There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Putin is encouraging and arming (and even contributing fighters to) the Ukranian pro-Russian separatists. His goal is either to simply absorb Ukraine in its entirety, or to keep it free from any ties to the West, so that it stays within Russia’s “sphere of influence”. Indeed, there are some reports that Russian armaments and soldiers are directly helping the rebels as the tenuous cease-fire in Eastern Ukraine threatens to fall apart.
Putin is a thug, but he’s a clever one. He waffles constantly on the involvement of Russia in this battle, goes back and forth on what he wants with the region, and generally keeps the West off balance. He won’t talk straight. Though that’s hardly new, it contrasts with the West, which has clearly said what it wants and has laid out its own (ineffective) plan of action. When we say we won’t give lethal weapons to Ukraine, we don’t.
The problem is that Putin is willing to use arms—Russian arms—to win this battle, and the West is afraid to even give arms to Ukraine so they can fight off the Russians and rebels. The reason, of course, is that we’re afraid of escalating a conflict into something even more horrible, something that might draw Russia into a wider war—and even involve nuclear weapons. So Putin blithely goes ahead, knowing that we’re puzzled and afraid. Yes, the sanctions are squeezing Russia, but they’re not doing anything to stop him.
On a smaller scale, this is like Hitler taking over the Sudetenland. Nobody dared stand up against him for fear of war. And so he blithely marched through one area after another—until he got to Poland. And then there was war. How far will Putin go before the West stops waffling and dithering? A long way, I think.
Very good. The Sudetenland mention is apt.
Whether Russia should be allowed a “sphere of influence” is a llegitimate subject for debate. Whether the US should be isn’t even a question.
When US (NATO) ‘intervention’ is discussed it’s solely in terms of cost/benefits. When an enemy ‘interferes’ the principal question is “do they have the right?” which of course they do not because they are not us.
Putin is a thug, of course. But, with his aggression and his global campaign of drone terrorism, so is Obama.
“which of course they do not because they are not us. ”
True. But isn’t that sort of hypocrisy universal among countries? and people in their individual behavior?
What has the US done since the end of the Cold War that is comparable to what Russia is doing in the Ukraine?
Korea, Vietnam, Contras, supporting Pinochet in Chile, Afganistan, unilaterally invading Iraq without a UN mandate and presenting fake evidence for WMDs on the pretext of bringing them ‘democracy’. supporting the Arab spring and the bringing down of Gadaffi to let things get even worse. Bombing Belgrade. I’m not saying that these things are right or wrong, but maybe you need to see them from Russia’s point of view. Ukraine is at least on Russia’s border and it has a large Russian presence, especially in the Crimea. Which of the above mentioned countries have a border with the USA?
I hope Matt gets back to you on this too, Kev.
ANNEXATION.
Your giant list of “US wrongs” is a list of moral failings. They have nothing to do with strategy. Or with realpolitik. People can debate which ones they actually considered to be moral failings. Either way it has nothing to do with the substance of this topic. Which is ‘what is actually going to happen’. And with Ukraine it is of course people other than you and me to whom it is going to happen.
Oh, and I was supposed to the Iraq War as well, but what exactly would you say the US was attempting to do if not bring democracy?
I wonder what Jeffrey Tayler, the Atlantic’s erstwhile Moscow correspondent has to say about this. x
Thug is a good word. Hitchens (seriously, can’t we research how we can bring this guy back to life?) had many interesting things to say about Putin, also calling him a KGB thug (or was it KGB goon?).
For those who missed it, there was an excellent FRONTLINE about Putin that – I believe – premiered last month:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/putins-way/
You could always try praying for his resurrection /s.
He not only has bamboozled the West; he has split it down the middle with the US and UK on one side, and France and Germany on the other. It wasn’t a coincidence that only the leaders of the latter countries went to Munich^h^h^h^h^h^h Moscow.
France has a good relationship with Russia because of historical reasons. Germany is still feeling guilty about two world wars. So they both prefer to solve matters through diplomacy – and I support France and Germany. But make no mistake: article 5 of NATO is non-negotiable. Should Russia attack NATO, then it’s war.
“make no mistake: article 5 of NATO is non-negotiable. Should Russia attack NATO, then it’s war”
Article 5 is extremely woolly compared to the firm guarantee that most people see it as. In particular, required assistance is defined as: “…such action as it [the signatory party] deems necessary…”. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation!
In any case, that isn’t how the Russians would attack a NATO member; they would do it in exactly the same way as they are attacking Ukraine at the moment. A combination of convenient local proxies; massive direct military assistance and large scale propaganda.
In any case, they will always leave an alternative narrative (no matter how demonstrably false) that gives a get-out clause for the international community who are generally happy to stay out of a war that could go nuclear.
This was written nearly 30 years ago; remarkable how relevant it still is.
I think this is how Russia will get pieces of Canada’s north. Pretty much just take it and defy anyone to do anything about it because the nuclear option is daunting.
Thank you Mark L, I remember when this was first on. Watched it just now and laughed. Then realized the reason the advisers bits of salami were not Crimea, Ukraine and slices of Georgia is because they were part of the Soviet Union when this was made. Forgot that for a moment.
So Putin hoovers up former Soviet republics or there’s another huge war in Europe? Fan-fucking-tastic. And the whole time we’ll have to be hearing from the conspiracy theorists about American imperialism, too.
I think he bamboozled the West when he first came to power. The West so wanted him to be all about democracy that they’d forgive any little transgression.
It’s like an abusive relationship with the West in love with Putin and Putin being a bad boyfriend. (okay so he invaded Georgia, but he sung On Blueberry Hill, he must still love us, oh he may have blown up that apt complex, but he still wants democracy, he still loves us. Oh he was complacent in Litvinenko getting whacked but wasn’t it bad for Litvinenko to go to the press over that other guy getting whacked?)
Impressive.
You like my imaginary personification of the West slowly realizing their boyfriend isn’t all she though he would be?
Every country the US has attacked since 1947 has been “the next Hitler”. Assad was the next Hitler, Saddam and Khomeini were, and the Nicaraguan Sandanistas were matching toward America, waving copies of Mein Kampf.
The comparison between Putin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany is ahistorical tosh. Germany was rearmed giant militarily a decade ahead of the rest of Europe (including the UK). Russia is an economic basket case with diminished conventional forces, encircled by US proxies.
