Ukraine

[GaryTaylor]

And why has the Crimea asked for Putin’s help, has the new government issued discriminatory laws against Russian ethnics, i.e., are they expected to suffer under this new regime?? Moreover, economically, Ukraine needs to expand its trade with other nations, i.e., it is too dependent on Russia (I believe 70% of Ukraine’s trade is with this country), and that is not good.

I think to a large degree they simply identify themselves as Russian, probably pockets throughout the country and with those who favor democracy. As to Putin’s regime. I don’t know exactly what that is yet in this area. His claiming Christian restoration of Russia, what do you think? I think the remainder of Ukraine is where the issue is.

 

[gilliam]

And how would you define Putin’s role in Russia? Democratic or dictatorial?

Autocratic

 

[Vouthon]

So do the pro-Russia folks in the Crimea. They feel there is more promise for them with aligning themselves with Moscow.

UN Security Council will meet today on this at 2pm Eastern by Britain’s request.

I agree, Crimea was under Russian sovereignty until the Krushchev era afterall. There is a great deal of national pride in Russia over the Crimea. I mean, the Siege of Sevastopol in 1854 during the Crimean War, Russia stood practically alone against a British, French, Ottoman and Sardinian barage. Catherine the Great, Tsar Nicholas…Putin is quasi-fascist in outlook. He struts around like a Mussolini, with bare chest and masculine bravado. That is his “personality cult”, so to speak. He sees himself, or rather wants to style himself, in the mould of a classical Russian hero. The Crimea is just too ideologically important for his regime to look weak over. The Russian strongman must re-claim national pride for his people

However, I am sceptical of the depth of support for separatism in the Crimea. They are Russian-speaking, yes and proud of the Russian heritage of their region, nonetheless the ‘protesters’ who took over the Crimean legislature were not popular protesters as with the Euromaidan in Kiev. There are strong indications that they are Russian plants and provocateurs.

Euromaidan was a bottom-up, peoples revolution: no matter to what extent RT wants its subscribers to think otherwise. The Crimean unrest is by contrast a top-down Moscow led affair.

The Crimean Tartars, the original Muslim inhabitants of the region when it was annexed from the Ottoman Empire by Catherine the Great and who were forcibly deported by Stalin from their homeland, will never assent willingly to Russian control.

No doubt, with weeks of Russian propaganda under what is essentially at the moment becoming a military state in the region under Moscow’s control, there will be some sort of plebiscite and the Crimea will become a South Ossetia, a quasi-independent vassal state of Russia, a ‘protectorate’ from which Putin can defend his Sevastopol fleet and cause trouble for the new government in Kiev.

I do not think that Crimea will join the Russian Federation. Putin will surely want to make it look as if it is still somehow linked to Kiev. I see another Georgia on the way.

 

[josie_L]

I think to a large degree they simply identify themselves as Russian, probably pockets throughout the country and with those who favor democracy. As to Putin’s regime. I don’t know exactly what that is yet in this area. His claiming Christian restoration of Russia, what do you think? I think the remainder of Ukraine is where the issue is.

There is quite a large Tatar population in the Crimea that does not want to be part of the Russian federation, i.e., I think this belief that the Crimea self-identifies with Russia is blown out of proportion. As for Putin and Christian restoration of Russia, look to Vouthon’s response on this page, that’s basically how I feel.

 

[josie_L]

I agree, Crimea was under Russian sovereignty until the Krushchev era afterall. There is a great deal of national pride in Russia over the Crimea. I mean, the Siege of Sevastopol in 1854 during the Crimean War, Russia stood practically alone against a British, French, Ottoman and Sardinian barage. Catherine the Great, Tsar Nicholas…Putin is quasi-fascist in outlook. He struts around like a Mussolini, with bare chest and masculine bravado. That is his “personality cult”, so to speak. He sees himself, or rather wants to style himself, in the mould of a classical Russian hero. The Crimea is just too ideologically important for his regime to look weak over. The Russian strongman must re-claim national pride for his people

However, I am sceptical of the depth of support for separatism in the Crimea. They are Russian-speaking, yes and proud of the Russian heritage of their region, nonetheless the ‘protesters’ who took over the Crimean legislature were not popular protesters as with the Euromaidan in Kiev. There are strong indications that they are Russian plants and provocateurs.

