Putin's Defense Plan

     As a response to questions and concerns of Sabina Bhatia and Misunderstoodmetropolis I’m writing this post. I tried to keep my last post very distant from the Crimean annexation, but I guess it’s hard to talk about parts of conflict when there are a lot of different aspects and issues involved at the same time. It’s actually very surprising that in the US media there are less articles and news reports about issues of Ukrainian nationalism and new neo-Nazi government leaders and more articles about Putin being a crazy communist former KGB agent. I’m sorry for anybody’s hopes and/or aspirations that could be shattered by this post. After careful research I may guarantee that Putin is neither crazy, nor is he trying to rebuild Soviet Union, nor will he try to invade other parts of Ukraine or any other countries of ex-USSR territory. Putin is nothing but a rational actor that is concerned about his country’s security and tries to protect his boarders, as well as takes advantage of a situation.

    Hear me out; I’m not anybody’s supporter. I have a cold mind and heart when I'm evaluating this situation; even though, my heart is bleeding when I watch poor civilians dying because of simple bureaucratic games.
   

       Crimea has a long troublesome history of being concurred, occupied, given away and rented out. Crimea locates just South of Ukraine and South West of Russia by the Black Sea. Before Crimea got its modern name the Greeks and Romans knew it as “Taurica” which means “fortress” or “stronghold” because of its strategically important location. The Greeks, Romans, Gothic tribes, the Kievan Rus’ state, the Byzantium Empire, and Mongols all occupied Crimea at different times. During mid-1400s under protection of the Ottoman Empire, it was also known as the Crimean Khanate. 

"The modern name 'Crimea' seems to have come from the language of the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic ethnic group that emerged during the Crimean Khanate. The Tatars called the peninsula 'Qirim'." 

Russian queen Catherine the Great annexed Crimea in 1783. It remained a Russian territory until 1917, when Russian Empire collapsed after October revolution. For a short period of time Crimea was a sovereign state, but in 1921 it once again became a part of a newly born Soviet Union as the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1954 for very unusual and uncertain reasons Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave Crimea away to Ukraine and it remained as such until couple months ago.

     In 1997 Ukraine and Russia signed a bilateral Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, which legally allowed Russia to keep it Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. While renting out Crimean ports Russia was partially subsidizing Ukrainian purchases of Russian natural gas. This seemed like a beneficial for both countries agreement. Here Ukraine gets to purchase cheaper natural gas and have a great military protection of a bigger brother Russia. Meanwhile, Russia gets to protect its Southwestern boarders, which as we can observe from historic evidences is extremely important military strategic location.

     Its 2014 now and Ukraine experiences a revolution where some people are eager to join the European Union, while others are not so eager and support keeping long-standing relationship with Russia. We also have people in Crimea that speak predominantly Russian and if not all the people but a majority of them see Ukrainian turmoil as an opportunity to gain Crimean independence and join Russian Federation.

    Lets try to become psychics and foresee future of Ukraine and Crimea specifically if Ukraine joins the European Union. However, you don’t need to be a psychic to realize that if Ukraine joins the EU it will eventually join NATO, as all of the other new members of European Union did. Now what’s going to happen to Russian Black Sea Fleet if Ukraine joins NATO? Hmmmm… No need to think too long or be some outstanding political analyst to understand that Russian Black Sea Fleet would be removed and United States Fleet would be placed instead. In this case we would’ve had a Cuban missile crisis but in reverse and it would’ve been called “Crimean missile crisis.” The US could have been as close as it gets to Russian boarder eye-eye staring at each other through riflescopes.

     Putin as a rational actor that understand how the world works could not allow this to happen and did everything to prevent a possible conflict and/or threat on his own boarders. But didn’t we do the same during the Cuban missile crisis, protected our boarders and prevented threat. If so, how can we blame Putin for what he did? Is he crazy? Not at all. Is he strategic? Very much so. Did he violate international laws? Yes he did, but who didn’t? It is quite hypocritical of United States to judge and sanction Russia

 “[a]fter invadingIraq illegally in 2003, with no sanction from the UN, and no imminent threat being posed by that country to either the US or to any of Iraq’s neighbors, after years of launching bombing raids, special forces assaults and drone-fired missile launches into countries like Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, and killing hundreds of innocent men, women and children, after illegally capturing and holding, without charge or trial, hundreds of people it accuses of being terrorists and illegal combatants, after torturing thousands of captives […]

How many times has the US sent troops into neighboring countries based upon the claim that it had to protect American citizens during a time of turmoil. We have Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and Haiti in 2003, for starters. Would the US hesitate for even a moment to send troops into Mexico if the Mexican government were overthrown in an anti-American coup, and if demonstrators who had led to that overthrow were attacking Americans? Of course not.

The Panama invasion, and the overthrow and arrest and removal to the US of Panama’s elected President Manuel Noriega, is particularly instructive, as it involved protecting a strategic US overseas base — the US Canal Zone — much as Russia is protecting its naval bases in Crimea, operated under a long-term lease from Ukraine but threatened by the recent Ukrainian coup. The US, headed at the time by President George H.W. Bush, invaded Panama under the pretext of protecting Americans in that country, but the attack (which had been planned well in advance of any threats to Americans) quickly morphed into an overthrow of the Panamanian government, the arrest of its leader, and the installation of a US puppet leader."  

