Dyslexic
Global Affairs Threaten x-Captive Nations
Contemporary global affairs is a web of tangled contradictions,
illogical conclusions, unnatural relations and seemingly duplicitous actions
that border on dyslexia. And most assuredly the result of this discombobulated global
state of affairs is that one country suffers.
While many have said there are no permanent allies, just permanent
issues, then it is also true that the world is divided into good guys and bad
guys and their members appear and disappear depending on the issues.
Today there are criminal states as well as stateless criminal
groups that endanger global peace, security and development or at least inhibit
them. They are not opaque or cloaked from the international community but
rather are well known and play greater or lesser roles in global events. Their
leaders attend meetings and conferences with heads of lawful states, shake
their hands and even raise toasts in their honor. But because of their
intimidating military or economic power, they have paralyzed and blinded the
other nation-states.
Russia’s
Millennial Crimes
I specifically mean Russia, perhaps the only permanent criminal
state that hasn’t altered its belligerent nature in the past 1,000 years.
Regardless of the regime – tsarist, communist or federal – or who occupies the
corner office in the Kremlin, its proclaimed sacred national policy is to rule
with an iron fist, suppress human rights, persecute civil libertarians and
non-Russians, and invade, subjugate and russify foreign lands. And it doesn’t
keep this a secret. It’s spelled out in its national doctrine that glories the
holy mother Russian empire and gives itself the authority to defend and
perpetuate itself as it deems necessary.
For all intents and purposes, nation-states, collectively or
individually, regionally or globally, actively or passively allow Moscow to
fulfill its mission, arrest and kill dissenters, invade other countries and lie
in the face of facts.
Probably the greatest perpetrator of tolerating Russia’s crimes is
President Trump, who defies his
party’s traditional role of admonishing Moscow for crimes against humanity and
protecting the captive nations.
Recently, while walking to or from his helicopter, Trump was asked
by a newsman from the throng of reporters, who quoted Vladimir Putin, to comment about some countries’ attempt to split
apart Russia and Ukraine.
Trump, again displaying a farcical lack of knowledge about Ukraine
and Russia or not wanting to offend Moscow, remarked “Well, I’d like to see
them come together. I think if they came together, in the sense that they got
along with each other, that’d be a great thing, it would be a great thing for
the world if Ukraine and Russia could work out some agreement where they get
along. To me that would be very good.”
‘We’re not
friends’
Trump’s observation is as naïve as Putin’s original is cynical and
ludicrous: “We're not friends with Ukraine, but there's always hope.” The
Russian leader went on to accuse Ukraine that “Russia is sustaining losses from
the lack of friendship with Ukraine…I have said time and again, I believe that
we are the same people. I don’t know whether they [Ukrainians] like this or
not, but if you look at the real situation, that is true … Many things do
divide us, but we should not forget about the bonds that unite us. Also, we should
avoid ruining what we have.”
Ukraine’s enemy, on the one hand, and its expected protector are
on the same side of the fence. Both claim that there’s basically no problem
that a handshake can’t fix.
In the United States, fortunately, not all elected or appointed officials
toe the line of the current White House so there is hope for support for
Ukraine in its war with Russia, which has lasted since 2014, when Moscow’s
armies invaded and occupied Crimea and two oblasts in Eastern Ukraine. The war
has claimed some 14,000 Ukrainian civilian and combatant lives. It has brought widespread
destruction to the Donbas and Luhansk oblasts and relegated some three and a
half million people to destitution.
Kay Bailey
Hutchison, US permanent representative to NATO, who belongs on the side of backing
Ukraine, has said: “We are calling on Russia to withdraw from the sovereign
territory of Ukraine and to let the Ukrainian people come together and move
forward as they have shown they want to do in freedom and democracy with the
rule of law and human rights.”
Can Ukraine and the other former captive nations believe in the
commitment of an American official when the commander in chief does not express
the same degree of support for Ukraine, but rather gets the country and its elected
officials embroiled in an election scandal and then rants about rampant corruption
and graft?
No
Willingness to Fulfill Commitments
US Acting Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador
Cherith Norman Chalet, like her
predecessors, also chastises Russia’s refusal to cease the war and evacuate
from Ukraine. Chalet accused Russia of continuing to arm, train, lead and fight
alongside its proxy forces in Donbas, eastern Ukraine. “Unfortunately, Russia
has not shown a […] willingness to fulfill its commitments under the Minsk
agreements. It continues to arm, train, lead, and fight alongside its proxy
forces in eastern Ukraine. This stands in direct contravention of Russia's
commitments under the Minsk agreements, including to establish an immediate and
comprehensive ceasefire,” she said at a UN Security Council meeting in New York
City on February 18.
Contrary to her boss in the White House, Chalet recognizes that
Moscow has invaded Ukraine and calls on Russia “to immediately implement its
security commitments under the Minsk agreements, as the parties can only move
forward with the Minsk political measures when there is security on the ground.