Euromaidan was a bottom-up, peoples revolution: no matter to what extent RT wants its subscribers to think otherwise. The Crimean unrest is by contrast a top-down Moscow led affair.

The Crimean Tartars, the original Muslim inhabitants of the region when it was annexed from the Ottoman Empire by Catherine the Great and who were forcibly deported by Stalin from their homeland, will never assent willingly to Russian control.

No doubt, with weeks of Russian propaganda under what is essentially at the moment becoming a military state in the region under Moscow’s control, there will be some sort of plebiscite and the Crimea will become a South Ossetia, a quasi-independent vassal state of Russia, a ‘protectorate’ from which Putin can defend his Sevastopol fleet and cause trouble for the new government in Kiev.

I do not think that Crimea will join the Russian Federation. Putin will surely want to make it look as if it is still somehow linked to Kiev. I see another Georgia on the way.

Bang on!

 

[bekalc]

And why has the Crimea asked for Putin’s help, has the new government issued discriminatory laws against Russian ethnics, i.e., have there been any attacks on the Crimea? Moreover, trade in the Ukraine is very dependent on Russia, i.e., too dependent (I believe 40% of Ukraine’s trade is with Russia).

Well the new parliament did pass a law that would cancel minority language status for Russian and other languages. This fanned the flames in the Russian speaking areas in the Ukraine, who feel the new government doesn’t represent them. Over throwing a government is never a good thing. And I too can’t help but wonder about the intentions of a group of people whose first order of business is to cancel such a law. Now the Prime minister after uproar is saying he’ll cancel it, but I imagine a lot of damage is done.

While there are plenty of Russian speaking areas in Ukraine who don’t really want to be part of Russia, or are fine with being part of Ukraine (although how long that will last) Crimea is a different well animal.

A lot of the folks in Crimea never wanted to be part of the Ukraine. Its majority Russian population. So for some are using this as an excuse to get what they want-either independence or to join Russia. When the USSR broke off, “republics/states in the USSR” where just given independence. But there were groups within those states that didn’t necessarily like each other or want to be one country where the majority is said ethnic group. For example people present the Georgians as innocent victims in what occurred. But the fact is that the second those groups learned they were going to be part of "Georgia’ they revolted. The Georgians didn’t help matters by trying to impose the Georgian language on these minorities etc.

In terms of Crimea its hard to know what those people want. They probably should be given a vote. I don’t see the West-letting them have a vote. And I can’t see how fair a vote will be with Russian troops there.

 

[Vouthon]

I think to a large degree they simply identify themselves as Russian, probably pockets throughout the country and with those who favor democracy. As to Putin’s regime. I don’t know exactly what that is yet in this area. His claiming Christian restoration of Russia, what do you think? I think the remainder of Ukraine is where the issue is.

Putinism is one of the most complex, and for analysts, bewildering movements of the 21st century. It has affinities with Fascism (Ie autarky, a strongman in the mould of Mussolini, centralization, a personality cult) yet where the Italian fascists dealt lethal blows to the mafia, Putin’s Russia is by contrast effectively run by criminal gangs in turn bankrolled by corrupt oligarchs who gained power from the aborted experiment in capitalism and democracy under Yeltsin in the 1990s.

On the same token, Putin is obsessed with the Soviet Union. Stalin is treated as a slightly harsh but necessary national hero in Russian school textbooks. A historian in Russia was sent to a Siberian prison a few years back for daring to call Stalin a genocidal dictator. Putin regards the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1989-91 as the 20th century’s greatest disaster.

Add all that together and you get a strange concoction of all the most unattractive elements of Russia’s recent history from the Tsars to Breshnev.

What is “Putinism”? I really don’t know. I think only historians in hindsight will be able to piece it together sometime in the future.

One thing I know it, it is heavily autocratic and rests on a sham democracy in which there is a parliament with seemingly multi-party representation (although any real opposition parties are censored or disbanded) but with a government in the Kremlin that dominates the parliament and is not answerable to the people of the country, as was made clear when many Russians protested against Putin’s re-election in 2011 and were crushed by armed force. In this respect, it shares similarities with other autocratic regimes that had powerless parliaments such as Imperial Germany under the Kaiser.

Putin’s Russia is not yet fascist or totalitarian. It is an autocratic mafia state with a quasi-personality cult around Putin.

As its economy worsens over the next few years however, the regime could become more belligerent and move towards a true totalitarianism, or so some experts have argued.

