Who's In the Driver's Seat?

Ukraine finds itself in a hard, hard place. Its economy, in dreadfully bad shape as it was, is now in complete tatters, with little prospect of heaving itself out anytime soon from its position verging on bankruptcy. The offers made by the European Union and the United States for financial assistance represent a tidy, albeit tiny amount of what it needs to keep on track. Its major creditor is breathing hot and heavy on its neck, insisting in payment in advance for energy needs, and at a hefty increase in price.

Russia, not quite entirely satisfied with its acquisition of Crimea, with all the advantages it confers, giving ownership back to Russia of the Black Sea coastal peninsula with its naval ports, Ukrainian infrastructure, and most of Ukraine's naval fleet, has cast a covetous eye on east and south Ukraine, where a great deal of the country's industry lies, and where about 40% of Russian speakers live, and from which region deposed President Viktor Yanukovych received his support.

The very same program that was choreographed for the takeover of Crimea, priming the pump of the Russian Federation within the Russian-speaking population, where uniformed, but unidentified military personnel presented themselves as Crimeans dissatisfied with remaining part of Ukraine and agitating for inclusion into Russia have now been deployed in east Ukraine. In an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council, Vitaliy Churkin has charged Ukraine to withhold the use of force. A reprise of Crimea.

UN Security Council

Of course,when provocateurs and agitators aligned with Russia and coached on the manner in which they should best approach the issue of pursuing their goal of secession stormed a Ukrainian police station in Slovyansk, took possession of all the arms contained therein and distributed them to their supporters, it really was incumbent upon the government to restore some semblance of order. And, on Sunday security services were sent in to confront the militants, resulting in two deaths and other casualties on both sides as commandos and militants fired on one another.

Residents gather outside a barricade guarded by pro-Russian protesters at the entrance to a police station in Slovyansk, Ukraine, April 13, 2014. A Ukrainian official said special forces on Sunday evicted gunmen from the Slovyansk Police Headquarters, but local residents denied that Ukrainian forces had even entered the town.  (MAURICIO LIMA/NYT)

Before all that occurred, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk attempted reason and conciliation, pledging that regions would be granted extended powers, and the rights of Russian speakers would be guaranteed. "There are no separatists among us", Gennady Kernes, mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, said. The government had reclaimed an administrative building taken by protesters. Mayor Kernes asked that votes on autonomy but not on secession be permitted for the regions.

Since federalization appears the crack in the glue holding the country together, leading inevitably to breakage, this would not represent a popular proposal as far as the government is concerned. So sit back and wait for matters to further unfold; deteriorate as relatively small, but vocal and violent crowds of pro-Russian thugs hold the government of Ukraine to ransom, or dispatch security agents to clear out the rowdy hooligans and risk Moscow's unofficial military entry the outcome of which would be very well known.

And while Moscow has threatened Ukraine that it would only ship gas for its needs that is prepaid, Vladimir Putin has extended that threat to include Europe. Ukraine must pay its debts, insists the Kremlin, which started out at $1.7-billion to now be expanded, according to the Kremlin's new reckoning, and most peculiar mathematics now to over $35-billion. Soon it will have increased sufficiently to pay off Vladimir Putin's Sochi theatrics.

But then, there's another issue at stake here; the historically, Soviet-era close collaboration between Russia and Ukraine, and the interconnection of their industries, and most specifically the production of arms and munitions and heavy war machines. Russia has remained dependent on Ukraine for the production of many of the essential parts required for Russian weapons. Ukrainian factories, for a start, produce the engines powering Russian combat helicopters; half of the air-to-air missiles on Russian fighter planes, and other engines in use by Russian aircraft and naval ships.

The Antonov works in Kyiv produce a range of transport aircraft, of which the Russian Air Force was set to take possession of 60 of the new short-take-off-and-landing AN-70. Why, under the current circumstances, would Kyiv be eager to provide Moscow with the means to aid in gaining greater control over Ukraine's assets? "Manufacturing products for Russia that will later be aimed against us would be complete insanity", stated Vitaliy Yarema, Kyiv's first deputy prime minister, warning a halt to arms supplies to Russia may be called.

Even Russia's new Ilyushin Il-476 transport plane, built in Ulyanovsk, Russia, is dependent for its production on Ukrainian spare parts. A cutoff of cooperation in "several spheres .... " would be of inestimable harm to Moscow, stated Valentin Badrak, director of the Center of Army Studies in Kyiv. "In Ukraine we have about two dozen companies that had projects with Russia important to Russia's security and defense."

Can we assume the Kremlin managed to let all of this slip their collective minds? Can it be assumed that Vladimir Putin believes the strength of  his adamantly bewitching personality will prevail in a stare-down with Ukraine's new interim government that he insists he will not dignify by recognition? Russia's strategic missile forces, the SS-18 Satan multiple-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile relies on Ukrainian technical expertise. Whoops, there!

And, come to think of it, since Ukraine has all that technical inside information, the mechanical blueprints, records, the how-to; that Russia values its advanced new weaponry quite a bit, obviously not in a mood to share any industrial secrets with, for example, the United States, or NATO, might Ukraine not have a powerful tool for incentivizing the Kremlin to a more reasonable, civil approach in its relations with its former satellite?