When a “Regime Change” orchestrated by the West back fires
Posted on March 2nd, 2014
TRUE NEWS SUMMARY
It all started with the European Union at one point developed its Eastern Partnership Initiative and promoted the idea of association agreements with some of the focus countries purely based on geopolitical ambitions of NATO. Ukraine was a prime target.
Shortly before signing the Eastern Partnership Initiative at the Vilnius Summit of the Eastern Partnership at the end of last November President Yanukovich had second thoughts about getting only EU involved in the deal.
Evidently he understood the possible implications of entry into force of this agreement realising that the EU hasn’t got the sufficient economic strength on its own to rescue fast diminishing economy in Ukraine. Then he decided to invite economically more powerful Russia also into the negotiation.
President Yanukovich knew how the IMF works. It never gives money overnight. This was perhaps one of the reasons why President Yanukovych ultimately chose not to sign the Association Agreement, because the money that he would have had the chance to get through the IMF was linked to certain very costly reforms in the line of austerity like raising domestic prices for energy 40%, like freezing wages, lowering pensions, and so on. So this was tantamount to a social time bomb.
As the Head of the Russian mission to the EU, Ambassador Vladimir Chizhov said in his interview at New Europe Studios, those who immediately started blaming Russia and still continue to blame Russia are totally unfair and incorrect, because Russia did not interfere in this situation. The only thing Russia did was to outline to our Ukrainian colleagues the implications that association with the European Union would have for the Ukrainian economy and its relations with other countries, including Russia.
Even schoolbooks were changed to promote association with the European Union, and of course those people who came out to protest against that particular decision by President Yanukovych were eager to see Ukraine closer to the European Union. Most of them had no idea what the Association Agreement is all about. A very few people had read it. They mostly thought that immediately after signature they would have a visa-free regime, create mass exodus to Britain and that the EU will open up its limitless coffers and pour huge amounts of money into Ukraine, a wishful thinking.
But eventually those protests evolved into something different. If you compare pictures from the Maidan square, the Independence square in Kiev, in the first days and weeks to what happened towards the end of the sit-in, they look completely different because the popular protest was side lined and then almost eliminated by thuggish-looking armed hooligans, well-equipped with steel helmets, with flak jackets, with bats, and ultimately with kalashnikovs. The flags that were seen were no longer EU flags, but those red and black flags of the ultra-nationalists, and the portraits were not of Van Rompuy or Barroso, not even Ashton. They were of Stepan Bandera, a well-known Nazi collaborator and war criminal who is still considered a hero among the ultra-nationalists.
All those events, and they lasted for months, needed money. The protests were fed, equipped, heated. Such things, indeed, require a budget. Not necessarily the outcome of those protests was defined solely by croissants delivered by a well-known representative of the U.S. State Department. But evidently, both political and material support as well as international publicity were promptly provided for the opposition, by EU and the United States, whereas Russia kept a neutral stand.
At the end of the day, Majority of the Ukrainian people do not recognize the new authorities in Kiev, and they have every right to do so because this changeover of power in the Ukraine was an act of questionable legitimacy and undemocratic. The person called himself as the minister of interior in the new government is an unknown position in the Ukraine constitution – there is no minister of interior because according to the constitution, any constitution, of Ukraine, ministers of interior, defence and other power structures, they can only be put in office by a decree of a president. So, this new government, which was promised to be a government of national unity, is far from that because it does not represent the eastern half of the country. Actually, only a small number of political factions are represented. So it cannot be called an inclusive government
The majority of the population of Ukraine lives in the Russian speaking East. Millions upon millions of these people have family ties, historic ties, cultural and linguistic links with mainland Russia. The majority of voters in a potential election are in the East. Today this has been completely neglected by those who have seized power in Kiev their western backers like EU and US. The local governors and local parliamentarians of the east are the majority in the country, in addition they had their own local congress in Kharkov, in Donetz and I many Eastern Cities.and they are now prepared to draw their own line.
Of course the economy of Ukraine is in a mess and Russia as the powerful neighbour has due obligation to put that house in order.
Both Russia and the West say they want a peaceful resolution, but they are at polar opposites on the fundamental question of who is the legitimate authority in Ukraine.