Putin’s aggressive foreign policy and the fact that the media is now government controlled, will only help to further consolidate his already thirteen years or so long rule.

 

[josie_L]

Well the new parliament did pass a law that would cancel minority language status for Russian and other languages. This fanned the flames in the Russian speaking areas in the Ukraine, who feel the new government doesn’t represent them. Over throwing a government is never a good thing. And I too can’t help but wonder about the intentions of a group of people whose first order of business is to cancel such a law. Now the Prime minister after uproar is saying he’ll cancel it, but I imagine a lot of damage is done.

While there are plenty of Russian speaking areas in Ukraine who don’t really want to be part of Russia, or are fine with being part of Ukraine (although how long that will last) Crimea is a different well animal.

A lot of the folks in Crimea never wanted to be part of the Ukraine. Its majority Russian population. So for some are using this as an excuse to get what they want-either independence or to join Russia. When the USSR broke off, “republics/states in the USSR” where just given independence. But there were groups within those states that didn’t necessarily like each other or want to be one country where the majority is said ethnic group. For example people present the Georgians as innocent victims in what occurred. But the fact is that the second those groups learned they were going to be part of "Georgia’ they revolted. The Georgians didn’t help matters by trying to impose the Georgian language on these minorities etc.

In terms of Crimea its hard to know what those people want. They probably should be given a vote. I don’t see the West-letting them have a vote. And I can’t see how fair a vote will be with Russian troops there.

Although I know these are not my words, (they affirm what I believe) let me please post something Kyiv Andrew wrote to me:

Yes, josie L. There was also forced Russian resettlement into Ukraine even before WW2. The 1926 Soviet census showed there were 31 million Ukrainians in the USSR. The 1937 census (hidden by Stalin to hide the incredible decimation of Ukrainians during the genocidal Holodomor Famine and anti-Ukrainian purges and only recently declasified), showed only 26 million Ukrainians. Thus a direct loss of five million Ukrainian souls at the very least, a third of them starving children, over these 11 years (1926-1937). During the exact same 11 years, the ethnic Russians in in the USSR increased by 23%.

No wonder Stalin had the 1937 census banned; I don’t even know if he shot the census takers. After the Holodomor Famine (1932-33), Soviet Ukraine was covered by empty villages, death by starvation all around. As Robert Conquest made clear in his pioneering Harvest of Sorrow, these areas were repopulated by settlers from Soviet Russia.

It also marked the end of any pretense of Kremlin internationalism, and the Kremlin embarked upon a vigorous (and at times lethal, literally) campaign to Russify Ukraine and make the Ukrainian language and culture be marginalized if not put down. Ukraine’s Autocephalous Orthodox Church and later Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church were all forced to join the Russian Orthodox basically at the point of a gun. Many of the Russian re-settlers took pride in never having to utter a single word in Ukrainian which they looked down upon, even though they were living in the land. It’s a tragic story.

I know wikipedia is not perfect but “Russification in Ukraine” does some of the explaining:

In the Tsarist Russian Empire, in 1862, all Ukrainian Sunday schools, numbering over 100 at the time, were abolished and proscribed. In 1863, minister of internal affairs Petr Valuyev issued the so-called Valuev Circular, in which he stated that the Ukrainian language never existed, doesn’t exist, and cannot exist.
In Soviet times, Russification policy was more intense in Ukraine than in other parts of the Soviet Union

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification_of_Ukraine

p.s. last week Lviv in western Ukraine, which is always portrayed as the hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism, a full day was declared Russian Language Day, news, papers (even nationalist ones), all in the Russian language. Unfortunately, proclaiming a full day of Ukrainian language in Russophone Donetsk let’s say on the other hand would be more hard. One language has historically been repressed, the other, Russian, is not under any threat of vanishing in Ukraine, believe me. One can just look at the numbers of periodicals in Russian in Ukraine.

In any event this whole issue is not Ukrainian vs Russian speaking; it’s predominantly: do you wish to live in a rule of law state, or under a corrupt regime supported by the Kremlin like Yanukovych’s. This division crosses linguistic and generational lines, and probably is best understood as people with a Sovietized mindset versus Ukrainians without one. Homo Sovieticus (i.e. protect Lenin statues, listen to the Kremlin) remains a big problem in Ukraine. And Yanukovych is Homo Sovieticus, and Putin’s background and makeup is Homo Sovieticus (laws curbing freedom of assembly, press, a strong secret police body modeled on Soviet secret police leaders, blaming everything on the West).

