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.
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)!
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.
To be clear: As I understand Katchanovski, he's not really saying the hotel was "under the control of protesters." He's saying it was under the control of far-right groups that wanted the president overthrown but weren't ideologically aligned with the great mass of protesters (who, after all, weren't far-right and also weren't resorting to violence). I understand that you would dispute that claim as well (i.e. the claim that the hotel was under the control of far-right groups who were cynically using the protesters to achieve their aims). But I think it's important to be clear on what he is and isn't saying. All that said, I'm interested in seeing any evidence that he's wrong about who was controlling the hotel. So can you point me to evidence that the hotel was under the control of the Berkut police? Like you, I can't afford to spend a ton of time on this, so I doubt I'll ever "get to the bottom of it". But if there's something you consider clear evidence that he's wrong, I'd be happy to relay that to him and see how he reacts. (I recognize that your own testimony is evidence of a kind. And I can forward your comment to Katchanovski. But presumably there's also publicly accessible evidence you'd point to?)
To be clear: he actually says a lot of different things, he talks about protesters, he talks about far-right groups, he talks about mercenaries from Georgia, he talks about snipers from Baltic states, etc. (or at least his "evidence" talks, like in his video "The "Snipers' Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine (2021) from 03:26 about Baltic snipers and Georgian mercenaries). Much of his "evidence" is in style "let's throw mud at the wall and see what sticks".
As I said, for those who know the geography of this particular area, it is easy to spot massive holes in IK´s theory. Not going too far, but just from his own "The "Snipers' Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine" video, you linked.
02:31 Berkut police facing Maidan square, the hotel is on their back
03:03 same
03:44 same
06:55 Berkut is carrying a wounded comrade into the hotel
08:49 Berkut retreating from the square towards the hotel
10:09 Berkut retreating from the square towards the hotel
10:44 In front of the hotel, Berkut is shooting a Kalashnikov rifle toward Maidan Square
12.17 Berkut in front of the hotel (hotel on their left) shooting (probably rubber bullets) towards Maidan Square(on the right)
etc, etc,
IK has all the evidence he needs. He is just pushing conspiracy and sees what he wants to see.
(Though, to be precise before somebody starts nitpicking. Hotel Ukraina did go under the control of protesters when the protest and shootings ended.)
Thanks for this elaboration. I've looked at the parts of the video you point to, and I can't say they strike me as obviously strong evidence for your argument, but maybe they would if I were more conversant in the geography of Maidan and the events of Feb 2014. Anyway, I did forward your original post (not this one) to Katchanovski, and he replied. But his reply was full of hyperlinked words and phrases (leading to various sources, including specific points in videos), and Substack won't let you put hyperlinked words and phrases in the comments section. So we've turned your post and his reply into a post: https://nonzero.substack.com/p/an-exchange-about-the-maidan-massacre This post--like this comments section--is behind the paywall, so the only people who can see it are people who can see your post here. After the podcast goes public (tomorrow), we may want to make the exchange between you and Katchanovski public, but we won't make your part of it public without your permission.
I get very tired of reading “I’m not going to refute what he says point by point.” If you want to have an opinion and express it, you need to be willing to justify it. Don’t be lazy. At the very least, show contemporaneous evidence demonstrating that the hotel in question was not under the control of the snipers as IK claims. If you really want to be confident about your point, show that *no part* of the hotel was under the control of snipers. I bet there were people in the Dallas Book Depository who didn’t know the bullets that killed JFK came from that building either.
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!
You know for a fact that Professor Snyder "and people like him" are unwilling to "engage in narratives that challenge their assumptions?" Sounds like you have this more figured out that I do. I just figured that the guy who wrote "Bloodlands," "Black Earth," "The Road to Unfreedom," "The Reconstruction of Nations," "Sketches from a Secret War," (plus a few other books), and who speaks Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, plus a few other languages -- might be an interesting person for Robert to interview on this subject.
Tim Snyder or any other Yale-y blob monster could easily falsify my assumptions by engaging with someone who does not share their viewpoints. They never do and Snyder is among the worst perpetrators. They live in a CNN/NYT echo-chamber of conventional wisdom. I invite you to tell me a single position of his that is not in lockstep with the conventional Western elite viewpoint regarding Russia.
