@Robert: “…I have not heard a single statement by Putin where he even remotely suggested that he plans to invade any country. I think instigating such fears does more harm than anything else…”
Putin says he reserves right to use force to protect ethnic Russians, wherever they live. This was the justification for Russia’s takeover of Crimea where Russians were in no danger from anyone.There is every reason to expect that Southeastern Ukraine is next. In Putin’s words
"After the revolution, the Bolsheviks, for a number of reasons – may God judge them – added large sections of the historical South of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine. This was done with no consideration for the ethnic make-up of the population, and today these areas form the southeast of Ukraine.
In view of this, the residents of Crimea and Sevastopol turned to Russia for help in defending their rights and lives, in preventing the events that were unfolding and are still underway in Kiev, Donetsk, Kharkov and other Ukrainian cities.
Naturally, we could not leave this plea unheeded; we could not abandon Crimea and its residents in distress. This would have been betrayal on our part."
This does sound eerily like Hitler in 1938 and 1939.
Fact is no Russians in Crimea was threatened, although Ukrainians, Tatars and journalists were threatened or beaten up by pro-Russian thugs. There are reports of Tatars kidnapped and murdered there.
There is no abuse of Russians in other Ukrainian cities, but pro-Kiev demonstrators were beaten up in Donetsk. We know that at least one of the people who replaced a Ukrainian flag with a Russian one on a government building in Donetsk is Russian. The picture of him hoisting the flag is on his Facebook page. The border is open and it is not difficult for Russia to destabilize the situation.
Putin said on March 17 that he had no designs on the rest of the Ukraine, but he said on March 4 that Russia had no interest in annexing Crimea. So why believe him?
Jay, have you some information on the situation to provide besides opinion about the role of oil in wars, that no person who supports democracy could support the government in Kiev, or that outsiders were financing the Maidan?
Re Russians in the Baltics. The mayor of Riga is a Russian. There are schools in Russian. No doubt the language rights of the Russian minority could by better, but we have a similar situation in Quebec where a perceived threat to the dominant language is used to justified limiting the language rights of the minority. But are Russians from the Baltics fleeing to Russia? I searched for info but could not find any.
On the other hand there are tens of thousands of Baltic Russians in the UK and Ireland. There may be more Russians in the UK than in Estonia. Once a country reserves the right to protect its ethnic brothers and sisters elsewhere by whatever means it wants, we have a real threat to the world order.
What if Austrian troops went into Alto Adige (South Tyrol) in Austrian uniforms and military equipment, but without insignia, and created a sense of panic that Italians were abusing them, and forced through a referendum at gunpoint. How would that be received in Europe?
Or what if Hitler, instead of hoodwinking Chamberlain and Daladier on the Sudetenland, had simply sent in special forces soldiers and pulled a Crimean referendum there. Would that have been right? After all they were ethnic Germans who probably wanted to join Germany.
Robert, you seem to feel that everyone thought Yanukovich was a great guy till he turned down the EU. This isn’t so. People were well aware that he was trying to create a Putin like media atmosphere in Ukraine. I just googled “Yanukovich cracks down on media” and got more than a million pages. Here is the first one
I am sure that people in Austria were aware of his crack down on opposition leaders and jailing of Yulia Timoshenko on dubious grounds.
He was known as authoritarian with a criminal record. He was, however, fairly elected.
As for Latvia, you would have to look up their language laws. They have a language requirement for citizens. If you pass the language law you acquire citizenship. There is a Russian language school system. Russians like to holiday there. I think most Russian Latvians under 50 years of age have taken up citizenship… Certainly there are unfair language laws, since ethnic Latvians who return to the country can acquire citizenship without knowing the language.
But is it for Russia to police this with arms, as they threaten? Should Canada send the army into Quebec to force them to make English an official language there? Surely these kinds of things should be discussed in international forums.
BTW there are 2 million Ukrainians in Russia. I wonder if they have schools in their language.
Further re the meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers at The Hague, apparently Lavrov said that Russia would not expand militarily in to Ukraine. Let’s hope for the best. Let’s see what Russia does with the military assets like the submarine and naval vessel they seized in the Crimea. Let’s watch what happens to freedom of expression in Russia over the next little while.
@Steve: “…Jay, have you some information on the situation to provide besides opinion about the role of oil in wars…”
What I said was that those folks who have lots of oil under their territories usually have to accept different political rules. I said nothing about war - that is something that you are inserting here.
There is for sure plenty of bellicose rhetoric flying around (mostly, it must be said, from Western leaders.) But there is no war, in actual fact.
