IamA portfolio manager in a Ukrainian investment firm. Half of my family is Russian, half Ukrainian and my girlfriend is from Crimea and studied in Moscow. I live in Kiev and participated in the protests a lot. Native language is Russian. AMA

Regardless of the eventual outcome of the referendum, I can only admire the determination and courage of the protesters in refusing to endure more abuses of power by Yanukovich and his party. Ukranians really value their political freedoms, and in risking their lives to secure them, are giving a valuable lesson to us Westerners who complain about our leaders, but never hold them accountable for anything

Thank you so much. Many people in the west take their democratic institutions for granted, because the generations that fought for them are long gone. It's natural I guess.

Being from Crimea myself, and with family still there, it should be noted that this AMA can be considered propoganda too. Please consider that the OP too has strong biases, and they may be laced with an appeal to our ethos. So please people, remain skeptics. OP doesn't represent all of Ukraine or Crimea.

When I came to america and when people asked where I came from I was never sure whether to call myself Russian or Ukrainian. The war for crimea has been going on for a very long time. What family still there tells me is, that becoming an independent nation is a favorable option. Many many people want independence there.

Edit: thank you for the reddit gold.. Keep supporting reddit, and allowing our opinions to be heard. :)

I do not disagree with the fact that many Crimeans want to Russia. But you will not argue it's 96%, will you?

It's funny how AMAs on Reddit are pretty much always from people whom Reddit indeed agrees with.

It was funny to read an AMA from a pro-Assad Syrian citizen, people didn't seem to like him that much.

Great point.

Reddit is like collective mind of the planet. But a mind is a mind, it likes some things, some things it doesn't like

Do you believe that taking Crimea was always on Putin's 'to-do' list or was Russia just taking advantage of the turmoil created by the overthrow of the government?

It was always on the list. He deliberately helped a very weak leader stay in power while russian agents have been infiltrating Ukrainian secret services, army, police and local goverments for years. Protests on Maidan were certainly not planned, so after protestors won it was a now or never moment for Putin. And he acted.

So, in your opinion, is Crimea lost? And should the west just stay out of it at this point, or is there something that can be done?

Edit: thank you for doing this, btw... its refreshing hearing the perspective of someone with firsthand knowledge

For now - yes, it is lost

Do you think there's anything that the west should be doing to help Ukraine?

Economic support is very important and it is on the way. I understand that western leaders don't want to hurt their own economies with heavy economic sanctions on Russia and I don't really blame them, but the sentiment here is that the west always does too little too late.

A much bigger story than most realize is the arrest of mr Firtash in Austria. He's worth about 4 billion dollars, a business partner of Putin and his friends and a very powerful pro russian agent. He knows a lot about shady russian gas deals and is super valuable for USA.

How much money have you lost / gained directly related to the issues happening there?

It was a roller coaster. Overall we made good money on Ukrainian eurobonds but it added some grey hair.

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Back in 2007 we traded stocks a lot, since then they crashed, trading volumes crashed and investors fled. Many Ukrainian stocks should not have been listed on exchanges in the first place. Now I bought some stocks again, but the market is still pretty much dead and with no liquidity, I consider them options that can increase by multiple times if they start trading again.

Most of the business after 2008 has been in bonds and still is. It was serious roller coaster in last 6 months. We were headed to EU association and everything looked fine, suddenly no EU, protests, students being beaten - crash. Russian bailout - rally. More protests with deaths etc. - crash. Protestors won, western bailout expected - rally. Russian invasion - crash.

For me personally speculation is about predicting what will other people do in the market and doing it before they do. What they do depends on their beliefs, and there are several core beliefs structures among market participants. It also depends on news/macro/numbers, and what people did before. Trading bonds is much more mathematic/scientific/reasonable, and trading stocks is more of art.

Thanks for doing this, I have some questions!

Are Ukranians fearful that Russia will absorb more of Ukraine?

How do Ukranians outside of Crimea feel about the vote in Crimea? Was it (the vote) a good representation of the wishes of the people in Crimea (ignoring the rest of Ukraine)?

Are Russia's actions a complete surprise to the Ukranian people?

I will try to be as objective as I can. 1) Yes they are. But it definitely will not be like Crimea, there will be shooting, guerrila warfare and thousands of casualties. So I'm quite sure that this will not happen, because if Putin does try it - it will seriously undermine his support in Russia. Russia now is trying to push their agenda of Ukrainian federalization, basically to give very wide autonomy to every region, to try to take over several regions without shooting eventually. My best guess is that this will fail.

2) They feel this is a military intervention and not a legit vote. I don't mind a normal separation referendum like they are planning in Scotland. It should come after a lot of debate on how to divide both assets and liabilities etc. In Crimea armed men took over Crimean parliament, declared that it voted for a referendum and that it will happen in a few weeks, took all the assets and none of the liabilities and everyone who was against it was too scared to speak and boycotted the referendum. The polls I've seen before showed between 40 and 50% crimeans want to join Russia, and much more in Sevastopol.

