Posted on 04/04/2005 10:40:31 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
WASHINGTON - President Bush pledged Monday to help Ukraine join NATO and the World Trade Organization and said the two countries would work together to foster reform in other former Soviet republics.
Some Russia experts warned that Bush's tight embrace of Ukraine and advocacy of change elsewhere on Russia's borders could trigger Russian fears of encirclement and worsen already strained relations between Washington and Moscow.
President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Dmitry Medvedev, hinted at some of this Monday when he said in an interview in Moscow that Infighting among top Russian political leaders, rattled by popular uprisings in some former Soviet republics such as Ukraine, may cause a rift that puts Russia at risk of breaking up.
Bush hosted a luncheon for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who defeated a pro-Russian candidate in December and has vowed to move his country closer to the West while maintaining good relations with Russia. Bush called Yushchenko a "courageous leader" and "an inspiration to all those who love liberty."
Yushchenko was the first head of state Bush called following his Jan. 20 inaugural address, in which he laid out his second-term goal of encouraging democracy throughout the world.
"We share a goal to spread freedom to other nations," Bush told Yushchenko at a White House news conference.
Bush said he looked forward to working with the Ukrainian president in places such as Lebanon and the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, where protesters have also taken power in a popular revolt. He said the two also talked about Moldova and Belarus, two troubled former Soviet republics that border Ukraine, where the U.S,. wants non-violent democratic change.
The comments by Medvedev, Putin's chief of staff, appeared to be trying to win over people who might potentially support popular uprisings similar to those that toppled the longtime rulers in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, all former Soviet republics, said Igor Bunin, head of the Center for Political Technologies, a Moscow think tank.
Medvedev said infighting among politicians may cause Russia to collapse, leading to "horrible consequences" and making the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union seem like a "kindergarten party."
"If we do not manage to consolidate elites, Russia may disappear as a unified state," Medvedev was quoted as saying. "And then everybody will be in trouble, including our immediate and distant neighbors."
Medvedev's statements were a "scream for help" by a Kremlin weakened by recent embarrassments in foreign and domestic policy, said Nikolai Petrov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Among those embarrassments was Ukraine, where the Kremlin backed a candidate in elections that were tainted by fraud and eventually led to the Yushchenko gaining the presidency.
Ping!
Well, recognizing that one has a problem - and that one ['s behavior] IS the problem would go a long way to avoid "embarrassments" and would surely be more constructive than "scream[ing] for help". Isn't this the approach by Alcoholics Anonymous?
This is good news. It's time to stand up for freedom in places like the Ukraine and stop coddling Russia or kowtowing to them. Russia is helping Iran build nuclear reactors and long range missiles. Russia is arming China. Russia is not our friend, but our enemy. A different kind of enemy than the USSR, but still an enemy. Essentially, they are ruled by the KGB.
Thanks to Aldrich Ames. If not for traitorous moles like him, the KGB could have been crushed in 1991.
Thanks much. I have been studying books by Suvorov, the GRU defector, and the book by Pacepa, the head of the Romanian KGB (defector), for years, and I understood the essence of this article to be true.
However, I somehow never read Golitzen or even heard about him until I started posting on FR.
I did not realize that the things I had figured out are public knowlege, and am much relieved by the fact. Albeit, public knowlege strenuously denied. Albeit, information that makes me sick to read.
I am surprised at an error in the article, though I'm sure it was just one of those things. The article says the KGB turned into the SVR. Actually, the KGB was split into two agencies, mirroring the split between the CIA and FBI. The SVR is the organization for inside Russia. The FSB is for outside Russia.
The key question is, what about the new CIA head, Goss? I understand he is a good guy and he is cleaning house. I got one report to the contrary on Strategy Page, but that would be expected, wouldn't it?
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