Ukraine’s Slow Descent Into Madness -- Lucian Kim, Slate
While it fights rebels in the east, Kiev is beginning to crumble from the inside.
KIEV, Ukraine—Less than a year ago, Viktor Yanukovych was not yet the disgraced former president of Ukraine and ruled over his impoverished but peaceful nation from Mezhyhirya, his sprawling residence outside Kiev. Here Yanukovych entertained his cronies aboard a fake Spanish galleon, watched TV from the comfort of his wood-paneled Jacuzzi, and prayed for redemption in a jewel-encrusted private chapel.
The main house—an outsized, five-story peasant cottage—is nicknamed Honka, after the Finnish company that built it. Today a wild-eyed revolutionary named Petro Oliynyk offers visitors an express tour from bowling alley to bedroom at $15 a head. Wrapped in the black-and-red flag of the World War II–era Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Oliynyk coasts across Honka’s inlaid wooden floors in traditional straw shoes. Mezhyhirya has become to Kiev what Versailles is to Paris—except Ukraine’s revolution is far from over.
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My Comment: I am not as gloomy as the author of the above post is on Ukraine's future. But it is true that tough times are ahead for Ukraine, and the pace for needed reform is going to be much slower than what many were hoping and expecting after the revolution. As for the civil war in the east .... absent a political agreement that conflict is going to brew on well into next year.
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