Ukraine faced an identical deep flaw of its democratic constitution as 90s Russia: President & Parliament were elected separately, had overlapping powers, with no legal method of overriding or reconciling their disagreements. Informal 'clan' networks ended up deciding policy.

President can veto his own impeachment (lol). Pres has power to pick the PM & dismiss officials, whilst parliament can veto most proceedings. PMs fired by Presidents when they are felt to be too independent. SBU, 🇺🇦-KGB successor, also used to elicit "cooperation" in a pinch.

Kravchuk, 🇺🇦's 1st President. Like other locally powerful Communist elites, he held 80s 'ideological debates' (nice metaphor) with independence figures. Kravchuk quickly altered his tune as Gorbachev finished reenacting his King Lear psychodrama on a state of 286 million people.

Kravchuk's first PM, who attempted to maintain Soviet industry & benefits, was fired in favour of the pro-market Kuchma (hints at rich backers). President & PM were soon fighting, & Kuchma took Kravchuk's job. Though the more neoliberal one, Kuchma won on Russophone grievances.

Kuchma's strategic corruption. Tax-office bullied businesses to give to his warchest. Lucrative energy-sector posts went to vainglorious pals like Medvechuk, who founded empty "parties" with Western names to run parliament. Vote-fraud needed to beat Communists. Slavic Democracy.

Originally Kuchma's creature, Donbass governor Yanukovych independently grew his own corrupt powerbase, with Tatar mob-affiliate-turned-oligarch Akhmetov as his right-hand man. They founded another Russophone-interest party. This was too much, & in 2004 Kuchma finally lost Pres.

The so-called "🍊Revolution", although less odious than Kuchma's cricle, was no fresh start. Yushenko & Yulia Timoshenko were backed by entrenched oligarchs. The 2 former allies ended up fighting each other, bringing down the government in 2010. Firtash, rumoured mob affiliate.

Sketch in this book somehow fails to mention the poisoning that ruined Yushenko's face. Yanukovych pres was the most thuggish in 🇺🇦's short & miserable history. Not in text, but Yan thought it a clever move to become an oligarch himself, by asset confiscation (it didn't work).

Yanukovych fled to Russia, after mass protests led to violence. From their POV, it did Russia zero favours to take in such a hated figure. But not only US leaders are idiots. Pres of Poroshenko, "the chocolate king". He was beaten by a rival oligarch's puppet, Zelensky.

Assumed extreme overuse of the word "Revolution" in the ex-USSR came from the US state department, but it goes to 1990. Anyway, this book really feels like it was "written by committee". Belatedly realising I doubt it's worth making a big thread on. I'll likely just speedread it.

2014 Maidan "Revolution" origins. Like Nixon, Yanukovych's mistake was in attacking his political peers. Like Kuchma, he could simply have stuck to beating up protesters & journos. Dumb intolerance on all sides: 2012 protests against merely giving Russian language legal status.

Noting its "sacralization", this 🇺🇸 memo still struggles to list concrete benefits of Maidan. Oligarch networks remained undisturbed. 🇺🇦perception of post 2014 political corruption actually increased - likely because it was no longer focused on the single nexus of Yanukovych.

Chapters on the 🇺🇦 economy & energy sectors - definitely the most useful info this dry book contains (much of it is just handwringing Freedom House statistics). Notes Poroshenko & Zelensky admins used Donbass War & Crimean Crisis to impose harsh IMF austerity measures.

A phenomenon I struggle to understand: After 2015 Ukraine, instead of buying 🇷🇺-gas directly, would instead buy its gas from 🇵🇱🇭🇺🇸🇰 - all which was originally Russian-sourced. But this circuitous buying is somehow cheaper, because of "contract conditions"? @kaptenblu

@kaptenblu Ukranian⚡️-usage has declined continuously since 1991. Since losing Donbass coalfields in 2014, nuclear power has covered the difference, suddenly more than doubling from <20% to >50% average of power generation, though its big shadow economy muddies data. This seems very safe.

@kaptenblu "No other republic has seen its energy position change so rapidly for the worse as Ukraine". 🇺🇦 still has the 2nd largest gas reserves in Europe, but they remain undeveloped. Bonanza for developers. Ukraine was unsurprisingly a top-10 coal-exporter as well, including anthracite.

As late as 2010, 80% of Russian gas to Europe went through Ukraine. Post-2000 collapse of 🇺🇦's refining industry to less than 8% of capacity meant a massive ongoing loss of profits. Domestic prices for gas were lower in🇺🇦 than🇷🇺 - no politician could afford to kill subsidies.

All 🇺🇦corruption nexuses ultimately centre around gas -relatively little expertise is needed for huge profits. Export companies can be run as turnkey operations (refineries are another matter). Zelensky's oligarch-patron, Kolomoisky, cost the 🇺🇦state several-100 million $.

The relatively Russia-friendly Kuchma ('94-04) negotiated favourable deals on cheap Russian gas, in exchange for very low transit/storage fees. A mutually beneficial arrangement. Details were conveniently (for Kuchma) opaque. This deal was blown up in 2006 by the "Orangists".

A second gas crisis in 2009. Ukrainian political infighting between PM & President (both very pro-Western) meant the country as whole was unable to present a united front. 🇪🇺 was fed up with 🇷🇺🇺🇦 bickering, just wanted its gas & did little to help. Russia took the upper-hand.

In 2010, the pro-Russian Yanukovych was elected & Russia eased off economic pressure - slightly. The 2014 Maidan & Donbass War ended any remaining goodfaith. Despite Crimean annexation, 🇺🇦 got no special treatment in international gas arbitrations in 🇸🇪. 🇪🇺just needed its gas.

All this headache was the background to building the Nordstream 2 Pipeline. Book has a long section on the longterm ramifications of cutting 🇺🇦 out, but as we know this was all rendered mute. Previous 🇪🇺 indifference on gas disputes certainly convinced key actors what to do.

Celebrations that post-2014 🇺🇦 was "forced to be free" cautioned against. Drop in 🇷🇺gas imports not compensated by substitutes or increased🔌 efficiency. Instead industrial output just crashed. Crude imports replaced by more expensive refined oil from the vicious regime of 🇦🇿.

Book has several more chapters on "identities",🏳️‍🌈s, religion, etc, but I found them to be mostly waffle interspersed with sociological graphs. Shallow materialistic concerns like "economics" aside, Ukraine wins the prize of being the freest post-USSR state, alongside Moldova.

Some interest in📺/🚔 chapters. Zelensky's campaign refused all interviews & debates until legally forced. On election, gov meetings secretly held, which Poroshenko had not done. His 1st interview was with a co-starring actor. "Media marathons" reminiscent of Putin's Valdai.🧵/

@haravayin_hogh Here is one of the editors participating in a meeting of the Russian historical society "on the questions of the study of Ukrainian history", chaired by the head of Russian foreign intelligence Naryshkin, in January 2022 on the occasion of 1654 anniversary https://web.archive.org/web/20...