Posted on 03/15/2014 12:07:11 AM PDT by goldstategop
In a letter published on his website on Friday the former Soviet President and Nobel Peace Prize winner said that his position on the Ukrainian crisis remains unchanged. “Our main task is to stop the dangerous escalation and find a solution that would be supported by Ukrainian and Russian citizens and prevent a new Cold War,” the message reads.
At the same time, Gorbachev wrote that he would prefer not to get personally involved in the talks and the diplomatic contacts President Vladimir Putin is having with other national leaders almost daily.
The former Soviet leader holds that the original cause of the current dire situation in Ukraine and Crimea lies in the “deliberate wrecking of Perestroika and in the thoughtless and adventurist dissolving of the Soviet Union.” “I was fighting to keep the union state by all political means I had at my disposal. I would like to emphasize – these were political means. Both before and after the pact was made by the heads of the Russian Federation, Belarus and Ukraine in the Belavezha Forest I was warning about the dangerous and destructive consequences,” Gorbachev said in the message. “Unfortunately they did not listen to my warnings. The Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation approved the destruction of the Soviet Union with applause and not a single word was spoken about Crimea and Sevastopol,” he added.
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
Crystal Ball time: The Crimea will emerge as State Federated with the Ukraine and with Russia. Obama and Kerry will claim full credit and the MSM will give it to them.
Yeltsin should have sent in the tanks and started a bloodbath.
Illegal blah blah blah. Everything good is illegal. Putin sending in troops to invade and annex, never illegal.
The law in the hands of scum is inevitably an ass.
Yeltsin would have preferred a refashioned, democratic Soviet Union. But without Ukraine it would never work. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was not something Russians wanted. In those days, they had to make the best of a bad situation. I disagree with Gorbachev about Belavezha in one respect: it was not the cause of the USSR’s collapse - it turned out to be at the time the most prudent way available to manage tha collapse and none of the politicians at the time could have stopped it. The human cost of reversing it was simply too high. And that’s where we are today. Its impossible to reverse the new reality it created and no one really wants to restore the USSR even in the form both Gorbachev and Yelstin envisaged.
Winning the Nobel Prize disqualifies Gorbachev from any intellectual debate. Let him join Obama, Carter and Gore to save the planet somewhere else.
Gorbachev was/is just another Communist liberals are trying to rewrite history about in order to take credit away from Ronald Reagan for ending the Cold War.
Russia may have decided to just take the part of Ukraine it cares about and cut the rest lose totally. Russia’s leaders may see this as a hard choice that will pay off in the future by settling questions and disputes about borders and identity that have been unresolved since the USSR collapsed. This can make a lot sense when you think about it from their perspective. Russia may feel it cannot have large numbers of people who consider themselves Russians in countries on its borders in part because it will draw Russia into intrigue in these countries that it now realizes it can’t win often enough to justify the trouble. They may see gobbling up parts of Ukraine as cutting their losses.
If that’s the case, the way to head this off would have to involve serious concessions. Russia has already decided it can survive whatever sanctions might be coming if this is indeed their course of action. Escalation by those opposed may result in moves in Central Asia, as Russia feels it has less to lose.
We have to understand that world historical forces live in our own time as much as in others. The ideologies and even the personalities are flitting above the waves of those forces. Time won’t stop because Hillary or Obama or Kerry gives some lame speech.
These jokers couldn’t even write a bill to give Ukraine’s new government a measly one billion dollars without trying to sneak a measure in blowing a huge amount of the IMF’s emergency money. Shameful. And then McCain has the nerve to shill for this bill? Why not just submit a clean bill without pork stuffed in if this was so important?
Russia saves a cool $15 billion by unloading this Turkey onto us. So any damage we inflict on their economy has to be measured starting $15 billion in the hole.
If that bill pases, we’re in one billion. We need to keep track of how much this costs.
Oh and I’m not stupid. I understand that the IMF “reform” may be a cover for mobilizing resources to attack Russia financially. That needs to be discussed first because I do not trust these clowns to not blow up our economy in the process. More than it has already, I mean.
The question that should be asked is why is the US and EU so desperate to get their claws into Ukraine? It is an economic basket case and will have a negative impact on Europe economically. Has everyone forgotten Greece? The absorption of Eastern Europe is also hurting Europe economically.
Why is Obama and America’s left wing so anxious to go to was with Russia?
Aside from McCain, I haven’t seen anyone yelp about war. Obama doesn’t care enough about this and wouldn’t let it bother his golf game but it’s just one of many international issues that he has bungled and he need to repair his image long enough to get through the elections.
He has no interest in Crimea, everything they do right now is for domestic consumption.
Gorby needs to be careful, lest his life of comfort may be relocated to Siberia for the balance of his pension years.
Disagree Russia needs all of Ukraine back for economic strategic reasons. Putin will not stop and we will do nothing except draw another red line
The Lithuanian argument was that it was not required to legally secede from the USSR because it was never legally incorporated into the USSR.
A good question defined by a series of events.
1. 1990- the 2 plus 4 treaty negotiations on German re-unification and whether or not NATO would expand to the east and Ukraine. Gorbachev said that the US made that commitment to not expand NATO, Robert Zoellick, lead negotiator for the US, said no commitment was made.
2. 1992- Wolfowitz Doctrine. A policy paper by Wolfowitz, defense undersecretary for policy, that would define US policy towards and prevention of the re-establishment of a regional power built upon the Soviet platform. Also known as the NeoCon Doctrine or Bush Doctrine.
3. 1994- Orange Revolution largely financed by US AID money to Civil Society NGOs in Ukraine to establish a western friendly govt.
4. 1998- The beginning of the price rise in first the price of oil then natural gas that led to an eventual quadrupling. Continued decline in output from the North Sea field. Eventually led to a reversal of fortune to the Russian Petro State
2001- Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization(SCO) comprised of China, Russia, and the petro rich central Asian nations.
2002- Establishment of the Collective Security Treaty Organization(CSTO) which was built upon the military government alliance established in 1992. Georgia and Ukraine decline membership. In 2011 Russia was given veto power over the establishment of a foreign military base in any of the CSTO nations
2002- US begins negotiations on the establishment of the European Interceptor Site in Poland
2008- Russia invades Georgia
2010- Russian friendly govt elected in Ukraine and the 50 year lease on the Russian Naval base in Crimea is renewed.
2013- the second Orange revolution begins.
I get a sense of “good cop, bad cop” going on.
Russia did not legally secede from USSR, Putin is not really a president, so give everything back to Gorbachev /sarc
It’s mindless. Our “deep state” is just being too aggressive. The have begun believing their own BS that anything they do is justified including fomenting a coup against a demographically elected government.
Had the early election gone ahead with no coup, probably everything our leaders wanted from Ukraine would have happened peacefully. They overreached.
From the perspective of Russia, China and many other countries, when the US overthrows a democratic government that is a mild inconvenience after pontificating so loudly about how democracy must be followed looks very bad and justifies all kinds of nondemocratic behavior on their part.
I feel sorry for the people of Ukraine that they are trapped by these larger forces they cannot control.
Notice that the play book in Ukraine is basically a 1960’s leftist protest strategy. The idea is you can determine who is runs the government by whoever mobilizes more and more enthusiastic protests rather than who gets the most votes.
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