The US government has no military rivals. Its government has to manufacture threats to win public support for its empire. The Soviet Union was the last plausible threat and, even then, the US Govt had to concoct the so-called “missile gap.
A military giant a decade before the UK? Since the Nazis didn’t come to power until 1933 and, although there had been small scale, covert rearming before them, it was only after Jan 1933 that the massive programme occurred.
British re-armament started in about 1936 with the design of the new KGV class battleships and the entry of the the Hurricane fighter into front-line service in 1938.
Yes, and German rearmament at the time of the outbreak of the war was largely bluff.
The bluff worked, of course, but it very nearly didn’t. The Germans came dangerously close to running out of ammunition in Poland.
And here’s a trivia question that never fails to chill me a bit: At the time of the outbreak of World War 2, which country had the largest army in the world?
France.
It has been alleged, with some justification as well, that the reoccupation of the Rhineland (1936) was a complete and utter bluff since the Germans were far far too weak to defend their incursion from French action.
France sustained more casualties in the first World War than the US has sustained in every war it’s ever fought in, from the American Revolution to the War on Terror.
They didn’t surrender in World War 2 due to (as current pop-culture likes to depict) any sort of cowardice, but because the Nazis, after bypassing the Maginot Line, marched their troops to Paris and threatened to destroy the city unless the French forces capitulated. And even after that they kept up a partisan campaign against the Germans until the country was liberated.
Getting way, off topic here, but that’s just crazy talk. The French surrendered because their main field armies had been destroyed, and what was left had no chance of stopping the Germans. By this time Paris had been declared an open city and was in no danger of destruction. The French partisans didn’t really get going at all until the occupation of Vichy and was of very little effect until 1944.
Nope. The Red Army had for instance almost 20 000 tanks in 1939, about 8 times as many as both the Wehrmacht and the combined Allies.
I’m counting “largest army” in terms of numbers of soliders, not how well they were equipped.
Or rather, I’m not doing the counting; my source is James Holland’s The Battle of Britain (2010) – sorry, it’s a paper copy I don’t have access to at the moment – and he was referring to numbers of soldiers (and he made a point of saying the French army was not well equipped at the time).
“The comparison between Putin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany is ahistorical tosh.”
Well, I grew up in the USSR/Yeltzin’s Russia and still keep an eye on what’s going on there, and I can say that the comparison is more than apt–on so many levels.
The majority of population strongly believes that Russia is in zero-sum conflict with the US/West, who want to subjugate Russia, break it apart, take its natural resources, and all but exterminate the Russians as ethnicity (by converting them into homosexuals, among other things). I am serious, it’s incredible what kind of crazy shit people actually believe other there…
The most tragic thing is that the people not only believe in the most grotesque vision of the US as the world power—many of them dream to see Russia to become that sort of world power herself.
Do you think a lot of these opinions of the West in general and the US in particular got worse under Yeltsin?
Under Putin. If I recall correctly, it was quite different in the mid-90s.
But don’t forget that during that short period Russia was actually a democracy of sorts (a dysfunctional one, but nonetheless), which enjoyed freedom of speech to a very significant degree.
Yes, I think it was defined as a “managed democracy”. I have heard that many Russians felt like Russia was for sale when Yektsin opened investing up to foreigners.
My friend was in Russia in those years and an old man tripped her on the bus. She figures that she didn’t know how bad she looked with a bunch of them buying chocolate bars for cheap and laughing about it.
I still kind of laugh about her being tripped by an old man.
I think “managed” and “sovereign” “democracies” came later, with Putin, but I may be mistaken here.
Yes, with Putin. I can’t recall what was going on with Yeltsin other than he was a buddy to Clinton which I don’t know if it helped him much in Russia and he was very ill. Also that he and Gorgachv didn’t get along. I need to read up in that era.
“The majority of population strongly believes that Russia is in zero-sum conflict with the US/West”
Perhaps the US should have worked harder to befriend Russia after the fall of the USSR, rather than humiliating her by strutting around and crowing about the cold war victory.
Agreed. The western countries should have put at least a fraction of an effort they directed to win the Cold War to integrate Russia with the rest of the civilized world.
Looks like there was no plan whatsoever on what to do with Russian after the Cold War was over. Imagine that after WW2 the Western allies just left the defeated (West) Germany and Japan to their own devices…
That’s exactly what happened after WWI and we know where it led to.
Too late now. While the US was happily celebrating it’s victory, Russia/USSR have never even referred to the Cold War as being lost. And whatever initial goodwill there was towards the US in the 80s and 90s (and there really was plenty – which, again, wouldn’t have been possible if Russians really believed they lost the war) has now almost completely evaporated.
The comparison with the Sudetenland is completely apt in this case. This is an extremely dangerous situation. Putin is far more dangerous than al-Baghdadi (the leader of DAESH).
NATO knows it too. They are currently in the process of increasing the size of their military forces by 500%. This is no game.
And if you doubt me, take a look at Russia’s behaviour on the borders of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in the last few months, which Putin also thinks should be back under Russia’s control.
Dismiss Putin at your peril.
I am not American, & I think that the military build-up of Putin is very dangerous for Europe. Russia may well be economically a total mess, reliant on exports of raw materials – some have called it ‘China’s gas staation’ I heard on BBC Radio 4 today – with a declining birth rate & low expectation of life, with corruption at every level, but that all makes it more dangerous. The old Soviet Union was more manageable as a rival – they were run by men who had seen the devastation of total war. Putin does not seem to appreciate that in his eagerness to cling on.
The build up of nuclear arms in particular is worrisome. I think it’s all about showing how mighty you are, as if having all those bombs that could destroy us all several times over, isn’t enough.
I think Putin isn’t wanting to hang on to the old days of the Soviet Union, he is wanting to keep the system he has created functioning so that he and his cronies continue to profit and he is using the tactics he knows how to use.
Putin said that he could be in Kiev in two weeks. Putin has seen the EU and NATO expand eastwards since the fall of the Wall. This is about emotion, about giving Russia a sense of pride again. The chaos in Ukraine offers that opportunity. Also, Putin wants to expand Russia to incorporate those areas with vast numbers of Russian-speaking populations.
We should also take his internal policy and his alliance with the orthodox church into account. Putin promotes a strong, religious, independent Russian man (of which he himself is the ultimate example). It’s about restoring Russia’s pride and position as a superpower, with a personality cult and masculine, religious identity. Putin gives the Russians an ideal to live for, to fight for, perhaps even to die for.
