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<br /> The world remembers the massive political protest of <keyword id="2572645" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Umbrella-Movement">Umbrella movement</keyword>, the worst movement since China took back control of Hong Kong from the British in 1997, on its anniversary today. Supporters organised silent rallies in remembrance of the day when the police fired tear gas at the protestors. The protestors shielded themselves using umbrellas, hence the name. <br /><br />

	Here is a list of the history behind the names of some of the most weirdly named movements of recent times.
<br /><br />

	(Image credits: wikimedia)

What's in a name? A lot!

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko wrote an op-ed outlining a path to victory for <keyword id="11985141" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ukraine" source="Orion">Ukraine</keyword>.</li><li>In the article, he wrote that the <keyword id="11899444" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="vladimir-putin" source="Orion">Vladimir Putin</keyword> he dealt with while president "no longer exists." </li></ul><p>Former Ukrainian President <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/dec/11/ukraine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Viktor Yushchenko</a>, who led the country from 2005 to 2010, has outlined a three-pronged approach that he believes would help defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin in the countries' war.</p><p>In <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/24/vladimir-putin-despot-russia-viktor-yuschenko" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an op-ed article for The Guardian published Sunday</a>, Yushchenko said Ukraine faced a "savage army" led by someone whom he once had a personal history with but who had since morphed into a dictator.</p><p>"My own history with Putin goes back to 2000 when we were both prime ministers of our respective countries. It was only when I ran to be president of Ukraine in 2004 that he actively campaigned against me," Yushchenko wrote.</p><p>"The extreme lengths he was willing to go to in order to get what he wanted became clear. I could not allow this to deter me; after I won, I realized that I needed to try to keep a workable relationship with him as the leader of our neighbor in the east," he wrote.</p><p>"But the Putin I dealt with then no longer exists. He has since become a completely isolated and brutal despot who cannot stand any opposition," he added.</p><p>Yushchenko said one thing that "really bothers" Putin was "international solidarity and support."</p><p>He wrote that for Ukraine to succeed in its defense against <keyword id="11894337" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="russia" source="Orion">Russia</keyword>, there must not be fatigue in the global community toward "the horrors of war." He said keeping global attention on Ukraine would help keep up morale in the country — something he described as particularly important with the Russian military thought to be regrouping.</p><p>Yushchenko added that a second prong involved continued weapons and military assistance.</p><p>"Our army continues to need weapons and military assistance from all our allies," he wrote. "And we need monetary assistance to help us plug the holes that this war is blowing in our previously strong economy."</p><p>A third prong concerns the way civil societies could continue helping Ukrainian forces obtain "non-lethal supplies" and protective equipment.</p><p>"I strongly believe that victory for Ukraine is inevitable," Yushchenko wrote. "When ordinary Ukrainians give everything up to fight for their freedom and dignity, victory is the only option."</p>

Former Ukrainian president says the Vladimir Putin he once dealt with 'no longer exists' and urges the world to stay united against him

