The Donbass Paradox | Hacker News Reader

The Donbass Paradox

theblacksea.eu

42 pointsiamjeff28 comments

This was a very engaging, high effort piece of journalism from an org I've never heard of before. Content like this is not cheap to make which gave me the something's not right here vibe, so I tried to find out who paid for this. Their about page says they received a grant from the The German Marshall Fund of the United States, which was founded during the Cold War as a way to promote ties between the US and West Germany. Some digging shows the org is funded by the German/US governments and has at least $200m in endowment. So be aware this journalism is funded by US interests.

Why should we be aware of journalism funded by the US or their interests. Where should I get my news from RT or Sputnik?

Because "journalism funded by the US or their interests" is most likely propaganda.

Why do we not get similar long form articles about Saudi Arabia?

Russian doctrine of information warfare seeks to create confusion, distrust and ambiguity about truth. Part of this ideology is to label everything as propaganda, to claim there is no objective truth, that everything is influenced by the funding agent. This allows to claim, that Russian-backed news sources that form an integral part of their information warfare machinery and spread blatant lies, are as legitimate as any other source of information. This allows the state to keep the monopoly of truth which allows for removal of any accountability from government actions. Which perpetuates status quo of power.

There are in fact shades of grey. All journalists are biased by their world-view and of course backers at least fund the ones the views of whom they like. But there is such thing as journalist ethics and not all funders exercise the sort of control over the writers as the fsb does. Not all media is propaganda.

We don't get such articles about Saudi Arabia because there is no war there.

> We don't get such articles about Saudi Arabia because there is no war there.

Yeah, but they're fighting in Yemen and have a heavy hand in Syria. A lot of long form articles from our main steam media can be written about Saudi Arabia if they really want to.

In the same way as you shouldn't blindly consume RT, you shouldn't blindly consume stuff from Washington, London, Paris or anywhere else. There is precious little journalism that is not a front for someone's agenda, so it's important to know that agenda and "weight" content accordingly.

Let me bring to your attention this [0]; there are very few places online (that I know of) that have the sort of analysis presented on this blog (granted, World Affairs is published by a USA-based company, but bear in mind that the journal is almost 200 years old, its editor is intimately familiar with Eastern Europe and its post-Soviet democratization, is a publication of a pacifist organization, and is a 501(c)3 organization; what I am trying to say is that there is some pedigree here and the quality of the comments is immensely refreshing).

The bulk of this additional material reflects the OP’s submission [1], while [2] highlights the issue from a related angle. As for the organization that published this article (The Black Sea), I think that they do not deserve the pessimism [3]. They have a reputation for publishing high-quality, investigative pieces on topics that several major organizations would not touch.

[0]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Affairs_Institute; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Affairs; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._Denton

Tax returns: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/271...

[1]

(January 2014; about this time, talk of a civil war was already becoming heated)

Standoff in Ukraine: Mafia Regime vs. Mobilized Citizens (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/st...

(February 2014; in this article, the author concedes that war might break out due to the division between East and West Ukraine)

Should There Be One Ukraine? (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/sh...)

(April 2014, predates Russia’s decisive intervention in the Donbass by a couple of days)

Could Russia Occupy Ukraine? (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/co...)

(June 2015; the comments are a gold mine)

On Donbas Autonomy—Again (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/do...

(February 2016; Motyl formalizes his argument against re-integration)

Why Reintegrating the Donbas Is Suicide for Ukraine (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/wh...)

(May 2016; a case for disengaging from the Donbass)

Answering the Critics: Donbas Disengagement (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/an...)

(June 2016; even greater clarity)

A Donbas Strategy Going Forward (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/do...)

[2]

Does Anyone Want Ukraine’s Donbass? (http://imrussia.org/en/analysis/world/2406-does-anyone-want-...

[published by the the New York-based Institute of Modern Russia, IMR, whose president is the son to the former Russian political prisoner and exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky and, by virtue of this association, would be despised by Russian authorities as “unpatriotic” and partisan; IMR’s tax returns are here (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/611...)]

(2016 report; PDF at the bottom of the summary)

Doing business in Donbas: what are the main obstacles? (http://www.ua.undp.org/content/ukraine/en/home/presscenter/a...)

[3]

(Here, the organization is upfront about its manifesto; tellingly, the organizations was Wikileaks’ sole publishing partner in Europe; also they closely coordinate with the widely respected International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, invite journalists that have been censored by their employees to pitch them, and cover taboo and under-reported stories)

Diving Deep Into Stories (http://theblacksea.eu/index.php?idT=88&idC=88&idRec=1105&rec...)