Personally I don’t think he will go to war with NATO, unless he starts believing his own propaganda that the West is really decadent and not prepared for war. That may be true for most European countries, but not for the U.S.A. (please don’t leave us!)
Yes, I agree Putin takes advantage of Russian nationalism, which includes allying himself to the Russian Orthodox Church. Russians actually don’t like the Church’s influence but they also identify as Russian Orthodox even though most don’t believe in God (it’s all nationalistic) or regularly attend church.
I also think Putin got stuck in this one. He wanted to see how far he could go with the West, went too far then didn’t have a good exit strategy. Now he’s just making it up as he goes and annoying refusing to admit Russian participation when it’s so obvious to everyone that Russia is participating!
He’s also screwed up his economy by not diversifying it an relying so heavily on oil. Now he needs the Russian people to stand behind him when thinks get really rough – he does this by pointing to the West and saying that everyone hates Russia so they are punishing them (this is old Cold War propaganda). This is partly why I didn’t want to bother with the sanctions. Perhaps leaders had no choice (sanction, invade and go to war or do nothing so I suppose it was better than the other options) but I knew the Russian people would put up with it as they’ve been in worse situations and Putin was going to just fan the flames of nationalism.
What Putin really fears is the population rising up – it’s why he cracks down on them and it’s why he never really believed in democracy (I think the West was deceived here partially because they wanted to believe)so he’s really really stuck here.
My hope is that Hollande and Merkel are successful in their peace brokerage and I think it would be a huge mistake for the US to supply arms to Ukraine because that will just become a proxy war between the US and Russia with the Ukraine stuck in the middle.
I think Putin knows messing with NATO will be the end but sometimes it scares me that he might just want to try a little more….then we’re all truly and completely screwed.
Your analysis of the situation is very good (that’s not meant to sound patronizing, so I apologize if it does – it’s hard to get these comments right in writing sometimes).
Putin has dug a hole for himself and getting out with his pride intact is going to be tough, and there’s no way he’ll back down if it means any loss of face for him.
Meanwhile, more innocent people die.
Ha ha, no it didn’t sound patronizing. 🙂 thanks, Heather!
One of the reasons that the independent nations that were once parts of the USSR is because the Soviets had a policy of “Russifying” the other republics – that is, forcibly settling ethnic Russians into those republics and, in some cases, forcibly deporting local nationals. This had two objectives: one was to dilute nationalism in areas that might sue for more autonomy; the other was to introduce significant proportions of the population who were more loyal to the RSFSR.
Well, wars are very unpredictable things; from who wins the combat to what is the political outcome (think WWI and the rise of the Nazi party, or WWII and the beginning of the cold war). Yes, Putin is a dissembler who will say one thing while doing another. But, I think what is understated is the ability of Ukraine to defend herself. The Ukrainian military has more than a quarter of million personnel. They also inherited about a quarter of the Soviet Union’s military-industrial complex (i.e. they aren’t helpless against the Russians). I can’t say why they are hesitant to put that military to use in a breakaway region, but they must have a reason. Additionally, the west offering “non-lethal” assistance should not be seen as doing little or nothing. Every dollar of “non-lethal” assistance is a dollar that Ukraine can spend on lethal means. Also, I think the Sudetenland comparison is absolutely wrong. In the late 1930’s, what would become to be known as the allied powers, were totally unprepared for war and declaring it then would have most likely resulted in a longer, more devastating conflict for them. Ukraine is not unprepared, just (at this time) unwilling.
Probably a big reason Ukraine is not risking all its army is that it can’t afford it and is afraid to put all its eggs in one basket.
Seriously, Ukraine has a really weak economy. Russia can afford all the intervention it wants in Ukraine short of capturing Keeyev. Ukraine barely has the money to take Donetsk.
The only cost Ukraine would incur would be spent ammunition and human casualties, not that those aren’t serious costs, but their already supplying and maintaining their military. This isn’t like the costs involved in deploying a military force thousands of miles from their home, this is in their backyard. Like I said, I don’t why their hesitant, but I don’t think it’s economic. However, I think Russia definitely has an economic reason to deescalate the conflict. Between sanctions and the drop in the price of oil (I could speculate about the west and the Arab oil producing states, but that would be pure speculation), Russia is clearly on the wrong end of the coin.
Get real. Ukraine is unprepared. Struggling economically and trying to dig itself out from under puppet officials & corruption in its judiciary/police. They are off balance, and Putin knows it. Putin wouldn’t be so aggressive right now if it weren’t for his puppets being run out of power recently. Now that they have, the Cold War tactics come out.
Interesting point. Although I stand by what I previously stated about Ukraine being militarily prepared, they may very well not be politically prepared. And maybe that’s the crux.
I guess I just don’t don’t which military personnel are getting paid by whom. Putin sure knew where to concentrate his forces first (Sevastopol), which went out with a whimper.
The other annexations and the eye on the Odessa/Kiev horizons threaten to completely destroy the work I’m doing there. Grr.
I vastly prefer a western alignment, too. Personally. However, I also see that everyone in this conflict is just following their own best interests. If you look at the map, then it appears that the Ukrainians are pretty much split.
It’s easy to write for Americans that the situation could heat up in Eastern Europe. Why not? It’s far away for you and no fallout will reach you. Meanwhile, Europe saw plenty of wars and then the Tschernobyl cloud. The last war in your own country has been on horseback and with the sabre, while at the same time, the USA is perpetually at war with someone somewhere. That makes me a bit sceptical with terms such as “thug” on other people. Ms Putin certainly is more of a “tough guy” because that’s what the Russian people want from their leader (they also have a bit of a self-esteem issue). It might be odd for us and I wouldn’t want such a president, either.
Americans prefers a slick PR-friendly guy who instead does the war and killing (and maintaining a concentration camp, and total surveillance the KGB didn’t even dream about) behind the scenes. Sure, the west is superior in domestic policy, freedom of the press and such things. Foreign affairs? That’s not that clear. The problem with the moral high ground is that the west is also delivering weapons to various parties that aren’t exactly humanists and it did deliver weapons to various resistance and separatist forces in the past – as we’ve seen not exactly in such a way that it helped the locals.
As such “moral arguments” aren’t very persuasive, even if they are viable (tu quoque). If that situation was mirrored, I am sure Americans would make a big PR campaign and say “look, those people in the east of Ukraine are all soviet/russian friendly, we have to arm them so they can free themselves”
Also, weren’t the “good guys” in the Ukraine the fascists from the OUN? That means I rather not cheer for any side if the choice is between fascists and Putin in a country that seems to be genuinely divided.
