Comment Re:I'm liking how Russia is standing up these days (Score 1) 234
I agree that Russia is an oligarchy (and so is the US, and Europe, btw, we simply don't call our plutocrats "oligarchs"), but you have to get some things straight. Like the IMF, the Ukraine had the alternative of *either* cooperating with Russia, and continuing to get money from Moscow, or cooperate with the EU and get money from the IMF (with the usual strings of privatization, deregulation, and generally screwing the people over attached, see Greece, et al). Yanukovich in the end decided that it would be in the interests of the Ukraine to continue trade with Russia rather than go along with EU demands of "us or them" (and the opinion polls I have seen seem to indicate that the Ukranian people were not too keen on the EU agreement either in the end, I guess the example of Greece must have scared them). This is when the "Euromaidan" protests started, supported by both US and EU politicians who enthusiastically came in person and egged the protests on, the fact that they were sharing stage and shaking hands with Svoboda and the Right Sector did not seem to bother them. Once the coup was fully realized, the new government (surprise surprise) signed the deal with the EU as well as the IMF, despite not being an elected government. It bans political parties which are seen as being too "pro-russia" (such as the communist party), includes representatives of both Svoboda and Right Sector, but none from the eastern part of the country where the majority of the population lives. Western media calls it "democracy"...