As the referendum called for by the Crimean Supreme Council ( equivalent of parliament ) is now 5 days away, things will be evolving too fast for most observers to understand the context unless they have done so prior. Thus, it is time to give a clear timeline of past events, a list of regulatory principles for this vote and one of the main actions on the ground. All these are the keys to following the events to come until Sunday. This however would not be complete without prospective on what the regional powers hope to attain and we will thus conclude with that.
http://rt.com/news/crimea-parliament-independence-ukraine-086/
Timeline :
-History : Kiev Rus is the origin of all main participants in this story and thus it is not a fallacy to consider Ukraine to have come first. This only holds as an identity though since over the following centuries, the founding Kiev Rus disappeared politically, i.e. did not endure as a national entity. All the while, Russia was forming and evolving and remained a factual state. The last embodiment of Ukraine before the modern era ran for a over century ( 1650-1775 +- ) and was a vassal state of Russia. Ukrainian nationalism resurfaced around the mid-19th century and gave Ukraine a short time of free existence before being re-absorbed into the Post-Soviet Revolution USSR in 1921.
20th century in 5 events.
1932-33 : Holodomor was an artificial famine created by Stalin to break the Ukrainian spirit. It achieved between 3 & 5 million deaths in the local population ( more than the Holocaust? ).
1937-44 : WWII In a horrible sequence of events, Stalin’s post-Holomodor purges were interrupted by the Nazi occupation -’41- which is itself credited with 5 to 7 million victims, the same or more than the Jews but a less known fact as it was hidden by the subsequent Soviet history. This period ended with a Stalinian hunt for Nazi collaborators and the deportation of the minority Tatars ( which came back and will now likely be the losers in Crimea ).
1954 : Russian President Nikita Khrushchev “gives” Crimea to Ukraine SSR to commemorate the 300th anniversary of its inclusion in Russia. ( Khushchev was partially of Ukrainian descent ) This gift, however for militari-constitutional reasons did not include Sevastopol where the Russian Naval base remains today.
1991 : Ukraine regains its independence. Two essential mentions here are that A-the events began in 1986 with the Chernobyl nuclear incident that is located in Ukraine and angered the locals at Moscow’s lack of care leading to protests in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall the previous year which goes to show that the Orange Revolution and EuroMaidan are not without historic precedent for Ukrainians and B- that the referendum for independence passed with over 92% yes which even with an 84% turnout still comes to 76%+ in favor so that the illusion given by some that there is a near even split between pro-Russian and nationalists in Ukraine save possibly Crimea is a fallacy only entertained by Moscow.
1994 : The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ( NPT ) was to be signed and 3 ex-Soviet Republics posed the particular problem of having inherited Nuclear weapons from the USSR. Of the 3, Ukraine was the biggest problem since it held more nukes than even UN Security Council PM France, UK and China combined? This was solved by Ukraine agreeing to discard its arsenal, in exchange for which a document called the Budapest Memorandum was signed by Ukraine, Russia, the UK and the USA that provided assurances that none of them “would ever threaten or use force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. They also pledged that none of them would ever use economic coercion to subordinate Ukraine to their own interest.”
http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-explainer-budapest-memorandum/25280502.html
The second economic component is part of the dispute that led to the EuroMaidan imbroglio. The first military one if a single of the “mysterious unidentified armed men” presently securing Crimea is found to be a Russian soldier is now being actively violated by Moscow.
The same day, the other 2 PM of the UN SC, France and China, took up the same position in individual diplomatic documents.
References to the above section :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_independence_referendum,_1991
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/getting-ukraine-wrong-10030
Recent events :
In 2004, the Orange Revolution saw the civil protestation of the 2004 Presidential elections won by Viktor Yanukovich suspected of fraud and corruption yield a new vote that he lost. He came back to win however in 2010 with a conciliatory program promising amongst other things to secure an agreement with the European Union ( EU ) which at first he did aim for. The EU was unhappy however with the trial and imprisonment of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko which it saw as a political move. In other moves, Yakunovich modifies the Constitution to gather more powers for the President and implements a law making Russian the second official language of the country, even allowing local authorities to make it the main one?
http://www.ceps.eu/system/files/simplenews/2011/05/NWatch80.pdf
On the 21st of November 2013, Yanukovych’s government abandons the talks and seeks help from Russia instead ( also rejecting a possible liberation of Timoshenko ).