God bless!

 

[Vouthon]

The latest tweets from the BBC:

bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26400597

17:42: The UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has tweeted “we oppose decision to deploy Russian troops on Ukrainian soil against wishes of #Ukraine gov and condemn any act of aggression.” In a separate tweet, he added "We support Ukrainian gov’s request for urgent consultations in accordance with 1994 Budapest Memorandum signed by UK, US, Russia, #ukraine."

17:35: The EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has announced on Twitter that EU foreign ministers will hold crisis talks in Brussels on Monday. It will be the second such EU meeting on Ukraine in two weeks. The first meeting led to sanctions being imposed on Viktor Yanukovych’s government.

17:41**: US Senator John McCain has released a strongly-worded statement: “Every moment that the United States and our allies fail to respond sends the signal to President Putin that he can be even more ambitious and aggressive in his military intervention in Ukraine. There is a range of serious options at our disposal at this time without the use of military force. I call on President Obama to rally our European and NATO allies to make clear what costs Russia will face for its aggression and to impose those consequences without further delay**.”

17:32: AFP reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is concerned by developments in Crimea. “What is happening in Crimea worries us,” Merkel said in a speech in Berlin in which she stressed the importance of “preserving the territorial integrity” of Ukraine. The agency also said she spoke to Ukraine’s Interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk by phone on Saturday.

 

[Vouthon]

1938 There are a lot of similarities

Yes, I stated this much a little earlier as well.

While I want to make perfectly clear that I am not, under any circumstances, comparing Putinism with Nazism (there is no comparison, Putin’s regime is bad but not anywhere near that bad), there is an eerie resemblance between the 1938 Sudenteland crisis in Czechoslovakia and 2014 Crimean crisis in the Ukraine. Not only is the foreign policy tactic of the two expansionist powers in both situations practically identical (ie German/Russian minorities being used as pawns for a takeover, weak Western diplomacy and acquiescence), both Hitler and Putin (and again, I am not trying to equate Putin with the evil of Hitler) were trying to incrementally break down an international order in their regional backyard that had been created by their respective countries’ defeat by the West 20 or so years previously.

We are in a position and time in our world of 2014 in relation to the end of the Cold War in 1991, almost relative to what the 1938 generation themselves were in relation to the end of WW1 in 1918. In both cases we have a period of around 20 years or so having elapsed and a financial crisis during both eras.

In both cases we have a country that “lost” (Germany and Russia) and attempted an experiment in capitalist democracy (Weimar Republic 1919-1933, Russian Federation 1991-2001), that failed miserably and lead to a terribly weakened economy in which the democrats (Stresemann and the SDP in Germany, Yeltsin and his party in Russia), collapsed, making way for a “strongman” autocrat to come in under a ticket of nationalism, assertive foreign policy and a commitment to restoring the pride of the nation after its humiliation.

The humiliation in Germany’s case was the victory of the then superpower of Great Britain and its allies (France, Italy and the United States) over the German Empire in 1918 and the creation of a new post-WW1 European order of nation states under the Treaty of Versailles, in which German minorities were separated from the Reich and wound up in other newly created states including Czechoslovakia and Poland.

The humiliation in Russia’s case, was the victory of the capitalist system of the sole superpower the United States and its Allies (the UK, NATO) in the Cold War and the loss of the Soviet Union with its vast empire and vassal states, with the signing of treaties and documents such as the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 which gave all these countries, many of them such as the Ukraine with significant Russian minorities, independence.

Is this not just a little bit eerie? Just as Germany tried to challenge the Versailles order of Europe created under the aegis of the Allies, Putin’s Russia seems to be trying to do the same in relation to the post-communist order in Eastern Europe largely crafted by NATO.

In both cases, Germany wanted to create a European wide Greater German Reich just as Putin wants to create a Greater Russia known as the “Eurasian Union” by piecemeal military expansionism helped by a meek Western public and politicians.

 

[mary_bobo]

There’s no way that they get a nuke, but if they did drop a nuke on the US then you can bet your life that the USA is going to war. The outrage and pressure would be way too much for him to handle.

Go to war with what? This administration is tearing down our military as fast as they can. The president need not make comments in situations like this because the world knows it is just so much hot air. God help us.

