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I just started following him on Twitter a few weeks ago and have been wondering about his thesis on the Heavenly Hundred. Looking forward to listening.

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Jan 20, 2023Liked by Robert Wright

This interview did absolutely broaden my understanding of Ukraine generally, and I found the insights about Zelensky’s presidency (what he ran on, what he actually did and the challenges he faced internally) the highlight of the interview. I got a deeper understanding of how Zelensky’s ‘agency’ as leader was framed within parameters set among his domestic environment, various Western policy goals and Russian interest. Please do have Katchanovski back!! He won me over with his enthusiasm, his intellectual curiosity, and his overall pluck (writing from the perspective of western economic theory while living in the Soviet Union)!

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Wow, just wow. Is it a new low by Nonzero?

I am not going to comment on everything, but only this part "2. The “Maidan massacre”—which is depicted in the standard narrative as the murder of dozens of protesters by riot police, and which put massive international pressure on Yanukovych to step down — wasn’t what it seemed. Katchanovski, after extensive research on how the revolution unfolded, has concluded that the massacre wasn’t in fact perpetrated by police, but rather by far-right militants who supported the protests "

This is pure BS. Pure conspiracy. It is also a bit personal to me because I was in Kyie covering these events. In fact, I stayed in Hotel Ukraine, which is the central plot element in Katchanovski´s conspiracy theory.

For those who do not speak Russian or Ukrainian and who are not familiar with the geography of central Kyiv, Katchanovskis's talk may seem convincing. A lot of maps, photos, "witnesses", documents, etc. But it is all crap.

I am not going to refute point by point, as it is too time-consuming, but I will refute one aspect. One of the central theses of Katchanovski´s conspiracy centers around Hotel Ukraina. A claim that the hotel was controlled by protesters and snipers (protesters) were shooting from the hotel windows. Katchanovski comes back to Hotel Ukraina again and again and again.

As I said, I stayed at Hotel Ukraine at this time. It was a favorite place for foreign journalists, just beside Maidan square on high ground. As it was the highest building around, western photographers and cameramen from CNN to BBC used its balconies to get nice shots. I am not a cameraman, but I still have a few videos filmed with my crappy old phone.

Anyway, there are thousands of videos and photos of what was happening in Hotel Ukraine. And it was not under the control of protesters. This is a pure lie from Katchanovski. The hotel was controlled by Berkut police (Ukrainian special service basically), the hotel lobby was their base, they used its amenities and etc.

I am not saying that a special service used the hotel to shoot protesters. I did not eyewitness shootings (though I did witness how people fell and died), so I cannot tell where from shots came. But this claim by Katchanovski - the hotel was under the control of protesters - is 100% lie.

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Jan 20, 2023·edited Jan 20, 2023

Robert, it's hard to know what to make of Ivan Katchanovski's claims and research. I'm not likely to go down the rabbit hole of examining his evidence. Your idea to have investigative reporters from The NY Times or other well-resourced media outlets delve into it makes sense. If you haven't done so already, I'd like to suggest that you invite Professor Timothy Snyder to be a podcast guest. He can likely address Katchanovski's claims, but as you know, his breadth of knowledge concerning the history of the region extends so much further and deeper.

On a more superficial note, Katchanovski is definitely not easy to listen to for 2 hours! It's not the accent, rather it's the pitch and velocity of his speech. He'll never be a podcaster!

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Thank you for having Ivan Katchanovski (IK) on in person. His analysis of the snipers has been around since 2015, as he pointed out. In it he takes dozens of videos of the shootings and analyses each one, locating the persons being shot, interviewing them and showing over and over the same thing: the shots all came from one place: the Hotel Ukraine controlled by the "rebels". This does not require a "deep dive". It requires a reading, nothing more. But because this analysis is not widely known except by those with a need to know, no one dares promote it, other than RT, which had written about it. As a result it has remained an academic exercise and was never published, except as PDF's on academia.edu, just like IKs most recent books on the Maidan are not published. It appears that when there is inescapable smoking-gun type evidence that is so contrary to what the general public wants to know, people just ignore it. I think this has something to do with: "this is what the Russians are saying, so it must be propaganda, which means false. Nothing to see here".

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Many Western Ukrainians would have been happy to see the Donbas go. There could have been an open and honest secession movement, as you see in other countries. Even in February 2022, Putin could have made a Donbas annexation his singular goal, and focused all resources on that. But he overreached, and made a mess of it.

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For a truly cognitively empathetic (and musically beautiful) piece, see this: https://youtu.be/nPlbOv4wUoI

"Put yourself in my place..."

You can say that again, boy!

Although even then, apparently the filmmakers' hand was forced when local Jews refused to allow them to film in the Holy Land unless an explanatory piece of this ilk showing the difficult position of their ancestors was included.

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Big fan of your thinking and analysis, Bob! Thought you might be interested in checking out a video of a presentation by a Finnish Intelligence Officer on the Russian mindset from a Strategic Culture point of view. Why is Putin doing this? Why do so many Russians support him? How does he get away with the lies? Where do oligarchs and religion and history fit into it all?

It really shows how the culture and history of a place can mold an entire population, and should make us look at our own unspoken preconceptions and how they might have come about simply based on where we were born and raised -- thereby improving our cognitive empathy!

Anyway, without further ado, you can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/kF9KretXqJw

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I found this guest’s accent utterly fascinating. It’s like a mix of Russian, German, Polish, and Yiddish. The history of the whole region is captured in his voice.

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So Robert, having heard what you have heard, how come you still refer do Maidan as a " Revolution " ? Imagine if the pro Trump Capitol stormers had succeeded in overthrowing the US government, would this blog not have exploded with the F-word and the P-word? Where " P" stands for " putsch " ? You wouldn't have called it a "revolution",would you? So why not apply the same logic to the Ukraine and call things by their proper names ? That would be a very cognitively empathetic thing to do.

Likewise, I don't understand why call a legitimate Ukrainian government the " Yanukovich Regime"? Doesn't that imply at least a degree of illegitimacy ?

We weave narratives with the language we use, so as you know the truth now, perhaps it's high time to adopt truthful language?

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