Ukrainian Maidan after 8 years

[Tomasz + 1,608]

Thread by Dean Fantazzini from Moscow Higher School of Economics about Ukraine population current trends

 https://twitter.com/DeanFantazzini/status/1305182551523430410

2020

I find some time to update the demographic data for central/eastern Europe and estimate the Ukraine population for 2020 using birth data and a TFR=1.34: 30.6 million vs 31.3 in 2019, with 95% conf. interval given by 29.1-31.9. The 2019 estimate is below

2019

I find some time to update the demographic data for central/eastern Europe and estimate the Ukraine population for 2019 using birth data and a range for possible TFRs: 31.3 million vs 31.9 in 2018, with 95% C.I. given by 30-32.5. The 2018 estimate is below2020

Interesting facts of 2018 birth levels(data from @Cicerone973): 1) South Korea:the collapse in fertility(TFR<1)and the known desire of the majority of young S.Koreans to emigrate,may explain why a part of the S.K elite thinks that this is the best moment to do peace with North Korea

2)Ukraine:using 2018 data+a range for possible TFRs+regression of birth data for central and eastern Euro countries,it is possible to infer that the 2018population was ~32million.This number was confirmed by I.Kolomoisky-main supporter of the new Ukr.president. 95% C.I. are 30-34

https://twitter.com/DeanFantazzini/status/1305182551523430410

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

On 12/20/2021 at 10:31 PM, Tomasz said:

So Zelenski has arrested both Medvedchuk and Poroshenko and is fighting with Akhmetov for power

Another thing is that Poroshenko even now has a chocolate factory in Russia today, and in any case he did not want to get rid of it

Because Zelenski goverment accused him of terrorism and treason in favor of Russia

Medvedchuk I could understand that but Poroshenko?

This seems to be a the dintoyr between two kosher mafias members.

Something like Berezovsky and Gusinski at Yeltsin's court fought for power.

Their successor Putin finally reconciled them just at the begining off his rule and sent them both on forced exile to Londongrad. 

Poroshenko fled to Poland, last I hear.

There is a site tracking last time Ze violated Ukrainian constitution called Ze.Live which seems to have moved to FaceBook, so I can't really see it

https://www.facebook.com/ze.live.official

It is usually at 0 days.

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

On 12/19/2021 at 2:19 AM, El Gato said:

Poland, Like Ukraine, Is in Putin's Crosshairs

https://www.military.com/daily-news/opinions/2021/12/17/poland-ukraine-putins-crosshairs.html

Hey Tomasz, you might want to worry less about Ukraine and more about your country.

 

a) None of this has anything to do with "Putin", but everything with European Union's dubious sanctions on Belavia, Belarus' flag carrier airline. Which was simply forced to resort to Middle Eastern routes.

b) The numbers are severely inflated. Actually detained at the Polish border were some 1,500 refugees, or about as much as sneak into EU DAILY using the Italian route.

[Tomasz + 1,608]

Quote

 

Ukraine is undergoing energy shock therapy introduced by the West and deepened by the diseased power structure. As a result, it loses its geographical advantages, bears enormous economic costs and charges impoverished populations with high costs.

Our eastern neighbor is the object of an energy operation that may not survive. Ukraine, after 2014, when the West took control of the country, was subject to changes that cost it very dearly, and before each winter, when energy and heat are a matter of life and death, there is a struggle to survive this period without major failures. There were many reasons for this dramatic state of affairs.

The first is geopolitics. Kiev, in its pursuit of Atlantic integration, has become a tool of gas pressure on Russia. In the 1990s, all Russian exports to Europe transit through Ukraine. Many years of gas wars have led to a state where Ukraine has to blackmail its Western allies to force Gazprom to transit via Ukrainian pipelines. The transit location and the enormous benefits it brings (up to 3 percent of GDP in transit fees) have been wasted. The source of the raw material was cut off, which would satisfy 1/3 of the country's energy needs. Today, Ukrainian politicians are also cutting off electricity from Russia and even Belarus, banning imports by law.