 

[saintjohnxxiii]

Go to war with what? This administration is tearing down our military as fast as they can. The president need not make comments in situations like this because the world knows it is just so much hot air. God help us.

I agree with everything you are saying but I was replying to the scenario if a group from the Ukraine gets a nuke and drops it on the USA. A nuke dropped on the USA is a game changer that no US President can waffle on. Bear in mind that Pres. Obama has no problem executing Americans and foreigners with his drone attacks.

 

[Miserissima]

Go to war with what? This administration is tearing down our military as fast as they can. The president need not make comments in situations like this because the world knows it is just so much hot air. God help us.

The BRAC (base realignment and closure) started under Reagan.

If Russia recalls its ambassador to the US, it’s a fate for the US to act.

 

[rfournier103]

There is no way that the US will go to war with Russia over Ukraine. Remember when the USSR invaded Afghanistan? We boycotted the Olympics in Moscow.

If there is a full-blown war, it will be fought between proxies; just like the bad old days. Lots of talking, spies, and back-channel shenanigans.

I just feel bad for the Ukrainians…

 

[CNA_News]

Kyiv, Ukraine, Mar 1, 2014 / 12:48 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church issued a statement Feb. 28 praying for the people of Crimea and appealing for the unity of Ukraine, as Russia has reportedly deployed troops in the peninsula.

“The entire family of the UGCC faithful pleads to the compassionate Lord for his protection and assistance to peacefully overcome the deteriorating situation in Crimea, and that the unity of our country might be preserved,” Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halyc said.

Earlier that day, armed men in unmarked military uniforms took control of airports in Crimea, as well as the autonomous republic’s parliament building and state telecommunications and television centers. Flights from Crimean airports have been grounded.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Russia has flown hundreds, or even thousands, of troops into Crimea.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said any of his country’s military movements in Crimea are “within the framework” of long-standing agreements between Moscow and Kyiv – also known as Kiev; Russia’s Black See fleet has a base at the Crimean city of Sevastopol.

Oleksander Turchynov, Ukraine’s acting president, accused Russia of deploying its troops in Crimea, trying to provoke armed conflict.

“The UGCC faithful pray for the Krym exarchate and for the preservation of the unity of Ukraine,” said a statement from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

“In these days, we pray for peace and security for all residents of the Crimean peninsula, especially the clergy and laity of our Krym exarchate.”

The Krym exarchate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was established only two weeks ago, on Feb. 13. It was split from the exarchate of Odesa, and serves the Ukrainian Catholics in Crimea.

These developments in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church come among profound political transition in the nation.

Protests in Kyiv began in November, when the government announced it would not sign a major economic partnership agreement with the European Union, in favor of a $15 billion bailout agreement with Russia. Tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Kyiv, at times occupying government buildings.

Protests continued through February, until more than 80 peeople were killed – some of them by snipers – during protests at Maidan in Kyiv.

On Feb. 21, Viktor Yanukovych, then the president of Ukraine, fled Kyiv; the next day, parliament voted to remove him from power. Turchynov was appointed acting president Feb. 23 by parliament.

Turchyov has already announced his desire to strengthen ties with the European Union, and formed a government Feb. 27, with Arseniy Yatsenyuk appointed as prime minister. Elections have been scheduled for May 25.

Ukraine’s acting president quickly warned against the dangers of separatism, a risk from the majority-Russian areas of eastern Ukraine, particularly Crimea.

Crimea is a southern peninsula of Ukraine where nearly 60 percent of the population are ethnic Russians, and more than 50 percent of the population speak Russian as their first language.

The territory was transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 under the Soviet Union.

On Feb. 27, armed men raised a Russian flag over the Crimean parliament without opposition, and there had been reports of prior clashes of ethnic Russians with Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians on the peninsula.

On Feb. 28, US president Barack Obama stated, “we are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine. Russia has a historic relationship with Ukraine, including cultural and economic ties – and a military facility in Crimea. But any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing.”

“The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.”

On March 1, Russia’s upper house of Parliament voted unanimously to approve Russian military forces in Ukraine, after a request from Russian President Vladimir Putin seeking to normalize the “extraordinary situation in Ukraine.”

