Has Putin 'lost' Ukraine?

Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose task is to play a weak hand with great cunning, tries to make the most of his few assets and is not doing well. His attempt to maximize his leverage from Russia's energy supplies is backfiring; Western shareholders would rather deal with businessmen than with a capricious, law-bending Kremlin. His courtship of the Europeans, France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder, may eventually make sense, but right now it is jeopardizing his big asset, his personal relationship with President George Bush.

Putin's big policy speech in new Delhi Friday, the high point of his official visit to India, irritated the White House by sounding as if it had been written in Paris.

"Attempts to rebuild the multifaceted and diverse modern civilization, created by God, in line with the barrack room principles of a unipolar world appear to be extremely dangerous," Putin said. "The more persistently and effectively the authors and followers of this idea act, the more often mankind will come up against dangerous disproportions in economic and social development and against global threats of international terrorism, organized crime, and drug traffic."

In international shorthand these days, a unipolar world is one dominated by the United States, and the French and Chinese don't like it. They want a multi-polar world where there is sufficient strength in numbers that the Europeans and Chinese can act as "a counterweight" to American power. For Putin to start echoing the anti-American sniping of Paris and Beijing is risky business, and points to his own dismay at the way the Ukraine crisis threatens him. Because of the way the Western media are portraying things, Putin fears that he might go down in Russian history as the man who "lost" Ukraine.

This is a generally good article. Although his criticism of Western perception of this drama is probably accurate, it's also disproportionately one-sided. Yes, this is true:

Because of the way the Western media are portraying things, Putin fears that he might go down in Russian history as the man who "lost" Ukraine. It is all nonsense. Ukraine is not Putin's to lose.

That's right, Ukraine is not Putin's to "lose". But someone should tell Putin that because he is acting every bit as much like Gorby acted at the thought of losing the USSR empire. The author places all the blame for the perception that Putin's trying not to "lose" Ukraine on "the Western media". Sorry but that's just bull.

Putin IS, without a doubt, trying not to "lose" Ukraine! That kind of consideration is unquestionably playing a role in Russia's actions! So for the author to dismiss it as an invention or fantasy of Western media is worse than misguided. It glosses over what I believe is an important facet of Russian politics that should be appreciated here more.

Russia and Russians are, not to put too fine a point on it, plagued by conspiracy theories. "The West" is out to get them. Soros is out to get them. They don't want to be "encircled" by "US-controlled" this or that.

Why did Khodorokovsky get in trouble? Because he was going to sell controlling interest in Yukos to a group which included Americans and/or Westerners. Why is that bad? Because then "the West" or "the US" (or "the CIA") would be able to "control" Russia's energy etc. Did your average Russian approve of jailing Khodorkovsky and stopping the Yukos deal for this reason, for this conspiracy theory of "making sure The Americans don't 'control' Yukos"? YOU BET.

Now I'm not as familiar with why exactly Russia supports Ya. and dislikes Yu. so much, but I'll bet that it boils down to much the exact same thing. Yu. is perceived to be "the West's" candidate and if he is elected then "the West" will "control" Ukraine - and that's why Russians are against him, even to the point of being willing to look the other way from/dismiss credible charges of vote-stealing on Ya.'s part.

These feelings of being "encircled" by "the West", and worrying about Western or American "control", are VERY REAL among Russians. Putin is acting every bit like someone who is responding to and represents this feeling. To ignore that and say that "losing Ukraine" is just a fantasy drummed up by the Western media is just silly.

Russians to a large extent really do worry about "losing Ukraine".

BTW, are the average Americans opposed to the tranfer of American industry and assets into Chinese/foreign hands? Are the average Americans a little paranoic about that and other things like uncontrolled immigration? YOU BET! I suspect that they would not mind to have American equivalent of Putin in charge.

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