Andrei Illarionov / Image: (c) Michaela Seidler
Posted on 03/12/2014 5:17:17 AM PDT by annalex
Andrei Illarionov has launched in 2002 when Vladimir Putin's economic adviser Russia in the G8. In the "Press" interview, he explains why sanctions come too late now.
The Press: Had in 2002 meant the accession of Russia to the G8 that it would come to the brink of war with Ukraine within a few years?
Andrei Illarionov: Certainly not.
How could this happen?
This is the result of the transformation of Russia from semi-free country it was in 2002, in the full autocracy of today. The political regime is now authoritarian through and through. Still, it is not totalitarian - but close. Russia today is a very different country than in 2002: a country with political prisoners, with the intimidation of minorities, political opponents, homosexuals and many others. His foreign policy is very aggressive. Russia has taken a revisionist, revanchist attitude, whose goal is to redraw borders in Europe. This is no joke, but official government policy.
Doesn't Russia deserve not to be a member of the G8?
I have already advocated in 2006 to exclude Russia from the G8. The founding documents of the G8 make it very clear that only the rule of law, democratic states may be members with separation of powers. Since 2004, Russia is not even half democratically, but completely authoritarian. And since the illegal invasion of Georgia in 2008, it has forfeited also from an international perspective, the right to membership of the G8.
Would it worry Putin, if Russia is excluded from the G8?
Not any more. In 2006, that would at least have had a limited impact on his behavior. Today, it is irrelevant.
Why?
Was Stalin's attitude influenced when the Soviet Union in 1939 was excluded after the attack on Finland from the League of Nations? No. It was too late. His regime had already changed into something that was completely different from the conventional understanding of the majority of the international community. Therefore, it would now not even affect Putin's behavior when one excludes Russia from the UN.
Why did the other G8 countries exclude Russia after Georgia war?
As you may recall, there was at that time a statement from the seven other countries that had no legal or other consequences. Three months later, President Sarkozy invited Putin to Cannes and Nice, to have fun. You ask why? You could also ask Messrs Daladier and Chamberlain why they have taken no action against 1938 Hitler and Mussolini. At that time it was called "appeasement", now they say "fresh start".
Is it possible that the Crimean crisis should damage Russia's economy?
The is relatively unimportant compared to other more serious consequences. Because that is not the Crimean crisis. This is not Ukraine crisis. It is a crisis that has the potential to lead to a full war. What was I warn for three months, is now official Russian government policy. The connection of the Crimea is practically completed. He will be approved no later than March 21 of the Duma and the Russian Federation. In addition, the attack on Kiev is self directed. Putin's aim is Kiev and all Ukraine. He now wants to build a land corridor from the Crimea to Transnistria, where for some time prevail former KGB or FSB officers. The purpose of this is to cut the Ukraine the Black Sea. And because neither President Obama nor the Europeans are willing to take real action, however, it is only a matter of time before this is achieved.
What steps should be taken?
What has stopped in 2008 Russia's invasion of Georgia? The decision by President Bush to move U.S. Air Force units in Turkey and Romania and warships to send the Black Sea. Once the Russian secret services discovered massive U.S. troop movements in the direction of Georgia, Medvedev and Putin ordered the stop 60 miles outside of Tbilisi. No one wants to do something today. I myself do not want that. But I see no other way to end the aggression and occupation and to prevent this crisis will lead to a pan-European crisis with the neighboring countries, the NATO countries and the United States guaranteed participation
Would financial sanctions against representatives of the Russian government help?
It would be too little and too late. Putin has planned the attack on the Ukraine for a year and already some time ago started to withdraw its assets and those of his supporters from the West.
PERSONAL
Andrei Illarionov from 2000 to 2005 was the main economic advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Illarionov brought the membership of Russia in the G8, was responsible for the repayment of Russia's foreign debt and created a stabilization fund to balance fluctuating oil prices. After the violent ending of the hostage crisis at a school in the town of Beslan, in which at least 331 people died, Illarionov resigned in protest. Today he is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington.
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Ukraine should have a military, you’d think. So instead of whining for help from other countries, why don’t they use their military to protect western Ukraine? I’m on the outside, looking at this as evolving history. Russia is protecting its interests, Ukraine couldn’t stop from being taken over by CIA-inspired thugs burning tires. I’d feel much safer living in Russian-controlled territories.
I think he only wants everything east of the Dniepr river. JMHO
It's about one-tenth of the RF's; Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for a guarantee of its territorial integrity from US and RF.
It depends on the definition of “wants”. For sure there is a hierarchy of aims: Crimea, if that goes good, left-bank Ukraine, if that goes good, all the way to Galicia. Same as with any conqueror. The Brezhnev’s doctrine was that anywhere where the Soviet dictate once spread, it must remain.