Fortunately, it’s clear form context that Mr Putin — not his wife — is a bit of a tough guy. 😉
LOL Perhaps Lyudmila Putina has changed her name now that she split with Vladimir.
It stands to reason that since Gorbachev, Russians have felt kicked around by their government, systemic corruption and the West. Putin even seemed so good in the beginning because he fixed the mess that Yeltsin made of the economy and even got private land ownerships straightened out, thanks to Hermann Gräf (I refuse to call him by his mangled name: German Gref) and he smacked around the oligarchs.
Sadly, he became the biggest oligarch of them all and decided to rely solely on oil instead of diversifying his economy (something my own PM did with oil but not as badly. At the Russia vs Canada World Juniors 2015 gold medal hockey game, Putin and Harper didn’t make their traditional bet – they hate each other – and the Canadian media joked that it was because both of their economies were too bad to because they both relied to heavily on oil).
What I fear, beyond this dangerous Ukraine situation that could escalate very quickly (Putin is no Nikita Khrushchev as he isn’t going to back down like Khrushchev did over the Cuban Missile Crisis), is who Russia could get after Putin; I strongly suspect, it would be someone even more to the right and even more difficult to deal with. Putin may be a PITA to the West but I think he can be managed. Someone more right wing – that’s a nightmare for everyone!
As much as I can’t stand Harper, I can’t blame him for his attitude towards Putin…
I actually see them as a lot alike. If Harper didn’t come to power in a country with an independent court system and established checks on democracy, I think he’d run things a lot like Putin. After all, he’s very secretive. He’s probably secretly jealous of Putin’s kleptocracy.
LOL I meant democratic checks on government. See, Putin is subconsciously manipulating me!
Sure, we’ve got to keep that democracy in check!
It is just Putin’s claim that pro-Western Ukrainians are fascists. Russians always accuse their opponents of being fascist. In fact, they are the fascists – suppressing political opposition and free speech and attacking other countries to grab land on ethnic grounds.
No one has yet explained why Putin would want to annex a bunch of Ukrainians. South Ossetia wants to join Russia. Yet, Putin does not allow it to do so. Thing is, Putin remembers U.S. missiles in Turkey back in the 1960s very well, and wants to prevent any chance of that from occurring.
Also, as a wise commentator on another site pointed out,
“It was the not the Munich Conference in 1938 that caused WWII, it was the one at Versailles in 1919.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-ambitions-driving-the-ukraine-consensus/
Nationalism ain’t imperialism, people. Putin’s policies are of the first, not the second category.
I’m in Russia now, so I can tell you that the Ukraine conflict is covered far more extensively here than in the U.S., that Russian media is slightly more biased regarding the conflict than American (though not by much), and that a great amount is done to put the Ukrainian army in a bad light here. Remember, people, whatever policies to solve the conflict you’re advocating, remember to think about how they might be presented to the Russian people on state TV.
I think Putin has a point in one regard: remember the deal between the opposition and Yanukovych that was supported by both Russia and the EU? Within 24 hours Yanukovych fled the capital and the agreement was torn apart. The EU was too eager to embrace the departure of Yanukovych. Instead we should have said: “But what about the agreement?”
The EU made a big blunder there. They should not have presented it as a one or the other solution. They simply could have said they didn’t care what the deal was with Russia. They probably miscalculated that Russia would up their deal and the EU would lose out.
I don’t even think Putin knows anymore why he’d want to annex East Ukraine.
As I have long claimed, he never had that intention. I originally thought the support for the rebels was simply a practical equivalent to Western sanctions. I now see the support for the rebels is a longer-term deterrent against NATO expansion.
Putin does fear being surrounded by NATO (and who can blame him) and he expressed this fear often to the US especially in the early days. I have to say that I sympathize with Russia here and the whole situation is very unfortunate.
I also sympathize with Ukraine. Here is a quote from Angus Roxburgh’s book, The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia that I think sums up things really well (written before the current Ukraine crisis and about how the West and Russia saw the Ukraine when George W Bush was in power in the US:
I don’t think Putin ever did want to annex East Ukraine! The Russians have enough problems just trying to revive their own country.
But Crimea was a far different matter. Sevastopol is their only warm water port and the EU and NATO was putting that in jeopardy, threatening to turn it into a NATO base.
It is not a good thing that so many people, Christians and non-Christian academics, are promoting war between the US and Russia, two nuclear armed states. We never came into DIRECT conflict in the long Cold War (except perhaps the Cuba missile crisis). This is extremely foolhardy and dangerous!
“I don’t think Putin ever did want to annex East Ukraine!”
Of course not! He wants all of the Ukraine back.
And what gives you that idea? Ukraine is filled with Ukrainians, and why would any Russian leader want to rule them?
Not that this is directly pertinent, but I think it is a fair assessment of Ukraine, NATO, etc.
I think the biggest problem facing Russia today is the inability of Russia’s political system to provide a clear system for transition of power post-Putin. Rwanda, Turkey, etc. face similar problems.
Shukov raises some very good points, indeed.
You’re kidding, right?
Well, precisely for the same reason Russian leaders, Soviet and tsarist alike, wanted to rule and *ruled* Ukraine, Baltic countries, bunch of Central Asian countries, etc. They certainly would be happy to get Alaska back, if that was possible.
Among these, however, Ukraine (as well as Belarus) are special. As far as many Russians are concerned, Ukraine is not really a nation, and the Ukrainians are really not a distinct people, just some sort of screwed-up Russians, and the Ukrainian language is a corrupt dialect of Russian.
No, there really is a fair degree of antipathy between the Russians and Ukrainians, with the proverb “when the Ukrainian was born, the Jew cried”, being fairly commonly agreed with. There is a sense of shared identity, but less than between Americans and Canadians. America wouldn’t want to annex Canada, would it? Belarus, however, really is special.
“America wouldn’t want to annex Canada, would it?”
Well, the US *tried* to annex what is now Canada back in 1812. In fact, this comparison is vey pertinent here—Putin’s political thinking is 19th century thinking…
Right now everyone wants a piece of Canada’s North for the oil. Russia has started using its old Cold War Arctic bases again and buzzing Canada with its jets.
The U.S. also had not recognized Canada’s claim in the Arctic.
