The Ukrainian decision to seek even closer ties to NATO and the EU, leading to admission as soon as possible, has impending disappointment written all over it.
Only last week, the EU's own report found that Georgia met none - not one - of the criteria for admission, what with the crackdown on the press, the torture, the imprisonment of the Leader of the Opposition by a secret court, and all the rest of it. How much better is Ukraine?
And in any case, neither NATO nor the EU will now consider any application from a part of the former the Soviet Union. They would never admit it in those terms, but that is the way that things now are, and always will be.
Unipolarity has died on the streets of South Ossetia. Welcome back to normality.
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Ukraine is much better - thank you very much. For a start the "leader of the opposition" - pro-Moscow Yanokovitch has served as Prime Minister since the "Orange Revolution" and is definately not in jail.
ReplyDeleteMrs Tymoshenko and the President Yuschenko are still periodically quarrelling. However in light of recent events their collective hand has been strenghthened.
The President ordered that the Russian Black Sea fleet should seek permission to go in and out of Ukrainian waters - as you know the fleet leases Sevastapol - but the Russians brushed his decree aside. So the Ukrainians will switch off the lighthouses needed by the Russian navy to get their ships in and out of port.
You have to remember David that a serious chunk of Western Ukraine have no historic, religious or sentimental ties with Moscow. Quite the opposite really since the Kremlin took over the region in 1945 and proceeded to discourage the use of Ukrainian and suppressed the Ukrainian Catholic church and local autonomous Autocephalus Ukrainian Orthodox Churhch.
Western Ukrainians were ordered to accept the authority of the state-controlled Russian-Orthodox church. Or else.
Some churches were closed down of course. The Dominican Church in Lviv was turned into Museum of Aethiesm with a Foucault Pendulum swinging in its dome to demonstrate the revolution of the Earth.
The Ukraine is confused. The West, revolving around Lviv, is very pro-Western and is welding its economy to its neighbours, particuarly Poland. The East and South, revolving around Kharkiv, due to many being ethnic Russians are pro-Moscow. The landlocked centre, revolving around Kiev, is confused as it wants to build links with Europe but wants to have good relations with Russia for historic etc reasons.
The Orthodox Churches in the country reflect this confusion. There is the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the West which is anti-Moscow, the independent minded Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow which is pro-Russian. The Kiev crowd broke off from the Moscow crowd after indepedence.
Last Moscow leant on the Ukrainian government over the burial of the Patriach of Kiev. He was to be buried in the country's oldest church, St Sophias. However under pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin, who did not want the Patriach buried there, he ended up being buried underneath the pavement outside St Sophias - not in a cemetery but on the public pavement.
Anyway since the Orange Revolution, things have got better. There has been a large eradication, but not total eradication of public corruption in the country, particularly amongst the police. Also the oligarchs have been challenged but not completely tamed.
As I said before Ukraine has been tooling up for a showdown for a while. Whilst undoubtedly Russia is much stonger, it would be much more difficult suppressing a country of 50 million which is half the size of Western Europe without much controversy or bloodshed. It is times like these that Kiev wishes it had not given up the nukes it inherited from the USSR.
Maybe you want Ploshad Rynok (Market Square) in Lviv to be bombed, along with the townhouse of John Sobieski one of the city's more famous sons.
"And in any case, neither NATO nor the EU will now consider any application from a part of the former the Soviet Union. They would never admit it in those terms, but that is the way that things now are, and always will be."
Pray tell David, what about Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. All three NATO, EU and Schengen members which was part of what state twenty-years ago?
Remember Russians make up a significant part of the populations of all three states.
Estonia - 25.6%
Latvia - 29.6%
Lithuania - 6.3%
From what I can gather if you add "mixed" as "Russian" in Latvia then it is over 40%. Certainly "Russians" make up the majority in Latvia's cities including Riga.
Ukraine is 17.3% Russian for the record.
Lviv shall not fall again. Slav Ukraine.
Exactly.
ReplyDeleteUkraine would have to be partitioned for any part of it to be incorporated into any Western Alliance. No chance.
And who is a Russian? The Russians themselves seem to be working on the premise that it is anyone whose first, or even only main, language is Russian. Which includes huge numbers of Ukrainians (the whole eastern Ukraine, in fact), Belorussians, Ossetians, Jews...
"Slav Ukraine"
ReplyDeleteAnd the Russians are what?
Eastern Ukraine is an indivisible part of the Kievan Rus, which was born there. Apppropriately, it is inhabited overwhelmingly by Russians who are entitled to the protection, not of their Motherland, but of their Daughterland.
If you want the western bit back, you can have it.
Perhaps the Habsurgs could have it back? One of them (I forget which one) nursed throughout most the twentieth century a profound longing to be King of The Ukraine. But he never managed it.
ReplyDeleteSo anonymous/David an attack on the Baltic States is inevitable?
ReplyDeleteSince you obviously do not know the phrase - "Slav Ukraine" means Ukrainian unity, solidarity, brotherhood etc.
It is nothing to do with race.
Slav means amongst other meanings "brother or family". Whoever anonymous is does not know their Trgs from their Mosts, their Nams from their Pivos, their Utcas from their Chlebs.
As in the name of the Slovak capital Bratislava - "City of Brothers".
By the way, of course Bratislava was part of the indivisible lands of the Crown of St Stephen (Greater Hungary to you) for around a millenium and the city was called Poszny and there are many Hungarians sore about that.
Bratislava was a name only given to the city when Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918 by Slovak nationalists.
It was William von Habsburg who wanted to be king. Stalin gave him his wish of dying for the Ukraine by arresting him in Vienna after WWII and putting him in a gulag in the Ukraine where he died a year later.
Slav Ukraine.
According to today's 'papers most NATO leaders who've said anything are on the record as supporting Georgia's membership. After all, they won't have to lift a finger but it'll make them look tough and it'll seem that they've "done the right thing". Presumably most of them just like the idea of more Georgian troops helping out in Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteUkraine too, probably!
Don't forget, most modern Europeans have no understanding of military history whatsoever. They probably love the idea of a "diplomatic"/"soft-power" backlash against Russia, without realising that that is the most dangerous sort of action of all.
"According to today's 'papers most NATO leaders who've said anything are on the record as supporting Georgia's membership. After all, they won't have to lift a finger but it'll make them look tough and it'll seem that they've "done the right thing"."
ReplyDeleteAnd it will never actually happen. How convenient for them.
"Presumably most of them just like the idea of more Georgian troops helping out in Afghanistan.
Ukraine too, probably!"
If we don't meddle in Ukraine, then it need never give us any trouble. The Russian-speaking, Orthodox East and the Ukrainian-speaking, Eastern Catholic West can just ignore each other, and we can just ignore them both.
But if the latter ever really did try and join either NATO or the EU (not that it would be let in), then the former would try and rejoin Russia either actually or in all but name, with Russia's full backing.
World War Three.
"They probably love the idea of a "diplomatic"/"soft-power" backlash against Russia, without realising that that is the most dangerous sort of action of all."
I'm not sure that they do. Politicians and their retainers might. But most people don't.
"an attack on the Baltic States is inevitable?"
That depends how they treat their Russian populations. I suspect that that won't be a problem after the last fortnight.