Kerry Gives Russia An Ultimatum On Ukraine - And Forgets Something

US Secretary of State John Kerry delivered an ultimatum to Russia today, warning of 'serious repercussions if Russia doesn't reverse course by Monday.'

What he wants, apparently, is for a referendum scheduled in Crimea for this Sunday over whether to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation to be canceled.

Secretary Kerry is meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Serge Lavrov in London tomorrow to discuss things further, or to be non-diplomatic about it to tell Lavrov what the U.S. and EU plan to do if the Russians don't comply.

As Kerry put it, “There will be a response of some kind to the referendum itself,” Kerry said. “If there is no sign [from Russia] of any capacity to respond to this issue ... there will be a very serious series of steps on Monday.”

While what Kerry means is remains to be seen, a few things here are a given.There's no doubt that Russia wants the Crimea back, if for no other reason than to continue to control its warm water naval base at Sebastopol. They are also obviously stage managing the referendum, although since over 60% of the Crimea's population is ethnic Russian, it's questionable whether they even need to.

It's also true that back in 1994, Bill Clinton, John Major, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma – the then-leaders of the USA, UK, Russia and Ukraine - signed a treaty, The Budapest Memorandum, that guaranteed Ukraine's borders in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal.

So on the face of it, it certainly does seem like Russia is totally in the wrong - and then, I remembered something that occurred after The Budapest Memorandum that almost certainly changed things in Russia's eyes.

Let's go back a few years...remember Kosovo?

For those of you who have forgotten, this was a mixed Muslim and Serb Orthodox enclave that became part of Serbia when Yugoslavia imploded, and was later the scene of heavy fighting between Serbia and the Saudi,Libyan and Iranian funded and armed Kosovar Liberation Army(KLA). The fighting stopped in 1999, due to heavy intervention on America's part that occurred, just by coincidence, right in the middle of President Clinton's problems with perjury and obstruction of justice. As part of the agreement that ended the fighting, Kosovo's sovereignty was likewise guaranteed in international law, UN Security Council Resolution 1244, passed in June of 1999.

That UNSC resolution stated explicitly that Kosovo would remain part of Serbia under any circumstances while allowing Kosovo a large degree of internal autonomy. It also stated that there would never be any kind of unilateral settlement enforced on the Serbs without their agreement.

Meanwhile, the ethnic cleansing of Christian Serbs in Kosovo by the Muslim KLA continued without the NATO peacekeepers doing much to stop it. And in February of 2008, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in defiance of UNSC Resolution 1244. Both the EU and the U.S. recognized Kosovo within one day.

The Russians and Serbs were absolutely livid at America and the EU not only breaking the agreement that ended the fighting in Kosovo, but the blatant disregard for international law. As the Russians pointed out at the time, this set a horrible precedent, and they called on the UN to enforce UNSC Resolution 1244 and the 1999 treaty they had signed. They were ignored.

This cost America a huge of amount of credibility and political capital with the Russians, and affected their willingness to cooperate with us on issues like Iran. And it turned Serbia, historically an ally of the U.S. into a relatively hostile country.

When Vladimir Putin hears John Kerry talk about the sacredness of international law, Putin undoubtedly remembers what happened with Kosovo when the shoe was on the other foot.

While I don't particularly care for Putin's stage managed referendum in Crimea.I like even less what we did in Kosovo just to pander to the Saudis and GCC countries and distract from the fallout over the games Mr.Bill was up to in the Oval Office. We didn't even bother to hold a referendum in Kosovo...we just allowed the Kosovars and the KSA to ethnically cleanse the Serbs, recognized them as a country and that was that.

Anyone whom thinks that wasn't what Kosovo was about ought to take a good look at who financed most of the Clinton presidential library and examine how ex-President Clinton became a multimillionaire after he left office due to his business connections with the Emir of Dubai.

The whole idea of 'international law' tends to be fairly flexible, depending on what and who is involved and the willingness to enforce it, especially when it comes to the UN. After all, one of the foundations of any law is that it applies equally to everyone. The Israelis, who have consistently been the recipients of that kind of blatant bias could tell you quite a bit about that.

I realize that bringing this up is unpopular just now. But if we're going to talk to the Russians about breaking treaties and international law, it might be better to acknowledge, at least to ourselves that our own hands aren't exactly clean and that instead of ultimatums, some honest horsetrading might yield a better result.

UPDATE: Apparently the ultimatum tactics didn't work so well. Especially not coming from Kerry via the likes of Barack Obama.

A Must Read From An Elder Statesman - Common Sense On Ukraine

 

Ah, Dr. Kissinger! 90 years old and still razor sharp. Here's some common sense on Ukraine from a master statesman in a must read piece. The contrast between him and the buffoons currently running DC is mind boggling. Here's a slice:

Public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation. But do we know where we are going? In my life, I have seen four wars begun with great enthusiasm and public support, all of which we did not know how to end and from three of which we withdrew unilaterally. The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins.

Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them.

Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia’s borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States.

The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709 , were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet — Russia’s means of projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia.

