Ukraine's Maidan revolution

Comments (negative/positive) on the below (from a WSJ correspondent -- more than welcome.]

David Roman

Reporter, The Wall Street Journal.

David Roman, Madrid. Letters to the Editor, The Times Literary Supplement (February 16, 2018).

Excerpt:

In her review of The Ukrainian Night  by Marci Shore (February 2) [JB -- see] Kate Brown comes across as a sympathetic, realistic observer of the country . ...

As a Wall Street Journal correspondent who helped to cover the revolution and its aftermath, I must correct the impression left by her review that a courageous popular response to armed repression led to victory by protestors. On the contrary, on the last days of February 2014, armed thugs -- many, if not most, heavily armed far-right and neo-Nazi activists from western Ukraine --- stormed Maidan square. killing and capturing police officers and forcing the hand of a government that, as well as being unpopular, was bankrupt and diplomatically isolated.

Some people (and I would not hesitate to say they are all connoisseurs of fascist insurrections) may think ... that the [sic - with JB emphasis; see] Ukraine has a pro-EU, pro-American government. Personally, I was struck by the image of a democratically elected president escaping his country in the middle of the night, chased by hooligans holding Waffen-SS banners. ...

Ukraine remains mired in bankruptcy and corruption, led by a government that is happily commemorating Nazis as heroes of the Second world War, while begging for NATO membership and American cash. ... [T]he US did gain a permanent US military base ... not far from Odessa, built under the current administration. That, as George Bush would put it, is a mission accomplished.

DAVID ROMAN
Madrid