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Ukraine is getting sold for parts (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Crowds gathered on the square in front of the 14-story hotel to celebrate the fall of the Soviet Union. Now, Hotel Ukraine is up for auction as part of an effort to sell off some large state assets to help fund the military and bolster an economy

Fucking hell man. If this was a movie, you'd call it lazy writing. Literally 90s 2.0, and they're even making communism the bad guy again somehow.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 5 months ago (1 children)

30+ years of poverty, misery and capitalist plunder, culminating in a devastating military conflict - all because of the USSR is not around anymore. Yet, they go out and "celebrate" its dissolution, surrounded by rivers of literal shit because the "independent" government stole the money that was set aside to repair the sewage system (Soviet-built, by the way). Fucking cucks...

Seriously, though - the US has the best propaganda money can buy.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago (2 children)

In terms of the mainstream economic metrics liberal economists always like to cite, Ukraine is the worst performing nation in the world since the Yeltsin coup. You can even ignore the last four years to take the war and covid out of the picture, the story remains the same.

Out of all the formerly Soviet states, Ukraine is the closest to the US, is portrayed as being the most "western," and is the one which gave up its resources to western [allied] kleptocrats.

Meanwhile the post Soviet states which kept some level of resource and economic nationalism, and while capitalist at least have a national bourgeoisie rather than an Atlanticist one, are much better off in terms of their real economies and sovereignty.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago

In other words, the most free(c) and democratic(tm)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Out of all the formerly Soviet states, Ukraine is the closest to the US, is portrayed as being the most "western,"

Not to take away from the rest of your comment (which I agree with), but surely the most "culturally americanized" would be one of the baltics?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

There's an argument to be made there. In terms of the lived reality in the Baltics that's entirely likely. In terms of the second point though, the portrayal of westernized, there just isn't as much media or political attention on the Baltic countries in the US. In Europe there is some, given Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are EU members, but that's more on a dry international relations level.

This may just be my subjective take on it all though.