The European Union must recognize that its bureaucratic dilatoriness and subordination of the strategic element to domestic politics in negotiating Ukraine’s relationship to Europe contributed to turning a negotiation into a crisis. Foreign policy is the art of establishing priorities.

The Ukrainians are the decisive element. They live in a country with a complex history and a polyglot composition. The Western part was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939 , when Stalin and Hitler divided up the spoils. Crimea, 60 percent of whose population is Russian , became part of Ukraine only in 1954 , when Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian by birth, awarded it as part of the 300th-year celebration of a Russian agreement with the Cossacks. The west is largely Catholic; the east largely Russian Orthodox. The west speaks Ukrainian; the east speaks mostly Russian. Any attempt by one wing of Ukraine to dominate the other — as has been the pattern — would lead eventually to civil war or break up. To treat Ukraine as part of an East-West confrontation would scuttle for decades any prospect to bring Russia and the West — especially Russia and Europe — into a cooperative international system.

Ukraine has been independent for only 23 years; it had previously been under some kind of foreign rule since the 14th century. Not surprisingly, its leaders have not learned the art of compromise, even less of historical perspective. The politics of post-independence Ukraine clearly demonstrates that the root of the problem lies in efforts by Ukrainian politicians to impose their will on recalcitrant parts of the country, first by one faction, then by the other. That is the essence of the conflict between Viktor Yanu­kovych and his principal political rival, Yulia Tymo­shenko. They represent the two wings of Ukraine and have not been willing to share power. A wise U.S. policy toward Ukraine would seek a way for the two parts of the country to cooperate with each other. We should seek reconciliation, not the domination of a faction.

Read the rest here.

The Ukraine Folk Dance And What It Really Means

 

The Ukraine exploded this weekend, as Vladimir Putin got backing from the Russian Duma (parliament) to send the troops into Crimea. Russian forces seized the strategic peninsula over the weekend, surrounded a few small Ukrainian military outposts and demanded the Ukrainian troops inside surrender and disarm.

Meanwhile, the Crimea now has its own, pro-Russian government and the new Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, mobilized the Ukrainian military and said that that Kiev would request international intervention if the Russian military didn't withdraw.

"This is actually a declaration of war to my country. We urge Putin to pull back his troops from this country and honor bilateral agreements," he said. "If he wants to be the president who started the war between two neighboring and friendly countries, he has reached his target within a few inches."

Except Ukraine will have to do without its 10 ship navy in any hostilities. Just a day after he had been appointed head of the Ukraine's navy by interim president Oleksandr Turchynov, Admiral Denis Berezovsky let it be known he was switching sides to the pro-Russian authorities.

"I swear to execute the orders of the [pro-Russia] commander-in-chief of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea," he said, speaking from the Crimean headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at the Crimean port of Sebastopol.

In any event, it's obvious that what passes for the Ukraine's army is no match for the Russians in any stand up fight if it comes to that. So Turchynov is pretty much limited to hoping for international intervention, especially since Putin is also likely to go after the Eastern Ukraine as well, which is also predominantly native Russian.

President Obama, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the EU were apparently caught completely off guard by the events in Ukraine. Even the obvious Russian military buildup and the implications of the Russians saying openly that there was ' no basis for dialog' with the Ukraine rebels seems to have escaped them.  President Obama skipped out on a scheduled National Security meeting with his team to attend a film festival, but attempted to play catchup with a phone call  to Russian leader Vladimir Putin after the military incursion, while Secretary Kerry was reduced to threats of 'maybe throwing Russia out of the G-8'. As for the EU, Lady Ashton, its foreign policy chief commented, “This is an unwarranted escalation of tensions. I therefore call upon the Russian Federation not to dispatch such troops, but to promote its views through peaceful means.”

I swear, I could almost hear the Russians laughing at these people from here.No wonder the Kremlin spokesperson replied 'no comment at this time' to bold statements like that!

 

Oddly enough, there  was a certain former vice-presidential candidate who saw things clearly as far back as 2008:



Yes she was certainly mocked for that one,wasn't she? 'Ooh,I can see Russia from my howwwse' said SNL's Tina Fey, creating campaign fodder out of something Governor Palin never said but that was linked to her endlessly. Except the joke was on the country, because not only was Governor Palin the only person on either ticket with any executive experience, she was also the only one of the four with any experience actually negotiating anything with a foreign country. As usual, she was right about Russia as well as pretty much everything else, including President Obama and his behavior.

So where do we go from here?

Those of you whom read my earlier piece on  Russia and Ukraine will recall that there is a centuries old historical dynamic going on here, most of it bad. And the Ukrainian government is not exactly composed solely of democracy loving freedom fighters.There's a distinct fascist element among them that's a long tradition in the Ukraine, especially when it comes to Jews.  Russia's point of view is that they see themselves as protecting native Russian nationals as well as that important Black Sea naval base at Sebastopol. The Crimea, after all, is over 60% native Russian and was actually part of Russia for centuries until less than 60 years ago,when Nikita Khrushchev attached it administratively to Ukraine.