We also call on Russia to follow-through with the measures outlined at the
recent Normandy Leaders’ Summit in Paris to immediately stabilize the situation
in the conflict area, which includes the opening of new civilian crossing
points, disengaging military forces in areas with the greatest humanitarian
significance, and implementing ceasefire support measures,” she said.
Nonetheless, the gnawing question remains. Can Ukraine and the
former captive nations, a fraternity that has had the dubious honor of knowing firsthand
the extent of Russia’s deceit, strength and subjugation, believe that
Washington will at least maintain today’s tepid level of support against
Russian armed and political aggression?
Chalet and other government officials are still putting stock in
the so-called Minsk accords, which truthfully have not contributed to an end of
the war or at least a reduction in battlefield casualties. Ironically, it has
given Russia a platform for blaming Ukraine and others for violating its tenets
and prolonging the war. It has been notorious for presenting the victim
of its aggression as a perpetrator.
And then along comes another set of suggestions thrust upon
Ukraine. At this year’s Munich Security Conference, the participants composed
12 steps that they believe will lead to peace in Ukraine. Much like Trump and
Putin, the document implies that Ukraine and Russia are caught up in a
difference of opinions about their past, present and future. By creatively
applying their collective minds, they believe that the two sides can reach a
consensus about coexistence.
12 Points
“The conflict in and around Ukraine is a tragedy for all affected
by the violence. It is a flashpoint for catastrophic miscalculation and is a
continuing threat to security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic region. A
political resolution is fundamental to ending the armed conflict in the Donbas
region, to improving prospects for constructive Ukraine-Russia dialogue more
broadly including on Crimea, and to improving Euro-Atlantic security. Action to
help those in harm’s way and to establish a foundation that resolves the
conflict must be taken now to address urgent security, humanitarian, economic,
and political concerns. Such action also will help reduce tensions between
Russia and the West and help build a sustainable architecture of mutual
security in the Euro-Atlantic region, including enhanced cooperation on nuclear
threat reduction,” the conference participants stated.
The international community’s fatal mistake about Ukraine is
classifying an actual six-year hot war as a “conflict in and around Ukraine.”
This tragically faulty characterization absolves Russia of shedding Ukrainian
blood and other crimes against the Ukrainian nation. By lessening the image of
the crime, no country is hastening to indict the criminal and compel a
righteous ending. It’s like treating vehicular manslaughter like a parking
violation.
Their other mistake lies in looking merely at the present war
without acknowledging that it is a continuation of Moscow’s millennial-long
insistence that Ukraine is a colony or oblast of Russia, it doesn’t deserve
separate, independent existence and, if it breaks away, the Kremlin will strive
to return it to its prison of nations.
As for “improving prospects for constructive Ukraine-Russia
dialogue,” Moscow will have to undergo an in-depth examination of its
conscience of the past 1,000 years and unreservedly admit its crimes and
misdemeanors. Otherwise the West will be playing into the hands of the Kremlin,
which claims until today that Ukraine is at fault and Russia’s armies aren’t on
the Ukrainian side of the border.
Foreign Minister of Ukraine Vadym
Prystaiko observed thusly about the 12 steps: “This is not the first plan
that is being proposed to Ukraine to somehow address something that many
suggest the Ukrainian government cannot, is incapable of, or doesn't see how...
There are people who sincerely want to help and offer their plan, but there are
those who fulfill a certain political order. If you choose between these two
extremes, in my opinion, the proposed plan is somewhere in the middle, but
closer to those who carry out a certain political order,” Prystaiko told a Svoboda
Slova panel show on Ukraine’s ICTV channel on February 17.
He added: “Well, and finally, what grinds our gears is the last
point suggesting that Ukraine launch a ‘new national dialogue’ about identity.
Well, thank you very much, we will figure out ourselves whether we need to do
this.”
Sanctions
not enough
While world leaders hover over Ukraine, dropping suggestions on
what it should or shouldn’t do to achieve regional peace, and institute
sanctions against Russia that Moscow nonchalantly brushes off, they
simultaneously engage in a wide range of discussions, meetings and conferences
with Russia reinforcing the belief that basically it’s innocent. At the same
time, Russia continues to bombard innocents in Syria and plots to subvert
elections in the United States and other democracies, kill its citizens who
have escaped its claws while the world silently tolerates this lawlessness.
At last week’s UN Security Council discussion on Ukraine, it was
heartening to hear Ambassador Karen
Pierce, permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the UN, reassert
its support for Ukraine.
