Preparations To Invade

"If the current regime in Kyiv (has) begun to use the army against the country's population, then it is, without any doubt, a very serious crime against their people."
Russian President Vladimir Putin

Photograph: Mikhail Klimentie, Ria Novosti/EPA
 
The interim government in Kyiv has been placed in a difficult situation; defend its sovereignty or in the process of doing so, offend its officious neighbour sufficiently to hand it the excuse it feels will cover its illegal military advance into Ukraine's sovereign space. Vladimir Putin considers any government other than his own that exerts authority through physical force to be exercising a criminal act. Since Ukraine is in the process of doing just that, given no other choice, Moscow is prepared to punish Ukraine.

Russia is one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime's strongest supporters outside of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its partner-in-terrorism militia Hezbollah. Now there's a government that has taken extreme measures to pacify its opponents by the overarching measure of striving to destroy them all, unconditionally. Whether it is by aerial bombardment of civilian areas sheltering Syria's rebels, or chemical bombs, or shrapnel-ripping barrel bombs, the Syrian regime conducts a charnel house of vengeance against its opponents.

Syria has Russia's full approval, along with Russian munitions to help matters along. Ukraine, on the other hand, has Russia's full disapproval, and the tens of thousands of Russian military men, tanks and fighter jets massed on the border are there in preparation for an invasion that differs in kind from the covert one where a handful of Russian military have appeared in Crimea and eastern Ukraine to foment unrest, dissent and violence.

Sergei Shoigu, the Russian minister of defence, warned that Moscow is prepared to deploy ground forces to the western border of Ukraine, and to send Russian aircraft around the perimeter of Ukrainian airspace. That's for starters. Videos have surfaced showing columns of Russian tanks, armoured personnel carriers and trucks rolling forward a mere few kilometres from Ukraine close by border Russian towns.

As for Ukraine, it has deployed over 211,000 troops and 160 tanks to persuade the 'protesters' who have taken possession of government buildings and police stations and set up checkpoints in cities across eastern Ukraine. Comprising the reason why Defence Minister Shoigu is on the alert, and prepared to order troops forward: "We were forced to react to the developments of the situation."

A member of the Ukrainian special forces takes position at an abandoned roadblock in the separatist-held eastern town of Slavyansk. Photograph: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP

Russia is scandalized, horrified, aghast at the actions of the government of Ukraine. Never, ever, would the Kremlin give orders for their well-armed military to march in combat mode against any parts of Russia where unrest might arise, or onward to former satellites where movements inimical to obsequious relations with Russia have arisen. Russia is completely pacifist, and will use its troops only in self-defence.

Ukraine's attempts to thwart the secessionist movements of ethnic Russian and pro-Russian Ukrainians have not exactly covered it in glory. The first attempt to remove the separatists in control of Slavyansk was a failure when Ukrainian military refused to fire on angry civilians and they were forced to halt operations. And when another unit surrendered to capture and their vehicles and weapons seized by the rebels, that too was no resounding success.

Ukrainian soldiers carry out a raid on a pro-Russian roadblock in Karpivka, north of Slavyansk. Photograph: Pierre Crom/Sipa/Rex 
 
But fear and anger have overtaken those residents who support the call to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. And Russia is eager to protect them from any measure of attempted control of the insurrection. To provoke Ukraine into a response that Moscow will find irresistible not to counter. When Chechens provoked Moscow by their violent efforts to drive Moscow away from dominating Chechnya the Russian response was murderously merciless.

Ukraine has every right to question the lack of immigrant loyalty from among its ethnic Russian population, eager to return to Russian control, while taking with them Ukrainian land, infrastructure and pride.