{"id":16158,"date":"2016-01-07T12:55:37","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T17:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=16158"},"modified":"2016-01-07T12:55:59","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T17:55:59","slug":"reality-peeks-through-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=16158","title":{"rendered":"Reality Peeks Through in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reality Peeks Through in Ukraine<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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Exclusive:<\/strong>\u00a0With corruption rampant and living standards falling, Ukraine may become the next failed state that \u201cbenefited\u201d from a neoconservative-driven \u201cregime change,\u201d though the blame will always be placed elsewhere \u2013 in this case,\u00a0on the demonized Russian President Putin, writes Robert Parry.<\/p>\n

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Nearly two years since U.S. officials helped foment a coup in Ukraine \u2013 partly justified by corruption allegations \u2013 the country continues to wallow in graft and cronyism as the living standards for average Ukrainians plummet, according to economic data and polls of public attitudes.<\/p>\n

Even the neocon-oriented Wall Street Journal took note of the worsening corruption in a Jan. 1, 2016\u00a0article<\/u><\/a>\u00a0observing that \u201cmost Ukrainians say the revolution\u2019s promise to replace rule by thieves with the rule of law has fallen short and the government acknowledges that there is still much to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Ukraine's<\/a><\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. (Photo credit: Ybilyk)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Actually, the numbers suggest something even worse. More and more Ukrainians rate corruption as a major problem facing the nation, including a majority of 53 percent last September, up from 48 percent last June and 28 percent in September 2014, according to polls by International Foundation for Electoral Systems.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ukraine\u2019s GDP has fallen in every quarter since the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch that overthrew elected President Viktor Yanukovych. Since then, the average Ukrainian also has faced economic \u201creforms\u201d to slash pensions, energy subsidies and other social programs, as demanded by the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n

In other words, the hard lives of most Ukrainians have gotten significantly harder while the elites continue to skim off whatever cream is left, including access to billions of dollars in the West\u2019s foreign assistance that is keeping the economy afloat.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reality Peeks Through in Ukraine Exclusive:\u00a0With corruption rampant and living standards falling, Ukraine may become the next failed state that \u201cbenefited\u201d from a neoconservative-driven \u201cregime change,\u201d though the blame will always be placed elsewhere \u2013 in this case,\u00a0on the demonized Russian President Putin, writes Robert Parry. Nearly two years since U.S. officials helped foment a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4139,6963,418,11547,660,1343,7203,694,821,861],"class_list":["post-16158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-arseniy-yatsenuk","tag-consortium-news","tag-imf","tag-internation-monetary-fund","tag-putin","tag-regime-change","tag-robert-parry","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-wall-street-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16158"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16160,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16158\/revisions\/16160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}