Putin's calculations here are absurdly simple. He sees the U.S. dismantling its military to historically low levels, and he knows that President Obama is weak and indecisive. He knows that the EU is not only militarily weak but dependent on Russia's gas lines during the European winter, and that the EU is also happy to launder money and do other business with the Russian elites.So he knows there's no real danger of either military intervention or real economic consequences by the West

In need of a political distraction on the home front anyway, he once again can be seen by many Russians as a leader standing up for Russia's national interests and defending the Russian people. By taking over Crimea, he salvages full control of Russia's vitally important warm water naval base at Sebastopol and essentially controls the sea traffic in the Black Sea area.And finally, he unloads a financial basket case in need of billions in aid on the EU and the U.S. and saves himself the remaining $12 billion in aid Russia had promised Ukraine...which will remain as a weak, rump nation on his borders in fear of being overrun at any time, just like Georgia.

As they say in those cute ads, it's a no-brainer.

Another advantage for Putin and Russia is one that was handed to him on a platter by President Obama. The entire relationship between Russia and our president has been one of weakness and flexibility, including the ridiculous START treaty, giving Russia access to our most secret technology and President Obama's conduct towards Poland and the Czech Republic. Our allies noticed this and as a consequence, none of them really trust the president and that especially applies to countries that were former members of the old Soviet Evil Empire. Putin ignoring the EU and the president just underlines that message, and what Putin is telling them by his actions in no uncertain terms is that the Americans are retreating, the Western Europeans never cared that much about you anyway and you had better mend fences with Russia and make a deal while you still can.

That, really is the sole national security importance of the Ukraine to America.

Of course, the Ukraine is not a country vital to our national security like Libya..it's not even Muslim, and there are few Islamists for President Obama to protect there, so using our military is pretty much a non-starter (sarcasm off). But sending a clear message to our Eastern European allies that we're abandoning them is a very huge deal.

Rather than diplomatic threats that mean nothing, a different president than the one we have might make significant progress in thwarting this by taking steps to reassure our remaining allies in Eastern Europe that we actually mean to keep the commitments we made to their freedom after the Soviet Union fell. Placing missile defense bases in some of these countries and even token boots on the ground would go a long way towards that, although none of them are likely to agree to take the risk as long as Barack Hussein Obama is president and commander-in-chief.One can hardly blame them. At any rate, unlike Ukraine, the rest of the old Soviet Empire with the exception of Belarus, Romania and Moldova are all members of NATO and could invoke that treaty if Putin decided to move further west, which I doubt.

There are also certain economic steps the president could take. The key one, since the world's banking system still flows through New York would be to ban banks doing business with Russian banks from doing business with American banks. President Bush used that quite effectively to dry up funding for al-Qaeda after 9/11, one of the few things he did that was actually effective. Taking this step would be a major hit for Russia since oil trades are still delineated in US dollars, but since President Obama lacked the stones to do this to Iran, he will almost certainly not pull the trigger on this one when it comes to Russia.

Putin will almost certainly succeed in partitioning Ukraine to his liking, and the current 'crisis' will remain as just one more example of President Obama and his team's serial ineptness when it comes to foreign policy. Oh, wait, he got bin-Laden! Yes, he sure did.

Putin Orders Military Readiness As Crimea Puts Russian Leader In Power

 

Russian leader Vladimir Putin has ordered military readiness exercises and a state of alert in the Russian strategic base of Sebastopol in the Crimea and along the Ukraine's borders:

Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said Moscow was "carefully watching what is happening in Crimea" and that measures were being taken to ensure the security of the facilities and arsenals of its Black Sea naval fleet, which is based in the fiercely pro-Russian Crimean city of Sebastopol.

The autonomous eastern peninsula, which is home to a largely ethnic Russian population, is at the centre of tensions over the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Moscow, by pro-European protesters at the weekend.

"In accordance with an order from the president of the Russian Federation, forces of the Western Military District were put on alert at 1400 (1000 GMT) today," Interfax quoted Mr Shoigu as saying.

At the same time, Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement today that 'extremists' were "imposing their will" on Ukraine and fomenting tension and unrest.

In the Crimea itself, where the population is 60% ethnic Russian, the local assembly in the Crimean capital of Simferopol is debating holding a referendum to decide whether the Crimea will remain part of Ukraine or return to Russia, which had control of the Crimea until Nikita Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine administratively within the old Soviet Union back in the 1960's. Numerous clashes between pro-Russian demonstrators and non-Russians, mainly Crimean Tatars who want to remain part of Ukraine are being reported.



And in Sebastopol itself, ethnic Russians have kicked out the city administrator and installed their own mayor, who promptly announced the formation of paramilitary 'self-defense' units to defend the Crimea against the "fascists" in Kiev.

