Ukraine’s Offensive Falters as Elite Units Defect to Pro-Russia Side

[Catherina]

44. Oh gosh, see post 40

that I was typing to bemildred when you typed this. Post 40.

The really think Ukrainians, and working people around the world, have the short attention spans of the general US public and are gonna fall for this. Ukranians have been protesting the NATO for years, just like the protesters being violently suppressed in Bahrain right now that our media never talks about. What's happening now is their own worst fears come true but somehow it's all Russia's fault lol.

Although Sea Breeze exercises are very important for the Black Sea regional security and
for Ukraine itself, public perception of these exercises in Ukraine is generally very negative
and quite polarized. In fact, several times since 1997 massive public protests against Sea
Breeze led to the disruption of several exercises and created a generally unfavorable envi-
ronment for multilateral collaboration (Sanders, 2007). The major reason is that the public
tends to view Ukraine’s participation in Sea Breeze as part of a larger pro-NATO agenda, and
Ukraine’s stronger affiliation with NATO is perceived very negatively by the majority of the
Ukrainian population, as well as by the current parliamentary majority (Dmitriy Tabachnik,
Petr Simonenko, Sergey Grinevetskiy, & Kryuchkov, 2009; Molchanov, 2000; Simon, 2009).
For example, a public opinion poll conducted by the Ukrainian national think tank “Demo-
cratic Initiatives” in 2012 indicated that 74.3 per cent of people from the East, 73.9 percent
from the South, 52.3 percent from the Center and 39.2 percent from the West answered nega-
tively to the question of whether Ukraine should join NATO (Democratic Initiatives Founda-
tion, December 2012). These data also show evidence of the East-West divide in the public
perceptions regarding NATO. At the same time, a significant proportion of the Ukrainian
population across all regions is undecided in their views regarding NATO (see Table 1).
Hence, changing the opinion of these people would help to mitigate the general hostility
of the Ukrainian population towards NATO and its security initiatives.

...

The Donetsk newspaper makes a clear association between Sea Breeze and NATO, and
since the anti-NATO sentiment is very prevalent in the region, negative public opinion about
Sea Breeze feeds itself. In several articles there is a call to proclaim Donetsk a NATO-free
territory. Following this logic, Sea Breeze is called a foreign invasion of the Ukrainian land,
immediate harm to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and a factor that is detrimental to Ukraine’s
sovereignty. The Donetsk public is fearful not only that the national government is deciding
everything despite local opposition but also that a powerful foreign actor (the U.S.) might
subvert the national government in Ukraine by controlling its decisions. To a lesser extent,
the paper also discusses the geopolitical alignment of Ukraine and the idea that being closer
with Russia is more beneficial than building partnerships with NATO. Aside from NATO-
related objections against Sea Breeze, the Donetsk paper talks about the harms of Sea Breeze
for local tourism in Crimea. On the other hand, Sea Breeze cancellations are viewed as lost
opportunities for Ukraine and its military capacity. Hence, the Donetsk public is not against
the Sea Breeze exercises per se, but rather against too much foreign influence in Ukraine, and
against the intentions of the Ukrainian government to make unilateral decisions regardless of
people’s preferences at the local level.

Articles in the Kharkiv newspaper are openly negative about Sea Breeze. There is a
strong war rhetoric and fear that Sea Breeze is a form of direct military invasion of Ukraine
(not the invasion of Ukraine’s sovereignty like in the Donetsk paper). There is also a suspi-
cion that Sea Breeze is just another form of foreign military intelligence in Ukraine and a
program with some hidden motives:

...

The Crimean newspaper portrays Sea Breeze in a very negative light. It views these ex-
ercises as a foreign invasion and an attack against Ukraine that violates the Ukrainian Con-
stitution and the principle of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Similar to the Donetsk paper,
there is a strong sense of regionalism in Crimea and a harsh critique of the national govern-
ment’s unwillingness to consider the preferences of the Crimean people. Crimean articles
condemn the national government’s disrespect towards the democratic freedoms of speech
and free expression that are exercised by the anti-Sea Breeze protesters. The national govern-
ment is described as uncivilized, ignorant, and stubborn.

...

http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/Collaboration/international/Ukraine/Sea-Breeze-exercise.pdf

And that was before all this