You see where I’m going with this…
“Sevastopol is their only warm water port”
I was wondering how long it would be before someone pointed that out.
Strategists in Washington can complacently regard their access to the oceans as guaranteed, with deepwater ports from Boston to Seattle. Even then, though, the US notoriously has a very proprietorial attitude to the Panama Canal.
Now sit in Moscow and do the same calculation and what has Russia got? Vladivostok, way over in the east, Murmansk which is round the back of the world from anywhere and surrounded by ice much of the time, the Baltic ports, a long way from the open sea and easily controlled by the Scandinavian countries; and Sevastopol which is their access to the Mediterranean. And that’s it. None of them very ideal, but would anyone expect Russia to give up any of those without a struggle?
Putin doesn’t need to be crazy to want to hang on to Sevastopol, he’d be crazy to not.
Very interesting! And convincing.
I agree with you David. I think the ‘rebellion’ in eastern Ukraine is a diversion that is enabling Putin to secure his hold over Crimea/warm water port. If he can get more of the Ukraine – great, if not – he got what he really wanted.
I think he’d like to have Ukraine split into 2 countries with eastern Ukraine under his control but not part of Russia as a buffer between NATO and Russia.
But a divided Ukraine is not his top priority and if he feels he has no choice, he’ll just keep on claiming that no Russians troops have ever been in Ukraine while he pulls them out and leaves the rebels to fend for themselves…and he keeps Crimea.
A federated eastern Ukraine, I believe was favoured by the Russians early in then was lost site of. I think Putin would like that too.
He needs access to Crimea by land. It’s fine to have a “warm” port, but if you need to sail to access your port, it is a bit inconvenient. So, after grabbing land for the sake of your warm port, you need to grab more land to have a nice highway to it.
“Nationalism ain’t imperialism, people. Putin’s policies are of the first, not the second category.”
They are firmly in the second category; he wants the Russian Empire/USSR back.
In fact, there’s rather schizophrenic glorification of *both* pre-revolutionary Russian Empire and the Orthodox ideology, and the communist leaders and the USSR. So much so, that the iPhone-weilding, church-going (at least every once in a while) young Russians think that the life in the USSR was not that bad at all.
Like it or not, the USSR beat Hitler and Hirohito and had very rapid growth in living standards before 1978. And it was succeeded by the 1990s, which made it look good. There has been only one sign of imperialism in all post-1991 Russian history: Chechna. As that was surrounded by Russian territory, I think there’s a good argument to be made that that war was necessary to preserve Russian territorial integrity, and was not primarily imperial in nature.
Not sure why it’s even relevant here, but USSR played a rather minor role in defeating Japan, smaller than US played in defeating Germany.
Also, believe me, the life in late Soviet times (70s-80s) was friking miserable, and, objectively, the quality of life for many people got significantly better in the 90s (I won’t say majority just to be careful with any sort of quantification).
And—I am repeating myself here—for many Russians the war in Ukraine *is* about preserving (getting back, rather) Russian territorial integrity.
Interestingly, USSR didn’t even declare war on Japan until August 1945.
They may not have been “at war”, but Japan and the USSR did battle around Mongolia in 1939. The Japanese ran into General Zhukov, who crushed them badly. There was never another credible threat to the Soviet border after that.
Those same Soviet troops and general were later called upon to defend Moscow when the Germans were approaching.
Did the Japanese and the USSR ever formally end WWII?
Putin wants to annex Eastern Ukraine because he needs a land bridge to Crimea. I don’t like to do this, but here’s a link to something I wrote a few months ago: http://www.heatherhastie.com/for-putin-a-land-bridge-to-crimea-is-vital/
There are other reasons now too. I’ve had a follow-up half written for a couple of weeks, but other stuff keeps getting in the way of me finishing it.
I respectfully disagree with you Jerry on everything you say on this particular matter – especially the “no doubt in anyone’s mind”.
Whether than wade in myself I refer you to this article by the journalist Robert Parry that gives many reasons and cites reasonably respectable people on why the Ukraine situation is not Putin’s fault.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40993.htm
I must agree with David Park. The NY Times cannot be trusted. I think Thomas Jefferson got it right when he said “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”
I am very happy that, when in 1997 my people (Bulgarians) rioted and ousted a disastrous pro-Russian government at mid-term, Russia was weak. We made early elections, elected pro-Western politicians, and now we are in NATO and EU, as safe as we can be. If Russia had been stronger, it would intervene and push us back to the cave, and some respectable people would write here and give links how the Russian aggression is our and Europe’s fault.
Doesn’t come to your mind that it is wrong to say that other people haven’t the right to oust a government that you wouldn’t tolerate for a minute?
I think that very thing scares the bejesus out of Putin. He fears he could be ousted like Yanukovich.
Unfortunately, annexation of Crimea is supported by the vast majority of Russian people. Well, we call it “restoring historical justice” or something like that 🙂
Personally, I believe that the real reason behind Crimean operation was not to secure a valuable military base, or to save Russian people from Ukrainian fascists (assuming there was a threat), but to secure popular support for the current government. Two birds were hit with a single stone (well, two stones, one to Crimea and second to Donbass):
1) Putin became the hero who returned a lost piece of Russian land (he even called it sacred in one recent speech, for god’s sake), and
2) Everyone may see what evils follow from mass protests, therefore if anyone protests against current government, they are enemies of people
By the way, logical conclusion is that Putin and his team don’t need to win the war in Ukraine. All they need is to keep the region destabilized; poor Ukraine is better than the conquered Ukraine.
Yes I agree with everything you said.
If a recent photo I saw purporting to be ‘rebels’ launching rockets is true then there can be no doubt that Russia is providing some pretty heavy armaments and training (and possibly weapons operators and other soldiers too). You don’t learn to target surface-surface rocket barrages overnight and you wouldn’t want to go after an enemy without some confidence you can aim those things.
Something has to be done, but that would involve negotiating with Russia and the current president of Ukraine seems dead set against that (though he’ll appear in meetings). To complicate things, Putin’s probably not interested in administrating Ukraine either; the country just happens to be in a location which Putin would want to remain ‘neutral’ (favorable to Russia) so the negotiations must be between the NATO countries and Russia with the Ukrainians basically being told what to do. So much for sovereignty. Putin boasted that he could take Kiev in 2 weeks and if he suspected that we were arming the Ukraine government he’d probably walk right in and do it. A larger scale war wouldn’t benefit anyone; the people of Ukraine suffer enough with the current one.