The map included in The Wall Street Journal article about Panarin's prediction has Alaska going to Russia. "It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time," Panarin said.
It doesn’t surprise me. Living on the 4-year electorate cycle it is difficult for us to imagine generational planning that the Soviet leadership was capable of.
"Crimea, if that goes good, left-bank Ukraine, if that goes good, all the way to Galicia.Very long term, maybe. Given the fact that he'd be a fool not to take advantage of an idiot like Barry coming along, Putin's been surprisingly pragmatic by taking little bites.
". . . anywhere where the Soviet dictate once spread, it must remain."
Which is the same thing Mooze Lames think and one of the main reasons why I think Putin is being so pragmatic. He knows there will have to be a showdown with Is Lame and knows he needs European support at least to the extent that Europe won't be in any hurry to take advantage of his anti-Is Lame efforts.
I see your point and what others are saying, I just have a different read I guess. Mostly because all things considered, Putin has been a right docile puppy. Compare what he's been up to and what any and all US democrat fascists have been willing to jump into in order to divert attention from anything from their domestic problems.
"Arab Spring" knitting so much into the empire Barry swears allegiance to is at the very least as bad as Putin munching on the whole Ukraine and a heck of a lot worse than his snatching the Crimea for an Easter egg.
Then again, it's a long time until 2016 and maybe Putin was caught unprepared, so to speak, if he thought Barry would be a one term ditz like Carter was. IOW, a second term for Barry was an unexpected and therefore unplanned for opportunity.
There is a difference between fomenting unrest where there are preconditions for genuine unrest, and rolling in with tanks.
“I’d feel much safer living in Russian-controlled territories.”
The way you spout off Putin’s thuggish false propaganda it looks like you must already be living “in Russian-controlled territories” as one of Putin’s propagandists.
There are an abundance of ethnic Russian Ukrainian citizens who want absolutely nothing to do with the Putin dictatorship and Russian totalitarian governments. That includes most of Ukraine’s present leadershoip whose native born language and culture are Russian and not Ukrainian.
A bombing campaign in support of rebels and butchers isn't as bad as "rolling in with tanks"?.
Whatever.
Then don't come whining to us for help. The US is in serious debt, so why should we subsidize your fuel bill? You want the US to defend your borders when the government won't even defend our own? We're under a very big threat that maybe can't be reversed by the invasion from the south. The reason we respect Putin is he is doing something our last few presidents have been unwilling to do. That would be to defend his country and countrymen from invasion.
It's not okay to do what was done in Kiev, with CIA inspired violent demonstrations. In the US, protestors who reached that extreme would be arrested, and if they posed a threat to non-protestors, shot.
He’s right Russia not going to be deterred by Western threats and sanctions. Ukraine is far too important for Russia to concede to the West.
Any one who who does not understand why Russia is acting with a free hand there, who thinks Russia will give up on what it considers to be its vital interests out of a desire to be with the West doesn’t know Russia.
Short of outright war, there is no way to force a nuclear superpower to capitulate.
“Then don’t come whining to us for help.”
In 1991 to 1994 the Russian Federation, United States, Great Britain, and France compelled the Ukraine to enter into agreements which required the surrender of Soviet nuclear weapons to the Russian Federation in exchange for the guarantee of the Ukrainian territorial integrity by the Russian Federation, United States, and Great Britain. The guarantors of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, among whom is the United States, now have an obligaton under those agreements and international law to fulfill the terms of the agreement and act to restore the territorial integrity of the Ukraine as promised in the agreements. Your attempt to mischaracterize the Ukrainian restraint against providing any further false pretext for the complete invasion and conquest of the Ukraine by Putin’s Russian autocratic regime is disgraceful.
“The US is in serious debt, so why should we subsidize your fuel bill?”
Given the fact that I am a U.S. citizen, your false remark saying, “your fuel bill” is false and presumptuous. You might also ask Putin why the U.S. taxpayer should be expected to pay for a Ukrainian fuel bill to Putin’s Russian regime after Putin’s covert intelligence agent, Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko, was used by Putin to loot and destabilize the Ukrainian economy and government in preparation for a Russian conquest of the Ukraine?
“The reason we respect Putin is he is doing something our last few presidents have been unwilling to do. That would be to defend his country and countrymen from invasion.”
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we failed to recognize how you admire brutal and murderous dictatorships like Putin’s and Yushchenk’s regime who made its opponents disappear in the night in the same manner os the Soviet NKVD and the Germna NAZI Gestapo.
Another of your deceitful remarks is your misrepresenting Putin’s naked aggression, invsion, and annexation of other nation’s territories as the exact opposite, “to defend his country and countrymen from invasion.” You sound just like the apologists for Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime.