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".
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.
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.
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!
I am watching this with interest although Lenin for instance would giggle at the idea that he is a Conservative (see this Finn's comment that conservatives always held power in Russia). I mean the dude came to power as the most un-systemic and un-systemable chap in the world intent on igniting the latter and turning it into a communist paradise.
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.
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?
I still don't feel like I have a clear enough understanding of what happened to confidently characterize this as a coup or putsch. Katchanovski seemed credible and sincere to me, but I'm not enough of an expert to vouch for his analysis. (See the above comment from mikksalu for a perspective very different from Katchanovski's.) Also, I'm not sure I see as clear a line between a putsch/coup and a revolution as you do. Aren't there revolutions (that is, changes of power on the historical record that we commonly refer to as revolutions) that at key moments hinged on the acts of provocateurs, etc.?
I was wondering about it myself, although only after I had pressed the "send" button, as is my usual wont: shoot first, think second. It's probably due to a difference in mentality. The good old Soviet mentality (if I am allowed to call anything Soviet "good", if only half good!) with which I am equipped regards the concept of a "revolution" as something invariably positive, eg the Great October Socialiast Revolution. Coups and putsches were the realm of rotting capitalism engineered by the bad USA in poor Latin American countries. Ukraine not being in Latin America that concept should be totally inapplicable there of course 😉
Part of the point of cognitive empathy (and something every history major should walk away from college understanding) is that there are no “proper names” for political events. They differ depending on what the perspective of the narrator is and the value judgments the narrator attaches to said events. Was the Boston Tea Party an attempted coup and an act of sedition? Was it a glorious act of popular revolution? Depends on who’s telling the story. Same with any other coup or revolution.
I quite agree with that ! That's exactly why, being Putin's loyal footsoldier, I'm trying to nudge Robert to become that way inclined too and revolutionise, in the loveliest possible sense of that word, his perspective and value judgments on the Ukraine...
... I'm only joking of course and I appreciate my joke isn't even funny, but hey all I can do is try my best. I'm afraid with we that's as good as it gets.
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.
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)!
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.
To be clear: As I understand Katchanovski, he's not really saying the hotel was "under the control of protesters." He's saying it was under the control of far-right groups that wanted the president overthrown but weren't ideologically aligned with the great mass of protesters (who, after all, weren't far-right and also weren't resorting to violence). I understand that you would dispute that claim as well (i.e. the claim that the hotel was under the control of far-right groups who were cynically using the protesters to achieve their aims). But I think it's important to be clear on what he is and isn't saying. All that said, I'm interested in seeing any evidence that he's wrong about who was controlling the hotel. So can you point me to evidence that the hotel was under the control of the Berkut police? Like you, I can't afford to spend a ton of time on this, so I doubt I'll ever "get to the bottom of it". But if there's something you consider clear evidence that he's wrong, I'd be happy to relay that to him and see how he reacts. (I recognize that your own testimony is evidence of a kind. And I can forward your comment to Katchanovski. But presumably there's also publicly accessible evidence you'd point to?)
To be clear: he actually says a lot of different things, he talks about protesters, he talks about far-right groups, he talks about mercenaries from Georgia, he talks about snipers from Baltic states, etc. (or at least his "evidence" talks, like in his video "The "Snipers' Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine (2021) from 03:26 about Baltic snipers and Georgian mercenaries). Much of his "evidence" is in style "let's throw mud at the wall and see what sticks".
As I said, for those who know the geography of this particular area, it is easy to spot massive holes in IK´s theory. Not going too far, but just from his own "The "Snipers' Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine" video, you linked.
02:31 Berkut police facing Maidan square, the hotel is on their back
03:03 same
03:44 same
06:55 Berkut is carrying a wounded comrade into the hotel
08:49 Berkut retreating from the square towards the hotel
10:09 Berkut retreating from the square towards the hotel
10:44 In front of the hotel, Berkut is shooting a Kalashnikov rifle toward Maidan Square
12.17 Berkut in front of the hotel (hotel on their left) shooting (probably rubber bullets) towards Maidan Square(on the right)
etc, etc,
IK has all the evidence he needs. He is just pushing conspiracy and sees what he wants to see.