<ul class="summary-list"><li>New York's Ukrainian Village is mobilizing to fundraise for Ukraine's defense and organize protests. </li></ul><p>On Saturday morning, as Russian forces battered Ukraine for a third straight day, students at the Self Reliance Saturday School of Ukrainian Studies filed into the sunny auditorium in New York's <keyword id="13268151" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="east-village" source="Orion">East Village</keyword>. </p><p>The younger kids held up blue and yellow flags almost as tall as they were. Almost everyone wore shirts emblazoned with vyshyvanka<em> –</em> traditional Ukrainian embroidery. When the assembly kicked off with a prayer for Ukraine – "Ghospodi pomili" (God forgive)  and "Slava Ukraina" (Glory to Ukraine) – even the littlest kids stood straight-backed at somber attention. </p><p>"The fact that you're here in school, learning your Ukrainian history, your culture, your tradition, your religion, everything about you shows the world that we will not let this happen," Ivan Makar, the school principal, told the assembled students. "We will not disappear."</p><p>"<keyword id="11909347" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="putin" source="Orion">Putin</keyword> is trying to tell us that we don't have the right to exist. Mr. Putin is trying to tell us that we're nothing. That we are the same as <keyword id="11894337" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="russia" source="Orion">Russia</keyword>," he added. "We were <em>never</em> Russia."  </p><p>Write to your congresspeople and senators, raise money to aid the Ukrainian Army, and educate other Amerians about the conflict, he beseeched them. "We've got bullies that push into our lands. We will not let Ukraine die," he said.  </p><p>Like many Ukrainian-Americans in this community, Makar was born in the U.S. </p><p>The school, attached to the majestic St. George Cathedral, was founded in 1949 by professors and teachers who were part of a major migration to New York in the years before and after Ukraine became part of the Soviet Union in 1922. Roughly 60,000 Ukrainians lived in the East Village after the Second World War, and they busied themselves ensuring that their culture would survive: they opened restaurants, like Veselka, dishing out pierogies since 1954; Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical churches, bars, eateries, grocery stores, sports clubs. </p><div type="image" title="The inside of of a butcher's shop with the Ukrainian colors of blue and yellow displayed." height="3648" width="5472" msid="89874431" hostid="261"></div><p>The area, just east of New York University and anchored along Second Avenue, is still known as the Ukrainian Village. Here, they speak Ukrainian, not Russian. At school, more than half a century later, kids learn the language, culture, geography, traditional dances of Ukraine and, of course, are kept abreast of current events – like the brutal invasion this month that virtually no one expected. "It's important to keep culture alive," a female student told me earlier that day. "It's our identity, passed down by our grandparents during World War Two and I want to make sure it's passed down to my kids."   </p><p>That Ukraine is again at war is almost unfathomable to Makar. "This is a 1940s thing," he said. "This is absurd. It's shattering and it should not be happening."  </p><h2><strong>'He's costing people their lives'</strong></h2><p>Earlier on Saturday, students struggled to make sense of what was happening. Second graders in class – all born in America – expressed great concern for Ukraine. A little girl in a Beauty and the Beast mask explained that it's not Russians who are bad, "just their president." They all admitted they'd be scared if they were in a bomb shelter in Ukraine. "In a basement, hiding from bombs, it's very scary and dark," one child said. "Stop the war!" one boy chanted.  </p><p>In an 8th grade classroom, most hands shot up when asked if they have family or friends in Ukraine. "My uncle and aunt are in Kyiv," said one girl. Another has family in Kharkiv, the city in the northeast where residents hunkered down in the underground metro to escape Russian bombs. A 13-year-old boy challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that Russian forces had come as "peacekeepers" and were shelling Ukrainian cities to protect Russians in the breakaway provinces, saying "What BS!" Another girl shared that, although born in the US, she traveled to Ukraine every year and she's worried about her friends.</p><p>Their teacher broke into tears at the front of the class. "He's sick! No one believes it's about NATO, he wants our land!" she bawled. "And for no good reason, he's costing people their lives." </p><h2><strong>'An SOS moment'</strong></h2><p>At Razom, a Ukrainian-American human rights group that's housed on the second floor of the Ukrainian National Home, the last week has been "an SOS moment". They're now laser-focused on fundraising to buy tourniquets, bandages, combat gauzes, sterile pads, and satellite phones in the current conflict, which they ship by way of warehouses and points of delivery in Poland and Ukraine. They've also organized large-scale protests in Washington D.C. and New York. </p><p>Razom's office sits adjacent to Veselka, the around-the-clock diner that's been extra busy this week as diners have lined up to show their solidarity with Ukrainian-Americans (and chomp on special edition blue-and-yellow cookies that celebrate the Ukrainian flag). Across the street, long kielbasa hang from hooks in the Baczynsky meat market. In the same general area, you've got Catholoic, Orthodox, and Evangelical Ukrainian churches. The once-concentrated diaspora has geographically spread far and wide, and now the Ukrainian restaurants sit alongside wine bars and sushi joints. </p><div type="image" title="A waitress is seen in reflection through a window." height="3648" width="5472" msid="89874434" hostid="261"></div><p>The area still brings together Ukrainian-Americans from all over, and that gravitational pull escalates in times of upheaval back home. In 2004, when the Orange Revolution broke out over  a rigged election and the attempted murder of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko – he survived being poisoned with dioxin – many first, second, and third-generation Ukrianian-Americans traveled to Ukraine to volunteer as election monitors and organized lobbying campaigns geared at Washington officials. </p><p>"We've seen plenty of older people, seniors who live on a fixed pension, come in and make very generous donations," Genya Kuzmowycz Blahy, C.E.O. of the Self Reliance Federal Credit Union, told the Villager newspaper at the time. "It's like what's going on now in Ukraine is the chance these older people have been waiting on for 50 years." Reverend Bernard Panczuk of St. George's told the Villager that the moment was " an awakening" for Ukrainian-Americans born in the U.S. "that they need to stand up for their country if they want it to be free."