(They have won numerous awards; certainly that counts for something)

Mission (http://theblacksea.eu/?idT=3&idC=3)

(The organization is funded by Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation Initiatives as part of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, GMF. Firstly, there is a difference between the Marshall Plan and GMF; a quick Wikipedia search will suffice. The thing is GMF has funded 100s of projects since its formation, given 1000s of scholarships and grants, and is notable for its involvement in civil society i.e. soft power advocacy. A search of the term “grant” on its homepage <<http://www.gmfus.org/search/grant>> brings up several of its other initiatives. The Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation is a multi-stakeholder initiative and funded TheBlackSea.eu as part of a cross-border project run by Journalismfund.eu to improve journalism quality. Frankly, these guys do not deserve the conspiratorial skepticism)

Launch of the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation (http://trends.gmfus.org/doc/BST%20Launch%20Program.pdf)

Working grant - Ghosts of Sochi (http://journalismfund.eu/ghostsofsochi)

Working grant - Land Grabbing in the EU: How Rabobank is profiting off theft and abuse in Romania (http://journalismfund.eu/landgrabbing)

Working grant - The Gold Trail (http://journalismfund.eu/gold-trail)

You posted a lot of links in your post and I've read your post multiple times yet I'm still not really sure what you're going for. Most of them are links to other articles that support the facts from the original article, but I don't dispute the veracity of the article. Actually I found the article an interesting (although one sided) look into a situation that is not well covered in the media. In your post there are a number of tax returns, but I fail to see how those are relevant to the point that theblacksea.eu is funded by a US/German-backed NGO. I couldn't find a tax return to theblacksea.eu either, which is more relevant here. If I missed that link do let me know. You also don't dispute that the GMF is funded by the German/US government, which is one of points I brought up. And the description of the GMF frankly sounds like what a NGO that promotes US interests would do. Which is what I mentioned in my post.

Furthermore, I don't dispute the journalistic integrity of the authors. As you mention, they've won awards, good for them. You bring up the word conspiracy, but I think there's none at all. Really, this article should be viewed as a clever way to promote US policy. To illustrate, take an example: let's say I set up a news agency in Poland about foreign issues, gave it a nice budget, and hired journalists (indiscriminately) from the local area. Let them to write whatever they want, but require it to be in English so foreigners can read it (key ingredient). Wait a bit and no surprise: eventually the journalists will write and share pro-NATO, anti-Russia articles. Which casually aligns with US policy. There is no need for conspiracy here with me telling journalists what to write. Simply, I am giving a voice to sentiments people already had and helping share them with English speakers around the world. That's what I see happening at theblacksea.eu.

The end product is you end up with high production-value articles that align with US interests, like the one submitted. In contrast, the Russians prefer a more direct approach to spread their interests, namely by employing people to spread rumors and disrupt online conversations. I actually think the Russian approach is more effective, mostly because most people don't have the time to read longform articles like this. Perhaps we will see the US adopt more of a Russian approach in the future.

Obvious propaganda piece. Both sides are doing bad things. Intelligent observers can read about the situation widely and decide for themselves what the drivers of the situation are, but this piece doesn't add much.

Just for the sake of fairness, I could play devils advocate for either side, but an intelligent reader will do that for themselves, so I'll skip it.

Also, I checked their list of stories, and they all seem to be negative...

>Both sides are doing bad things.

Such statements downplay the root cause and pretend like all parties are equally guilty which is never the case. All sides did bad things in WW2, although it doesn't make all parties equally guilty. It was Hitler who started it. It was Putin who started the war against Ukraine by annexing Crimea. He personally and Russia in general bear the responsibility for the war they planned, prepared, started, financed and still keep running.

It makes more sense to treat Crimea and Donbass separately. Putin undeniably gave the orders to occupy and annex Crimea, but that did not immediately trigger armed conflict in Donbass. The latter really started when Strelkov and his band occupied Slavyansk, and based on the information that we have so far, it appears to have been a private enterprise that wasn't sanctioned from the Russian government.

It took them a while to decide whether they want to back it or not, evidence to which can be found in many photos from the region from 2014 - if you look at early photos, the separatists carry a very wide assortment of arms, many of which are clearly civilian in origin (SKS and even Mosin rifles, for example), and only a few had AKs - and even those were stolen from Ukrainian army depots and such, and have the telltale early model wireframe stocks. Whereas from August of 2014 on, you start seeing most armed with standard Russian issue AK-74M (with solid folding stocks), and quite a few decked out in full sets of Russian "digital Flora" camo complete with helmets, load bearing vests, and body armor. Also, a lot more artillery and armor.

Coincidentally, that was also when Ukrainian Army and National Guard advance was stopped, and the first major setbacks (e.g. Ilovaysk) occurred.

