Will Russia dare to dispatch much needed, in fact, vitally needed humanitarian convoys to the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics? Or will Russia stand petrified and frozen in front of the Right Sector militants shooting people on the streets and in the hospitals as they did on June 3 in Krasny Liman? Or does Russia focus more on extending to the junta and its war machine a de facto cash flow in the form of unpaid gas while waiting until Kiev bulldozes eastern Ukraine with tanks as the Kiev regime is already trying to do with Slavyansk? All in all, there has been an evident wavering or deliberate (willful?) evasiveness of Putin and the Russian government once Crimea joined the Russian Federation. In fact, in the case of Crimea, if you remember, there was also a good deal of evasiveness and considerable silence on the part of the Kremlin during the whole process or operation. Moreover, I said once (just once before), but I will say it now also a second time: Moscows current positioning toward eastern Ukraine (the referenda and the Republics) is threatening to weaken Moscows case and principles evoked with respect to Crimea for the principles evoked for Crimea (self-determination and the will of the people above all in addition to the unconstitutionality of the coup) have been now silenced by Moscow in the case of eastern Ukraine. Yet the only difference between these two cases is the previous presence of Russian troops by virtue of the prior existence of Russian military bases. In a word, Donetsk and Lugansk dont happen to have a port with the Russian Black Sea, but they have some 7 million people who dont want oligarchs, who dont want fascism, who dont want NATO, and who want back to Russia. As Knut Strømfors reported elsewhere, there are even claims that Putin might have already made a deal with Poroshenko by trading ceasefire for sealing the border from the Russian side and withholding support for the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics, which he keeps refusing to even call so. RT continues to call them self-declared (almost like usurpers). I hope that the information about this sort of deal is disinformation. Yet something is in the works and negotiated. The only thing clear so far about Putin and Russias official position is that they support merely some sort of federalization, which does or would imply keeping Ukraine unified, but even further undefined federalization appears on the part of Moscow to be more of a wish or a recommendation. This approach makes sense only or mainly when one tries to avoid war or when one tries to win without a fight. But once the war is already raging and people are dying, one cannot demand or expect people to fight and die for ambiguity or mere recommendations, moreover, if these recommendations are behind the developments already by two months at least. Moreover, quite sadly in fact (if I can say so), Putin has said more positive things about Poroshenko than about the Donetsk or Lugansk Peoples Republics--for about them I think he has not said really even a word yet. While I believe that there is no comparison between Yeltsin and Putin, it was the search for comity and the lack of timely and determined action (a way belated form of which was the dash to occupy for a while the Slatina airport near Pristina) that cost Yugoslavia first Kosovo and than Yugoslavia itself. Tymoshenko like apparently many from his circles in Moscow are afraid to be painted and received as aggressors whether in Ukraine or elsewhere. In this respect, Russia has been very or even remarkably conservative (despite what Western propaganda keeps hammering). Yet the fact remains that perhaps 90% of people in eastern Ukraine do think that they are part of Russias world and their case is much stronger than that of Ukrainian nationalists. There is also one more very significant and conspicuous lacuna in what official Moscow says: they avoid officially recognizing the junta in Kiev as fascist or at least as Banderite and thus they are depriving themselves of the antifascist argument and are thus making their position yet again so much, so much weaker---while nearly everyone else in Russia and most Russian and pro-Russian people in Ukraine sees the conflict mainly in terms of standing up against fascism.
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 04:34:57 +0000
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