Yes, it was a complete surprise and everyone was shocked.

What is something the media misinterprets or publishes wrong and everyone seems to believe? What "lies" do we read in the News?

Also: Should or could we take the referendum serious?

Thanks!

The worst lie is that Ukrainian radicals with guns took power in the country. Very large part of the population supported and took part in the protests. The whole Kiev investment community was there, most of local businessmen, artists, etc. I've met many classmates from school and University I haven't seen for years. My programming teacher was beat up and arrested, a colleague of my dad was shot and killed. The actual role of far right radicals and their support in society is not higher that any other european country, it's hust a huge success of russian propaganda to display it otherwise. Just so you know: Svoboda far right party has very little support and is quite lickely to not pass 5% barrier in the next parliamental elections. Right sector - probably the same. They posed a lot for the cameras, but there just not much of them and not much support. Out of the 100 dead there's 1 from the right sector.

Also, the parliament is the same, it appointed new cabinet of ministers with a consitutional majority and scheduled a presidential election on may 25th

Another great lie is that russian speakers are somehow opressed in Ukraine. They are more oppressed in Russia IMO and I'm a russian speaker.

Do you think if the protest never got violent and people went about in more peaceful manner that there still could have been change?

Great question. No simple anwser to this one. Theoretically if the government did something when the large protest errupted, like fire the prime minister and internal affairs minister - no more violence would have ensued. But after the violence and deaths we got much more than we would not have gotten otherwise

Do you feel your situation is better right now being on the brink of war, or the way it was before with the old government and no war about to happen?

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Long term this is all for the good.

Has the rest of ukraine given up on retaining/regaining Crimea?

Do you worry that if Russia succeeds in annexing Crimea it will grow even bolder?

In the west it is mainly accepted that the talk of Russian speaking Crimeans being in danger of oppression was a fabricated pretext to allow Russia an excuse to invade, but if you accept this as false what do you think Russia/Putins real motivations were? Is it purely the naval base?

1) Some (me) have, but overall not. 2) Not sure

3) This is a great question. There are several reasons.

First, there's a widespread belief in Russia that Crimea was just given to Ukraine, that this was unfair and it should be Russian again. So biggest motivation for Putin is to please his voters. What they forget is the economic and other reasons for the "gift" and the fact that about the same amount of ukrainian land was exchanged and given to Russia at that time (no, they are not planning to give it back). Another issue is that a lot of local population were deported and a lot of russians were encouraged to come there, so this high percentage of russian population is not something that happened naturally. But I won't claim to be a history expert, what done is done.

Another reason is because he can and no one can do anything about it.

American here, I've heard several reports stating that some of the protesting Ukrainian citizens had seized and used firearms against the police agencies of the Ukraine and killed several law enforcement officers. Is this true?

I believe it is true. But they were certainly not the first to start beating up police. And they were not the first to start shooting and killing. I'm not sure about total number of police fatalities. I believe it's about 5-6 men. vs over 100 dead protesters and about 30 who has gone missing and was never found and thousands injured.

Also in many countries people don't like police, but there's a spectrum to it. In Ukraine before the protests public support of police was about 2-3%, which is about the number of policemen and their families in the population :). All organized crime here is well connected to people in power and police. All drug trade is controlled by police etc.

So, what's the process for replacing law enforcement? Are there people willing to train to be police officers to replace the corrupt ones, or is it gonna be a transition where people are gonna have to self-enforce?

It's a huge problem, probably one of the most important right now. Basically police bosses are very corrupt and won't do anything. Lower ranked guys depended a lot on corruption too, because their official salary is really low. They are very demoralized now and won't do anything too. Now the government is recruiting people into the new National Guard. Is being made in a rush and there are doubts it work out right, but it's a good idea.

Goddamn, man. That is scary as hell. It's just taken for granted that the cops are the bad guys. Like ALL of them. We have some shitty cops in America but, there are some good guys out there. Maybe this is just me being a dumb American but... Have you ever considered moving to America? Or some other country that you might consider "better"?

Granted if I ask myself the same question my answer is" Screw that I'm not going anywhere this is my home. ", but I thought I'd ask.

A while ago I tried looking for a proper financial job in US. I failed.

There's a reason immigration is a huge issue in western Europe. ;)

And this is something the developed world should think about more. By helping developing countries develop you get rid of your own immigration problems and generally improve the well-being of humanity

Wall Street guy here (I'm a sell-side analyst). I'd like to ask more about how financial services operates in the Ukraine.

1. Do you guys have hedge funds and is the 2/20 fee structure common?

2. How does due diligence differ in Ukraine than in developed economies?

3. Did you see capital flight from Ukraine and/or Crimea before the conflict that might suggest some people knew this was coming?