 
The second is the EU strategy, which has been forcing Kiev to increase energy prices for a long time, and has already been implemented after 2014. It does not matter the local demand or supply (almost 20 billion m3 of its own extraction - as much as Poland consumes), it is important that gas is as expensive in Ukraine as in Europe. No attention is paid to the poor population and the archaic heavy and very energy-consuming industry, for which this movement is deadly, because it owed its competitiveness to extremely low energy prices, now the high prices are destroying it completely. Under pressure from Brussels, a pricing system completely detached from local realities was implemented in Ukraine. Well, gas is valued there according to the "Rotterdam Plus" formula - as absurd for Ukraine as the rampant gas prices on the London Stock Exchange - for Poland.

The third destructive factor is the oligarchic system of power, where the local tycoons who took over entire branches of the post-Soviet economy are the real political decision-makers, and the democratically elected presidents, prime ministers and parliamentarians are their people in the state. This results in a simple robbery - as in gas, where the real Russian gas received from the transit pipe costs 20-25% more expensive than on Western exchanges. Strange "we go down" along the way and a lot of middlemen ... the sick model of the state costs money.

And the fourth, though not the last, factor is the intensive promotion (or rather forcing) of renewable energy. At the request of the EU, the Ukrainian authorities introduced a law that requires the construction of solar or wind energy installations. And the lobbyists came out with such high tariffs, which the state undertook to pay for new energy, that investments started like a hurricane. And they have really hit the corroded Ukrainian energy system, which still has to bear the burden of interrupted, uncontrollable and destructive "green" energy distribution networks.
Why is this happening? The West has many tools to force Kiev into obedience. Firstly, these are the agreements that Ukraine has signed in order to integrate with the West. It contains requirements that are extremely painful to implement for our eastern neighbors, and also costly. These difficult decisions, against the interests of the country, are forced by financial blackmail. So the European Union or the International Monetary Fund make a long list of demands for subsequent loans. Energy matters are high up there. Therefore, if Kiev does not want to go bankrupt, it simply has to comply with these demands.

For several years, Ukraine has been stuck in energy chaos, that is officially… energy transformation, adjusting it to the EU rules. The question is whether this will cause a serious crisis or only a slow degradation of the sector, which will entail the industry? I really don't know the answer.

 

https://myslpolska.info/2022/01/03/ukraina-energetyczny-chaos/?fbclid=IwAR1Z3AX9WabOL7c59Zd65IBOjS1N_TKLgMQBnOn4xeiqZgrz5IvRIzGUsM8

[Tomasz + 1,608]

 

Quote

 

Refrigerator with TV clashed in mortal combat

Valery Mikhailov

First Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yulia Sviridenko announced another economic victory for Ukraine: the alleged "record result of Ukrainian exports of goods in 2021 - $68.24 billion." Describing the components of success, the First Deputy Prime Minister reported on a sharp increase in foreign trade turnover and an improvement in the trade balance. In general, "beginning the year with positive economic news", which actually have little to do with reality. It is difficult to say whether Yulia Sviridenko is deliberately deceiving her fellow citizens or whether she herself does not understand what she is talking about. But none of these options looks good.

It is curious that it was Sviridenko who at the end of November announced another significant economic victory: the achievement of Ukraine's GDP in 2021, a record value of GDP in dollars - "approximately 195 billion." The same good news, at the suggestion of the head of the relevant ministry , was brought to the walls of the Verkhovna Rada a few days later by Volodymyr Zelensky as part of his appeal to parliament. But it is also either a manipulation or a confession of the Minister of Economics of his professional unsuitability.

Yes, the nominal GDP of Ukraine, expressed in dollars, by the end of 2021 should really exceed (so far there are only forecast data) the previous record of 2013, when it was fixed at $183.3 billion. However, comparing the nominal size of GDP over the years is stupid, calculate it even in dollars, even in tugriks. To assess the growth of the economy, a real GDP calculation tool is used that takes into account price increases.

If in Ukraine in 2021 alone, the growth in prices of industrial producers (that is, production inflation) within domestic sales amounted to 39%, and the dollar exchange rate was kept stable relative to last year (the hryvnia sank by only 1.2%), then voila - so much for the "growth" of dollar GDP in just a year by tens of percent!

d that the rise in tariffs for housing and communal services will bury the economy

Of course, not all of the past years, the hryvnia has been stable against the dollar. And since 2013, it has fallen by almost 3.5 times. But prices have risen to a much greater extent.

