked, but then every now and then throw in a political post about how the Kiev government is fascist, or that sort of thing."
you're right. Bandera committed genocide of 100K Jews and Poles while Hitler - 10M+ of Jews and Slavic people, so speaking mathematically Bandera is equivalent to "small Hitler" and the Kiev regime celebrating Bandera and claiming its heritage are the "small fascists".
Bandera personally did no such thing and ordered no such thing. Harry Truman personally killed more Japanese people with two bombs than whatever you are falsely attributing to Bandera personally here. Why not criticize apple pie and barbecue because of its association with America and hence with such genocide? It makes as much sense as commenting on Ukrainian flower crowns.
I think your comments here have spoken for themselves. Go find somewhere else to troll for pay.
I said "typical", not everyone. But guess you have a point, even if not in the way you intended. Any other reaction is so unusual these days that a generalization is unavoidable.
Any retort on any sensitive topic can be argued as fanning the flames of hate, as disagreement clearly not going to pacify anyone. The problem with is, if you don't express your dissent, hold yourself "above all that", bite your tongue, you let them run their narrative unchallenged.
Being from Belarus I used to have plenty acquaintances and relatives in Russia; perhaps three of them did not succumb to self-righteous jingoism and hate in the last couple years. I admire the few people there who have strength and stamina to remain sane. But they are not any more representative of Russia now than few sane Germans were of Germany in 1939.
>It sounds like a mix of 1930-40ies (mass murders in northern Europe) and late 1960-90ies (skinheads).
it is the same continuing fight of Western Ukraine nationalists for the expansion of their territory. In 2014 it were volunteer battalions from Western Ukraine that rushed across the country to "pacify" the Eastern Ukraine Russians. Only this time it weren't helpless Poles, and the Russian tank battalions tore those "pacifiers" a new one near Illovaysk.
No. Until now it was just one of the many atrocities in Eastern Europe for me. I am sorry for that, I know Eastern Europe has suffered an awful lot but I don't know the exact details.
Then again, like I asked yesterday: what does it have to do with skinheads?
> Now, when the country is again fighting against Russia—the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russia-allied separatist that started in 2014 is still ongoing, despite an official ceasefire—these wreaths are doing the same symbolic work.
It is not true. Russia invaded directly into Crimea and East Ukraine, with very little help from locals. Moreover, Russians says on video that locals don't want to war. 70% of people in East Ukraine are Ukrainians, anyway. Official version was that Russia need to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians from other Ukrainians, because they will kill them.
i wonder when was the previous fight? Does it mean the fight between Soviet Red Army and Ukranian nationalists forces OUN/UPA during WWII? Those OUN/UPA who collaborated with Nazi, and performed the genocide of Poles and Jews, in particular in Lviv region where Ukranian population was only 10% before the genocide. The forces that came to power in Kiev in February 2014 have always celebrated the leaders of the OUN/UPA (i.e. Bandera, Shushkevich and the likes) and have made them official heroes of Ukraine since then. No wonder that Russians in Donbass(30+%) and Russians in Crimea(60%) felt that it is "time to go" when these forces took power by coup and the very first act of the new regime during the first days in power was the "[Anti Russian] language law". The message was pretty clear.
"The killings were directly linked with the policies of the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and its military arm, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, whose goal as specified at the Second Conference of the OUN-B on 17–23 February 1943 (or March 1943 according to other sources) was to purge all non-Ukrainians from the future Ukrainian state."
Previous war was between Ukrainian People Republic and fake Kharkiv People Republic createded by Russia.
OUN/UPA does not collaborate with Nazi after declaring of independence of Ukraine in Lviv in September 1941. More than 600 of OUN members were executed in Babi Yar by Germans. Leader of OUN, Stepan Bandera was German prisoner until end of war. See Nuremberg documents for more details. Just warning: it is officially prohibited to review results of Nuremberg process.
Quote from Wikipedia: A captured German document of November 25, 1941 (Nuremberg Trial O14-USSR) ordered: "It has been ascertained that the Bandera Movement is preparing a revolt in the Reichskommissariat which has as its ultimate aim the establishment of an independent Ukraine. All functionaries of the Bandera Movement must be arrested at once and, after thorough interrogation, are to be liquidated..."[43]
Yep, main target of OUN was to free Ukraine from Polish colonists and stop Polonization of Ukrainians (AKA Pacification). However, Volynia massacre was response to German operation against Ukrainian partisans with help of local Polish military police formed from Polish colonists at territory of Ukraine. OUN/UPA were not involved as organizations, only their members. Official documents of OUN/UPA stated that they wanted to keep peace with Polish people at that time because of greater threat from Germany and USSR.
> No wonder that Russians in Donbass(30+%) and Russians in Crimea(60%) felt that it is "time to go" when the very first act of the new regime during the first days in power was the "[Anti-Russian] language law".