Western powers say it is the new interim government in Kiev, authorised by the Ukrainian parliament
Russia says Kiev is in the hands of an illegitimate government of “far-right extremists” with “xenophobic, anti-Semitic and neo-fascist” views, installed as the result of a “coup d’etat”, which deposed President Victor Yanukovych illegally.
Mr Putin wants the West and Kiev to go back to the defunct agreement signed with Victor Yanukovych on 21 February to hold discussions about constitutional reform to satisfy the demands of all parties and regions – presumably shorthand for reforms to turn Ukraine into a federation, with more self-rule for Russian-speaking regions and Crimea.
But that would effectively mean recognising that Mr Yanukovych is still president and that the new Ukrainian government is therefore illegitimate.
The West is not going to agree to that.
Latest Information
Worst Man for the Job: What the Hell is Obama Thinking?
By Dan Welch (about the author) How oblivious or arrogant do you have to be to spend $5 billion dollars destabilizing a country (the actual total is undoubtedly much higher), have your diplomats caught on tape planning a coup, bring a gang of fascist thugs to power on Russia’s doorstep–whose first order of business is to outlaw the Russian language, conduct a purge of opposing parties, threaten the Russian-speaking population, threaten to restore Ukraine’s nuclear status and provoke and threaten Russia non-stop… and have the “balls” to lecture anyone about interfering? Oh, add to the pot that you have done the same exact thing in several other countries in the past few years alone. It simply boggles the mind.
Crimea forms its own fleet as Ukraine Navy chief sides with region
http://rt.com/news/navy-chief-ukraine-crimea-485/
Tea, sandwiches, music, photos with self-defense forces mark peaceful Sunday in Simferopol
http://rt.com/news/ukraine-crimea-photos-tweets-434/
‘Russian forces in Ukraine could be a stabilizing factor in a country with no legitimate govt’
http://rt.com/op-edge/russia-forces-restraint-ukraine-392/
Thousands in Moscow, St Petersburg rally in support of Russian speakers in Ukraine
http://rt.com/news/rally-russia-bikers-ukraine-455/
Sort out who’s boss in Kiev, Crimea takes care of itself – republic’s parliament speaker
http://rt.com/news/kiev-crimea-sort-care-449/
Ukrainian troops dispatched in Crimea switch to region’s side – sources
http://rt.com/news/ukraine-military-russia-resign-437/
New head of Ukraine’s navy defects in Crimea (BBC)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26410431
Ukrainian warships voluntarily leave Sevastopol: sources
http://rt.com/news/ukrainian-warships-leave-sevastopol-476/
Sevastopol City Council refuses to recognize Kyiv leadership
Vladimir Putin sees small protests, mass support for troops in Ukraine
Ukraine Navy chief swears allegiance to Crimea (VIDEO)
http://rt.com/news/navy-chief-ukraine-crimea-485/
675,000 Ukrainians pour into Russia as ‘humanitarian crisis’ looms
http://rt.com/news/ukrainians-leave-russia-border-452/
March 2nd, 2014 at 12:40 pm
Hopefully this crisis will ESCALATE.
Then Tamil Pee-illey will have to concentrate on this and not so much on SL.
March 2nd, 2014 at 12:54 pm
Although I support Russia on this I fear the SAME can happen in SL too.
Endians (Tamils) in the north can create trouble through NPC and BEG Endia to come and protect them. They will raise the Endian flag and DEFY SL govt. Then Endia will invade SL again to “protect” them.
“675,000 Ukrainians pour into Russia as ‘humanitarian crisis’ looms”
This particularly worries me. This has NOT happened in reality. These RUSSIAN SPEAKING Ukrainians have NOT crossed over to RUSSIA. They are in Crimea and other EASTERN PARTS of Ukraine still. But Russian news agencies have NOW started to call it part of Russia!!!
March 2nd, 2014 at 5:11 pm
I heard a discussion over the radio on the Ukranian issue and there it was mentioned that Crimea was once an integral part of Russia, but in 1954 Nikita Krewshev of Russia, gifted it to Ukrain without thinking of future implications. If this is the case, then it is fair for Crimeans to refuse to join the NATO nations, and by chance if Ukrain’s new Western installed but unelected Government decides to Join NATO, then for Crimea to return to Rusiia.