Protests begin in Kiev. By the end of the month, a demonstration has reached the 100 thousand people mark and police repression is strong. By the second week of December, the Maidan ( Independence ) plaza is occupied and a rally is estimated to have numbered 800 thousand people, quite an impressive amount. And yet, on December 17th, Vladimir Putin offers to buy off 15B$ worth of Ukrainian national debt and reduce the price of gas sold by Russia by a third which Yanukovych immediately accepts even though the deal is of the exact same nature than the one he threw Timoshenko in prison for? The protests of course redouble!
By mid-January 2014, the parliament signs harsh anti-protest laws that would allow for long term imprisonment of opponents. This fuels the protestations that then spread to many Western towns.
In the last days of the month, the Prime Minister annuls the law and promises an amnesty but the demonstrations do not abate. If Yanukovych signing with Putin was an important step in the escalating crisis, the opposition rejecting that offer was clearly another one.
In fact, this constitutes a turning point from which the timeline has to give way to an analysis.
Except for unrealistic romantics, the parallel with the Orange Revolution has to be dropped from this date forward. The protests had long stopped being peaceful but considering the identity of the man in power, a filiation to 2004 was still possible. As we enter February however, the goals are very different and so are the participants. The opposition is not content with an amnesty and has set its sight on a change of government. Amongst the protesters are very efficient fighters of urban combat that were not part of the 2004 affair. Many suspect that their presence is related to two parties : Svoboda and Right Sector. Whether or not this is the case will play a huge part in the moves made by Putin after the fall of Yanukovych.
Around the 15th, all arrested protesters are freed and in reverse the city hall is abandoned by the demonstrators and amnesty ensues. Not everyone leaves Maidan Plaza however and there, Yanukovych commits a grave mistake by sending the police to clear the place too soon and way to forcefully to correspond in any believable way to an intent of appeasement. From the 17th to the 21st of February 2014, both sides plunges into a tit for tat of extreme violence ending with the government sealing its doom / fate by asking snipers to fire on the protesters, even unarmed, even red cross volunteers. The visit by the French, German and Polish Foreign Ministers results in an agreement between the Yanukovich team ( the parliamentary government had resigned by the end of January ) and the opposition.
This is where and when things change for good. The rest of the situation that we know of now is entirely debatable. Having signed a complex deal with a long, drawn-out crisis ending schedule, Viktor Yanukovych disappears the next morning seeing which the parliament begins a series of strange moves. The President’s Party of Regions disown him and an important part of it splits to join a national Union formation. The void created brings the new parliament to make important changes way ahead of the time frame proposed in the agreement and elections supposed to take place between September and December are announced for the 25th of MAY. The President is removed and replaced but appears on TV from somewhere in the Eastern part of the nation ( Kharkiv most likely ) to denounce a coup. This blog had warned the previous day ( Link ) and repeated the day after ( Link ) that this speeding up would not be to the taste of the Kremlin leader and that Putin was only waiting for his costly Olympic Games in Sochi to end before intervening.
So it would happen.
Since then, in Moscow, the rhethoric has shifted to an aggressive posture that can easily be explained. Hard geo-political truths make Ukraine a buffer between Russia and the outside. The presence of the Sevastopol shared naval base that is the only Russian port to warrant year long unobstructed access to international waters is of the same nature. These two points are actually made worse by a recent project in Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan’s government in Ankara has initiated a visionary idea of creating a second canal to join the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.
Image found at link below.