Yesterday, the country's interim president, Oleksander Turchynov called the new Ukrainian parliament to discus "the question of not allowing any signs of separatism and threats to Ukraine's territorial integrity and punishing people guilty of this," according to an official statement while Russia caled on the EU's Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to condemn the rise of "nationalist and neo-fascist sentiment" in western Ukraine and 'anti-Russian' activity.
In reality of course, the Ukrainian parliament has no power to enforce anything and would probably be much better off concentrating on forming a government. Any moves to bring the ethnic Russian population to heel as part of Ukraine would provide the Russians with just the excuse they need to send the tanks in.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov continues to say Russia will not intervene militarily in Ukraine, but if the Crimea breaks away with Russian assistance , then he can say that technically, he kept his word. The same is true of eastern sections of the Ukraine where there are also a great many ethnic Russians whom retain their loyalty to Russia. Russia retaking the Crimea would essentially give them control of Ukraine's sea coast on the Black Sea and effective control of the country.

Stay tuned...

Ukraine - What's Putin Up To?

 

While the Russian military buildup on the Ukraine's borders and in the Crimea remains in place, the Russians have opened up a new strategy.

This morning, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia has no plans to intervene militarily in the Ukraine:

 

Moscow pledged Tuesday it would not intervene in the crisis in neighbouring Ukraine but said the country should not be forced to choose between Russia and the West.

“We confirmed our principled position of non-intervention in Ukraine’s internal affairs and expect that everyone follows similar logic,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“We are interested in Ukraine being part of the European family, in all senses of the word,” he said after talks with Luxembourg counterpart Jean Asselborn.

But he added: “We agree that… it is dangerous and counterproductive to force Ukraine into a choice — either you are with us or against us.”

This is likely a response to President Obama moving decisively for once and sending a high level State Department official into the region, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns:

In Kiev, he will consult with key Ukrainian leaders, the business community, and civil society on U.S. support for Ukraine’s efforts to secure a stable, democratic, inclusive, prosperous future. He will also honor the memory of the victims of the tragic events of last week. He will meet with a range of political, business, and civil society representatives, including Acting President Turchynov, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, and will urge the new government to take all steps necessary for free and fair presidential elections in May. He will urge the rapid formation of a national unity government that represents the wide array of stakeholders in Ukraine’s domestic political discourse, and encourage immediate steps to undertake the critical reforms necessary to restore Ukraine’s political and economic health. The Deputy Secretary will be accompanied by representatives of the Department of the Treasury and the National Economic Council, who will work in concert with partners such as the EU and the IMF to discuss needed financial support while a new government implements the difficult steps necessary to reform the economy. The Deputy Secretary will encourage all Ukrainians to continue their efforts to write a new chapter in their history that leads to a Ukraine that is democratic, sovereign, prosperous, and free to choose its own future.

So the Russians are foregoing their usual response to this kind of thing - for now.

Ah, but what the Russians want in exchange is a return to the status quo - meaning the old pro-Russian parliament, although not necessarily deposed president Victor Yanukovich,who has now had a murder warrant issued for his arrest by the new government.

And as Lavrov and Putin know quite well, it was Yanukovich who brought the entire crisis on by refusing to ratify the agreement between the EU and Ukraine on Moscow's orders. He now has zero chance to be restored to power, so they're wisely dumping him.

The Russians are also insisting that the new government 'reinstate law and order and bring about national reconciliation'. Which means what, exactly? 'National reconciliation ' is an interesting phrase when Russian tanks and troops are sitting in the Crimea and on the Ukrainian border. Inthat context, 'national reconciliation' obviously means 'the Ukraine remembering who's really calling the shots here.'

At present of course, there is no new Ukrainian government.The Ukrainian parliament has delayed the formation of a new government for another few days, even though both the EU and US have insisted that badly needed financial aid is on hold until a government is formed.

Interim President Turchynov is apparently having a rough time getting all the various factions to cooperate..and they have a very slender window of time to get their differences and agendas ironed out.

Aside from the impending financial crisis, it isn't beyond Russia's capability to foment some kind of incident where some Ukrainians whom are native Russians are killed by Ukrainian 'terrorists', thus giving Russia the excuse to move the troops in 'to protect Russians and restore law and order'. That would be particularly convenient and easy in the Crimea, where the population is 60% native Russian, and Russia already has the troops and tanks in place to move in at their base in Sebastopol.

Lavrov has already made threats to the Ukraine about 'anti-Russian activities.'

Failing that, Russia can wait and do their best to subvert the coming May elections in their favor, something they did once before. Or they can simply issue passports to the native Russian inhabitants and then use 'protecting Russian nationals' as their excuse, as they did in Abkhazia.

The best bet for a Ukraine not under Russia's thumb is for Turchynov and his friends to get their act together quickly, form a stable temporary government, get the West invested with aid money and hope for the best.

Stay tuned...

Russia Says 'No Basis For Dialogue' Is Now Moving Troops To The Ukraine Border

As I reported earlier, on Sunday, President Obama's NSC Susan Rice came out with some forceful language warning Russia, about sending its military into the Ukraine, saying, “That would be a grave mistake.”

Today, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev responded, both to Rice and to interim Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov's statement about being ready for dialogue with Russia. And here's the full quote, a bit different from what Reuter's reported.