I have high hopes for the peace deal Merkel & Hollande have presented.
In the Ukrainian civil war, rebels obtain rockets, rocket launchers, tanks, and many other weapons from old Soviet stockpiles, from east Ukraine military bases they now own, and by capturing arms and munitions from the Ukraine military. See lostarmour.org for a photographic account of equipment captured and destroyed by each side. Damaged equipment is refurbished in Donetsk industrial parks.
A 2005 statement by Senators Richard Lugar and Barack Obama on weapon stockpiles in Donetsk (http://www.fas.org/asmp/campaigns/MANPADS/2005/LugarObama.htm)speaks of 2 million tons of Soviet-era ammunition available in Ukraine to the warring factions. The rebels also solicit online donations and probably buy and smuggle arms into the country. Kiev most certainly obtains Soviet-era arms (so NATO cannot be implicated) from conservative neighbors such as Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Croatia, perhaps facilitated by the State Department.
Many experienced rebels served as Soviet soldiers and officers in Afghanistan. Tank drivers were recruted to give courses to local fighters shortly after fighting began. The rebels have had a year to train young guys to use sophisticated weapons such as motorized multiple launch rocket systems. I read a recent interview with a young Brazilian guy who joined the rebels last summer and now commands his own launch squad.
Yes, Putin is a thug, and a bully, and all the rest of it. But a lot of what passes for ‘analysis’ here in the West simply ignores history. Eastern Ukraine – including Crimea – was part of Russia for centuries. ‘Kievan Rus’ was the birthplace of ‘Holy Russia’ when Moscow was a muddy village. By contrast, Western Ukraine was Austro-Hungarian, then partly Polish, and only after WW2 part of the Soviet Empire.
I would not for a minute excuse the disgusting tactics that the pro-Russian insurgents and their Russian supporters have used. But just maybe Ukraine is not sustainable as a unified, centralised state. Yes, Russia and the West jointly guaranteed Ukraine’s independence, and partly as a result Ukraine surrendered the nuclear weapons still on its territory. But all that does not help us decide what we should do next.
Let’s not kid ourselves. No government in Europe is going to go to war to push Russia out of Eastern Ukraine. (A threat to EU/NATO members, starting with the Baltic States, would be another matter). We should keep sanctions going, because that’s about all we’ve got. And meanwhile we should do all we can to sustain democracy in – perhaps only in – Kiev and the West of the country.
The people of east Ukraine are overwhelmingly Russian, support the rebels, and look on the Ukraine military as foreign invaders. Finally, CNN (International) has begun reporting the Ukrain civil war from this angle.
Putin, the thug, is supported by 85% of the Russian electorate. In Crimea it may be even greater. The US has played its cards very, very badly.
The mere fact that the reported approval rate is 85% should tell you a thing. When we had a good, old, classic communism, the approval rate was over 99%.
Putin is a corrupt, murdering bastard and that makes it especially hard for the west to sit and watch this all take place.
It could very well all go south for him in time because russia is in bad shape and oil is about it for him. Heavier sanctions and low oil prices will likely be the best the west can do.
What we don’t need is some republican clown back in the house which only means doing something stupid. Sticking our American stupidity into the Ukraine or Syria or elsewhere around the globe should be in the rear view mirror. Until I see John McCain and Linsey Graham suit up to go fight and stop running their mouths, then maybe I would think about it.
The sites I view post many pictures of children, teens, and old people blown to bits by random Ukrainian militia and military shelling of civilian neighborhoods in rebel controlled areas. Despite a year of making accusations,no Russian military units have been found fighting in east Ukraine, excepting, of course, forged evidence presented in the NY Times and released last week by Oklahoma’s James Mountain Inhofe.
Don’t expect Russia to back off now that it is convinced, like the Muslims are, that America and NATO (i.e., the Pentagon) will not rest until Russia is extinct. A bad wind is blowing.
If no Russian troops have been fighting in Ukraine, then why is Svetlana Davydova charged?
What is interesting is the number of US right-wing/conservative pundits, politicians and hangers on have expressed admiration for Putin, calling him things like “strong” and “decisive” while at the same time calling President Obama “weak” “appeasing” as well as a “tyrant”, “despot” and say he’s “acting like a king”. I guess expecting rationality from those types is about as useful as expecting it from a creationist (and, in fact, the two groups have a lot of overlap).
It’s amazing what a few anti-gay laws and being a born-again Christian will get you.
I’m afraid the republicans had their last great idea about 1920 and it was called prohibition. We know how that turned out.
I think the purpose is to goad Obama. Words of admiration for Putin translate into scorn for Obama.
Or try to make it seem as though Obama is doing a bad job in his foreign relations. We are probably lucky it is Obama who is President during all of this!
The USA has inflamed the situation between Russia and Ukraine. They dismantled the Warsaw Pact but the USA did not dismantle NATO. The military industrial complex has made a fortune off on the arming of the new NATO countries like Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Inside the Ukraine there are a number of fascistic elements. They overthrew the previous government with USA help. I think we should pull back from the situation and let the Europeans work out a settlement. This border struggle between Russia and Ukraine is not our business. Putin is not Hitler and Russia is not NAZI Germany. 2015 is not 1938. Bad analogies make for bad history and vice versa. We have enough on our plate right now. Obama’s plan to go after ISIS is also foolish. Saudi Arabia is the main funder of ISIS. Read some history.
Regards,
John
If the battle against ISIS isn’t worth fighting, then what is?!
It was not the small number of fascistic elements within Ukraine (smaller than in any “old European” country known to me) that overthrew the previous Ukrainian government. It was the better part of the Ukrainian people. And there was no USA help. This is all Putin’s propaganda.
Otherwise, please give your sources!
Here is an article from the Guardian:
“Kiev’s protesters: Ukrainian uprising was no neo-Nazi power grab”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/ukraine-uprising-fascist-coup-grassroots-movement
As for the “border struggle between Russia and Ukraine not our business” – then, why did the USA sign the Budapest memorandum? Why was a peaceful European country tricked to renounce its only efficient weapons and then abandoned to the mercy of its enemies?
As a few people have pointed out this Ukrainian situation was provoked by US involvement in the Ukrainian coup d’état in February.
This and continuing expansion of NATO.
One real aspect of the Cuban missile crisis was that that was provoked by the US arraying missiles along their border in Turkey and that they were removed as part of the resolution.