4. Would you consider relocating to continue working in finance?

1. There are several 2/20 hedge funds in Ukraine. We run two :). Also there's a trend for some rich people to not invest in a outside funds, but hire a team to invest their money in global markets. There are a few such teams also.
2. Language issues and reputation of some businessmen that you can not see from the numbers
3. No, there has been capital flight for previous 5 years, but now there's hope again with all the western help etc.
4. I was considering that a year ago. Now I see a posibility of a huge 30 year bull market here, the kind of that makes fortunes, so I'm definitely staying

Do you think the referendum in Crimea was legitimate? Namely, do the Crimeans overall want to leave Ukraine for Russia?

50-50

Thanks for doing this, by the way. As a Ukrainian, do you feel a sense of possessiveness about Crimea in general? Will its loss impact you greatly or is it more of a feeling that it's an acceptable loss?

I think everyone should have a choice. This annexation would not be possible if there wasn't a lot of support for it by locals. I feel that we can not force Crimeans to love Ukraine. We need to focus on economy, quickly become much richer and Crimeans will want back. Many Crimeans have been fooled by propaganda and made the worst mistake ever. I'm really fearfull that there will be some ethnic cleansing there now.

Can you elaborate more about your concerns of ethnic cleansing?

It's about several things.

First of all - the new Crimean leaders will have unlimited power there, they armed a lot of local sort of militia forces with ak - 74s and they can do what the fuck they want.

At the same time - there will be horrific buerocratic mess. All ukrainian property rights have pretty much zero value now. They are already doubting some tatars land ownership. They will be able to just take the property of everyone who opposes their rule etc. The mess will last for years.

I am surprised that there aren't more people talking about the Budapest treaty memorandum. Obama has declared the crisis in Ukraine a threat to national (US) security but did not elaborate. John McCain is one of the few people I've seen who has discussed the treaty memorandum and that it must be upheld. I think the issue with Crimea might also be that the treaty memorandum considers it part of Ukrainian territory and it splitting off is in violation of the treaty memorandum. This is important because it deals with upholding non proliferation laws and affects much more than Ukraine. From this angle it seems like Putin really needed an excuse to invade Crimea so he's not just blatantly violating this international agreement. I saw that the Ukrainian parliament has asked the other countries for protection from Russia under the treaty memorandum but it was just a quick article and, again, I'm very surprised how little attention this aspect is getting.. at least here in the US. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Edit: as the comments below have pointed out, I was referring to the Budapest memorandum. Here's a release from a more official source regarding current state of US involvement: http://m.state.gov/md222949.htm.

This is a great test of real values in the western world. From the viewpoint of fairness and civilized international society - it's quite clear that it is in fact a violation of Budapest treaty, UN charter, etc. and should be punished.

But to really do something about it the west has to hurt it's own economic interests. EU gets a third of it's gas from Russia, London parks money of russian oligarchs etc.

I have a simple yes-no question if you don't mind answering!

Do you believe the IMF will help Ukraine?

Yes! and not only financially, they are also trying to make sure the money doesn't get stolen/wasted with varying degrees of success

Is it an age rift that separates the ideals in your region? Do the older folks want to become part of Russia, and the younger folks want to stay independent?

Yes. Older population that lived ok in USSR and could never adapt aftewards are more often pro-russian.

But many younger Crimeans also want to Russia, I do know a few

What is your hope for the elections in May? Are there any candidates yet, or any who might be strong candidates?

It's going to be very competitive. There are three potential leaders: Tymoshenko, Klitchko and Poroshenko. From what I see Tymoshenko is a bit behind the other two. I hope she doesn't win, I have issues with her corruption scandals and affilation to gas deals in 90s, also it would be a preferred candidate for Putin.

Poroshenko is very smart and good businessman/manager, although there weren't any huge corruption scandals about him - I still doubt his motives. For example while being affilated with a local car factory he raised car import tariffs while being the economy minister. But he's definitely not a hardcore gangster like Yanukovitch.

You know Klitchko, he is not a great manager, doesn't have a great team, but I have less doubts about his inner values and I won't mind if he wins. Also he took part in protests a lot.

Thanks for doing this. As someone who lives outside of Ukraine and in the U.S. it is always very hard for us to understand what is actually going on over there. What we here and see may not be the truth/ the whole truth which can be very misleading. My question is with the turmoil and all that is happening what do you think will happen next. I know I am asking you to speculate but being on the ground with activism and being heavily involved in the world markets as a portfolio manager I think you are in a relatively good position to make a small judgement on what you think the next step is on this whole situation and how it will proceed. I.E do you see this ending with bullets flying, or do you see this ending without bullets and simply cutting Russia off economically at the knees and starting a battle of starvation between Russia and Ukraine and Germany and the rest of Europe. Everyone is so economically tied together that shutting dow trade and pipelines would have nasty results. Im afraid it will be a battle of who will last longer starving its people and im hoping Putin isn't as crazy as I think he is. What is your take?