“Today I see no legitimate Ukrainian partners for a dialogue. If people crossing Kiev in black masks and Kalashnikov rifles are considered a government, it will be difficult for us to work with such a government." Medvedev said, as he referred to the new Ukrainian government as “the result of a mutiny.”
and a “real threat to our interests, and to our citizens’ lives and health.”

And unlike Ms. Rice, Russia is backing up its words with action on the ground.

According to my sources, there has been a substantial Russian military buildup on the Ukraine's borders. The ending of the Winter Olympics in Sochi allowed the transfer of units of the Russian forces that were guarding the games. They were flown today to Russian bases at the Ukrainian Crimean port of Sevastopol, where Russia leases a naval base. Russian Air Force transports and special forces are being consolidated at a base located at the Rostov, close to the southeastern Ukrainian town of Donetsk.

A Russian military build up was also seen near Belgorod, just a few miles from the Ukraine border and just to the north of the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. Both areas are have a majority of ethnic Russians in their population and are Russian speaking.

 

The Crimea and the strategic port of Sevastopol were part of the Russian empire from the 18th century until 1954 when Nikita Khrushchev, an ethnic Ukrainian, transferred it to Ukrainian control.
When The Soviet Empire collapsed, the Ukraine kept the Crimea. Russia now leases Sevastopol as a deep-water port for the Russian Black Sea Fleet, but ethnic Russians imported to the area originally a colonists by the Soviets now make up almost 60 per cent of the population.

Russian President Putin, as I explained before, sees this very much as a Russian security issue and definitely in Cold War terms. And his past experience with the Obama Administration's weakness and amateurish behavior has apparently assured him that he will face no real cost for using the Russian military in the Ukraine to bring it back under Russia's control.

At the very least, I expect the Russians to take back the Crimea, which would allow them both to keep their naval base and to essentially make whatever's left of the Crimea landlocked and dependent on Russia's good will.He may also use the Russian military to set up a puppet government in the eastern Ukraine under ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych,(another South Ossetia situation similar to what happened in Georgia) and might even go as far as to occupy the entire Ukraine 'to restore order on Russia's borders.

Absent a serious deterrent stance by the US and the EU, there's no real reason for him not to.

Stay tuned...

The Latest On The Ukraine...

The pro-Western forces in the Ukraine are solidifying their hold on the country, at least so far.

The Ukraine's new opposition-led parliament appointed a pro-Western interim leader, Oleksandr Turchynov, the former Speaker as interim president, with the job of forming a new government to rule the country until May 25, when new elections are to be held. The new government also fired the Ukraine's Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara, the federal police chief and prosecutor general, and they appear to be in control of most of the country 's basic services, especially in Kiev.

Deposed pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych is still raving about this as a 'coup' but his authority was dealt another blow when his own Regions Party condemned him for issuing "criminal orders" that led to the deaths of 100 protesters.

The country has also taken steps to seek the vital economic aid it needs from the EU and US and appears to be meeting with some success so far.

US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told a G20 meeting in Sydney, Australia that America now "stands ready to assist Ukraine as it implements reforms". At the same time EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will fly to Kiev on Monday for a two-day visit that her office said will aim to work out "measures to stabilise the economic situation" in the Ukraine.

As far as Russia goes, Turchynov said that the country’s new leadership was ready for dialogue with Russia but relations had to be on a “new, equal and good-neighborly footing that takes into account Ukraine’s European choice.”

The US and EU also backed up the new government with some fairly blunt and surprising language.

Today on NBC’s “Meet the Press",President Obama’s National Security Adviser, Susan Rice warned Russia about sending its military into the Ukraine, saying, “That would be a grave mistake.”

“It’s not in the interests of the Ukraine or of Russia or of Europe or of the United States to see the country split. It’s in nobody’s interest to see violence return and the situation escalate.”

Asked whether Russian President Vladimir Putin might see the volatility in Ukraine in a Cold War context–in which East and West battle for influence–Ms. Rice said: “He may, but if he does, that’s a pretty dated perspective that doesn’t reflect where the people of Ukraine are coming from.

“This is not about the U.S. and Russia. This is about whether the people of Ukraine have the opportunity to fulfill their aspirations and be democratic and be part of Europe, which they choose to be.”

Sorry Ms. Rice, but that is exactly how Putin sees it.

Meanwhile British foreign Secretary William Hague was far less aggressive in his language, but at least
tried to sound bold, saying that "any external duress on Ukraine any more than we've seen in recent weeks... it really would not be in the interests of Russia to do any such thing."

Of course, when he was asked what Britain might do if Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine, he waffled and said: "We don't know, of course, what Russia's next reaction will be."

How much steel there is behind this language from America and the EU and what might have been said behind the scenes to Putin, we have no way of knowing.

The remarks Rice made about a split in the Ukraine are interesting. Apparently she and I were thinking along the same lines, with Russia putting together a breakaway zone in the Eastern Ukraine under Yanukovych the way Russia did with South Ossetia and subverting the new government from there. It's certainly a possible scenario, and there are a number of Russian backed militias like Oplot, (“Stronghold”) in places like Kharkiv and Donetsk who back Yanukovych to make it a real possibility, especially with Russian arms and assistance.

