Relentlessly Invading Ukraine

"The [Ukrainian] Security Council has made a decision to begin a large-scale anti-terrorist operation with participation of army forces."
"We're not going to allow Russia to repeat the Crimean scenario in Ukraine's east."
"The blood of Ukrainian heroes has been shed in a war that the Russian federation is waging against Ukraine."
Ukraine President Oleksandr Turchynov

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, centre, and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, left, meet with Ukrainian ambassador Vadym Prystaiko in Ottawa Monday regarding the ongoing conflict in the Ukraine. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

"I know this is a great concern to our NATO allies in the region, but it should be a great concern to all of us. When a major power acts in a way that is so clearly aggressive, militaristic and imperialistic, this represents a significant threat to the peace and stability of the world, and it's time we all recognized the depth and the seriousness of that threat."
"You can certainly be sure that Canada will take additional measures. We've already imposed a number of sanctions and we will clearly be taking further action."
"We know how difficult these times are in Ukraine and how grave the threats truly are, but we also know that the resolve and the determination of the Ukrainian people for their freedom and independence has no limits."
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

A meeting took place between Mr. Harper and his minister of foreign affairs, John Baird, along with ambassadors from Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic representing NATO ally countries in Central and Eastern Europe. What is occurring in Ukraine with Russia orchestrating a rabble of several hundred Russian-speakers in east and south Ukraine, supported by Russian military in uniform without identifying signia, and armed to the hilt spearheads another secession.

But those who have come out to cheer the hardline secessionists among them in Ukraine represent a motley crew; out of the entire populations they represent a minuscule number of malcontents eager to join Russia, certainly not expressive of the will of the population as a whole in their regions, the millions who have made a decision not to join their numbers. The Ukrainian Parliament in Kyiv and the acting President have reacted with caution, but have finally been shoved to the point of action, declaring the obvious, that Russia has embarked on a war footing against Ukraine.

The BBC's Olga Ishvina reports from inside a police department in Gorlovka, near Donetsk, where police and pro-Russian activists are "cohabiting"

The declarations of outrage and denunciation by the European Union and the United States, and their insistence that Russia must pay the consequences of its orchestration of the secession and annexation of Crimea through sanctions, has been weak gruel, other than to 'insult' the integrity and honour of Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a man of obvious honour and great integrity whom the Western world simply misunderstands. It remains his obligation to protect Russians and Russian-speakers.

There were rival pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian rallies in the town of Kharkiv on Sunday

 

Which is why the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Poland, and Slovakia are so nervously upset on behalf of Ukraine. For what Ukraine is now suffering, awaits them as well, they fear; Russia's determination to 'protect' Russian interests growls menacingly for their future as well. What is any self-respecting country to do when its territorial integrity sustains great harm from a neighbour, other than to take all possible steps open to it to defend itself and exert counter-pressure against the aggressor?

Russian warns Ukraine against the use of force. While Russian agents provocateur incite a handful of Russophiles to prove their devotion to the mother country and through their actions compel Ukraine to react, and violence ensues. That violence is the invitation-by-default for the Kremlin to send in the troops, and troops are there, hovering on the border in well-armed abundance. Their very presence is the deterrent, but one whose cost is too great for any country that is being threatened to bear. Inaction means loss, action will result in military violence.

Europe's puny and futile threats of sanctions betray the influence of its major corporations and banking institutes unwilling to sacrifice any of their investments in Russia as being a price too steep to pay for European honour in committing to defence of an ally. The United States has turned a new era in its political international involvement from threats to be reckoned with, to verbal assaults absent any real incentive to heed them.

And so, Canada steps into the breach. A country acknowledged as principled, but whose influence is that of a middleweight country as far as reactive military force is concerned. Its influence is that of a concerned country whose population was built on immigration, and has within its population great swaths of citizens from all the aforementioned European countries whose interests the government seeks to advance. The greater issue is that of geopolitical morality, and Russia has failed the test with extreme distinction.

Russia has primed itself to pounce yet again on a Ukraine that is, relatively speaking, incapable of defending itself against its larger neighbour bullying its way into acquiring larger tracts of territory. As soon as a sufficiently violent reaction can be orchestrated by the Kremlin to trap Ukraine into reaction that will result in bloodshed on both sides, Russia will order its standby troops to take definitive action. There will be no significantly discernible hampering effect from the rest of Europe in Russia's destabilization and carving up of Ukraine.

Pro-Russian gunmen continued to patrol the streets of Sloviansk on Monday

 

The gunbattle outside Slovyansk represented a tentative demonstration project in development, where Vladimir Kolodchenko, a lawmaker from the area who had witnessed the attack described seeing four gunmen pull up on a road outside Slovyansk and open fire on Ukrainian soldiers standing beside their vehicles. The attack, of course, was one undertaken by unknown, mysterious gunmen with no association to Russian military, and the consequence of their attack was a brief gunbattle, Ukrainian soldiers returning fire under attack.

Cue the invasion.