Why not? It’s a Russian-speaking city. They speak Ukrainian around Lviv.

I agree that there’s more to history than that, but is that really the reason you won’t be rushing there? Does your research really hinge on what might be contained there? I’d like to see a lot of what’s there, and I don’t doubt that I could find a lot that was useful, but I don’t speak Ukraininan, and I don’t relish the thought of trying to get by in Russian in Kiev, and there’s so much more that relates directly to my own research still in Moscow & StP, that to travel there would, yes, be stooping to “bloodhoundism.” Perhaps that’s what you meant? In the end, though, I want _somebody_ to do that work (Kuromiya’s done some of that in his most recent book).

By the way, a group of Russian historians are responding directly to this Ukrainian challenge to historiography. I ran across the webpage “Aktual’naia Istoriia,” and its principal agenda appears to be disputing Ukrainian claims about abuse at the hands of Russia.
(http://actualhistory.ru/) or “Istoricheskaia pamiat’” (http://historyfoundation.ru/)

Unfortunately, funds became insufficient and the Kharkov authorities made an original decision. Keeping within the limits of Euro-2012 preparation Kharkov reduces the number of tubercular departments. So, by March, 15th 345 places of 545 available will be reduced in the first Kharkov’s antitubercular clinic №1. But do not worry, it is a temporary situation: liquidation of last two hundred places and complete liquidation of the whole clinic will occur till the end of this year.
http://ua-ru-news.blogspot.com/2009/01/shvonders-struggle-with-crisis.html

Regarding the privacy rights of politicians who may be exposed for cooperating with the secret police, the former KGB, US libel law, to take one example, does not recognize any right to privacy of individuals who are in the public view. On the other scale is the public’s right to know important facts about those who would govern them.

One of the principal reasons Ukraine is in a mess is that its top politicians are practically all former high-level officials in the communist party or the komsomol. Contrast this with the Central European countries, which widely practiced lustration, in various forms, with Poland and the Czech Republic coming prominently to mind.

“Imagined” victimization? The Holodomor, which took up to 10 million lives in a man-made famine in 1932-33, the Gulag, the Red Terror and constant repressions, these were not participated in by Ukraine. The proof lies in 1991 when, at the first opportunity, Ukraine became independent and is resisting all efforts by the Kremlin to bring it back. The phrasing used is insulting to Ukrainians.

Nationalism as a deviant form of patriotism is to be decried. But Ukraine is lacking in patriotism. De-nationalized first by the Russian empire and then the USSR, Ukrainians need to regain a sense of self.

I think any other way of writing that statement would have been much longer.

You can have an alliance of states with a central government (USA or USSR or even Russian Federation might serve as examples) or an alliance of States with no central government. I believe you were referencing the later. But both are alliances.