Stay tuned...

Revolution! Rebels Take Over in Ukraine

In the course of 24 hours, the Ukraine's destiny has been totally altered.

The deal between the anti-government rebels and the pro-Russian government of President Viktor Yanukovych collapsed, and matters came to a head today.

President Yanukovych has been formally impeached by the Ukraine's parliament and ousted, most of his support has either melted away or defected to the rebels and his flight was blocked when he tried to leave the country. He compared his opponents to the Nazis and accused them of mounting a coup,says he considers the current parliament illegitimate and won't respect its rulings.

"Everything that is happening today is, to a greater degree, vandalism and banditry and a coup d'etat," he said. "I will do everything to protect my country from breakup, to stop bloodshed."

Yanukovych has apparently encamped with what's left of his followers in the eastern part of the Ukraine, where a number of ethnic Russians live and he has more support.According to my sources, he said to be in Kharkhiv, close to the Russian border.

In an iconic moment, the rebels took over Yanukoych's palatial mansion an hour's drive outside Kiev:



It is, as they say, no slum. It includes a private restaurant, a golf course, a garage chock full of boats and luxury cars, and 346 acres ( 140 hectares) of park-like grounds. This in a country where the average monthly wage is around $1,000 per month. People walked through the mansion and the grounds and took shots on Yanukovych's private golf course as rebel soldiers and police collected documents, including the charred fragments of a number of papers that someone apparently tried to burn in a hurry.

The rebels freed former PM Yulia Tymoshenko (pictured above) from prison, where she had languished since in 2011. She addressed an ecstatic crowd of 50,000 in Kiev's Independence Square ( called 'the Maidan' in Ukrainian) in Kiev.

Sitting in a wheel chair because of conditions brought on by her imprisonment, she eulogized the protesters who were killed this week by government forces.

"You are heroes, you are the best thing in Ukraine!" she said of the victims. The death toll in clashes between protesters and police, including snipers who fired into the crowd and simply picked off civilians has now reached 82.

And she urged the protesters to stay in the Square and not to give up their encampment in the square.

"In no case do you have the right to leave the Maidan until you have concluded everything that you planned to do," she said.

She also remarked that she was sure now that the Ukraine would join the EU.

New elections were originally set for May 25, but the rebels want them held earlier, as they no doubt will be in they're held at all.

The key to that is Russia and Vladimir Putin.

As I mentioned before, Putin sees this as a Russian security issue, and the history between Russia and the Ukraine makes it even less certain how he'll react.

Since he has a puppet president on hand in Yanukovych and the 'coup' meme has already been launched, I would not be at all surprised if Putin sent in Russian forces 'to restore order'. He might even have the Ukrainian/Russian population in the Eastern Ukraine declare their independence, ally with Russia and then pick a fight with Western Ukraine,after which the Russians would come in. Remember South Ossetia and Georgia?

According to an official Russian Foreign Ministry statement Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has already been talking to US Secretary of State John Kerry, saying that the peace deal signed yesterday had been violated and "sharply degraded by opposition forces'.

"Illegal extremist groups are refusing to disarm and in fact are taking Kiev under their control with the connivance of opposition leaders," Lavrov said according to the statement.

Putin may very well feel that using the Russian military to recreate his client state in the Ukraine is a pretty risk free endeavor.He almost certainly considers President Obama and Secretary Kerry foreign policy amateurs and weaklings unlikely to do more than issue a nuanced statement or two, and the EU lacks the military capability to stop him even if they possessed the spine or the political will. And if retaking the Ukraine gets a little bloody, that's more to the good from Putin's point of view, because it would be an object lesson to others.

Another factor, of course, is the economic one. Even if Putin holds off on sending the tanks in, He will do his best to co-opt any new government. Because the Ukraine is essentially broke.

Putin had bribed Yanukovych and the Old Guard with a $15 billion bailout last December in exchange for not joining the EU, but the Russians doled it out by the month to maximize their leverage, basically giving Yanukovych just enough cash to pay his security forces and keep the regime going. That bail out is history now.

The Russians will undoubtedly make things as tough for a new democratic Ukraine as possible and attempt to starve them into submission. A new EU-oriented Ukraine is going to pay a lot more for gas, which will be regularly cut off from time to time for whatever reason. Russia will also likely embargo the Ukraine's agricultural products, and Ukrainian nationals working in Russia whose jobs aren't essential will be booted out and sent home. Meanwhile Putin will try to sabotage the country's political process and get a pro-Russian government installed again by means fair or foul.

At this point, the Ukraine has less than $18 billion left in hard currency reserves, and immediate debt repayments coming up of something like $10 billion.

So if the West is serious about an independent, EU-oriented Ukraine (assuming Russia doesn't invade), they're going to need debt forgiveness and restructuring along with a hefty aid package, although this time at least corruption will probably not be the problem it used to be. But any way you slice it, if a new democratic Ukraine survives, they are in for a few tough years.

Stay tuned...

