Ukraine: The Bloody Death of the Post-Soviet State

Ukraine: The Bloody Death of the Post-Soviet State

Feb 21, 2014 02:00 am | Martha Brill Olcott

Martha Brill Olcott

For anyone who witnessed the collapse of the U.S.S.R. up close, the message of Maidan is clear: the idea of a “post-Soviet space” with shared values, shared goals, and Russian leadership is now obsolete. No matter what ultimately happens in Ukraine, Russia’s influence in its “neighborhood” will be substantially reduced. Vladimir Putin’s “managed democracy” (read: autocracy) is unworkable in twenty-first century Europe.
We are witnessing the end of the post-Soviet state unfold in the streets of Ukraine.
While Ukraine’s government has labeled the protesters “terrorists,” Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, writes how chilling it is to hear the protests labeled as an “attempted coup d’etat” by Russia and that anti-terrorist operations are being launched against them. Yanukovych and Putin won’t be able to hide behind a distorted story of events.
In today’s world anyone interested can make up his or her own mind about what is happening in Ukraine. Live feeds from webcams in Kyiv’s main square are available on numerous websites and there are a virtually infinite number of Twitter feeds in your choice of languages, with Google Translate to help you navigate them.
The media revolution of the late 1980s and early 1990s opened space for what was then unprecedented information sharing, allowing mobilization within republics and across republics. Activists could learn what was possible and what was dangerous, ridding the U.S.S.R. of its last vestiges of legitimacy.
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