Turchynov stated on his party’s Twitter account that the nation “perceive(s) Russia's actions as direct aggression towards the sovereignty of Ukraine.”

feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/catholicnewsagency/dailynews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews/~4/wL1pFIuVAkQ

Full article…

 

[gilliam]

Latvia and Lithuania have invoked NATO article 4 in response to Crimea NATO now obliged to hold emergency council meeting. Only 4th time in history.

Latvia’s population is almost 30% Russian, rising to more than 40 per cent in the capital Riga. Lithuania’s Russian minority is around 6%.

Ukraine’s acting president has said that Russia has no justification for its aggression and has ordered the army to be put on “combat alert”. The prime minister of Ukraine has said that Russian forces must return to their bases in Crimea and any further military intervention by Moscow will result in war.

Two Russian warships have been spotted near Sevastopol, according to Reuters.

 

[Miserissima]

Latvia and Lithuania have invoked NATO article 4 in response to Crimea NATO now obliged to hold emergency council meeting. Only 4th time in history.

Latvia’s population is almost 30% Russian, rising to more than 40 per cent in the capital Riga. Lithuania’s Russian minority is around 6%.

Ukraine’s acting president has said that Russia has no justification for its aggression and has ordered the army to be put on “combat alert”. The prime minister of Ukraine has said that Russian forces must return to their bases in Crimea and any further military intervention by Moscow will result in war.

Lithuania and Latvia…interesting not Poland ( )

We are in the final hours.

 

[gilliam]

Meanwhile the UN Security Council is deadlocked on if the session will be open or closed

 

[gilliam]

Reuters: Ukraine has asked NATO to look at all ways to protect its territorial integrity. Foreign Minister Sergei Deshchiritsya said he had held talks with officials from the United States and the European Union and then asked NATO for help after what Ukraine’s prime minister described as Russian aggression. A request had been made to NATO to “look at using all possibilities for protecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, the Ukrainian people and nuclear facilities on Ukrainian territory,” he said.

Also, the UN Security Council finally decided on a public meeting. You can view it here: webtv.un.org/

 

[Vouthon]

From the Telegraph:

20.35 Details emerging from the UN Security Council meeting, held in New York and convened at the request of Britain.

Ukraine has asked the United States and other key members of the U.N. Security Council to help safeguard its territorial integrity after Russia announced plans to send armed forces into the country’s autonomous Crimea region.

**Yuriy Sergeyev, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, said:

We can stop the expansion of this aggression.
Now what we are doing is we are addressing for other guarantors (of Ukraine’s sovereignty) - the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and China - to perform their guarantees.
Still there is a possibility for world leaders to speak with (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin and prevent … the further deterioration of the situation**.

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10669670/Ukraine-live-Crimea-leader-appeals-to-Putin-to-help-as-Obama-warns-of-costs-to-Moscow.html

There is very little, most grievously, that the West can do to halt this incredibly blatant land-grabbing from a much smaller, weaker country after a pro-Western revolution. It is horrible to see this. Ukraine is incredibly vulnerable at the moment.

I don’t like the pattern emerging here though. If Putin gets away with it scot-free again, which I think he will, then nothing is stopping him from applying the same logic to countless other post-Soviet republics with significant Russian minorities.

He is now playing a dangerous game in Eastern Europe, trying to push back the EU and turn the clock back 20 years, to restore the ‘empire’ that Russia lost.

He looks on his way to doing it to, from where I’m at.

And what I do know is that there is no way China, which is in its own dispute with America, Japan and the Philippines over its own program of incremental expansionism in the East China Sea, is going to support pro-Western Ukranians. In fact I read an article just there from a few days ago about the most popular, government-controlled newspaper in China that is blaming the West for “re-igniting the Cold War”:

Reuters - China paper slams West’s “Cold War mentality” over Ukraine

(Reuters) - China’s top newspaper criticized the West on Thursday for remaining locked in a “Cold War mentality” against Russia in the contest for influence over Ukraine, calling for the shackles of such outmoded thinking to be cast off to deal with the crisis.

The commentary published in the People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, was the strongest reaction yet in Beijing to the rift between the West and Russia that has been growing since the ouster of Moscow’s ally Viktor Yanukovich as president following weeks of protests.

reuters.com/article/2014/02/27/us-ukraine-crisis-china-idUSBREA1Q06J20140227

This is when you really see how rubbish the structure of the UN system is, unreformed since Allied victory in WWII, with the victors of the last war still retaining veto power.