![]() ![]() Watch the imposition of Putinism in Crimea: the independent press is shut down, YouTube videos show masked men beating up journalists, and pro-Ukraine rallies are broken up. The last thing Putin’s authoritarian regime wants is a Slavic success story on its Western border – a thriving democratic Ukraine. Inside Russia, Putin tighten controls on the press and on the dwindling right to protest. Maybe after gobbling up Crimea, Putin will grab parts of Eastern Ukraine and create a rump Ukrainian state that can bring Ukraine’s industrial heartland into the Eurasian Union. Which leads to Putin’s Eurasian Union, a Moscow-led Dictators ‘R Us club. Hence the North American Free Trade Agreement, a voluntary association of democracies that, like the European Union, is designed to raise all boats. Instead, the American people and their policy makers believe that the successes of Canada and Mexico are pluses for the United States. In North American terms, Russia’s work in Crimea would be comparable to Washington fomenting separatism in Quebec to split up and weaken Canada, or funding rebellion in southern Mexico, to put Mexico on the defensive. ![]() ![]() So now, Ukraine joins the list of former Soviet republics kept weakened and on the defensive by Kremlin policy.Ĭrimea exemplifies a zero sum view of the world that Russian foreign policy makers have adopted without much change from their Soviet predecessors. Very simple: the EU and NATO will not accept as members countries with territorial disputes. Ever wonder why there is no solution in sight for Moldova’s breakaway region of TransDniester Republic? For Georgia’s secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia? For the Azeri-Armenian dispute over Nagorno Karabagh? The Kremlin’s strategy is to surround itself with weak and divided states. They are not coming back.Ī realist, Putin now settles for second best – destabilizing Ukraine by laboring to exacerbate linguistic and ethnic tensions. In short, Russia has lost the hearts and minds of the majority of Ukrainians to the West. Russian soldiers march through Crimea’s capital Simferopol, the day before Crimeans were to vote on joining Russia. Ukrainians like what they saw, starting with the rule of law. Unlike Russian tourists, they have not skated over the surface, skipping from Florence to Barcelona to the Riviera. So Ukrainians have lived and worked in the European Union. Labor followed this capital outflow to the West. Oligarchs created monopolies and then drained billions out of Ukraine. Ukraine suffered under a generation of misrule (including by Saintly Yulia Tymoshenko). The difference? Poland joined the EU and got a massive influx of capital from neighboring Germany. Since the Berlin Wall fell, Ukrainians have watched the economy of neighboring Poland increase four fold, while Ukraine’s economy flat lined for a generation. As a former bellhop in a Swiss hotel (Hotel Elite, Bienne, 1974), I wholeheartedly agree with them. When residents of Moscow, capital of Saudi Arabia of the North, sneer that all the EU offers the Ukraine are jobs as bellhops, chamber maids and construction workers, many Ukrainians respond – fine, that is a start. Or enjoying a modern shopping center in Berlin, and building it. Or hailing a cab in Vienna, and cruising for fares in Vienna. That is the difference between peeling off a 10 Euro note to pay for a caffe latte in Prague, and waiting tables for tips in a Czech coffee shop. ![]() Last year, about 15 percent of Russian adults traveled outside the former Soviet Union.īy contrast, about one third of Ukrainians between ages of 20 and 50 have traveled to Western Europe – to work. The West has interfered massively in Ukraine. Latin America Creole Español Ī worker puts up a poster that reads, “Together with Russia” in Simferopol, Ukraine.Middle East / North Africa فارسی ir. كوردی Kurdi Türkçe.Africa Afaan Oromoo አማርኛ Français Hausa Kinyarwanda Kirundi Ndebele Português Shona Soomaaliga Kiswahili ትግርኛ Zimbabwe.East & Southeast Asia Burmese 粵語 中文 Bahasa Indonesia ខ្មែរ Khmer 한국어 ລາວ ไทย བོད་ཡིག Tibetan Tiếng Việt.English Worldwide English Learning English. ![]()
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