Jay, Putin seized the territory of another country. That no one was shot is only because of the restraint of the Ukrainian military there. You suggested that that Western leaders reacted so strongly because of oil. People often like to search for hidden agendas when the not so hidden agenda is quite obvious. The concern by Western leaders is not because of oil, but because of the geopolitical instability implied in a foreign policy doctrine whereby a country can arbitrarily decide that their ethnic brothers and sisters somewhere are in danger and then use whatever means they want to “protect” them.
Robert, if Yanukovich had not signed the EU agreement and had remained in power, the West would have continued to deal with him. I don’t understand your point. The point is that he is not in power, not even Putin considers him the President of Ukraine. I doubt if Putin conferred with him over the Crimea takeover.
Re Latvia, what terrible treatment are you talking about? Is it that some Latvian residents are considered non-citizens because they have not passed the citizenship exam and language test. How does that affect their everyday lives. What exactly is so terrible? Could you be more specific? We now have language laws in Canada and to get a Canadian passport you need to pass a proficiency test in one of the official languages. If you don’t you are not a citizen of Canada. You kekep your original citizenship.
In Latvia the problem is that the USSR no longer exists so non-citizens have no passport. So the Latvians issue a 'non-citizen" passport. Here is what Wikipedia says on this.
Non-citizens (Latvian: nepilsoņi) in Latvian law are individuals who are not citizens of Latvia or any other country but, who, in accordance with the Latvian law “Regarding the status of citizens of the former USSR who possess neither Latvian nor other citizenship”, have the right to a non-citizen passport issued by the Latvian government as well as other specific rights. Generally speaking, they have the same rights as the Latvian citizens except usual passport entitlement and to vote or to hold any public office, similar to U.S. nationals which are not U.S. citizens and are mostly from American Samoa. These are “citizens of the former USSR (…) who reside in the Republic of Latvia as well as who are in temporary absence and their children who simultaneously comply with the following conditions: 1) on 1 July 1992 they were registered in the territory of Latvia regardless of the status of the living space indicated in the registration of residence, or up to 1 July 1992 their last registered place of residence was in the Republic of Latvia, or it has been determined by a court judgment that they have resided in the territory of Latvia for 10 consecutive years until the referred to date; 2) they are not citizens of Latvia; and 3) they are not and have not been citizens of another state.”[1]
Children born after Latvia reestablished independence (August 21, 1991) to parents who are both non-citizens are entitled to citizenship upon request of at least one of the parents.
While the issue of non-citizens is often equated to the problem of statelessness,[2][3][4][5] other sources consider that the status of non-citizen in both Latvia and Estonia is unique and has not existed previously in international law.[6]
If I were the Latvian, or Estonian, or Ukrainian government, I would make Russian an official language. If I were a Quebecker I would want English as an official language. But I am not the government in any of these places. Unfair, perhaps, but there are historical reasons in each case. But it does not really affect people’s daily lives that much.
@Steve: “…Putin seized the territory of another country. That no one was shot is only because of the restraint of the Ukrainian military there…”
I think the discussion is becoming a little circular. I have already said that I don’t endorse the exact methods used by Putin. Certainly he should have sought to achieve his aims through diplomacy and agreement. At the same time I’m afraid I just can’t join in with the indignant huffing and puffing about “international law”, etc. The territory in question used to be part of Russia, it was undemocratically removed from Russia during the Soviet era, most of the settled population living there want to be part of Russia.
So it has now been seized back by Russia. Well boo-hoo.
As for the restraint of the Ukrainian military, well yes. But professional soldiers (as opposed to street hoodlums with petrol bombs) are disciplined and restrained and they obey orders. Their commanders were never going to order them to start a shooting war that they couldn’t win.
“People often like to search for hidden agendas when the not so hidden agenda is quite obvious . . .”
". . . instability implied in a foreign policy doctrine whereby a country can arbitrarily decide that their ethnic brothers and sisters somewhere are in danger and then use whatever means they want to “protect” them. "
If this rhetoric were theoretically to be used as propaganda… frankly it would sound a lot like a cover-up to a hidden agenda.
Jay, lots of international borders were arbitrarily drawn up, rarely decided “democratically” as you put it.
Just so I understand your point of view;
Russia has taken advantage of the weakness of a neighbouring country in turmoil, to grab a piece of territory (where three fairly recent opinion polls showed lukewarm support for joining Russia) and produced 97% in favour, after a referendum where the dates and question were shuffled at will, and where pressure was applied in the form of a one sided shrill propaganda barrage and intimidation, and you think that is no big deal.
The Ukrainian military bases and naval vessels were stormed by force. The Ukrainian army had orders to avoid giving Russia an excuse to escalate the conflict. This remains aggression. But to you that is OK.
I’ve heard that the Ukrainians in Crimea wanted to become part of Russia again. The people voted for it and that’s what I think is called" Democracy". It maybe my opinion.