Russians are always free to go back to Russia. Please, tell me more about "[Anti-Russian] language law". I never heard about that. Constitution of Ukraine says that Russian language is protected at Ukraine.
thanks to Internet, everybody can go and read the facts in their full set. I'll comment only on 1 thing:
>However, Volynia massacre was response to German operation against Ukrainian partisans with help of local Polish military police formed from Polish colonists at territory of Ukraine.
even if that were true (which it isn't, again - facts are available on the Internet), only in the mind of rabid nationalists can a genocide be a response to military operation.
Yep, when one side fires whole village with habitats - it is just military operation. When other side does same in response - it is genocide.
When Russians killed 7 millions of Ukrainians (Holodomor) - it was minor economic problem. When Ukrainian will kill even few hundreds of thousands of Russians - it will be major genocide.
Documents about Polish military police at Volyn:
Motyka G. Polski policjant na Wołyniu // «Karta». — 1998. — № 24.
again, that is exactly that separates Ukranian nationalists today from the normal people. Germans committed genocide, tragic fact, accepted, and they don't try to defend it, to provide reasons trying to justify it. Because normal people understand that there is no "genocide because ...", there is just genocide. USSR committed a number of genocides, against aristocracy, against clergy, against peasants with the Ukranian Holodomor being part of that one (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...) as it was across the Ukraine and Russia agricultural regions (and yep, my grandparents, peasants from Kiev region, ended up in the end of 193x, the whole family with 5 children, in a labor camp on some large industrial site in West Russia - that how being fortunate looked back then.). Those genocides are tragic historic facts, nobody is trying to defend it. Only Ukranian nationalist are trying to balance the genocide committed by Bandera's OUN/UPA with the various other stuff.
Again, if you wanna discuss Holodomor, or insufficient attention and emphasis on it in modern Russian politics for example - be my guest, i pretty much agree with it. Yet Russians dont' say that Holodomor was a response to something.
Soviet Army committed a bunch of atrocities against German population - it is also very unpopular topic in Russia, yet nobody is trying to frame it as a response for the German actions.
>When Russians killed 7 millions of Ukrainians (Holodomor)
do you really think that it were specifically ethnic Russian policemen that came all the way to enforce "law of Spikelets" and passports laws, not the local communists/activists/police/kolhoz administration? My grandparents i mentioned above had never said anything bad about Russians, it is the local kolhoz administration, Party officials and the whole USSR government system, independent of ethnicity, that had always been target of their hot ("matyugi") words.
>When Ukrainian will kill even few hundreds of thousands of Russians
"even few hundreds of thousands of Russians" - as i said there huge difference between normal people and Ukranian nationalists.
Stepan Bandera organized killing of soviet consul to stop Holodomor, event known as "shot, which saved millions". It is why Russians hate Bandera so much - he stopped genocide.
> do you really think that it were specifically ethnic Russian policemen that came all the way to enforce "law of Spikelets" and passports laws, not the local communists/activists/police/kolhoz administration?
> "even few hundreds of thousands of Russians" - as i said there huge difference between normal people and Ukranian nationalists.
OK, I see. I only googled in English which might explain the lack of results. (The closest thing I found was that there was no possibility of appeal for the convicted.) Still a bit confused as to why Russians would create a law about the results of the Nuremberg trials.
I read recently that Russian court said that Soviets are not executed Polish officers in Katyn because of date presented at Nuremberg tribunal and because it is forbidden to review results of Nuremberg tribunal by law. :-/
> It is not true. Russia invaded directly into Crimea and East Ukraine, with very little help from locals.
When the foreign backed neo-nazis/nationalists where used as pawns to overthrow a democratically elected president and cabinet (with an approval rating higher than Obama), and then set out on a campaign of getting rid of all opposition, it became very true. And there are videos of their criminal conduct all over the internet.
The people fighting in the East break-away regions are people who do not want to be part of what you have to offer - which is nothing.
And the people of Crimea are quite happy with the current outcome.
And if Russia was truly invading Ukraine, it would have been done and over within 2 days.
Your entire new government structure is there to oppress you, lie to you, steal as much as possible from you, and to keep maintaining an ongoing conflict with Russia... All brought to you by some very nasty geo-politics from abroad.
The headdresses are cool, but the models wearing them also have a story. The modern models all look over eighteen. As they are wearing wedding garb, the photographer chose adult women. Young, but still adults. The 'models' in the historical photos are not. They are children by today's standards. Also, they are much more robust people. They are round-faced well-fed healthy people. The modern models are much thinner, with very different faces despite the obvious racial similarity. You see this in nearly every historical recreation. No matter how we try, our modern sensibilities are very difficult to overcome.
Beautiful culture. It appears that headdresses are so much more than simple ornaments in pretty much all cultures. When I got married, as a Vietnamese male, I also wore the headdress.
I think there's much more to Ukraine than what we read or don't read on the news.