</p><div type="image" title="Worshipers are seen from behind in a Ukrainian Catholic Church." height="3648" width="5472" msid="89874436" hostid="261"></div><p>A similar moment came again in 2014, when a revolt on Kyiv's Maiden, or central square, once again rocked Ukraine. That year, President Yanukovych – who had lost to Yushchenko after the Orange Revolution but then took power soon after – reneged on a deal with the International Monetary Fund, pivoting towards an economic agreement with Russia and triggering mass protests known as Euromaidan and Revolution of Dignity.  The revolt—which would come to include a minority of unsavory far-right characters—toppled Yanukovych's administration and forced him to flee the country, but not before <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/ukraine-dead-protesters-police">dozens</a> of protestors were massacred by police in February of 2014. </p><p>Putin, a former KGB officer who in 2005 called the collapse of the Soviet empire the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, responded by annexing the Crimean Peninsula, in southeastern Ukraine. </p><h2><strong>'What can YOU do?'</strong></h2><p>It was those events that first politicized Maryna Prykhodko, one of Razom's volunteers.</p><p>On a blistering cold Friday, a few days before the Russian assault began and as media and world leaders tried to mind-read Putin to no avail, I walked down 2nd Avenue toward Razom's office to meet with Prykhodko.</p><p>"We're just young people saving the world," quipped the bright-eyed young woman when I entered. </p><div type="image" title="Protesters hold up signs supporting Ukraine and denouncing Russia." height="3648" width="5472" msid="89874439" hostid="261"></div><p>Razom's office overflows with the standard accouterments of busy nonprofits: passionate young people, more than one coffee maker, papers in chaos, poster boards outlining strategy ("What can YOU do?" in pink marker) and, in this case, stern portraits of Taras Shevchenko, a poet, artist and political activist who memorialized the Ukrainian people's struggles under Tsarist Russia. The nonprofit runs a multitude of ventures aimed at improving conditions in Ukraine, from an initiative helping Ukrainian children with spinal atrophy, to toy drives for the kids of <keyword id="13268150" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ukrainian-military" source="Orion">Ukrainian military</keyword> veterans killed or hurt in battle.</p><p>Born in eastern Ukraine in 1995 – four years after the Soviet Union's demise and the prematurely proclaimed "end of history" – Prykhodko immigrated to Florida with her parents when she was 11. She admits she was embarrassed of her heritage. "I tried to hide my parents because they still had accents," she tells me ruefully. That all ended in 2014, when she was a student at <keyword id="12038070" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nyu" source="Orion">NYU</keyword>, and witnessed the events in Ukraine from abroad. "My life changed forever," she says. Young Ukrainian-Americans, inspired by the protests, built a shrine to the dead. </p><p>With all of this going on, Prukhodo felt she needed to find a community that understood what she was going through. "I was emotionally distraught," she says. It didn't help when Russian friends she'd made in college casually labeled her a "fascist" or when a college professor ("How do you say it … 'tankie?'") wrote on his personal blog that an NYU student was spreading U.S. and NATO imperialist propaganda. "Ukraine is a lie," she says she was told. </p><div type="image" title="Street signs show this is the corner of 6th St and Taras Shevchenko Place." height="2272" width="3408" msid="89874441" hostid="261"></div><p>She had aunts and uncles and cousins and nephews potentially in harm's way. She describes the funeral processions for the young men who came back from fighting the Russian separatists. "When someone dies in Ukraine there's a whole procession, everyone kneels down. Then when the dead bodies of young guys were brought back…. [the processions] were happening constantly. It was overwhelming." </p><h2><strong>'Do you call America post-British?'</strong></h2><p>Days before the invasion of Ukraine, Putin waxed nostalgic about the Soviet Union and asserted that modern Ukraine sprung forth from Soviet Russia. "Let's start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia, more precisely, by the Bolshevik, communist Russia," he said in a televised address. </p><p>For young Ukrainians in the Diaspora – including those who are now rallying help for their embattled homeland – defining the conflict through the prism of Cold War politics is absurd. "Do you call America post-British?" asked Mariia Khorun. Khorun, who's a lawyer, and her husband, Vasyl Khodkhla, a CPA, were both one-year-olds when the last Cold War ended. Now, they both volunteer with Razom. </p><div type="image" title="Two empty chairs are seen with Ukrainian religious art displayed on the wall above." height="3516" width="5273" msid="89874445" hostid="261"></div><p>Putin's Soviet nostalgia and a reboot of the Cold War doesn't interest them. They don't in their own lives remember a time when their country was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. "With Ukraine, Russia is an empire," Khodkhla says. "Without Ukraine, Russia is just another country." </p><p>This sentiment is shared widely. A teacher I spoke with at the Self Reliance Saturday school who works as a social worker during the week, told me that her co-workers—Jamaican-Americans, Dominican-Americans, Korean-Americans—raised $1,000 to give her to send to the Ukrainian army. </p><p>Khodkhla, sharply dressed in a navy blazer and sporting a pin of conjoined Ukraine-US flags, noted with satisfaction that now people actually know what Ukraine is. Before, Americans assumed, based on his accent, that he's Russian. "They finally realized Ukraine is a different country opposed to Russia's imperialist goals," he said. </p>

