Maybe someone can explain me, but, honestly, using the common sense and the logic I am powerless to find any reasonable way to rationalize Putins intervention in the Crimea. Clearly, its not even the question of providing a security to Russians dwellers in the peninsula any more. It has never been – it was a bluff and lies from the very beginning, which everyone clearly understands now. According to the estimation there are at least 30,000 armed Russian troops on the peninsula these days. Every day Moscow keeps bringing more people along with some military equipment. By constant numerous provocations since the first day of intervention these soldiers are too obviously trying to drive Ukrainian army crazy in order to provoke a military conflict with an open fire – to start the war officially and legally. At all times the value of human life was miserable in Russia. Even Zhukov who was a Soviet career officer in the Red Army once said: “Russia has many women and they will give birth to enough new ones” and Putin is not the exception here. A war can be justified if it serves as a protective measure against occupiers, but there is no justification of occupation of the territories of a foreign country. What I can’t understand using any grounds is that why Russia is so willing to start the war, considering it is on the opposite, the wrong, side of the whole civilized world? Economical reason? Someone estimated that building up a new gas pipe from Russia to Europe through the Crimea instead of neutral waters of the Black Sea could save up to $20 billion for Moscow. But the economical loses have already overlapped possible profits. Self-approval? As USSR lost the cold war and collapsed eventually, a former career KGB officer still carries his dream to reborn the empire and make it the strongest leading unit in the world? But that is exactly what Hitler wanted, isn’t it? And again, I doubt Putin burns with desire to put a bullet in his forehead as the latter has done eventually. Suppose for a second that Russian president is the most altruistic person in the world and he really strives to help all Russians in the Crimea and eventually make the peninsula to be a prosperous world’s leading tourism place. One doesn’t need to make a thorough cost-benefit analysis to estimate the true level of Russian “help”. It’s just enough to google for the pictures of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and look how prosper and flourish these countries are today. But originally everything started in the exactly same manner as in the Crimea: intervention in order to “protect” oppressed Russian residents. Russia has already faced enormous economic losses – since the conflict escalated dramatically the capital flight has already reached the point of $60 billion, the Central Bank of Russia has burned through over $12 billion in gold and foreign currency reserves in an attempt to mitigate the fall of the exchange rate of ruble and clearly it’s not the end yet. Considering that all Russian economy and prosperity is deadly tied on the world’s oil prices, the price of victory (if there is even a victory here) for Moscow can be tremendous. Economist Phillip Verleger calculated that opening up American strategic petroleum reserve and letting 500,000 barrels per day flow onto world market will be enough to push the oil price down to $10/barrel and this, in tern, will cost additionally $40 billion to Moscow. US has absolutely enough power to do this and economically destroy Russian Federation even without a military war. Moreover, US and Europe have already realized that Putin is not the person to deal with – he is way too unpredictable and dangerous for humanity. Building up additional LNG terminals and speeding natural gas exports will loosen Russia’s grip on European energy supplies in the long run. And under the long run I think it can easily be done in 3-5 years. Of course, Ukraine doesn’t have that amount of time, because the situation keeps changing every day and every hour in the Crimea. But the point is that Putin launched the mechanism of self-destruction not only for himself, but also for Russia as a whole. A leader, who can easily throw $50 billion for the Olympic games and $72 billion (at least) for the war with an adjacent “brother” country, at the time when his country has enormous number of problems within its borders, is doomed for the political death. And the sooner Russian people realize this, the less severe outcome will be for the whole country and for the whole world.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 06:46:46 +0000
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