Pierce said: “The United Kingdom reiterates our firm support for
those agreements and for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.” She
also criticized the Russian ambassador saying his disapproval of others’
failures was “largely a falsehood, wrapped in a fiction inside a fairy tale,”
alluding to Prime Minister Churchill’s well-known remark about a Russian
riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. The British official said “rather
than reigning in its proxies in the non-government controlled areas of eastern
Ukraine, Russia has furnished them with arms and personnel. Russia claims to
act only in the interests of those Ukrainians living in those areas, but does
nothing to ensure the safe delivery of international humanitarian aid so
desperately needed by many of the communities there. Madam President, Russia’s
only objective in Ukraine is to undermine that country’s sovereignty and territorial
integrity. They want Moscow, rather than Ukrainians themselves, to define
Ukraine’s future.”
These remarks are spot on but will London translate them into
policies and then actions? Will the free world? Or will the global community
behave like Matt Hooper observed in the 1975 movie Jaws: “I'm familiar with the fact that you are going to
ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you in
the ass!”
The West may not have to wait long for that bite. Since invading,
occupying and annexing Crimea, Russia has turned the Ukrainian peninsula into a
well-armed fortress and naval base, equipped with nuclear tipped missiles. The
entire installation is a serious threat to the US Sixth Fleet, Europe and the
United States. Don’t forget the tens of thousands of Russian troops and armor
in eastern Ukraine.
The only hope for Ukraine and the other former captive nations is
their own military and political strength and unity. This brotherhood of former
Russian subjugated countries regularly raise the issue of the ongoing threat of
Russian aggression by pointing to its war against Ukraine. They repeat the
warning issued by post-World War II freedom leaders, who said that the free
world shouldn’t trust Moscow.
The Lithuanian foreign minister said last week that Russia
continues to violate the Minsk agreements and the recent intensification of violence
in eastern Ukraine shows Moscow isn’t willing to implement a ceasefire.
X-Captive
Nations Alliance
“They are testing their force again to look at what the reaction
will be,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas
Linkevičius. “And although [Russia] says it’s not them, but the separatists
[and] everyone [else] is perfectly aware that these are the forces that
[Russia] trains, funds and supports.”
The Permanent Representative of Estonia, Ambassador Sven Jürgenson, was quoted as saying:
“After six years of the beginning of Russia’s military aggression
against Ukraine, we regret that Russia has not acknowledged and reversed her
actions. Estonia reconfirms its strong support to Ukraine’s sovereignty,
independence and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized
borders, including territorial waters. We condemn the illegal annexation of the
Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol.
“Therefore we call on Russia, as a party to the conflict, to fully
implement the commitments of the Minsk Agreements, including those undertaken
at the Normandy Four Summit in Paris on the 9th of December. We also call on
Russia to immediately withdraw its armed forces from Ukraine and stop its
political, financial and military support to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and
Luhansk that is, Russia’s proxies in Donbas.”
Ambassador Andrejs
Pildegovičs, permanent representative of Latvia to the UN, noted “Similarly,
Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian Crimea, and its covert and overt actions in
Eastern Ukraine violate the UN Charter`s fundamental principle of territorial
integrity. Latvia welcomes the commitment reached in Normandy Summit to
stabilize the situation in Russia-Ukraine conflict area as well as recent
exchange of detainees. In this regard, we call on Russia to implement in full
Minsk agreement and to restore Ukraine`s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Ambassador Audra Plepytė,
permanent representative of Lithuania to the UN, observed: “Violation of the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia has entered into its 12th
year. For almost six years now we witness ongoing occupation and annexation of
Crimea by the Russian Federation and its military actions in eastern Ukraine.
These blatant and systemic breaches of the Charter of the United Nations
constitute a threat to international peace, security and stability. A strong
supporter of the principles enshrined in the Charter, Lithuania will continue
to advocate for the accountability for violation of the international law,
including the illegal use of force in international relations.”
In a separate statement on the occupation of Crimea, the
Lithuanian Foreign Ministry noted: “On the sixth anniversary of the illegal
occupation of Crimea, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania condemns the
military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which has begun
in Ukraine’s Autonomous Republic of Crimea and spread to eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s illegal actions violate the international law, the Charter of the
United Nations, the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act and the Budapest
Memorandum, as well as bilateral agreements between Ukraine and Russia.”
X-Captive
Nations’ mini NATO
Consequently, due to inconsistent support from the free world, its
twisted policies and paranoid behavior, this quartet of former captive nations is
left to its own devices to preserve their freedom. As the CIA accused
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists leader Stepan Bandera of doing, they are justified to go rogue. With
Russia continuing to rattle its sabers, a purely ideological bloc among
Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and hopefully others will not be enough to
contain Russian belligerence and expansion. That has been the playbook until
now.
These four countries must form a regional military-political bloc
along the lines of a mini-NATO and modernize their armed forces to ensure their
independence, sovereignty and security in the face of the great void that
exists today. It will certainly irk Moscow and it may displease Washington, but
for the sake of their future, they have no other choice.