'What can YOU do?': Ukrainian-Americans meet 'an SOS moment' for their homeland

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Russia's most prominent political opposition leader, <keyword id="950302" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Alexei-Navalny">Alexei Navalny</keyword>, became violently ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on Thursday after drinking a cup of tea.</li><li>High-profile critics and rivals of Russian President <keyword id="43440" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Vladimir-Putin">Vladimir Putin</keyword> have a tendency to die, often from poison.</li><li>Poison is slow, messy, and uncertain. It can be as dangerous for the killers who carry it as it is for their victims. So why do those suspected of operating on behalf of Putin use it so frequently?</li><li>Because poison creates a subtle, pervasive atmosphere of constant threat that mere bullets alone do not, security experts tell Insider.</li></ul><p>When Russia's most prominent political opposition leader, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/20/europe/russia-navalny-hospitalized-intl-hnk/index.html">Alexei Navalny, became violently ill</a> on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on Thursday after drinking a cup of tea, it immediately set off speculation he had been targeted with poison by the Putin regime. The concern was quickly echoed by his staff, <a href="https://twitter.com/Kira_Yarmysh/status/1296291692946038784?s=20">with one staff member tweeting</a> that the 44-year-old had been immediately hospitalized and put on a ventilator.</p><p>Navalny, who is said to be comatose and critically ill, <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/07/24/navalny-s-group-finds-lavish-real-estate-owned-by-putin-s-far-east-envoy">runs the Anti-Corruption Fund, a watchdog group</a>. He attempted to oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin in the 2018 elections and has <a href="https://sg.news.yahoo.com/alexei-navalny-charismatic-campaigner-takes-101035390.html">frequently drawn intense official and unofficial harassment and assaults</a>, including arrests, interrogations, jailings, and even <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/29/europe/navalny-points-blame-at-russian-authorities-intl/index.html">a previously suspected poisoning in 2019</a> from which he recovered. </p><p>High-profile critics and rivals of Putin have a tendency to die. One of them, the disgraced oligarch <a href="https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/vo040113/text/40113w08.htm%2340113w08.html_spnew7">Boris Berezovsky, died mysteriously</a> in 2013 after reports of multiple assassination attempts.</p><p><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/was-putins-media-chief-ready-to-snitch-before-he-dropped-dead">Another was the former media minister Mikhail Lesin</a>. He died of blunt-force trauma to his head while alone in a locked hotel room in Washington, DC, where some reports indicated he was supposed to meet with the FBI. The case has never been conclusively determined to be a Russian government assassination.</p><p>Other incidents have been easier to trace. The 2006 murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya (shot by Chechens) and the 2015 murder of Boris Nemtsov just outside the Kremlin (also shot by Chechens) are among several.</p><p>But it is poison that appears to play a disproportionate role in suspected Kremlin assassinations.</p><h2>Poison is the weapon of choice for a literary villain in the late 1800s, not the drone age</h2><p>Poison is slow, messy, and uncertain. It can be as dangerous for the killers who carry it as it is for their victims. It's also incredibly old-fashioned: Poison is the weapon of choice for a literary villain in the late 1800s, not the drone age.</p><p>And yet poison has been used to target a slew of Putin's critics and enemies: </p><ul><li><strong>Alexander Litvinenko</strong>, a defected intelligence agent, died in London in 2006 after drinking a cup of tea laced with radioactive material during a meeting with Russian officials. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/21/world/europe/litvinenko-inquiry-report.html">The UK later determined it was most likely a Russian government operation directed by Moscow</a>.</li><li><strong>Sergei Skripal</strong>, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/guide/article/2020/08/06/salisbury-poisonings-timeline-real-events">another intelligence officer who defected, and his daughter</a>, were both exposed to a deadly nerve agent in 2018 along with a responding police officer in Salisbury, England. All three recovered, but a bystander who later found the bottle thought to have transported the nerve agent — and later traced to two Russian military-intelligence officers who had entered the UK under false passports — died from exposure.