With everyone eyes fixed on Crimea, another story concerning ousted President Yanukovich has been rather ignored by the press. According to the new Acting Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk $70 Billion of public funds are missing. With another 43 Billion British Pounds of aid gone without trace. He was most likely trying to compete with his buddy President Putin (see story I posted on April 15, 2013 about Putin having stashed away a secret $70 billion personal fortune). Swiss Authorities were the first to react by freezing the accounts of 20 Ukrainians including the Yanukovichs son Oleksander. The US has finally reacted earlier this week by sending FBI agents on the ground in Kiev to help recover the stolen billions. In the meantime current Government has to deal with an immediate need of $35 billion to avoid having the Country go bankrupt. That reminds me the story of another Ukrainian Nikita Krushchev most likely trying to get pardoned of his participation to Stalins purges in Ukraine by gifting the Crimea to Ukraine at the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Ukraines merger with the Russian Empire. Only one long sentence appeared to announce the transfer on February 27, 1954 in the official Soviet newspaper Pravda. On a separate note Crimea does indeed play a very strategic and geopolitical role to the Black Sea region. Ottomans were controlling Gallipoli since 1354 but it was a few years after securing the alliance of the Crimean Khanate in 1441 that the capture of Constantinople could be planned and executed successfully in 1453. Years later it was a combination of events that started by the surprise attack on July 5th to 7th of 1770 and the annihilation of the Ottoman fleet stationed in Cesme by Count Alexei Orlov sending several squadrons from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean to draw their attention away from the Black Sea culminating in the Peace Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca on July 21, 1774 made the Crimean Khanate formally independent (the loss of Crimea is often used by historians as the start of the decline of the Ottoman Empire) . It took a few additional years for the Russian Empire to annex effortlessly the Crimea: at the occasion of the Khan sending his nephew Sahin to St Petersburg to sue for peace, Catherine met Sahin Giray and made him her lover. He would later assume the role of Khan in Crimea until 1783. In 1783 Sahin Giray was made prisoner and sent to Istanbul where he would ultimately be executed and since then Russians have been stationing continuously a naval fleet in Crimea. Since 1441 the Girays were considered the second family of the Ottoman Empire and could pretend to the throne. voanews/content/washington-react-fbi-helps-ukraine-recover-billions-stolen-by-former-regime/1868097.html
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 00:52:39 +0000
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