Ozzy, you heard wrong. It may be that a majority want to join Russia, although that was not the case a year or two ago. However, a fair referendum free of pressure was not held there, so we don’t really know.
BTW, I believe it would be illegal in Russia to propose a referendum or even to express views favouring secession. I presume that would include any resident of Crimea, including Tatars, if they should express any dissatisfaction with the new status of Crimea.
@Steve: “…Jay, lots of international borders were arbitrarily drawn up, rarely decided “democratically” as you put it…”
In 1954 the folks living in the Crimea (most of them Russians) were just told that they were now in the Ukraine. At the time it was no very big deal because it was just changing the internal borders of the Soviet Union. Then, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, they found themselves in a new country. It was done at a time of national weakness and turmoil in Russia. Nobody asked them what they thought about it.
And for you that’s okay?
Yes, I can see this from the Russian point of view. But I’ll say again (for a third time) I don’t endorse the exact methods which Putin used.
@Robert: “…Just one last thought: A pro-Russian government was toppled, the new clearly less Russian friendly (some would say anti-Russian) government was immediately and, as it seems, without any restrictions whatsoever recognized and supported by the EU and the US…”
Good point. And I think we might also note that an agreement with the EU was rushed through with the interim government, rather than waiting to deal with a new Ukrainian government with a proper nationwide mandate.
Russia has blackmailed and put pressure on Ukraine using gas prices and other methods. So the western powers could’ve waited this to continue. Now IMF has promised billions of support to Ukraine.
To me this talk about an anti-Russian or fascist government seems very inaccurate. Was the revolution a complete overthrow of the political system? Or was it more like the previous president and his friends leaving (who seemed pretty corrupt).
There hasn’t been talk about the weird sniper thing (who apparently killed opposition and police) that happened right before the previous president left. Who was behind that? If I remember right, in Russian media it has been presented as Western-backed opposition.
Here are a couple of parts from an article about the new government that I (amateur) translated from an article in Finnish in the magazine Suomen kuvalehti Heitä Venäjä kutsuu fasisteiksi – Katso millainen on Ukrainan hallitus - Suomenkuvalehti.fi
"According to Russia, Ukrainian revolution raised to power a far-right fascist government. In reality, most of the 20 ministers can be considered moderate.
In the 90s, there were references to national-socialism anti-Semitism in the programme of Svoboda, but later those were erased. Nowadays the party can be compared to France’s Front National and Hungary’s Jobbik."
TV stations have a lot of power in Eastern Europe were Internet access is not yet as common as in Europe. I don’t know what kind of stuff the previous TV boss published, but if it was stuff of bad quality, the reaction of certain Ukrainians can be considered understandable although not acceptable (Is it understandable or acceptable for me to say this?). But I don’t know much about this. Something like could have been reached with non-violence.
Robert, with Russian troops massing on the borders of Ukraine, I sure hope you are right.
As someone who has been following Russian media almost daily since Russia’s August 2008 invasion of Georgia, and has been following the increasing anti-Western propaganda venom, repression of media freedom, historical revisionism etc, I am worried.
I remember now that in 2009 the Russian Defense Ministry published a paper that said
“Everyone who has studied the history of World War II without bias knows that the war began because of Poland’s refusal to satisfy Germany’s claims,” he writes.
Not the official view of the Russian government, perhaps, but published on the defense dept website. This not only exonerates the Soviet Union from guilt for invading Poland together with Hitler in 1939, but it justifies invading countries where your ethnic brothers and sisters live.
Re videos of pro-Russian people being mobbed by pro-Kiev people can you send me some links, I have been looking for some evidence.
BTW apparently the UN has declared Lativia’s language laws discriminatory and asks that country to fix them. That is how these issues need to be dealt with.
As Obama has acknowledged, the Russian troops have every right to be positioned inside their border.
Who knows, maybe their presence there acts as a useful deterrent to folks in the East of the Ukraine who would otherwise be tempted to (how shall we say?) vent their frustration on the Russian speakers living there?
As I have yet to see any evidence of such anti-Russian behaviour, I doubt that.
On the other hand, the optimistic scenario is that Russian sabre rattling is merely to keep the Ukrainians under pressure.
They have other means of destabilizing Ukraine in a lead up to the May election. They can distribute Russian passports, as they have done in the past elsewhere, but the demand, even in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, will not be as strong as in South Ossetia or Transnistria.
They can encourage and arm “volunteers” to work with anti-Kiev irregulars that might spring up in the East and South, (Bay of Pigs approach) or they can provoke incidents to justify intervention.
Or they may do none of the above, and the threat of intervention will be enough to influence the election in a way that suits their interests.