What 's Really Going On In The Ukraine

 

The Ukraine is in the news as violent protests shake the country.What's going on, and why is it important? Here's what you really need to know, as opposed to a lot of what you may be hearing.

Russia and the Ukraine have a history that goes back centuries, and it's pretty much all bad. Like Poland and the Baltic countries, the Ukraine marks the borderline between the Russian culture and western European culture, and to an extent the borderline between Catholicism and Othrodox Christianity, although the Ukraine is mixed in this regard.



Poland, the Ukraine and Lithuania in the Baltic Sea area were all once world powers, and a Polish/Lithuanian alliance actually invaded and took over Russia in the early 17th century. The Russians never forgot it.

The three countries made several attempts over the years to unite as one kingdom, which would have substantially changed the history of Europe and guaranteed their independence, but the underlying suspicions between the three, language and cultural differences and the inherent difficulties in how Poland's Sejm (a gathering of powerful nobles that was one of the first parliaments in Europe) was set up to make real consensus difficult all contributed to the failure of those attempts, and gradually all of these countries wound up under Russia's thumb.

After a brief period of independence after the Russian Revolution, the Ukraine again became part of the Russian Empire in 1919, this time a Soviet one.

The Soviets treated the Ukraine as a colony and essentially plundered it. They severely repressed the Ukraine's language, religion and culture and instituted forced collective farming, and when the Ukrainians were rebellious and continued to resist, Stalin literally seized every bit of food inside the Ukraine including the livestock and seed grain, removed it, sealed the borders and left the population to starve. Anywhere from three to seven million people were starved to death in an atrocity known as the Holodomor.

When the Nazis invaded, for the most part the Ukrainians were avid collaborators, partly because they understandably hated the Russians and saw Hitler's troops as liberators and partly because many Ukrainians shared their ideas about Jews. For all the Ukrainian rhetoric through the years about freedom and human dignity, historically some of the worst and most brutal pogroms against Jews were in the Ukraine. Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who is still a national hero in the Ukraine destroyed over 300 Jewish communities in the country. And in the early 20th century, vicious pogroms in the Ukraine and elsewhere in Russia were an impetus both for Jewish emigration to America and to Palestine.There are indications even today that not much has changed when it comes to Jews for a number of Ukrainians.

Many Ukrainians fought for Hitler in his SS against the Russians, and they were among the perpetrators of something that occurred at a place in the Ukraine called Babi Yar, a ravine outside Kiev where literally thousands of Jewish men, women and children were machine gunned to death, with the assistance and cooperation of the Ukrainians who participated in the carnage while people from the surrounding area watched, brought picnic lunches and applauded.

Needless to say, when the Red Army retook the area, the Ukrainians were not exactly very high in their esteem, and Soviet policy towards the Ukraine again returned to treating it as a colony and as a vital border area that needed to be held to prevent Russia from being invaded by outside forces again.The Ukrainian SSR was also turned into a major Soviet military outpost and arms manufacturing center in the cold war, and was home to a number of important and strategic military bases. packed with the best weapons systems the Soviets could make.

When the Soviet Empire crashed and burned, the Ukraine went their own way and declared their independence in 1991,but the country still maintained close ties to Russia and remained under Russian influence out of economic necessity.

The first real move towards independence from Russia occurred in 1994, when a rigged election and the subsequent outrage and unrest led to Victor Yushchenko becoming president,who favored closer ties to Europe and EU membership. This strained relations with the Russians (who actually tried to poison Yushchenko to stop him), and led to Russia attempting to blackmail the Ukraine by shutting off natural gas supplies to both the Ukraine and the EU, a must for heating due to the climate.

That ended up finally being settled more or less amicably, but due to political infighting a pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was elected in 2010, allegedly with covert Russian assistance. Yanukovych turned the Ukraine's focus back towards Russia, arresting politicians who favored closer alliance with the west and in November of 2013, refusing to sign the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement.

I recount this brief history in order to give you a bit of necessary background so that you understand the dynamics of what's happening now.

Yanukovych's failure to bring the Ukraine into the EU sparked massive protests, which have come to a head now. The majority of the Ukrainian people do not want to be a client state of Russia, and want EU membership.

The Russians, on the other hand, see a Europeanized Ukraine as a threat to their security, which is why Russian leader Vladimir Putin is so exercised about it. His carrot-and-stick performance includes the offer of a badly needed $15 billion aid package if the Ukraine stays out of the EU, and the threat of once again shutting off the gas in the middle of the European winter if the Ukrainians toss out Yanukovych and join the EU.

Yanukovych made a major error with a particularly brutal response to the protests, which involved a number of deaths and included snipers picking off people in the crowds. Many of Yanukovych's police refused to be a part of this and actually joined the protesters, or at least turned over their arms and equipment.

Yanukovych was forced to make a deal with the leaders of the opposition today, which commits him to early elections and reduces his presidential authority, along with granting amnesty to all protesters and firing the minister of the interior, who ordered the brutal response to the protesters and was a major security tool of Yanukovych.

Significantly, it also mandated the release of opposition politician and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who has been imprisoned for more than two years, and could very well be the next Ukrainian leader.