</li><li><strong>Emilian Gebrev</strong>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/21/three-russian-men-charged-with-poisoning-bulgarian-arms-dealer-emilian-gebrev">a Bulgarian arms dealer</a> who had reportedly run afoul of Russian intelligence, was also targeted by the same nerve agent and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gru-unit-29155-proves-they-can-get-to-anyone-but-theyre-really-sloppy-about-it-2019-10">the same military-intelligence unit in 2015</a>. Both he and his son recovered.  </li><li><strong>Viktor Yushchenko</strong>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-43611547">when running for the presidency of Ukraine</a> in 2004, was poisoned with dioxin and recovered but not before suffering terrible scarring and lingering pain.</li></ul><p>But why, given the difficulty in administering it, use poison? And why target Navalny now?  </p><p>According to <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkGaleotti">Mark Galeotti</a>, a longtime political analyst and expert on Russian government corruption who gave an <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2020/08/20/navalny-is-a-catalyst-for-russians-own-discontent-says-analyst">interview with Euronews after the Navalny story broke</a>, it was probably less his role as an opposition figure than his direct work on corruption that would make him a target. </p><p>Navalny has become "a catalyst for Russians' own discontent," Galeotti said. He continued: "No matter who you are in Russia, every Russian will have had experiences with corruption — an issue Navalny has set out to eradicate for almost 20 years. It is an 'Achilles heel of the Kremlin.'"</p><p>So it's possible that with Belarus in the throes of a popular revolt and much of eastern Russia discontent about heavy-handed treatment of local officials by what they see as a corrupt and indifferent government in Moscow, Putin's willingness to somewhat tolerate Navalny's constant attacks might have dissipated.</p><h2>Poison adds to the uncertainty that Putin thrives on</h2><p>The use of poison in this case would very much add to the elements of uncertainty that Putin's leadership sometimes thrives on. In multiple conversations over the years with current and retired security officials around the world — none of whom were available or willing to immediately speak about the latest Navalny situation — there has been a consistent set of theories used to explain how Putin decides to eliminate an opponent and why poison is thought to be used regularly. </p><ol><li><strong>Deniability</strong>. Even in cases such as those involving the Skripals and Litvinenko, in which the trail of the attackers could literally be chemically traced to Moscow, Putin is left with just enough room to reject his government's involvement. That few in the West believe the denials hardly matters. Putin has long stopped fearing American and European retaliation or sanctions over the incidents. The shred of doubt is just enough to keep the domestic political narrative harmless to his rule. </li><li><strong>Taking credit without taking credit</strong>. Everyone thinks Putin had Litvinenko and the Skripals poisoned, as the materials used — military-grade radioactive agents and nerve agents — could not have come from anyone else. He wants to use overt denials to avoid domestic concerns, but he also needs anyone opposing him to be afraid he might poison them with nerve gas. To truly maintain that fear, he needs to periodically do it. </li><li><strong>Terror and exhaustion</strong>. Both Navalny and Nemtsov have (or had) experienced long-term harassment via assaults, beatings, arrests, overt and covert surveillance, and the constant threat that things might escalate further into outright assassination. Living under such threats requires enormous caution and care. It constantly drains energy that could be better spent confronting Putin. Adding the threat of dying from merely sipping tea or touching a door handle (as in the case of the Skripals) can overwhelm both opponents and their security teams' ability to stay focused on their political work. </li><li><strong>Pain.</strong> Nemtsov was shot in the head and died immediately. But Litvinenko lingered for days, in horrible pain, with no chance of recovery. The episode was widely covered in the international media. Opponents of Putin who do not fear being shot in the head were reminded that there are much worse ways to die — and that if Putin's involvement is suspected, such a death will be viewed around the world.</li></ol><h2>Skripal's survival was less important than the message</h2><p>This is widely considered Putin's approach. Killing people can be an effective tool. But it's less effective than all of his enemies worrying constantly that they might be killed at any time, perhaps by their own food.</p><p>Moscow's GRU assassins could easily have just shot Skripal and still escaped. But Skripal's survival — or not — was less important than the message: I am willing to use nerve gas on my enemies in the UK.</p><p>That's a message that bullets alone can never deliver.</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-secret-service-scammed-putin-russian-mercenaries-fake-job-2020-8">How Ukraine's audacious secret service successfully scammed Putin and his mercenaries</a></li></ul>

