generalspeaking

Empire Restoration? What Lunacy is That?

"In recent days Russia has deliberately pushed Ukraine to the brink and created a still greater risk of violent confrontation. Russia must choose whether it is open to diplomacy and de-escalation, and if it decides otherwise, we must be ready for a different state of relations with Russia in the next ten years than in the last twenty."
William Hague, British Foreign Secretary

"[He had been ordered to weed out] combat separatists who are clearly serving the interests of a neighbouring state."
"They must be warned that if they do not lay down their arms, they will be destroyed."
General Vasily Krutov, commander of Kramatorsk airport military force

General Krutov is convinced that several hundred soldiers from the Russian Army's Main Intelligence Directorate have infiltrated the pro-Russian militias, guiding, instructing, mentoring, leading and arming them. And in honour to his duty to his country he has pledged himself to defend Ukraine from the interlopers and the betrayers of Ukrainian unity and solidarity without mercy to those who would destroy it.

It seems by all convincing indices that Ukraine is in the "brink" of civil war with the government forced to launch "anti-terrorist operations" against primed pro-Russian separatists in the east of Ukraine. It is as though a sinister, malevolent power has taken steps to transform Ukraine from a nation struggling to position itself as a democratic, newly western-oriented country with a vestigial loyalty to if not the Kremlin then at least what is left of their common culture and heritage.

Kyiv deployed special forces, in an ambivalent and forced response to Moscow's designs to completely destabilize a former ally and trading bulwark in a clearly concentrated orchestration of revenge for its presumption that it could prosper without sheltering under the Kremlin's predatory wings. Russian state media clamoured that 11 people were killed during a counter-attack on an airbase in Kramatorsk; confirmation is elusive.

A mixed Ukrainian military force including police, airborne troops and Ukrainian SBU special forces set up a checkpoint to the south of the city of Izyum, backed by a dozen armoured personnel carriers carrying Ukrainian flags. While at Kramatorsk, south 16 kilometres, Ukrainian helicopter gunships were busy relieving besieged troops from pro-Russian mobs at the airfield.

"The base is under our control. We saw off an attack", one Ukrainian soldier declared following the helicopters' landing, and the withdrawal of a circling fighter jet. The gates of the airfield had been blockaded for several days. And the protesters assembled there claimed that Ukrainian troops had opened fire, unprovoked by the civilians. Soldiers fired warning shots when the crowd crossed the perimeter fence.

And when General Vasily Krutov, commander of the force sent by Kyiv tried to speak to the protesters gathered outside the gates he was mobbed by the angry crowd. The operation he had been sent to dispatch would prove "extremely difficult because of the professionalism of the enemy and the presence of civilians among the separatists", he declared.

Vladimir Putin called for the United Nations to condemn Kyiv's 'criminal' actions. The response from the White House was that Ukraine's military operation against the Russian militants was "measured". Monday's Security Council debate was rife with accusations between the United States and Russia both calling for restraint, diplomatic resolution, refraining from violence, etcetera.

Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin pointed out that military moves by the Ukraine "criminals" with Western support would give impetus to Russia shunning the scheduled April 17 talks with the EU, U.S. and Russia over the crisis in Ukraine. In fact, there doesn't appear to be much in the offing of diplomacy any longer with the permanent Security Council; clearly Russia has removed itself from the process by its actions.

The Security Council's purpose is to defend and advance the international order. Russia has, by its actions in Ukraine, decided to trash the very foundation of both the UN and the Security Council, destroying its purpose, making a mockery of its own position within both. Using its influence within the institution of the UN and the Security Council, Vladimir Putin is cynically manipulating events to force Ukrainian capitulation to Moscow's demands.

Emasculating Ukraine, the Security Council, the United Nations and the United States in the process. It does have nuclear weapons should any outraged body like NATO decide to call it on its actions. The ICBM test of a few days earlier seemed to nudge the community's memory of that unforgettable fact. The West hardly knows how to respond to the swiftly unfolding catastrophe that Ukraine has become. Any funding assistance given to bankrupt Ukraine will be swallowed into Russia's maw.

The billions that Russia claims Ukraine owes it is impossible to validate or rationally explain, but the demand is there and Russia is able to withhold gas to Ukraine and to the European countries reliant on it for their major energy source. His final revenge could be a resulting instability on the financial market internationally. The Kremlin, and their out-of-control president seems to have the winning cards in a situation where in the final analysis there can be no winner.

The entire impossible scenario seems to beckon Putin as a conquest.

The West pledges its solidarity, its sincere and reliable support for Ukraine, but is frozen with inaction. And Vladimir Putin has the celebrity seat in the proceedings, sneering at the pompous declarations of outrage, secure in the knowledge that no nation and no aggregation of nations' militaries are prepared to move against the outrage that he is perpetrating on Ukraine, and if that succeeds, who is to say he will not continue on elsewhere?

The restoration of the Soviet empire uppermost in mind.

Labels: Aggression, Russia, Security Council, Threats, Ukraine, United States

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, April 17, 2014