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This idea of prohibiting Ukrainian citizens from leaving the country even after the end of hostilities stems, in part, from the fact that Ukraine is now heavily indebted to Western governments and financial institutions. Repayment with interest can only be guaranteed through the merciless exploitation of the Ukrainian population. To achieve that, it is necessary that the population be denied the option of running away from something rightly perceived as something resembling slavery or medieval serfdom.
In July 2023, the foreign exchange reserves of the National Bank of Ukraine grew by 6.9% to $41.7 billion, the highest monthly increase since 1991. However, the largest share of the increase came not from economic growth and increased export revenues but from international assistance to the tune of $4.7 billion. Most of that comes in the form of loans from the European Union, the United States, Japan, the IMF, and the World Bank, to be repaid in the future.
Bloomberg News reported on July 24 that Ukraine needs to bring back 2.8 million of its women citizens from abroad in order to have a chance at economic recovery following the end of military hostilities. According to one expert Bloomberg interviewed, if only half of the women return, this would cost Ukraine 10% of its GDP by 2032, on the order of $20 billion per year. Such losses will far outweigh the EU's proposed four-year aid package to Ukraine in the amount of $14 billion per year.
According to a recent estimate by the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy, Ukraine will need to attract an additional 4.5 million workers to the labor market over the next ten years. But at current wage levels, people are more likely to leave the country than to stay and work.
Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko wrote on her blog earlier this month, "At the end of the war, a huge number of people will still leave. Ukrainians will be scattered all over the world, like the Roma people, for example." She has been forced to flee Ukraine due to her writings critical of the government. She also noted in her blog post that, according to UN statistics, most Ukrainians who have left the country have settled in Russia. "It is not customary to talk about this in Kyiv, and the reason for that is clear."
Answering a reader asking when the refugees could return to Ukraine, the journalist replied that, in her opinion, it would not be soon, the war could last a long time. Clearly, this will not help boost population growth. And how will it all end? Few in Ukraine can openly say this, but, according to Panchenko, "Ukraine has already lost - we have no economy and, even worse, we have no sovereignty. Today, we simply depend on what the West says. We have lost our identity."
At the end of July, Ukrainians were also apprised of a stunning proposal that the working week may be increased to 60 hours, consisting of six days of work at ten hours per day or five days at 12 hours. At least, that is the idea published by the Eastern interregional office of the State Service of Ukraine on Labor Issues. The duration of weekly, uninterrupted rest would be reduced to 24 hours, that is, Ukrainians will have only Sunday as a day of rest from work. This idea would first be implemented in enterprises working in critical infrastructure or "defense". The increase in the work week is said to be required by the shortage of workers and the need to constantly repair energy infrastructure.
As it stands presently, employers often exploit Ukrainian workers beyond the norms that would be established by this law. Recently, this same State Service of Ukraine on Labor Issues was approached by an employee whose employer set the rest period for the preceding month as only one day every three weeks and the duration of the shift as 12 hours. The employer claims that such a schedule will be in effect until the end of the year because, during martial law, the number of overtime hours required to work can be unlimited.
Thus, for the average Ukrainian, the Western values of freedom and democracy are turning into an unprecedented neoliberal experiment to abolish all labor rights and implement something resembling slavery. Measures to force Ukrainians to 'fight or work' are presented as a triumph of oft-spoken "European values".
The secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, is not even afraid to make racist interpretations of these 'values'. In early August, he called Russians "Asians". According to him the hallmark of the Russian people is their lack of humanity, and in this, they are said to resemble Asian people. Western advisors, of course, normally advise Ukraine's leaders to carefully conceal such racist or neo-Nazi views in order to help win countries in the Global South to support NATO aggression against Russia. But Ukrainian leaders are not always successful in holding themselves back.
In the future that Ukrainian politicians and their Western advisors and think tanks are preparing, many Ukrainians will work up to 12 hours a day with few days off, earning less than a minimum subsistence salary. They won't dare flee their country because the consequences of being caught could easily become deadly.
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I had to do it lol. Really wanted to see how the libs would react to such an obvious "are we the baddies?" moment. They ~~never~~ always disappoint.
Reminds me again why I only look beyond Lemmygrad once every week or two.
Not only can they not fathom the fact that western libs are in fact the baddies (always have been), the only retorts they have to anything we say are strawmen made of garbage.
Sometimes I go there only in the hopes that lurkers are watching and noticing how ignorant and toxic the militant Ukraine supporters get when pressed with even a shred of evidence. I sometimes get a couple of positive interactions there with some people from other instances, so even if they don't become full blown CPC ML communists they at least get to be a bit more critical of the war and other things redditors smugly assume a lot.
But I enjoy arguing with libs on the internet and others shouldn't do the same if they don't. I'm a certified![debate-pervert debate pervert](https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/69538f53-b228-4297-9a43-26c09850f929.png)
Honestly? Looking at the vote ratios on the comments, I feel like there IS a lot of unspoken support/lurkers that maybe agree and don't want to get involved in the discussion. It's definitely not wasted effort.
Some communities, like World News, have been really heavily liberalized since the reddit migration, but lemmy.ml was at least left-leaning originally. I think a lot of those folks still are around.
Hats off to you for it; it's good to actually see some good takes make it to that particular community.
Definitely "fun" that their prevailing opinion seems to be that overturning civil rights are totally fine when it is inconvenient for the ruling party. Which kind of makes them functionally useless.