How about this as a long-term solution to the current crisis?
A certain number of East Ukrainian provinces and Crimea get to vote on a referendum on whether they want to join Russia. The referendum is overseen by international organizations: the UN , EU etc. Those that vote to leave are allowed to join Russia.
The rest of Ukraine is allowed to join NATO.
This proposal will make Ukraine more stable, democratic and pro-Western since it will remove the most pro-Russian provinces. NATO membership will make it more secure and will deter future Russian meddling.
At the same time Russia will feel that it’s legitimate interests in East Ukraine and Crimea have been protected. Provinces that prefer to join Russia will presumably be better off there too.
I think the prospect of adding a few provinces to Russia will be a real carrot for Putin. It will allow him to back away from this crisis, save face and still maintain OK relations with the West.
One thing I take into account is that in the end Russia and the Crimea have a point that tossing the elected president was not going to go without consequences. True, there are times the people should do so, but as NPR reported Ukraine has a lot of problems with corruption, it is no wonder that Europe was not very keen on taking them into their economical group.
As the country is divided and full of corruption what I see if we decide to intervene is a situation closer to Vietnam than was Korea. Unless the people of Ukraine do show cohesion against Russia and that the elements that are from the extreme right wing are controlled first, this is a case where I would tell the people of Crimea to go ahead but there will be outside pressure to have the rights of the minorities in Crimea respected.
What is Putin’s endgame? Is it merely to establish a proxy Russian state or does he think by taking the Crimea he’s going to eventually absorb all of Ukraine back into Mother Russia?
If its as simple as preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, I think mere propaganda’s enough to do that
I very much doubt if he wants to absorb the whole of Ukraine, which would inevitably result in a whole lot of trouble for him. Furthermore, he is probably more than happy to keep a whole wide chunk of Slavic land as a buffer between his borders and those of NATO and the EU. He doesn’t need it to be unstable, either, but he needs it to be at least neutral if not friendly. I suspect, if he had had his druthers, he would have liked Ukraine to stay as it is, but with a Russia-friendly government. He might have hoped that all the ethnic and or cultural Russians in the eastern parts might have kept it Russia-friendly (not that there are very great ethnic or cultural differences between Russians and Ukrainians anyway), but obviously that didn’t work out, so I suspect he now hopes to peel off a few of the eastern provinces, plus Crimea (which are not only where most of the Russian are, but also most of the wealth and most of the strategic value), and leave a more homogeneous remainder to be ruled by Kiev. That is probably what will happen in the end, but it is likely to be long and ugly. Kiev won’t like it, because a new, smaller Ukraine will also be a significantly poorer Ukraine.
Then, instead of hearing allegations that the ethnic Russian minority in the Ukraine is being persecuted, in two years or so we’ll hear allegations that the ethnic Ukrainian minority in Russia is being persecuted.
Huh? Why should Russia have any sort of “point” about tossing the president of Ukraine? In what sense does Russia have any moral say in how Ukraine is governed?
It is undeniably true that Ukraine has lots of problems with corruption - of which the guy who was just tossed was a leading exemplar.
The notion that the ultra-right fringe in Ukraine is on some sort of rampage is completely imaginary - a product of Russian propaganda.
I just don’t get why that is in any way relevant, or a telling response. If the US intervenes in Latin America because its favoured stooge is turfed out in some country, that can be “bad”, just as much as what Russia is doing now is “bad”.
So it is also true that, although Mexico is independent and sovereign, the U.S. does have some legitimate interest in whatever happens in Mexico. (And vice-versa, but it is an asymmetrical relationship.) And the economic relationship between Russia and Ukraine is much closer.
Actually, no - except in extreme circumstances of humanitarian disaster, they have no such rights.
Are you of the opinion that both the US and Russia have the right to overthrow neighbouring governments if they don’t like them? What is the source of such “rights”?
Whatever the reasons, the reality is that the majority of the people in the Crimea is Russian or would favor to be part of Russia.
I make no illusions, I’m talking that before we get any ideas that intervention would be a good thing, a concerted effort should be made to control whatever token extreme right wingers are there. I would think that if we approach this by also taking into account the concerns of the Crimea that we can then apply pressure from a higher moral ground.
Well, that’s a funny thing – there are several groups in Ukraine now the Western press is calling extreme RW or even fascist – but some of those are pro-Russian (or at least anti-Western) and others are pro-Western (or at least anti-Russian).