That was kept quiet and formed a propaganda win for the US, maintaining their alleged moral high ground, as they are claiming, wrongly, now.
Putin may be just as described but he also leads a country with valid security concerns against the US who have demonstrated a number of times they will push the boundaries.
As has been said before, if you go poking the bear, you get a grumpy bear.
“As a few people have pointed out this Ukrainian situation was provoked by US involvement in the Ukrainian coup d’état in February.”
There was no US involvement in the overthrow of Yanukovich, it is just Putin’s propaganda. And it was not “coup d’état” but a grass-roots peaceful movement for democracy, something I guess you may have trouble understanding:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/ukraine-uprising-fascist-coup-grassroots-movement
No matter how many people point something out, this cannot make it true.
Interesting comments on foreign policy, some wrong and others not but direct confrontation with russia is a non starter. Russia is an extremely corrupt institution and is likely to blow up again as it did before in 89.
Getting into very wrong and stupid conflicts has been our habit since the 60s and we should change our ways. We can declared war on crime, war on drugs and war on terrorism and lose all of them because they are not things upon which war applies.
ISIS should be a problem for Islam and a number of countries located in that part of the world. It should not be ours but for our ridiculous move into Iraq. Russia a big supporter of the dictator in Syria, but you do not see Russia joining in the fight there because they know it is a lost cause and nothing to win.
Maybe we should threaten to have Dubya paint another art brut portrait of him. That should scare him.
Well, ever since I heard he called him “ostrich legs” I can’t stop starring at Putin’s legs and wondering if they are really skinny!
I agree that Putin is thug, but your analysis is very one-sided Jerry. In fact the biggest thug on the international scene is the USA. And the US seems intent on re-igniting the cold-war for the profit of the military-industrial complex.
What we hear in the West regarding the Ukraine situation is highly biased and one-sided and disregards (as always) much of the cultural and historical context.
You are not even wrong, but are subject to some sort of unbalanced conspiracy theory. Only someone who is blind could say that the actions of the U.S. are worse than those of Putin’s now. Really? We’re attacking a free country so we can take it over. And as for your “military industrial complex” paranoia, there’s simply no evidence for that at all. You give no evidence for your ridiculous assertions.
Iraq?
Which exactly part of Iraq was annexed by the USA?
In contrast, Russia uses its settlers planted among other nations to justify grabbing land from these nations. In the case of Ukraine, it is particularly outrageous because the Russian-speaking supporters of Putin who now serve as justification for the aggression and the land grab have replaced ethnic Ukrainians starved during the Holodomor.
I was referring to the criminally stupid invasion of Iraq which was ‘justified’ by non-existent ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or possibly Saddam’s equally non-existent links to the World Trade Center attacks.
(The most credible reason for the invasion is that Bush’s ‘advisers’ all wanted to get into Iraq for the oil revenues.)
The whole frickin’ world told Bush what would happen but it was painfully obvious he was going to invade regardless of any reason or evidence.
The USA doesn’t annex territory, that would make it responsible for its upkeep. It installs ‘friendly’ puppet governments instead.
Ah, Jerry, very satisfying thank you. Exactly.
Especially the ‘cultural whosits’. That’s part of Putin’s propaganda line. Very dubious. Kiev in the Middle Ages was the capital of Russia. I know that the Russian and Polish languages are very similar. Maybe somebody can tell us if Russian and Ukrainian are too. In other words there’s a Russian cultural presence in Ukraine because they’re cousins. Not exactly England and Spain.
Well, yes, that is the basis, but it is much more insidious now. I read somewhere that Russia has become an expert on something called “mixed wars”, where propaganda and outright lying is one part, inserting local agents and weapons another, and so on. They are already doing the same against the states bordering the Baltic Sea, mainly the Baltic States (propaganda among the russian immigrant population) but also Finland and Sweden (border infringements).
The first problem is that we already let it happen once, in Georgia (2008).
The second is that no one can win a war against Russia.
But what we can do is to support Nato* (make it too expensive for Russia to advance into Nato states), support the media (the Baltic States are launching russian media channels to better inform and embrace their russian speaking populations), and support sanctions (the sanctions and the oil prize is making it expensive for Russia).
We can also remember that US supporting, later invading Afghanistan gave us Al-Qaeida and US invading, later supporting Iraq gave us ISIS. Supporting Ukraine with weapons, outside of Nato agreements, will likely give us more russian terrorists, to add to Russia’s state terrorism.
This situation is the result of Putin being anti-democratic and becoming a de facto dictator. To make it in the last election against becoming unpopular he had to scare up russians against “the other” and instill a lot more nationalism. (As if Russia needed it.)
Now he is in a dilemma. His new policies has made russian economy take a nosedive, and so he would sit even looser if he relents the nationalist pressure.
*Unfortunately the new social democrat government in Sweden is still making discussions about joining Nato taboo, they won’t even open up the table for discussing pros and cons. :-/
Instead, in latest news, our new foreign minister may have stepped in the litter box, possibly giving the Russia some unprecedented promises on the recent co-Nato Baltic exercise. But the situation is unclear at the moment.
Putin is a thug.
Western (US/Canada, others) support for surrounding Russia, expanding NATO to the Russian borders, fomenting coups (as seems to have been the case), etc. doesn’t help matters. IMO, neither side has any moral high ground at all. Only the victims, as usual caught in the middle, do.
Putin is running a country which is a corrupt oligarchy. He can’t stand down and let the country become a Western Democracy (what’s so wonderful about them anyway): that’s not even an option. Why should Russia be trustful of the West: the horrific treatment by Germany in the second world war and 40+ years of Cold War, destabilisation after Peristroika. Anyone going to govern a country like that has to be a hardnut.
It’s why I respect Gorbachev’s work. Think about what he did to make all those changes! I know he isn’t exact adored in Russia but history shows his accomplishments.
I’ve read several people pointing out that Yelstin also basically came in as a coup of sorts, and thus ushered in the 1990s era of diastrous economic reforms that led to a severe drop in the standard of living of the average Russian. Politically free to starve, IOW. A Hobson’s choice, for sure.
The US actually sent troops to help bring the Czar back way back in their revolution. The Russians have not forgotten.
IIRC, Canada and the UK also invaded the far eastern part of Siberia in the 1920s with a small collection of troops to try and see if the forlks that lived out there were sympathetic to the SU. Needless to say they gave up when they realized nobody there knew really what had gone on.