Putin's love of poison — a messy and uncertain weapon for assassins — reflects his need for proven uncertainty

<p>Earlier today we saw a map that showed just how divided Germany remains, decades after the reunification at the end of the Cold War. </p>
<p>This is the percent of the vote pulled by the Democratic Socialists in Germany's recent election, <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1my7t1/23_years_of_unified_germany_and_the_separation_is/">via the DataIsBeautiful subreddit:</a></p>
<p><div class="image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bundestagswahl-2013-wahlergebnis-grafik-bundestag-wahlkreis-a-923496.html#startTab=1">Der Spiegel</a></p></div></div></div></p>
<p>What's remarkable is that not only can you clearly delineate the former boundaries of East and West Germany, but you can also even see East and West Berlin!</p>
<p>Still, it's not like Germany is the only nation to have history inform modern <keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Politics">politics</keyword>. </p>
<p>Here's a map of Poland's 2007 parliamentary election. </p>
<p>The orange regions are the Powiats (counties) won by the socialist Civic Platform, while the blue are the Powiats won by the conservative Law and Justice platform:</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><div class="image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wybory2007wgPowiatow_Barry_Kent.png">Wikipedia</a></p></div></div></div></p>
<p>That's all quite interesting and what not, but given that I know next to nothing about Poland doesn't covey much meaning. </p>
<p>That is, until you overlay this map of the old border of Imperial Germany and Imperial Russia over the map, as David G.D. Hecht <a href="http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/348-an-imperial-palimpsest-on-polands-electoral-map">did for the Big Think strange maps blog:</a></p>
<p><div class="image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/348-an-imperial-palimpsest-on-polands-electoral-map">Big Think </a></p></div></div></p>
<p>Then there's the Ukraine. In the 2004 election, the pro-Western Orange Revolution candidate <span>Viktor Yushchenko  lost to the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich, <a href="http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/343-to-which-viktor-the-spoils-a-tale-of-two-ukraines/">according to the Strange Maps blog.</a> </span></p>
<p><div class="image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/343-to-which-viktor-the-spoils-a-tale-of-two-ukraines/">Strangemaps.wordpress.com</a></p></div></div></div></p>
<p>As <a href="http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/343-to-which-viktor-the-spoils-a-tale-of-two-ukraines/">one commenter noted</a>, this divide essentially rides the boundary line of the ancient extent of the Kievan Rus.</p>
<p><div class="image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Varangian_routes.png">Wikipedia</a></p></div></div></div></p>
<p>And of course, the Scots are still voting differently than the English, hundreds of years after the Acts of Union 1707. They're staunchly for the Lib Dems. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><div class="image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2010UKElectionMap.svg">Wikipedia</a></p></div></div></div></p>
<p> </p>
<p>It's insane how these European countries are so petty that they can't drop the baggage of centuries-old civil wars and regional conflicts.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Oh, wait.</span></p>
<p><div class="image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/ElectoralCollege2012.svg/1000px-ElectoralCollege2012.svg.png">Wikipedia</a></p></div></div></div></p>