The bigger issue might have been the settlement after the fall of the Soviet Union that kept Russia away from the Black Sea ports. It was almost a historical inevitability that Russia would seek a warm-water port. Sevastopol is the major Russian Black Sea port, and always has been.

Novorossiysk is an existing Russian warm-water port on the Black Sea, with better links to the Russian heartland. Sevastopol's chief geopolitical advantage over Novorossiysk is force projection, as it sits closer to the Turkish Straits and nearby foreign ports like Odessa, Constanta, and Varna, outside and/or wanting to be outside of Russia's sphere of influence.

> It was Putin who started the war against Ukraine by annexing Crimea.

What happened before Russia annexed Crimea? If you can answer that question honestly, you'll get to the root of that conflict. Just be honest with yourself.

It all depends on how far back you want to go. Before the annexation, there was a referendum, but before the referendum, there was de facto occupation by the "polite people" aka Russian forces with all identification tags removed (a war crime in and of itself, by the way).

Before the occupation, there was Maidan. And before Maidan, there was Yanukovich, whose achievements include stuffing the Supreme Court, and having it scrap the country's new 2004 Constitution and reverting to the old one, which, coincidentally, gave president a great deal more power than the new one.

We can go all the way back to Pereyaslav Rada if you want, but what's the point of the exercise? No matter how you slice it, Russia invaded and occupied a part of a sovereign country, and there was no genocide or other serious crimes against humanity ongoing there that could possibly justify such a thing.

If you stop at "Before the occupation, there was Maidan", then do a serious investigation of those behind the Maidan, you'll get the real answer.

Hints: John McCain went to egg them on (He was in Libya and Syria too). The US ambassador was handing out cookies to police officers. And then there's Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

So what? Last I checked, there were Russian tanks in Crimea and Donbass. There were no US tanks in Kiev.

Or are you saying that tanks are an adequate response to cookies?

Whatever happened in Ukraine before the annexation of Crimea has absolutely no any relationship to Russia.

Putin once again failed in his attempt "to restore" USSR via more "peaceful" means 2nd time in a row was a bit too much for him so he snapped setting Russia on course which will likely bring the collapse of Russia similar to that of the USSR.

Wars are not a simple "he started it" deal. One could draw uncanny parallels between the current situation and the conflicting alliances during World War 2.

Would be interesting to see what do you think Russia is doing right in this conflict?

from Putin's Russia standpoint, it is probably best to maintain fire in the conflict, without adding too much powder or lending overwhelming force to separatists. He uses Donbass conflict as "grappling hook" in the Ukraine's back, that basically prevents it from joining EU or NATO. (Current regulations deny membership to any country that has unresolved territorial claims or participates in the military conflict.) And it bleeds Ukrainian resources, destablilizes economy, etc. So, he is pretty much doing best by not winning this conflict decisively. (btw, why don't you ask yourself what EU/USA is doing right in this conflict?)

I meant right in a different sense, but you provide a fairly accurate description about what is going on. US and some EU members and China are pretending Budapest memorandum does not exist, which serves them well in the short term, but will obviously have severe consequences in the long term.

It's interesting how people take sides on these issues. Many in the US who can count all the wrongs Russia is guilty of in the conflict in Ukraine see nothing wrong with the US position in Syria.

This itself could be a subject of a long discussion, but does not seem to be related to the topic at hand.

Why is it obvious propaganda?

I didn't find anything wrong with the article. It presents a story. Small and medium size business have been crushed and most have been pillaged by mercenaries and gangsters in the free for all the followed Russian adventurism.

Readers here are intelligent enough to see your poor attempt at discrediting an article that is what it is.

How much proof do you need and why defend the indefensible?

Whatever side you're on, it's a damn shame what's happened in the Donbass. All the industry bombed to shit, thousands killed, more jobless and forced into poverty. And it doesn't look like it will be over anytime soon. I just hope the people there get enough aid to survive, and maybe a hand rebuilding out of the rubble once the fighting stops.

Слава україні, героям слава.

@tristanj: thanks for reading the piece.

theblacksea.eu is run by the romanian centre for investigative journalism, a romanian non-profit (www.crji.org). RCIJ is part of various international networks, including the latest www.eic.network

you can check the RCIJ/CRJI for investigating the CIA black-sites, partnering with Wikileaks on the cable gate, and other investigative stories;

the black sea website had a grant from the Black Sea Trust, operated by GMFU, in 2012 for one year, in order to build the site from scratch under free software licence and to perform the initial 10 stories or so. that grant expired in 2013, 3 years ago.

we would love some more funding, but for now most of the work is done pro-bono or on a freelance basis.

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