Simply put, those are the issues.

The Russians understandably want the Ukraine as a secure border area and checkpoint. While the Russians participated in today's negotiations along with EU diplomats that were designed to calm things down and forestall more bloodshed, the Russians are not endorsing the deal and Putin is almost certainly willing to go to some lengths to retain the Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence. That might include 'influencing' the next elections,or literally just about anything.

The Ukrainian opposition understandably want to join the EU and obtain a divorce from Russia, and while they were apparently willing to fight for the privilege, it remains an open question of how far the EU is willing to go to support them.

President Obama has essentially been AWOL on the issue.

And that's where things stand. While I agree with erring on the side of freedom, it's vitally important not to get taken in by rhetoric and look at the whole picture when figuring out how to proceed, where our best interests lie and what to do about it.

This, after all, is essentially an ethnic conflict that has been going on for centuries.

Yet Another Example Of How Israel And Israelis Are Different

The Israeli national soccer team was playing a match at Kiev in the Ukraine, and the game made headlines in there and in many other parts of Europe for an interesting reason that had nothing to do with the final score.

As the national anthems were played prior to the game, groups of children wearing UNICEF t-shirts were allowed to stand with the players, something that's common in international matches. August can still be fairly chilly in the Ukraine, and the children were caught in a cold downpour soon after they came on the field.

As the pictures show, the Ukrainian players pretty much ignored the kids shivering in the rain and cold. The Israeli team immediately took off their warmup jackets and tried to shield the kids from the weather.

“I am glad we made the gesture and I hope that all the children returned home safely,” said Israeli soccer star Itay Shechter of the incident.

“When it began to rain during the anthems, we decided to take off our training jackets because we saw that the kids that were with us were freezing from the cold of the strong rain. We immediately decided to place the training jackets on the children so that they would feel a little more cozy and warmer,” another player Eitan Tibi added.

According to Yediot Ahronot the incident prompted media headlines in both Ukraine and Russia criticizing the Ukrainian team. ”The human reflex was to do what the Israeli players did,” wrote one newspaper according to Yediot.

The Israeli team lost the match two to nothing. But I think they won something more important than a soccer game.

Welcome To The Babi Yar Hotel

There's a place in the Ukraine that was originally on the outskirts of Kiev, but has become a suburb of the city as it has expanded. To the Kiev city council,it was an ideal site for a tourist hotel to service the expected trade for the 2012 European soccer championship.

It's called Babi Yar.

Sixty eight years ago, it was the scene of something uniquely horrible in a time of horrors. The Nazis, with the cheerful assistance of Ukrainian 'Blue' police rounded up 33,741 Jewish men, women and children who lived in Kiev, made them strip naked and then forced them into a ravine and machine gunned them to death in one mass grave.



While the killing was going on, some of the Jews' Ukrainian neighbors looked on, enjoyed the show and ate a picnic lunch.

Babi Yar was part of the War Against the Jews in the Ukraine.It was the culmination of an effort that murdered over 700,000 Ukrainian Jews at the hands of the Germans and their Romanian and Ukrainian allies. The ravine itself became a favorite killing ground of the Nazis and their collaborators, and the site for the murder of Gypsies and Russian POWs as well as Jews, although it was overwhelmingly Jews whose corpses populated the ravine.

Babi Yar was never the site of any kind of memorial, although dissident Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote a haunting poem in 1961 decrying the massacre and the attitude of the locals to what happened to the Jews there.

The Soviets finally put a memorial there in 1976, but it referred to 'the murder of innocent Soviet citizens by the fascist occupiers', and there was no mention of the fact that the victims were mostly Jews or about the extensive collaboration by the locals. The Soviets weren't interested in memorializing victims or regurgitating old memories. They had their own ghosts in the Ukraine they wanted forgotten, several million people they deliberately starved to death with an artificially created famine.

The first prominent Ukrainian to address Babi Yar honestly was the first president of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, who made a fiery speech at a memorial gathering in October 1991. He actually admitted that Ukrainians shared some responsibility for carrying out the massacre, something that evoked a decidedly mixed response among his countrymen.

Babi Yar popped back into the news again when the Kiev City Council voted to build a tourist hotel on the site of the old killing ground. The original plans actually called for the place to be called the Hotel Babi Yar, believe it or not.

I'm sure the hotel theme restaurants and gift shops would be unique.

Fortunately, there is a happy ending to this sordid story. After the plans leaked out, widespread outrage from around the world caused the city's mayor, Leonid Chernovetsky to veto the plan. I don't doubt that took considerable courage on his part.

After all, this is a country where mass murderer and anti-Semite Bohdan Chmielicki is still regarded as a national hero, memorialized with a statue in the middle of Kiev.

Why write about this? Well, time passes for all things, and that is how it should be. But there are things we need to remember, simply to make sure they don't occur again.

There have been some very recent and public attempts to pave over history or deny it ever happened in the first place. Seeing that, I think that remembering is a more pressing need for human society just now than another spiffy new hotel. Not so much just to memorialize the dead, as to help save the living.

Selah.