As the latest in our regular series of analysis for Radio free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Armenian Service, Regional Studies Center (RSC) Director Richard Giragosian commented on 21 July on the negative impact on Russia from the tragic downing of a civilian airliner over Ukraine. Giragosian noted that while it is now “increasingly evident that the downing of the Malayasian aircraft was committed by pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, who mistakenly targeted the aircraft as a Ukrainian military plane, the complicity of Russian President Vladimir Putin in terms of his decision to finance, arm, train and even encourage his pro-Moscow separatist proxy force has led to three distinct developments.” First, “Moscow has lost the capacity to control or constrain the pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine” and with this one incident (the downing of the aircraft), Putin has incurred a much higher cost than even one year of Western sanctions could have accomplished.” A second development is that “the downing of the aircraft and the tragically senseless death of so many innocent victims, including many EU citizens, will undoubtedly re-unite the EU and will only strengthen efforts to sanction and weaken Putin.” He added that the “impact of the tragedy also embarrass some EU member states that were previously seeking a softer approach toward Moscow.” Giragosian also noted that a third development “relates to Armenia, which given its record of rather unconditional backing for Moscow and its generally disgraceful habit of blind submission to Moscow, will be faced with the prospect of being on the wrong side of history and unfairly tainted by its allegiance to Russia; a danger that will only threat to further weaken and downgrade the Western perception of the Armenian government as little more than ‘subservient vassals’ or as a country offering little more than a role as a Russian garrison state.” azatutyun.am/content/article/25464955.html
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 06:14:27 +0000