While most news outlet denounce this project as crazy for economical or ecological reasons, if you were to ask Vladimir Putin, his objections would be mostly geo-political. For you see, there is a treaty that forbids the use of the existing magically beautiful Bosphorus strait canal for major military vessels. This explains why the US has two Arleigh Burke class frigates/destroyers en route to Crimea but no aircraft carrier? The new canal would be under the entire decisional power of Turkey and thus allow it to favor its allies ( it is part of NATO as a way to protect itself against Russia after all ) when the need arises. Of course, the readers will argue that this is but a project yet and they’d be right. But this is why prospective as I promised in the opening part of this post is so important in geo-politics. Knowing enough to understand where crisis came from a posteriori is all very nice but an expert be him/her self-styled has to be able to use that knowledge to envision moves which is why we so often compare the world of geo-politics to an Earth-sized chess match : always provision for any possible ensuing move by your adversary.
In order to secure the future access of his nation to the Mediterranean, Putin knows very well, that it is better to move forcefully now! Of course, the choices of implementing such a move are tainted by who the man is and what kind of power he built for himself in Moscow but in all honesty, many of these were handed to him on a silver platter by his opponents through the last years. Let us then conclude our explanation by debunking a couple myths, by laying down the ugly cards of truth as far as subjective points being bandied around in this instance.
Was the EuroMaidan pacific? Certainly not. Admittedly the Berkut police was not either but if such protests took place in the West, major law enforcement deployment would also have taken place. Police officers were killed, mind you. Of course, one can hope that no democratic government would have allowed the use of lethal force and the sad episode of the snipers sort of made us forget what had taken place earlier. Snipers by the way about which questions are being raised :
http://news.yahoo.com/russia-ukraine-feud-over-sniper-carnage-203319580.html
If the identity of the “third force” pointed to by present Interior Minister Avakov that sent these snipers exists and was to be ascertained, either Russia or Western influence might be taken out of the picture?
Was the follow-through on the February 21st agreement legal? I’d give that as a split. Yes the government rapidly contravened to major points of the deal, then again, the moves were only rendered possible by Yanukovych’s fleeing. Unwise might be the best term to apply to some ( not all by far ) of the decisions taken at the end of that month. Still, that opened the door to what was to follow at least as an excuse if not as a bona fide justification and in such games, an excuse is often all that the strongest aide ( here the Kremlin ) needs.
Are there fascists in the present Ukrainian directorate as Putin claims. Yes, clearly yes! One might debate about the true nature of the Svoboda Party :
http://www.thenation.com/blog/178716/dark-side-ukraine-revolt
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11568
which is associated to Nazi memories and close to some accepted but still far-right highly national political movements such as France’s Front National. But if one was ready to give it a minimum of leeway, the same could not be granted to Right Sector.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25826238
If these are to be properly compared,Right Sector are thugs/hooligans/anarchists at best and Svoboda bears an uncanny resemblance to Greece’s Golden Dawn that was outlawed last September. A political party with an armed militia branch complete with uniforms and an avowed liking and glorification of National Socialism à la Hitler’s Brown Shirts. Democracy simply cannot accept paramilitary organizations to be even remotely involved in the political debate less it perishes.
If the reader needs proof that Putin was allowed to make such a call, the following pictures from a town council after the fall of Yanukovich should suffice :
Both were extracted from the video found at this link.
Of course, that does not make the “electoral poster” below
Reuters – Baz Ratner
extracted form here :
http://rt.com/news/crimea-parliament-independence-ukraine-086/
any more tasteful.
Is the referendum on independence called for next Sunday in Crimea legal? The stupefying answer is : -No but its results may be binding. Technically, as we covered before, this vote should be held within the confines of the Ukrainian law to be found legal under the present dispositions of Crimea’s autonomous republic status. Since at least Kosovo, however the International criminal court has acknowledge ( Lotus ruling ) that a results can be obtained in full autonomy and that as long as the territory declaring itself independent factually maintains its authority in function afterwards, the decision is validated.
The only 2 problems faced by Crimea to obtain recognition are then ; A- that it remains to be seen if the election itself will be recognized by the international community and B- the presence of mysterious armed men on its territory.
