interview

War in Ukraine? Unrest in Kazakhstan? What’s going on?

All things having to do with Russia are seen in the West through a renewed Cold War prism, with simplistic portrayals more befitting a Hollywood villain. Western media has been in a panic about an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine, while they celebrated a countrywide uprising in Kazakhstan that after a few days was put down.

So what’s really happening? Is it all right-wing color revolutions provoked by the West? Local anger manipulated by elites? Perhaps a bit of both? What are the local dynamics at play?

To discuss, Rania Khalek was joined by Volodymyr Ishchenko, a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies at Free University Berlin.

TIME CODES:

0:00 Intro
1:37 Is there really a threat of Russia invading Ukraine?
14:02 What was behind the protests in Kazakhstan?
25:09 Ukraine’s Euromaidan benefited neoliberalism & empowered the nationalist far right
36:56 Impact of Western-funded civil society & NGOs
45:37 The mainstream erasure of millions of pro-Russia Ukrainians
54:56 Were the protests in Belarus another Maidan event?
58:04 Crisis of capitalism, spontaneous upheavals & hijacking protests
1:04:34 Ukrainian far right and neo-Nazis
1:13:56 Solving the conflict in Ukraine

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Rania Khalek

Rania Khalek is a Middle East-based journalist for Breakthrough News. . Her journalism has appeared at The Grayzone, Jacobin, The Nation, The Intercept, FAIR, Vice, The Electronic Intifada, Al Jazeera and more. .

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