“It’s not okay to do what was done in Kiev, with CIA inspired violent demonstrations. In the US, protestors who reached that extreme would be arrested, and if they posed a threat to non-protestors, shot.”
The people of the Ukraine no matter what their ethnicity require no inspiration whatsoever from non-Ukrainians to rise up in protests, peaceful or not, against the Russians who were responsible for the genocidal murders of tens of millions of Ukrainians of all ethnicities and the proscription of the Ukrainian language, schools, and culture. The fact that Putin’s Russian regime used their intelligence agent, Yushchenko, to violate and subvert the Ukrainian Constitution and rule of law in a bid to forcibly bring the Ukraine into an annexation by Russia can have no other result than resistance by the people whose families underwent wholesale extermination at the hands of Russians. Your Russians have already shot and murdered millions too many Ukrainians for them to tamely submit to such Russian murders again.
What’s happened to Ukranians is obviously something you know more about than I do. But I do know not our affair, and shouldn’t detract from our concern about what’s happening to our economy and the invasion of the US. We shouldn’t loan them money or defend them.
“Illarionov: Putin’s aim is Kiev and all the Ukraine”
Obama smiles.
Bill Clinton obligated the United States to guarantee the territorial integrity of the Ukraine when he negotiated the 1994 agreement. That is a fact and an international agreement with the force of international law.
Putin’s plan is to pursue the Brezhnev Doctrine and then extend it to the Russian domination of all Europe. Putin’s dictatorial regime is already working on issuing Russian passports to Latvian citizens in yet another bid to invade and seize territories that are not in the current possession of Russia, just as Putin did with Georgia and the Ukraine. Kaliningrad is one of Putin’s prime targets for early conquest. Latvia and Lithuania are reporting extraordinary Russian military activities in Kaliningrad and nearby Russian borders consistent with creating a military capability to invade and seize some or all of the Baltic nations. Russian invasion and seizure of the Ukraine would threaten the flanks of the NATO defense of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
CORRECTION. I meant to write Viktor Yanukovych, and not Viktor Yushchenko. My apologies for misspeaking.
In 1991 to 1994 the Russian Federation, United States, Great Britain, and France compelled the Ukraine to enter into agreements which required the surrender of Soviet nuclear weapons to the Russian Federation in exchange for the guarantee of the Ukrainian territorial integrity by the Russian Federation, United States, and Great Britain. The guarantors of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, among whom is the United States, now have an obligaton under those agreements and international law to fulfill the terms of the agreement and act to restore the territorial integrity of the Ukraine as promised in the agreements. Your attempt to mischaracterize the Ukrainian restraint against providing any further false pretext for the complete invasion and conquest of the Ukraine by Putin’s Russian autocratic regime is disgraceful.
“The US is in serious debt, so why should we subsidize your fuel bill?”
Given the fact that I am a U.S. citizen, your false remark saying, “your fuel bill” is false and presumptuous. You might also ask Putin why the U.S. taxpayer should be expected to pay for a Ukrainian fuel bill to Putin’s Russian regime after Putin’s covert intelligence agent, Viktor Yanukovych, was used by Putin to loot and destabilize the Ukrainian economy and government in preparation for a Russian conquest of the Ukraine?
“The reason we respect Putin is he is doing something our last few presidents have been unwilling to do. That would be to defend his country and countrymen from invasion.”
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we failed to recognize how you admire brutal and murderous dictatorships like Putin’s and Viktor Yanukovych’s regime who made its opponents disappear in the night in the same manner os the Soviet NKVD and the Germna NAZI Gestapo.
Another of your deceitful remarks is your misrepresenting Putin’s naked aggression, invsion, and annexation of other nation’s territories as the exact opposite, “to defend his country and countrymen from invasion.” You sound just like the apologists for Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime.
“It’s not okay to do what was done in Kiev, with CIA inspired violent demonstrations. In the US, protestors who reached that extreme would be arrested, and if they posed a threat to non-protestors, shot.”
The people of the Ukraine no matter what their ethnicity require no inspiration whatsoever from non-Ukrainians to rise up in protests, peaceful or not, against the Russians who were responsible for the genocidal murders of tens of millions of Ukrainians of all ethnicities and the proscription of the Ukrainian language, schools, and culture. The fact that Putin’s Russian regime used their intelligence agent, Yushchenko, to violate and subvert the Ukrainian Constitution and rule of law in a bid to forcibly bring the Ukraine into an annexation by Russia can have no other result than resistance by the people whose families underwent wholesale extermination at the hands of Russians. Your Russians have already shot and murdered millions too many Ukrainians for them to tamely submit to such Russian murders again.
“Short of outright war, there is no way to force a nuclear superpower to capitulate.”
So, in other words, you are asserting the Soviet Union did not disintegrate in 1991.
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