 

That is, the growth of Ukraine's nominal GDP in dollar terms and the achievement of its "record" indicator is, first of all, a frenzied rise in prices in the same equivalent. Which is hardly something to brag about. If in 2013 Ukraine was confidently ahead of Russia only in terms of prices for oil products and liquefied gas, now "superiority" is observed not only in fuel, but also in housing and communal tariffs, most food products, a significant part of non-food products and services.

In fact, the real GDP of Ukraine in 2021 will be only slightly more than 93% of the level of 2013. That is, the Ukrainian economy has not recovered to the level of 2013. And, as Saakashvili optimistically predicted , it will recover only 20 years after the Maidan. In addition, the quality of even the fallen economy has deteriorated greatly, since its basis, industry, has collapsed even more over the same years - by almost 20%.

The situation is approximately the same with the "record" volume of exports of goods. Here, however, it is even more fun, since there is not even the very fact of a record: the level of 2011-2012 (68.39 and 68.81 billion dollars) was not reached in 2021. It turned out only to get closer to him, which is hardly worth boasting about.

rld Bank will provide Ukraine with a new loan for economic recovery

But we must also pay attention to the structure of exports. And in it there were simply catastrophic changes for such a short period as ten years. Compared to 2011, in which the volume of exports in dollar terms was almost the same as in 2021, exports of engineering and instrumentation products decreased by 2.1 times - from 11.9 to 5.6 billion dollars. These are the most high-tech products with the highest added value. Moreover, for example, the export of railway cars fell 109 times (from $3 billion to $28 million), turbojet and turboprop engines by 7.2 times (from $784 to $109 million), diesel trains by 28 times (from $196 to seven million dollars). That is, many machine-building industries simply ceased to exist. The export of petroleum products fell by 7.2 times (from 5.7 to 0. 8 billion dollars), chemical and pharmaceutical industries by 1.6 times (from 6.3 to 3.9 billion dollars). Even the export of metals and products made from them (which is a much simpler product in terms of technology, but still requiring an industry) decreased by 1.4 times (from 22.1 to 16 billion dollars).

 

The export from the country of only agricultural products and prepared foodstuffs increased by 2.2 times (from 12.8 to 27.75 billion dollars). And, first of all, due to crop production, the export of which increased 2.6 times (from 5.5 to 14.5 billion dollars). As well as iron ore and other minerals - by 1.7 times (from 4.6 to 7.6 billion dollars).

That is, a country that, as a Soviet republic, was a machine-building shop for the entire USSR, in 2021 exported all engineering and instrumentation products in the amount 2.6 times less than corn, wheat and barley. In general, it somehow supports its exports solely due to the fact that it either grows something on the ground or picks it out of it. Is that really something to brag about?

Finally, about improving the trade balance. The balance of trade in goods in Ukraine in 2021 only worsened: if in 2020 the deficit in trade was $4.7 billion, then in 2021 it was $5.1 billion. And this despite the fact that the country in 2021 reduced six times (from 15 to 2.6 billion cubic meters)gas import! Of course, this is also presented in Ukraine as a victory. But in fact, the decrease in imports was not due to an increase in domestic production and not due to a reduction in consumption through energy efficiency. In any case, on average, Ukraine needs to buy about nine to ten billion cubic meters per year. It's just that this year the country is burning the previously accumulated reserves, but by the spring they will not have them at all. And it will have to return to standard import volumes. But if the standard volume were purchased in 2021, then the deficit in trade in goods would be about ten billion dollars.

All of the above does not prevent the Ukrainian authorities from immersing their citizens in the alternative reality of endless records and achievements, which is brought to the masses by the media and paid propagandists. But, judging by the ratings of Zelensky and his party, this is getting worse - gradually the refrigerator begins to overcome the TV.

 

https://ria.ru/20220116/ukraina-1768000640.html

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Tomasz

[Tomasz + 1,608]

A small research project on demonstrated language use of Ukrainians on social media (Instagram).

Someone calculated the percentage of what language posts were in each of Ukraine's oblasts.

Overall, results displayed a higher use of Russian than Ukrainian.