Posted on 05/15/2012 11:20:50 AM PDT by 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. …
(Excerpt) Read more at euractiv.com ...
rmlew is making perfect sense. He is talking sense. See my above post
With all due respect, I am not in the mood for posts that excuse the rise of old European and Eurasian empires.
with due respect, rmlew didn't do that, he said 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?
De-facto the eastern part of the Ukraine is already Russian. And, more critical, it feels Russian (as I said, the boundaries between Ukrainian and Russian nationalities is vague due to the shared inheritance from Kievan Rus)
And even more critical to us is that the eastern part holds back the Western part.
The Western half is truly "Ukrainian" in the sense that it is building up the concept of a Ukrainian nationality
But would Russia want a strong united Westernized Ukraine on their doorstep, or keep all of Ukraine divided and weak.
Did the Czechs have a say in Munich?
I see you weren’t listening. There is no American conservatism in countenancing the retread of the breakup of Eastern Europe between “east” and “west”—acts that led to two prior World Wars. The pattern is so blatant, even Captain Obvious is saying nothing about it because he feels he shouldn’t have to.
They would want it to be a Małorussia (little Russia), just another part of Russia. Most Russians, even moderates want that and the reasons are not jingoistic -- Kiev is the birthplace of the "Rus" peoples -- the 3 eastern slavic peoples look to the land of the Ukraine as their birthplace, so for Russians it is logically in their heads, part of Russia.
You and I don't agree with them, neither do most people who think of themselves as Ukrainians
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If they can't get this, then most Russian people would want a friendly Ukraine -- Russian people wouldn't mind a Western-oriented Ukraine unless it was blatantly anti-Russia. The Russian government on the other hand would see this as the revival of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, their 1000 year enemy.
You are incorrect. World Wars I and II were not caused by the split of Central or Eastern Europe but due to nationalities being across imperial boundaries.
This case is completely different -- to the east of the Dnieper river are people who feel part of Russia, who speak Russian not any Ukrainian dialect.
There will be in fact the opposite of what you stated - since a Western Ukraine would be overwhelmingly "Ukrainian", it would be better for relations between East and West.
Sounds like you are suddenly agreeing with me, perhaps inadvertently. The core of that is that empires caused both of those world wars. And we have two nascent empires on the scene in Europe right now. The only way to peace in Europe is the absence of those empires, but no external force is trying to make them go away right now.
World Wars I and II were not caused by the split of Central or Eastern Europe but due to nationalities being across imperial boundaries
Please learn your history. That's carving up Eastern Europe again, and that always led to war.
There will be in fact the opposite of what you stated - since a Western Ukraine would be overwhelmingly "Ukrainian", it would be better for relations between East and West
There is no external force which can make Putin go away. He will self-implode or become a tyrant, but it is only the Russian people who can decide that -- that's not idealist talk, that is a fact.
What external forces can do is build up defences against a future Tsarist Russia.
And the place to build this up is in Eastern and Central Europe.
And the only ways to do this is to use natural boundaries - of which the only ones in the east are rivers, the Niemen and Dnieper rivers as I pointed out above AND to have the realization of Międzymorze -- unity of purpose of the nations from Finland to Western Ukraine.
They've not been able to do this since Jan III Sobieski and right now two things stop that -- the population in Eastern Ukraine and Lukashenko in Belarus.
Cut off the Eastern Ukraine -- it's already lost -- and you have the best two defenses on the south-eastern flank against Russia -- a united Ukraine and the Dnieper river.
Read Zamoyski's book on the 1920 Polish-Soviet war. Piłsudski from 1918 tried to cobble up a union of Lithuanians, Poles and Ruthenians (Belarussians and Ukrainians), but this failed -- to a large extent the Ukrainians by trying to fight for everything, lost everything. in 1920 a Soviet horde advanced westward and the only thing that stood in its path was Poland. But the Poles lost early battles as there was no natural boundaries to halt the Soviets in the lands east of the Pripet marshes.
Only when the Soviets came to the edges of Warsaw were there natural boundaries to hold them off. Piłsudski gambled and brought the Soviets all the way in and then crushed them mercilessly -- so mercilessly that they never dared move westward for another 20 years
you want to stop a Russian advance east, then give up some indefensible territory that is already lost (in the minds and hearts of the people there, in Eastern Ukraine) and build the network from the Neimen to the delta of the Dnieper.
Firstly, eastern europe is from the lands of Lithuania to the Ukraine. Central Europe is Poland-Germany through to Greece.
Secondly, "carving up Eastern Europe" has not caused war -- "carving up European people" has caused war -- people, not land.
One of the criticisms I’ve heard leveled against Pilsudski, was that he didn’t aid the Whites in the Civil War, because he hated the Czars even more than the Bolsheviks....I wonder if had he aided the Whites what the difference might have been, would it have been enough to prevail?
Great discussion you two.
Heavy-duty, and really more than an internationalist ignoramus like me can grasp.
But fascinating nonetheless.
And to think we have a President whose significant choices these days comprise whether or not and what day to go on The View and how much per plate he is going to charge at George Clooney’s glam-scam dinner.
Putin would batter this little fairy into pelmeni in under three minutes.
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