It’s a bigger place than anyone seems to ever fully comprehend.
Many Russians, e.g. those who came to my country as refugees after the so-called revolution, were sorry that those foreign troops failed to succeed in their mission.
Jerry: The Minsk2 agreement was signed by representatives of Ukraine, the two rebelling provinces, the Russian Federation, and the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe). The agreement implicitly recognizes the territorial integrity of Ukraine and sets out a path to end the violence and re-establish stability. This has been Putin’s expressed position from the outset, although not necessarily that of Donbass rebels, many of whom would feel safer with annexation.
Neither Hollande, Merkel nor the OSCE, which has many observers on both sides of the battle line, claims that armed Russian Federation forces are in Ukraine (many fighters from Russia are there; Ukraine’s government-backed militias also employ foreign mercenaries*) or that Russia is “attacking a free country . . . [to] take over it.” That’s just the “establishment’s” fairy-tale for local consumption (IMHO, of course).
The new Minsk agreement** does call for the “Withdrawal of all foreign armed forces, military equipment, as well as mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine under the supervision of the OSCE.” Although the native people in the conflict zone are overwhelmingly Russian (ethnicity), we may expect the western press to continue to conflate these Ukrainian-Russians (many) with outside mercenaries (some) and supposed military involvement (advisors, but unlikely troops) of the Russian Federation. The exclusion of “foreign military equipment” suggests that Ukraine has forsworn being armed by the US congress. We may expect the Pentagon also to cry foul when this clause is invoked to impede NATO training of Ukrainian troops planned to begin, I think, next May.
*The government of Croatia confirms (proudly, so the news report makes it seem) that Kiev’s Azov Batallion in Mariupol has 20 Croatian volunteers.
**Translated by the Financial Times and reprinted at the ‘vineyardsaker’ blog, a good source of ‘alternative’ views on Ukraine.
I’d been thinking for a while now that Putin is the new Hitler. I see now that I’m not alone.
That’s ridiculous.
You are absolutely right.
A good article: “Here’s what can be learned from the Putin-Hitler comparisons”
“…You have to be pretty ignorant of the history of Europe in the 1930s not to be more than a little creeped out by the similarities between what Adolf Hitler sought in Central Europe then and what Vladimir Putin is seeking in the former Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, now.
In both cases, you’ve got a kinda-elected dictator who has successfully stoked powerful ethno-nationalism to remain popular, while bringing the economy back from the dead after a huge national defeat, and focusing attention on the fate of your co-nationals who have been cruelly left outside your borders by the last war.
To fix that, you employ diplomacy, espionage, military power, threats, intimidation, and by far your best weapon is the unwillingness of your (actually far more powerful) adversaries to confront you in any sort of serious way. They fear conflict; you do not.”
Read more: http://20committee.com/2014/08/09/putins-war-and-the-hitler-thing/#ixzz3SnNv5ben
Are you looking for a new Hitler? Its 30 years since the Russian economy collapsed and went through a form of gansterisation. The West did little to foster anything better except try to ‘move in’ to the countries that Russia withdrew from: why bother now the ‘threat’ of Communism is gone.
It takes years to develop anything that even resembles the highly imperfect system of ‘democracy’ that we take for granted in the West. Its often born out of Civil War and internal conflict, which is perhaps what we are seeing in the Ukraine.
Just because Putin doesn’t conform to the all singing all dancing party leader we expect of a Republican or Democrat party leader, doesn’t make him a Hitler. Horses for courses.
The West “moved in” those countries because those countries wanted it. Their citizens wanted freedom, democracy and market economy, the very things that you “take for granted”. As an Eastern European, I am deeply disturbed by your implication that the West should not have “moved in”, i.e. that you should have democracy and prosperity but I don’t deserve it.
Putin has done much more than not conforming to the singing-dancing party leader. He has all but annihilated the political opposition and the independent press (maybe you have forgotten that the assassinated journalists Anna Politkovskaya and Natalia Estemirova ever existed), he has thrown two girls in jail over a song, he has subdued Chechnya by killing an unknown but surely large number of people, he has grabbed land from Georgia, and he is now waging an aggressive war against Ukraine to grab land from it as well, using the presence of Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine as justification.
Hitler did the same: brutally suppressed all internal opposition and then attacked other countries to grab land from them, using the presence of German speakers there as a justification.
What exactly must Putin do so that you admit that he is a new Hitler?
Name it please, and most likely he’ll have done it in a year or two.
As a Bulgarian, I am outraged by the statements that the Ukrainians brought the Russian aggression on themselves by ousting their previous elected leader Yanukovich, and by the recurrent un-sourced claims that the USA was behind this.
In every democracy, especially in an immature or emerging one, it happens that only a year or so after electing a government, voters are disappointed and want it ousted. They fill the streets and squares, demanding resignation and early elections.
If the Ukrainians decide to do early elections, it is their business and nobody else’s.
Electing someone doesn’t mean that we are his slaves to the end of his term. Especially if he betrays our trust. I haven’t read the pre-election program of Yanukovich, but I don’t think it stated, “I’ll be a Russian puppet and I’ll isolate Ukraine from Europe”.
Yet this he was and this he did, so his people no longer wanted him.
Ousting a leader, even a democratically elected one, by peaceful protests cannot be a justification for foreign invasion and land grab. Except in the mind of Putin’s Eastern supporters and Western apologists.
Every pro-democracy movement is portrayed by its enemies as instigated by the USA. In most cases, there is not a letter of truth in it. Especially since Obama took power. His sympathies are not with the people struggling fora freedom and democracy, but with oppressors and enemies of democracy (hence his idea of “reset” with Russia).
If you claim that the USA was behind the Euromaidan, please cite a serious source. Otherwise, this is just regurgitated Putin’s propaganda.
Dear opponents, why do you think that people who speak a Slavic language and have strange names, like the Ukrainians (and me), could not turn to democracy and to Europe without US help?
You seem to think that we are not intelligent enough to cope with democracy. You also think that we deserve freedom and self-determination only until Putin (or some other bully) decides otherwise. You think that we don’t deserve what you have, that you are truly human while we are only quasi-human.
My country was occupied and brought to ruins by Russia. I have very strong empathy to the Ukrainians. If I frankly write what I think and how I feel about the pro-Russian comments here, I’ll get banned.
That was very powerful and educational. Thanks for posting it.
Thank you very much!