7 Cool Political Maps That Show How Old Historical Events Still Haunt The World Today

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Prominent Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/nemtsov-death/26873635.html">was shot dead in Moscow today.</a></p><p>According to one Moscow-based reporter, Nemtsov was attacked "<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span><a href="https://twitter.com/howardamos/status/571435091022512129">200 [meters] from the Kremlin walls</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">."</span></p><p>Nemtsov served as a deputy prime minister and a regional governor in the 1990s under previous Russian president Boris Yeltsin, and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4287957.stm">advised</a> Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko after Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" in 2004.</p><p>In the 1990s, as governor of Russia's Nizhny-Novgorod region, Nemtsov, a former physicist, helped implement free-market reforms. His dissident streak stretched all the way back to the existence of the Soviet Union: according to the New York Times, he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/02/world/market-reformer-from-provinces-to-try-his-hand-in-the-kremlin.html?pagewanted=all&amp;smid=tw-nytimes">met with Andrei Sakharov</a> when the Nobel Peace Prize-winning nuclear physicist and prominent anti-communist figure was still living in internal exile.</p><p>More recently, he emerged as one of the leading domestic critics of Russian president Vladimir Putin.</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In 2000, Nemtsov viewed Putin as "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/05/opinion/russia-s-best-bet.html">Russia's best bet</a>" for continuing the political and economic reforms Yeltsin initiated. But Nemtsov, who was one of Russia's highest-profile liberals, grew into one of Putin's most dogged opponents. In February of 2011, Nemtsov, who <a href="http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/whose-idea-was-it-to-build-a-winter-resort-in-the-warmest-part-of-russia/276925/">led investigations into Russian government corruption</a>, <a href="Putin%20has%20created%20a%20thoroughly%20rotten%20system%20and%20he%20believes%20it%20is%20possible%20to%20build%20this%20mighty%20foundation%20known%20as%20Russia%20on%20cynicism,%20thievery%20and%20lies">told an interviewer</a> that "<span>Putin has created a thoroughly rotten system and he believes it is possible to build this mighty foundation known as Russia on cynicism, thievery and lies."</span></span></p><p>He was arrested for organizing protests multiple times over the years, and <a href="https://twitter.com/catfitz/status/571430006536187905">planned to lead a march against the war in Ukraine</a> scheduled for this coming Sunday.</p><p>Nemtsov's death is a significant development, according to Hannah Thoburn, a Eurasia analyst at the Foreign Policy Initiative. If anyone connected to the Russian government or Russian president Vladimir Putin was involved, Nemtsov's death might have been intended to intimidate Russia's beleaguered opposition.</p><p>"People like Nemtsov have been allowed to stay around on the scene because they were useful, because Russia needed to keep up pretenses, because they could be reasonably trusted to be happy with their small, pro-Western followings and stay otherwise out of the way of Putin's will," Thoburn explained to Business Insider by email.</p><p>"Now, we don't know if Nemtsov was mixed up in some dirty business, but my initial instinct says that this was deliberate and purposeful and meant to send a message to all of the other opposition sorts to shut up. If they aren't afraid to kill Nemtsov, who is very well known in the West, then they won't hesitate to kill some activist in Perm.</p><p>"This means that the rules have changed. Everyone needs to get with the program or get out."</p><p>This isn't the only recent blow to Russia's opposition. On February 19, prominent opposition and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, who is currently under house arrest, was <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31545047">sentenced to 15 days in jail.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-facts-putin-world-controversy-2015-1">11 Facts That Show How Different Russia Is From The Rest Of The World</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="RtbDU1bDra7DfSubgs0WuD4Pg0DTxjxx" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