The former is hurt by recent news to the effect that the press & observers has been stopped from doing their job in Crimea,
http://en.rsf.org/ukraine-two-ukrainian-journalists-missing-10-03-2014,45977.html
that voters might have been forcefully deprived of their passports and thus voting rights
excerpt from below : “Residents of Simferopol reported being visited by groups that stole or destroyed their passports, which are used as identification to vote.”
and up to a point by the fact that Crimea’s parliament has been operating in secrecy behind closed doors for the last few days which shames even the dubious scenes offered above from the rest of Ukraine as undemocratic.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/02/27/pro-russia-gunmen-seize-crimean-parliament
The latter, unidentified soldiers, is a brilliant move akin to a rook setting a checkmate! By keeping the occupying force unrecognized, even though anyone this side of unicorn aficionados know they are Russians, Moscow has bought the most important commodity in the geo-political arena long before oil and I have named TIME! Were those forces identified that the referendum would be taking place under duress. As long as they may be construed as local freedom fighters no matter how improbable however, until their identity is disclosed / proven, the main argument against the upcoming vote is held off. Of course there are major troop movements in Russia close to the Crimean peninsula but that is allowed. Of course the Russian navy has taken steps illegal as far as the rights of the Seas are concerned by sinking an old ship in the entrance of the Sevastopol harbour.
But that base is shared with the Ukrainian navy and it allows the Russian troops to coerce their “brothers” into inactivity?
5 days to go and the stand-off is complete! Of course, the present Us administration can be blamed for its soft Foreign Policy, I did say that myself but in reverse, for sure the same Putin that wants a Nobel Peace Prize for protecting Syria and allowing another strongman to martyrize his people can’t invoke the contrary view on Ukraine today … or can he? Maybe if the West, France in Libya 3 years ago, the whole gang in Kosovo circa 2008 or the US repeatedly over the years had not used the right of ingerence and that of auto-determination to favor buddies, they’d have a moremoral standpoint although as we said these fall second to harsh geo-politicl realities. Oh! And has anyone else noticed China’s stunning silence on the matter? Think of it, Beijing would rather not share Putin’s infamy as they have nothing to gain in the adventure but at the same time, siding with the West would come back to haunt them in the coming months and years as they try to nab and invade each and every desolate island/rock in the China Seas for purposes of territorial expansion and regional domination, right? The UN Security Council is as usual helpless to bring up a condemnation since Moscow has a veto right to nullify it? The existence of nukes, contrary to Sarah Dumbo Palin’s opinion, is not the solution but instead the very reason why there will not be a war over Crimea if at all over Ukraine. By acting regardless of the word given in 1994 and confirmed as recently as 2009 under his presidency by his state, Putin proves that the importance of nukes is not to deter from war by dissuasion but to allow one to chose its wars instead and thus ushers in a new era that bears striking similarities to the one before 1945. And once again, the fate of a part of the world will have been played over proper timing of illegal but unenforceable actions that defy morals and logic but refer to a big geo-political picture that concerns neither you, I nor those concerned!
Oh, sure! NATO is sending AWACs in Poland and Romania … to defend its members and thus sarcastically agreeing with Moscow that Ukraine should serve as a buffer zone?
http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/2014-03-11/nato-responds-ukraine-crisis-awacs-flights
Vlad is moving because its necessary to his country’s defence ( buffer zone ) and because it may not be possible to do so later ( Istambul crazy Canal ) and because the adversary is deprived of moral background ( similar past actions ) and because he won’t be caught before it’s too late ( “unidentified armed men”/ICC done deal = legal position ). The rest is history.
Russia is not the empire it used to be and Putin is not a democrat but at chess, Slavs remain champs, period.
Tay.
P.S. Sorry to my regular readers that probably found the last two weeks repetitive but it had to be covered one last time. We’ll move on to more varied subjects hence apart from news report as per need of course!
Additional reading :
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303281504579219983801909944
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