    Further on, Russia has no interest in occupying any other parts of Ukraine or any other countries of former SovietUnion. Most of these countries are extremely underdeveloped and will be more costly than beneficial for Russian economy that is still in developing process itself. Even now, after annexing Crimea Russia already suffers quite a lot offinancial and economic discomfort. That’s why there is no even need of any discussions of possibility of Russia annexing anybody

Different Perspective on Ukraine

     Since all the protest began in Ukraine, on multiple occasions I’ve been approached and asked by different people what do I think about it and on whose side I am on. It seems that as a former Soviet Union citizen and Uzbek national I should be able to relate to these sad and worrisome events in Ukraine. Well, I am very sorry do disappoint all of you that I am not on anybody’s side and I am just a curious observer. I care very much about everything that is happening in Ukraine and I’m deeply worried about wellbeing of Ukrainian, Russian and all other people from former Soviet Union that are in Ukraine and involved in these events.

      First of all, I am very happy that people rose up and spoke up about their interests, freedoms and complaints as this young woman did

     Most of the newly independent countries of the former Soviet Union are highly corrupt with no opportunities of bright future for young generations. Political and social systems are stagnant and not flexible for any changes or modifications. There is no room for independent thoughts or freedom of speech. In order to change this type of lives people have to get together, rise up, speak up and turn over these regimes. However, it is hard to realize that the main problem of these countries is not any particular authoritative leader but a fraud system as a whole.

     Now, in Ukraine people got together to overturn their democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovich that disagreed to sign a trade agreement with European Union that could’ve led to a future unification. It is very concerning why people decided to march and revolve against Yanukovich instead of democratically impeaching him. Violence always provokes evenfurther violence and that is exactly what happened in Ukraine.

     Further, people who appeared on Maydan square didn’t represent opinion and political stand of the entire Ukrainian population neither it represented the majority. Even if some people didn’t support Yanukovich’s leadership they did support not signing the agreement. These people supported trade relationship with Russia and that’s where the Ukrainian national identity crisis begins. The country at this moment was already divided internally between people supporting relationship with Europe and others that were supporting relationship with Russia.

        The new leading political party SVOBODA (from Russian FREEDOM) is a anti-Russian, anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi party, whose emblem is a version of a Nazi swastika This new leadership began an anti-Russian pro-Ukrainian heritage campaign. New government tries to implement new passports where people have to identify themselves as Ukrainians, Russians, or Jewish that would allow Ukrainians receive special benefits, while others will suffer losses. They try to forcefully bust Ukrainian language and traditions, which further allows them to build Ukrainian national identity. However, in order to do so they oppress the use of Russian language and prohibit it use in media, education, jurisprudence, etc. What strikes me the most is that there are no radical differences between Russians and Ukrainians, as well as Belarusians. They are ethnically, culturally and traditionally the same people that share the same history, blood, culture and language. The base of all three languages is the same, but have slight dialectical differences. That’s why these nationalistic rivalries do not make any sense to me.

“The new parliament's first post-revolution legislative action was to repeal the law "On State Language Policy" -- a law passed in 2012 that allowed the use of "regional languages", including Russian, Hungarian, Romanian and Tatar, in courts and certain government functions in areas of the country where such speakers constituted at least 10 percent of the population. Thirteen out of Ukraine's 27 regions, primarily in Eastern Ukraine, subsequently adopted Russian as a second official language, while two western regions introduced Romanian and Hungarian as official languages. The annulment, which left Ukrainian as the only official language of Ukraine, was a direct attack on the cultural and linguistic rights of the Russian-speaking minority. After the European Parliament protested, demanding the new Ukrainian regime respect the rights of minorities. Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov (a Baptist) subsequently vetoed the repeal, but the episode sent alarm bells rings through the ethnic minorities.” 

[About] 1.7 million Jews were shot in Ukraine during WWII under supervision of the Nazis. In 2010, Ukraine's then US-backed President Viktor Yushchenko pronounced World War II-era nationalist leader Stepan Bandera a national hero. (Bandera was an ally of Nazi Germany whose followers participated in massacres of Ukrainian Jews.)  And on 1 Jan 2014, some 1500 Euromaidan protesters marched in a Svoboda-run torchlight procession in honor of Bandera. [ It is so] disturbing because the Bandera-honoring, Svoboda flag-bearing marchers are not scary skinheads; they are families and priests. (NB: The red and black flag represents an ultra-nationalist paramilitary.)

    Now here is the question if European Union would like a new member whose leading party is represented by neo-Nazis and represses minorities. Not that far ago the US as well as some of the European countries was trying to pull out of the Olympic games in Sochi because of Russian unwillingness to provide equal rights for the LGBTQ community. However, now the US with European Union has no problems supporting and accepting neo-Nazi leaders that oppress all the minorities of Ukraine. Doesn’t it seem like double standards with very selfish reasons?

       The situation in Ukraine is very complicated and multifaceted. On one hand we see genuine people trying to make a good change for their brighter future. On the other hand, they are backed up and represented by nationalistic neo-Nazi politicians whose goals and values are terrifying. Its terrifying because it is our grandfathers and grandmothers just a hundred years ago were fighting Nazis and were willing to die just to save our lives and futures. Now it’s on our heroically dead grandparents’ land a new Nazi party promoting values and thoughts that they were fighting against for. What is our role now? And what should we do?

A great Op-ed about events in Ukraine and Putin's actions regarding Crimea is written by the director of the School of International Relations at USC, Robert English.