A major Russian opposition figure was just shot dead in Moscow

<p class="p1"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Special forces of the Ukrainian police, known as 'Berkut', gather in the grounds of Dynamo Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine, where violent protests have broken out.</p></div><p></p></div>Over the last two and half months, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have protested the increasingly authoritarian direction of President Viktor Yanukovych's government. At the forefront of Ukrainians' objections to the government <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25895716">are a special police force known as the Berkut</a>, or "Golden Eagle."</p>
<p class="p1">During the Euromaidan Protests, Yanukovych has deployed up to 5,000 members of the Berkut to assist in protest management, including the use of water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets. Rather than quelling the disturbances, the Berkut has fanned the flames, using increasingly brutal measures to fight protesters.</p>
<p class="p1">The Berkut are a special police force that has had a long history of brutality, abuse, torture, and other measures in service of whatever political regime is in control of Ukraine. The force was first formed in 1988 as part of the Soviet OMON (Special Purpose Police Unit), an elite riot police and paramilitary force.</p>
<p class="p1">In 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the force reformed as the Berkut under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and was stationed in every province. Originally established to fight organized crime, the force has been increasingly utilized to maintain law and order and break up "mass events," such as riots and protests. </p>
<p class="p1">Check out their recruitment video here (It's in Ukrainian):</p>
<p></p>
<p class="p1">Since their inception, they have been involved in numerous scandals, including violently dispersing peacefully protesting coal miners in 1998,  violently attacking protesters <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_without_Kuchma">during the Ukraine Without Kuchma protests</a> in 2001, as well as sadistically attacking protesters during the current Euromaidan protests. </p>
<p class="p1">Berkut members are carefully selected and trained extensively. Prior to joining, Berkut men must have army service, as well as two to three years of law enforcement experience. They are usually paid between one and half to two times more than a regular police officer. </p>
<p class="p1"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Stringer</span></p><p class="caption">Berkut officers clash with anti-government protesters in Vinnytsia, 125 miles southwest of Kiev.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The semi-autonomous Berkut police often act with impunity for their actions, leading some <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/01/24/ukraines_public_enemy_number_one_the_police">to call them a "mafia-style organization</a>." Some efforts have been made over the years to rein in Berkut power, most notably by Yuriy Lutsenko (now an opposition leader) under President Viktor Yushchenko. Lutsenko set up human rights experts and oversight groups to monitor the activities of the Berkut and other members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.</p>
<p class="p1">When current President Yanukovych came to power, these measures were rolled back. Yanukovych appointed a close ally to run the MIA and, since,  the Berkut has upped its brutality. </p>
<p class="p1"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko</span></p><p class="caption">Berkut police officers hold a man lying on the ground during clashes between police and pro-European protesters in Kiev.</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p class="p1">During the current protests, there have been numerous instances of reported Berkut brutality. The most recent reports charge Berkut with firing at protesters and a video has surfaced of Berkut officers parading a naked protester around on a snow-covered street. A Berkut officer grabs the man and kicks him as he is placed on a police bus. You can see the video below (<strong>WARNING: It is graphic</strong>):</p>
<p></p>
<p class="p1">The Euromaidan Protests <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-euromaidan-riots-in-ukraine-2014-1">may have started over a trade agreement dispute</a>, but it's end could hinge on serious reform of the country's most brutal police force. </p>

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