In Sri Lanka the story is different. The island of Sri Lanka has been a unitary state from time immemorial and Sri Lanka never received any region which had been a part of any foreign nation previously. In fact Sri Lanka lost Maldive Islands, as the British did not hand it back to Sri Lanka at the time of independence.
March 2nd, 2014 at 7:45 pm
The nature of Russia: Russia is the only nation in the world where it is a major power in the West and a major power in the East. Russia created the Collective Security Treaty Organization as a counter to NATO whose members are Armenia, Belarus which shares a border with the Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan who unlike the NATO member nations are not in any financial crisis, rich in untapped natural resources and strategically well placed. It is almost impossible to wage any war in Asia without the need of traversing their air space. The US needed a base in Kyrgyzstan in order to continue her war in Afghanistan.
In addition the CSTO have a combined air force and a rapid strike force similar to NATO. China has formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization whose members are Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. By having Russia in the SCO including many of the CSTO members, both China and Russia have created the greatest force that stretches from the China sea to Eastern Europe.
In the Security Council both Russia and China jointly veto any issues that are detrimental to either party rendering the Security Council nil. A war with Russia as threatened by President Obama would also be a war with China. All China needs to do is sell a good portion of the US debt held in bonds. China currently holds 40% of the US debt. Such a move would cripple the US economy and render the Dollar worthless as the international currency of exchange.
Many like to believe this is a new kind of “cold war”. It is not. During the Cold War the US was against the Soviet Union which in turn was against Maoist China. Then China’s economy was similar to that of India and quite undeveloped. Now China is rapidly building her military while holding the fate of the US economy in her hands.
When President Obama threatened Russia of retaliation and the Secretary of State John Kerry mockingly compared Russia’s military move by comparing it to a Hollywood movie when he stated “this is not like the Rocky movies” or words to that, the very next day Putin got the unanimous approval of the Duma (parliament) and sent Russia’s military into the Ukraine and took back the Crimea which is vital to the Russian military.
In a blink of the eye the power of the world has shifted from the West to Russia/China.
March 2nd, 2014 at 8:48 pm
BW,
Very good explanation.
In that light CRIMEA assumes even greater significance. NATO Turkey hold most US ICBM targeting southern Russia. They can be eclipsed FURTHER by Russian nuke deployment in Crimea.
Russia now has the LONGEST coastline bordering the BLACK SEA after Turkey.
Sooriarachi,
SL’s history is different but the what Endia can do is the SAME. In 1987 Tamilians begged Endia to invade SL and they did it. With Moda Modi as PM and Jeyalolita joining him if Tamilians in SL beg again Endia will gladly invade SL and ANNEX part of it with Russian logic.
March 3rd, 2014 at 12:07 pm
Lorenzo
Thank you. The impotency of President Obama was demonstrated a few days ago when Russia sent her troops into the Ukraine and took the Crimea, President Obama went golfing instead of being in the “situation room”. Now President Obama is threatening Russia that the US will remove Russia out of the G8 nations (France, Canada, UK, US, Japan, Italy, Germany, and Russia) which does not include China. In the DRUDGE Report today (3/3/14) the headlines are “China and Russia unite” as I thought they would. In fact they have already “united” for quite a while.
Removing Russia out of the G8 nations would only hurt the G8 and not Russia and if that is done China will act in a punitive manner against the US whose “containment policy” of China has already soured relations between China and the US on this issue. Now issues in the Security Council with normally would be not an issue would suddenly become fractious thereby stomping the remaining three, (US, UK and France). Overall this is good for Sri Lanka for greater the rift between Russia/China against the US there is a possibility the more support Sri Lanka will get from these nations and their organizations on every sphere.
March 3rd, 2014 at 1:10 pm
IF US or EU put sanctions on Russia it should immediately WITHDRAW from all nuke reduction treaties and flood Europe border with ICBMs.
The new YARS ICBM tested a month ago should be HEAVILY multiplied.
IF any further Saudi-US terrorists attack Russia it should hammer Saudi oil fields. Then Russian oil will fetch high prices overcoming sanctions nonsense. It will collapse PETRO DOLLAR and USA.
Forget about Paralympics in Sochi if UK and USA want to boycott. Let them. I bet they dare not.
Ukraine economy is in sh*t. It makes sense for Ukraine to SURRENDER Crimea.
March 3rd, 2014 at 2:00 pm
Bottom Line: Russia will not allow the West’s Regime Change activities to go unchallenged when its essential national interests are at stake.
The US policy makers, aka serial global bunglers, have failed to understand that there is a limit to what Russia will tolerate. That limit appears to have been reached. Russia has too much historical experience of the consequences of failing to act, and the MONUMENTAL FAILURE of US leaders to understand that is INEXPLICABLE!
About fifty years ago the US also miscalculated the consequences of deploying nuclear missiles in Turkey directed at the USSR and reaped the Cuban Missile Crisis when the USSR responnded in kind by deploying nuclear missiles to Cuba. The crisis was resolved when both parties agreed to remove the missiles from both Cuba and Turkey. That was a classic case of tit-for-tat. So is the present crisis in Ukraine, with the Russian Federation asserting its rights to national security.
The Ukraine Crisis may benefit Sri Lanka, by giving pause to the US in its efforts to undermine and destabilize Sri Lanka at the UNHCR meeting in Geneva in March 2014. Also, Russia is likely to support Sri Lanka much more strongly than it may have intended before the Ukraine crisis. Recent reports show that China and a number of other countries are voicing support for the Russian Federation.
Do I detect the beginning of a global polarization of the world into Western and Eastern blocks?
………………………….
Russia to the West: We’re the good guys in Crimea
To Russian eyes, Vladimir Putin’s decision to deploy troops to Ukraine is a peacekeeping measure, not a matter of expansionist aggression.
By Fred Weir
Christian Science Monitor,
March 3, 2014
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Is economy Russia’s Achilles heel?
Though Russia’s military intervention into Ukraine occupies the West’s full attention, it remains unclear just what Vladimir Putin’s intentions are.
The Russian president has yet to address his nation, so the full calculus behind Moscow’s stunning weekend decision to assert its right to use military force “on the territory of Ukraine” remains a matter of guesswork.
But judging from officials’ public comments and interviews with Kremlin-connected analysts, it appears that Russia sees itself as acting defensively to protect fellow Russians in Crimea, and possibly Russian-speakers in other parts of eastern Ukraine. The threat, in their eyes: a Western-inspired “coup d’état” in Kiev, which brought an illegitimate, minority-backed, and anti-Russian government to power in Ukraine.
Ukraine is not only one of Russia’s closest neighbors and trade partners, but also a land whose eastern half was part of Moscow-led states for over 300 years. The vast majority of its people speak Russian, have myriad economic connections with Russia, attend the Russian Orthodox Church, share a Russian cultural heritage, get their information from Russian media, and look to Moscow to protect their interests.
But the new nationalist government, which was immediately recognized by most Western countries, has destabilized and potentially split the country of 46 million, say Russian analysts. So Moscow had little choice but to take some sort of strong action, says Gleb Pavlovsky, a onetime close adviser to Mr. Putin who has since become a critic of Kremlin policies.
“Who can say what is legal in Ukraine today?” after revolutionaries representing one-half of the country – the nationalist west – seized power from a legally elected government using pressure from the streets, and began pushing through their own narrow agenda, Mr. Pavlovsky says.
“Obviously the sudden appearance of a government that had no representation from the east of the country triggered a wave of panic around Ukraine’s south and east. In my opinion, Russia should not have intervened, but it still had to put pressure on Kiev, it had to do something,” he adds.
RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT?
Some pro-Kremlin media commentators are even citing R2P [Responsibility to Protect], a recent Western concept – adamantly opposed by official Moscow in the past – which postulates that big powers have a duty to intervene in cases where populations are endangered, because humanitarian concerns should trump national sovereignty.
Russian military forces are so far confined to the majority-Russian autonomous republic of Crimea where, over the past week, they have ensured that a solidly pro-Moscow local government is in place; Ukrainian forces are either besieged or persuaded to change sides; and the borders, airports, rail links, and administrative buildings are all under tight guard by Russian troops.
There have been reports that Russia has issued ultimatums to Ukrainian bases and warships to disarm, but the Russian defense ministry called the reports nonsense.
“Russia does not want a war with Ukraine,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told a Russian TV station Monday. “I am absolutely positive that no one in Russia wants a war.”
Contrary to Western news reports, Putin has not yet made use of the authorization to use force, Andrei Klimov, deputy chair of the Duma’s international affairs committee, told the Kremlin-funded RT network in an extensive interview Monday. The authorization had been unanimously passed by the Russian parliament on Saturday.
According to Mr. Klimov, the Russian troops seen on TV screens patrolling and guarding buildings in Crimean cities do not yet exceed the limits of the Kharkov Agreement, under which Russia is entitled to base about 25,000 military personnel at its naval base in Sevastopol.
“We know that there is a real civil war now on Ukrainian territory, we know well that there are a lot of people, thousands and thousands of people with weapons, whom we do not know and who are not the part of the official military forces of Ukraine,” Klimov said. “To protect our military ships, our military base – even missiles, what we have there in Crimea – we have to be sure that we’re really able to do that even in case if they open fire.”
But other analysts point out that, regardless of whether Russia has overstepped its legal troop limits in Crimea, it has certainly gone way beyond the terms of the accord with Ukraine by effectively putting the Crimean republic under firm control from Moscow.
“Of course the introduction of Russian troops into Crimea lacks any legitimacy,” says Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the independent Center for Political Technologies in Moscow. “The world doesn’t agree that you should be able to send the military into a country just because a president is overthrown.”
PREVENTING A MOSCOW MAIDAN
Another strand in the Russian narrative is the firm Kremlin belief that the West not only cheered, but also aided and abetted pro-European protesters in their confrontation with legally elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, leading to his downfall.
“We see that there was a plan, approved in the West, to impose an irreversible change on Ukraine. We have always agreed that Ukraine is ‘not Russia,’ but the goal here was to make it anti-Russia,” says Sergei Markov, a frequent Kremlin adviser, reached by phone in Crimea on Monday.
“We think the ultimate goal is to establish power in Kiev, force Ukraine [into the Western camp], and then foment a Maidan-style revolution in Moscow to overthrow Putin,” he says.
A poll carried out by the independent Levada Center in Moscow in late February found that a majority of Russians are primed to view Ukrainian events from the Kremlin’s perspective. According to the survey, 43 percent saw the Kiev upsurge as a “coup d’état” and another 23 percent thought it was a “civil war.” Far fewer responders identified the events as a “national uprising” or protests against government corruption. Nearly half of respondents blamed the “influence of the West, pursuing its own interests” for the unrest, while another third put it down to “nationalist moods.”
The Russian media, which loves to decry Western “double standards,” has had a bit of a field day with US Secretary of State John Kerry’s jab at Russian behavior, made on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, that “you just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests…. It’s really 19th century behavior in the 21st century.”
ECONOMIC ISOLATION?
But some Russians do worry about the price they may be compelled to pay down the road in terms of economic sanctions, diplomatic penalties, and perhaps even a return to full-scale cold war isolation.
Russia’s currency hit all-time lows on Monday, and the Moscow stock market plummeted, in part due to worries over the global reaction to Russian moves in Ukraine. Canada withdrew its ambassador from Moscow, and several countries said they will boycott the June Group of Eight meeting that was to be hosted by Russia in Sochi.
But pro-Kremlin experts argue that Russia, which has nearly $500 billion in foreign currency reserves, can weather the economic storm, and that any sharp diplomatic gestures are likely to be short-lived.
Alexei Pushkov, head of the State Duma’s international affairs committee, likened it to the wave of international condemnation that followed Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia.
“The 28 countries that comprise NATO are far from being the whole world community,” Interfax agency quoted him as saying on Monday. “Western countries will not succeed in setting up some kind of cordon around Russia now,” any more than they did in the past when calls for Russia’s isolation were made over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he added.
March 3rd, 2014 at 2:30 pm
Ananda
I had a silent chuckle when you quoted the Christian Science Monitor especially by Wier at Lankaweb.