Bloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidsky has been suggesting that Kyiv and Moscow may be parting ways forever. Here's an excerpt:
Russia and Ukraine have spent most of their post-Soviet history as Siamese twins, but for the last two years they've been undergoing political and economic separation surgery. It will probably be more or less complete in 2016, and though both twins are in for a grim period, the weaker one, Ukraine, has the better prospects in some ways.
Ever since Ukraine declared independence in August, 1991, it sought to establish an identity that would set it apart from Russia. Its second president, Leonid Kuchma, even published a book called "Ukraine Is Not Russia" in 2003. In practice, however, Ukraine kept following its bigger neighbor even through its failed Westernization period of 2005 to 2010. It inherited the same basis for its legal system and government -- the Soviet bureaucracy -- and even attempted reforms often imitated Moscow's moves. When I moved from Moscow to Kiev in 2011, I felt no discomfort: Everything, from bureaucratic procedures to the pervasive corruption that made a mockery of them, was largely the same in the two countries.
Economically, Ukraine remained Russia's colony. In 2013, its trade turnover with Russia, at $31.8 billion according to the official Ukrainian statistics agency, reached 28 percent of its total trade. For Moscow, Ukraine wasn't as important, but it was still its fifth biggest trading partner with a 5 percent share of turnover. That last peaceful year, 6.1 million Ukrainians, out of a total population of 45.5 million, visited Russia, about two-thirds of them to work. Only Poland, Ukraine's entry point to the EU, received slightly more visitors.
Russian rulers got used to this. Even this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin contended that "Russians and Ukrainians are one nation." It's no longer true: The last two years, since Ukraine's "Revolution of Dignity," the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Russian-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine, have seen perhaps the biggest break-up between neighboring, closely interconnected countries in post-World War II history. In 2014, only 4.6 million Ukrainians traveled to Russia -- less than two-thirds as many as to Poland. This year's statistics are not in yet, but another drop in travel to Russia is highly likely, because Moscow has been tightening regulations to make it harder for Ukrainian migrant workers to stay indefinitely and because, as of last summer, there are no more direct flights between the two countries. Besides, starting in mid-2016, Ukrainians will be able to travel visa-free to the European Union, which will likely make travel to Europe vastly more popular.
Read the entire piece here
Here's a link to a report in English on the Russian blogger who's been jailed for criticizing Moscow's involvement in Ukraine (among other things):
We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume again tomorrow morning, you can follow all our other Ukraine coverage here.
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this item that our news desk filed overnight:
Ukraine Cuts Power To Crimea Again, Citing Faulty Equipment
A Crimean official has said that Ukraine has cut off a major source of electrical power to the region, a month after saboteurs first plunged the peninsula annexed by Russia into darkness.
Kirill Moskalenko, a spokesman for the governor of Sevastopol city, said on December 31 that Ukraine had cut off the Kakhovka-Titan line to Crimea.
"The line has supplied the peninsula with 250 megawatts. Due to the lack of power supply, Sevastopol is receiving 150 megawatts instead of 195 megawatts," Moskalenko said.
The Ukrainian operator of the power grid, Ukrenergo, said it shut down the Kakhovka-Titan line because some protective equipment came off in the town of Kakhovka, the TASS news agency reported.
Kakhovka-Titan had been the only functioning overhead high-voltage transmission line out of four lines that Ukrenergo used to deliver electricity to customers in Crimea before the end of November.
Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, needs around 1 gigawatt of power to keep the lights on.
Crimean authorities said they would limit the use of electricity following the power interruption, which began at around 10 p.m. local time on December 30.
"We will switch ... [the] power usage schedule. City lighting will be powered down," the government said in a statement.
Electrical power to Crimea was shut off at the end of November when saboteurs blew up pylons in southern Ukraine which supported the four lines that supplied Crimea with the bulk of its power. Ukraine nationalists then blocked access to the location and prevented Ukrainian energy workers from repairing them.
The saboteurs have not been identified. Crimean Tatars were prominent members of the group blockading the site, but they denied they had anything to do with blowing up the pylons.
The power cuts affected some 2 million people, who had to use emergency generators for electricity. Power was partly restored after about two weeks.
With reporting by Reuters, TASS, Interfax, and Sputniknews.com
More on the latest Crimean power cut: