EU ponders ‘losing Ukraine to Russia’

EurActiv ^ | 15 May 2012

[Olog-hai]

EU ministers held an animated discussion in Brussels yesterday (14 May), evaluating the risks of “losing Ukraine to Russia” if too much pressure is put on the country over the treatment of imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Meeting over lunch to discuss Ukraine, the Union’s foreign ministers failed to adopt common positions, but agreed that more should be done to work with civil society in Ukraine to defuse a loss of confidence in the country’s European perspective.

Diplomatic sources said ministers spoke openly about the risk that a tough line on Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich would push the country closer to Russia, eager to put flesh to its plans for a “Eurasian Union” comprising former Soviet states. Russia has also invited Ukraine to join its Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, the EU has finalized an association agreement and a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) with Ukraine. But the signature of these documents is pending depending on the fate of Tymoshenko and the conditions under which parliamentary elections due in October will be held.

One minister reportedly quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had called Ukraine a “non-accomplished state”—nesosstoyavsheesya gossudarstva. According to some analysts, a Eurasian Union without Ukraine would not fly. …

[Seizethecarp]

Barry has already promised to be “more flexible” on surrendering Ukraine to Russia...but only if he wins the election.

[Navy Patriot]

Paging NATO, uncooperative Eastern European state alert.

Uppity serf alert.

[crosshairs]

Newman: I'm not beaten yet. I still have armies in the Ukraine.

This comment perks up the ears of what appears to be a Russian immigrant.

Kramer: Ha ha, the Ukraine. Do you know what the Ukraine is? It's a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It's feeble.
I think it's time to put the hurt on the Ukraine.

Ukrainian: I come from Ukraine. You not say Ukraine weak.

Kramer: Yeah, well we're playing a game here, pal.

Ukrainian: Ukraine is game to you?! Howbout I take your little board and smash it!!

The Ukrainian pounds the game board, destroying it and sending army pieces flying.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

Barry has already promised to be “more flexible” on surrendering Ukraine to Russia...but only if he wins the election.

Shouldn't the Ukrainians have a say in this discussion? I believe the "Orange Revolution" left little doubt that the 30 something and under crowd was ecstatic about saying goodbye to the Bolsheviks.

Regards,
GtG

[Seizethecarp]

The narrow winner of recent election who favors alignment with Putin immediately jailed the loser,Yuliya TYMOSHENKO, (a babe, BTW, IMO) who favored the EU.

From the CIA WorldBook:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/up.html

elections: president elected by popular vote for a five-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held on 17 January 2010 with runoff on 7 February 2010 (next to be held in October 2015)

election results: Viktor YANUKOVYCH elected president; percent of vote - Viktor YANUKOVYCH 48.95%, Yuliya TYMOSHENKO 45.5%, other 5.6%

[Olog-hai]

The so-called Orange Revolution had the wind taken out of its sails when Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with Agent Orange (the choice of toxins sounds very deliberate). As for the Ukranian people, it looks like they won’t get any other choices other than to align with the European Union or Pooty-poot’s new Eurasian Union (or USSR Part Deux if you like); actual independence is out of the question..

[Jimmy Valentine]

Not going to work. Yanukovich is a thug and everybody knows it.

Ukrainians are not fans of Russians too many memories of the "Holodomor" and other atrocities.

[rmlew]

1/3 of Ukraine and all of the Crimea should be given to Russia. A rump Ukraine of Ruthenia and Galica would be a Western oriented nation and not have to deal with irridentist Russians.

[dfwgator]

1/3 of Ukraine and all of the Crimea should be given to Russia.

Yep, let Hitler have Austria and the Sudetenland...then he won't make any more trouble.

[Olog-hai]

So the answer is to appease irredentists? Hmm, the Sudetenland’s heard that one before, never mind the entire Balkans. Anything but independence—it’s one empire or the other.

[Olog-hai]

Then let him have Poland too, right? Lebensraum kept getting bigger and bigger . . . too bad some people have short memories and/or a fading sense of history.

[dfwgator]

I vote for restoring the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

[dfwgator]

A little peace of Poland
A little peace of France
A little peace of Portugal and Austria per chance

[rmlew]

Russia already controls Ukraine because of the Russian population in the east. They have 45% of the population. So what is more important for you, Kruschev’s borders, or Ukrainian liberty?

[Cronos]

the problem is that the Ukraine is a land divided. The very name U kraina means borderland.

It is a land which to the east of the Dnieper river speaks mostly Russian and none of the Ukrainian dialects (note: Ukrainian is really a transitional set of languages, though there is the official version set in Kiev, most is transitional between Eastern Slavic and Western Slavic) and favor Russia while to the west they are mostly Ukrainiac speaking and favor Europe.

This is due to their history and the repercussions of the Mongol invasion in the 13th century.

Prior to that, the lands of the Ukraine and Belarus were the center of the Kievan Rus principalities -- city states. The Mongols smashed this and conquered them all. Muscowy at this time was just a tributary city to Vladimir-Suzdal (Włodzimiersko-Suzdalska). The Grand Dukes of Muscowy set themselves up as tax-collectors for the Great Khan of the Mongols. Then in the 14th century they rebelled against the Khans and started the Muscowite Empire. Arguably these Muscovites took on much of the Mongol characteristics -- among some Great Russians there is the tendency to see imperial Russia as a continuation of the Mongol empire of Genghis Khan

At the same time, to the West, a section of the Western Slavs -- the Poles were getting stronger and were under the influence of Latin culture, becoming very Western in thought. At the same time, the Lithuanians in the vacuum with the end of Kievan Rus conquered all of what is now Belarus and Western Ukraine. They were initially administered by Belarussian speakers. Then in the 1400s they joined with the Poles to form the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.

This lasted for nearly 400 years and Western Ukraine was an intrinsic part of this.

The Belarussian and Ukrainians became very polonized (as did the Lithuanians) with the upper classes becoming Polish.

the lower classes were still Orthodox. This was not a problem in the multi-ethnic, multi-religious (it had Jews, Catholics, Orthodox, Tartar Muslims, Lutherans and UNitarians) Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (called the Rzeczpospolita) Muscowy started portraying itself as the protector of the Orthodox people. The Ukrainian Cossacks especially the Zaporozhian Cossacks fought against the Poles (too long to go into the reasons here, suffice to say the fault was on both sides) and Muscowy offered "help".

The Ukrainians, from trying to get away from a perceived oppressor entered the embrace of a true oppressor.

After the Polish partitions in the late 1700s, the Tsars called themselves the Great Russians and the Ukrainians the Little Russians (it doesn't sound so bad in Polish/Russian, just like New and Old) and the Ukrainians were under heavy Russification from the 1870s onwards with the rise in nationalism in Europe (this was the same time the French were putting down regional languages like Basque, Bretagne, Gascon etc. and the English were putting down regional languages like Cornish, Manx etc. and the Germans were replacing all of their dialects with standardised German and forcing Poles, Czechs etc. to speak German).

This was only exacerbated under the USSR.

net result, we now have a Ukraine divided. Western Ukraine is still westward-looking and Eastern Ukraine looks to Moscow.

[Olog-hai]

Please start making sense.

[Cronos]

in addition, I will add that most of the under 30 somethings I've met -- whether from west or east Ukraine, they do not want any Bolsheviks. Ditto for Russians.

Bolshevikism is dead, kaput. Russian nationalism is alive and strong.

[Cronos]

rmlew is correct, though it would be more like 50% -- the entire eastern half.

The population there mostly want to be in Russia. They speak Russian.

Remember that the boundaries between Russian and Ukrainian nationalities are very fluid -- the Ukrainians haven't had a chance to develop their nationality -- they've been under either Lithuanian or Polish or Russian influence and control. They only had a "national awakening" in the late 1800s and have not had a chance to develop what you could call the same level of identity as the Russians or Poles.

And since they are transitional, this is a logical thing -- the same happened to the Belarussians who now mostly speaking Russian. In the past this happened to the area around Nice and currently you can also see this in various states in India.

Anyway, back to this, the parallels to the Austria and the Sudentenland are there, I agree. But this is not so much Putin pushing as an internal argument.

Arguably, post WWI, both Austria and the Sudentenland wanted to be part of Germany and were heavily German -- the allies didn't allow this and gave Hitler a pretext (note: not the only reason for WWII, but one) -- the Czechs also discriminated against the Germans (a reaction against the Germanization policies prior to WWI) and the Sudentenland Germans became the most ardent supporters of the Nazis as they were a party that supported them joining Germany.

If they were allowed to be part of Germany from 1919 onwards then the people could have chosen differently.

Now to the Eastern Ukrainian example, if the lands to the east of the Dnieper became Russian, this would allow the people there to chose different political options, not any party that supports them joining Russia (which would be the most radical).

Also, let's look at another, colder reason -- defense. The problem, strategically of giving the Sudentenland to Germany in the 1920s was that it was the highlands, whoever controlled it had a marvellous defensive place. For the case of defending against Russia, what is a better option than the Dnieper river?

At the northern part, the Dnieper is close to the Niemen river. This was the classical boundary between the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and Muscowy. Without this boundary, the entire steppe region from Vladivostok to the Netherlands is flat land, easy to conquer.

If this is restored as a boundary, it makes a lot of sense defensively.

I'm reminded of the Poles problem in WWII -- what to defend. Most of Poland is, well, "pole" -- fields, flat land, easy to conquer. Except for the southern stretches around Kraków. But the Poles decided to defend everything (well, they had reason, you or I probably would do the same) and lost.

The best idea would be to create that defence.

The only catch would be the city of Kyiv -- an ancient city that is to both Russians and Ukrainians the origin of their nationhood

[Cronos]

Nah olog, look at the map in my post above. If the land to the east of the Dnieper river is allowed to become Russian, it makes for a pro-Western Kresy area.

The Belarussians are not as divided as a people, they don't want to become part of Russia, but they don't know what they want to be.

The Rzeczpospolita rebuilding is a good idea -- it is similar to what Piłsudski wanted to make -- Międzymorze