(Though, to be precise before somebody starts nitpicking. Hotel Ukraina did go under the control of protesters when the protest and shootings ended.)
Thanks for this elaboration. I've looked at the parts of the video you point to, and I can't say they strike me as obviously strong evidence for your argument, but maybe they would if I were more conversant in the geography of Maidan and the events of Feb 2014. Anyway, I did forward your original post (not this one) to Katchanovski, and he replied. But his reply was full of hyperlinked words and phrases (leading to various sources, including specific points in videos), and Substack won't let you put hyperlinked words and phrases in the comments section. So we've turned your post and his reply into a post: https://nonzero.substack.com/p/an-exchange-about-the-maidan-massacre This post--like this comments section--is behind the paywall, so the only people who can see it are people who can see your post here. After the podcast goes public (tomorrow), we may want to make the exchange between you and Katchanovski public, but we won't make your part of it public without your permission.
I get very tired of reading “I’m not going to refute what he says point by point.” If you want to have an opinion and express it, you need to be willing to justify it. Don’t be lazy. At the very least, show contemporaneous evidence demonstrating that the hotel in question was not under the control of the snipers as IK claims. If you really want to be confident about your point, show that *no part* of the hotel was under the control of snipers. I bet there were people in the Dallas Book Depository who didn’t know the bullets that killed JFK came from that building either.
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!
Tim Snyder and people like him live in a bubble by choice and don’t engage with narratives that challenge their assumptions.
You know for a fact that Professor Snyder "and people like him" are unwilling to "engage in narratives that challenge their assumptions?" Sounds like you have this more figured out that I do. I just figured that the guy who wrote "Bloodlands," "Black Earth," "The Road to Unfreedom," "The Reconstruction of Nations," "Sketches from a Secret War," (plus a few other books), and who speaks Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, plus a few other languages -- might be an interesting person for Robert to interview on this subject.
Tim Snyder or any other Yale-y blob monster could easily falsify my assumptions by engaging with someone who does not share their viewpoints. They never do and Snyder is among the worst perpetrators. They live in a CNN/NYT echo-chamber of conventional wisdom. I invite you to tell me a single position of his that is not in lockstep with the conventional Western elite viewpoint regarding Russia.
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".
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.
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.
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
I am watching this with interest although Lenin for instance would giggle at the idea that he is a Conservative (see this Finn's comment that conservatives always held power in Russia). I mean the dude came to power as the most un-systemic and un-systemable chap in the world intent on igniting the latter and turning it into a communist paradise.
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.
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?
I still don't feel like I have a clear enough understanding of what happened to confidently characterize this as a coup or putsch. Katchanovski seemed credible and sincere to me, but I'm not enough of an expert to vouch for his analysis. (See the above comment from mikksalu for a perspective very different from Katchanovski's.) Also, I'm not sure I see as clear a line between a putsch/coup and a revolution as you do. Aren't there revolutions (that is, changes of power on the historical record that we commonly refer to as revolutions) that at key moments hinged on the acts of provocateurs, etc.?
I was wondering about it myself, although only after I had pressed the "send" button, as is my usual wont: shoot first, think second. It's probably due to a difference in mentality. The good old Soviet mentality (if I am allowed to call anything Soviet "good", if only half good!) with which I am equipped regards the concept of a "revolution" as something invariably positive, eg the Great October Socialiast Revolution. Coups and putsches were the realm of rotting capitalism engineered by the bad USA in poor Latin American countries. Ukraine not being in Latin America that concept should be totally inapplicable there of course 😉
Part of the point of cognitive empathy (and something every history major should walk away from college understanding) is that there are no “proper names” for political events. They differ depending on what the perspective of the narrator is and the value judgments the narrator attaches to said events. Was the Boston Tea Party an attempted coup and an act of sedition? Was it a glorious act of popular revolution? Depends on who’s telling the story. Same with any other coup or revolution.
I quite agree with that ! That's exactly why, being Putin's loyal footsoldier, I'm trying to nudge Robert to become that way inclined too and revolutionise, in the loveliest possible sense of that word, his perspective and value judgments on the Ukraine...
... I'm only joking of course and I appreciate my joke isn't even funny, but hey all I can do is try my best. I'm afraid with we that's as good as it gets.