I see it ending without bullets. I see Ukraine loosing Crimea for at least 10 years. I think Russia will try to destabilize other regions and my educated guess that it will fail. Western sanctions will be relatively weak, but there will be no intervention to other regions. I see russian corrupt system growing further until it collapses under it's own weight in 5-10 years. After that some regions will separate from Russia.

Ukrainian society has definitely made a huge leap forward in development, the politicians have not yet caught up. If they don't screw up - with all the western help we have a decent chance of really transforming the country into the like of Poland.

What's your opinion (and what you believe to be Ukrainian public opinion) about Russia's and Ukraine's differing views on Holodomor?

as an Ukrainian I can tell what I think, Holodomor is a crime that caused horrible tragedy, when official Russia say that it didn't happen I feel really offended, that is like to say to Americans that 9/11 never happened or that that was just pilot mistake

Far worse even. Around 3,000 people died on 9/11 while around 7+ million died during the Holodomor.

I would like to know how modern Ukrainians (in Crimea or not) can still support Russia and Russification in spite of this.

This topic has been pretty much banned in USSR with the official position being that the hunger was the same in other parts of USSR and that it was not artificial. Both are lies.

How concerned are Ukrainian citizens about the possibility of fighting to hold/take back Crimea?

Also, how much support is there for such action?

Also, thanks for that superb write-up!

People understand it's not realistic. They are critisizing the government a lot for not supporing Ukrainian army which is locked there more. They are critisizing secret services for allowing this. But no one is actually calling to go fight russians.

Your command of English is very impressive. You obviously lived/studied in an English speaking country. Your position as a money manager for the kleptocrats makes you very upper middle class . How do you think average Ukrainian outside of Kiev feel about the rift between Eastern and Western Ukraine? What is your opinion of resurrection of Bendera's memory and deeds?

No I did not, I just read a lot. My spoken English is worse than written. Not many people care about Bandera, and those who do are often very nice and educated people, not some bloodthirsty fascists russian propaganda would like you to believe.

Fellow Євроmaidaner here. Are you feeling like shit today, as well?

Also, thanks for fighting during the last attack. I couldn't be there (only made it in the morning of 21st) but I have been trying to help put together the picture of what happened. Been trying to collect all stories into one site, but Crimean mess got in the way here... sigh.

I'm getting really tired of the emotional roller coaster and need a vacation

What do you say about the Russian claim that a democratically elected government was overthrown in an undemocratic way?

I anwered that above, but anyway it's not up to mister Putin to decide what is legal or not in Ukraine. It's ridiculous to even talk about it as Russian troops are taking over some Ukrainian regions.

You did not address that. It's not Putin but it is Ukrainians who elected the government which was subsequently overthrown by protestors in an undemocratic way, just like in Egypt. Why do you support overthrowing a democratically elected government? And if you support secession of Ukraine from USSR because that's what people wanted, why don't you support secession of Crimea from Ukraine if that's what Crimeans want?

I believe it's a false idea that since a leader has been democratically elected - he can do whatever he wants until the next elections. Like go on and get multi billion dollar fortunes for himself and his sons, go on a mass murder spree, and become the dictator. Yes, I sincerely believe that the will of the people is more important than laws and people have a right to a rebellion if they can not make the government act in the interests of people in other ways.

I also believe people have a right to have a referendum about whether to separate their region or not. But it has to be in a civilized way. Like in Scotland after long debates about dividing both assets and liabilities and not in a few weeks under the guns of foreign military forces.

Do you think the economic state of Ukraine will improve with the new government? IF yes, by how much?

Also, do you think that it's possible that the same kleptocracy will come back, but with new faces and new slogans?

1) Definitely not immediately. Long term if proper reforms are made - Ukrainian economy can be the fastest growing on the continent because of very low starting base.

2) It's possible and kleptocracy is trying to come back as we speak. However I have faith that the people who were ready to die for democratic values will never allow the same level of corruption to return. There's really zero tolerance to corruption among society but not among politicians

How can the average citizen of the USA best help?

What is the most important thing for us to understand from the perspective of the people living in the middle of this turmoil?

Not much. Support your government actions in helping Ukraine (I'm not talking about fighting Russia, but economic sanctions against Russia and economic help to Ukraine are very useful).

Also don't let russian propaganda spread. The role of far right radicals in the protests was negligible, we don't have more far right supporters than any other european country for example.

What are you going to do when the shooting and bombing starts??

I don't have kids and I'm not scared. I'm defintely not willing to die for Crimea or Donetsk. But if they invade and reach Kiev - I'm not running.