Internationally Sanctioned Humiliation : Look Back in Despair
"Like Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, a large area of Donetsk and Luhansk [in Ukraine] now dwells in an unrecognized post-Soviet twilight zone. But those other enclaves are marginal compared with the new black hole in Eastern Ukraine, which has a large population of about three million (although many have fled), and the backbone of the national economy."
David Blair, London Daily Telegraph
Quite the photograph; the two facilitators, Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel look none too pleased with the proceedings, but not quite as embarrassed as they should be. While Vladimir Putin who has played his game to the consternation of world powers, unsettling the order of the international community's faith in the inviolability of national borders, unleashes his satisfied smirk of accomplishments, while Petro Poroshenko appears shaken, his faith in the world community's support of Ukraine in shatters.
On occasion a picture does take the place of a thousand words.
One man whose despicable ambition to replay the past and return Russia to its former state of rigid authoritarianism, where Russian power and the threat of Russian military action has its near-abroad neighbours trembling in trepidation, fascinatingly witnessing the plight of Ukraine, an unwilling and near-helpless pawn for Putin's despicable machinations using his country as a warning to the others that they too can be eviscerated should the world's current Machiavelli unleash his powerful military completely.
This time around it was no one-on-one meeting of equals, Mr. Putin and Mr. Poroshenko; this time there were witnesses to the confident bullying and quietly implied threats that threaded their way across the room from the antagonist to the victim. Ukraine's obligations to the demands of Moscow by way of the separatist rebels confidently spelled out in "Minsk Twice-Over". The original signed agreement was swiftly abrogated, and what confidence can there be that its successor will not also be contemptibly set aside? Even if it's more to the liking of Putin?
There are no rules to this game other than those imposed by the one man who believes he has the upper hand. And why wouldn't he subscribe to that confident belief, since clearly, he has. President Poroshenko was allotted 30 generous days to initiate legal autonomy to the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and rewrite Ukraine's constitution legalizing the "special status" of the Donbass by year's end. Russia, on the other hand, is obligated to withdraw its troops and battalions with their artillery and tanks, but no time-schedule imposed by the agreement.
Why such a document is termed an "agreement" is itself a bit of a mystery, since one side, that of the aggressor, has set down all the conditions which must be met by the victim before the aggressor will deign to put a halt to the violence. The victim, to whom the aggressor assigns the role of oppressor, has little option but to grimly bear his loss for no other avenue is open to him. That part of the agreement mentioning "foreign armed formations" and "military equipment", and the withdrawal thereof, speak of no timetable other than when Moscow which denies the existence of them, decides to withdraw.
As for firming up the border once again and leaving Ukraine in control of its own geographic space, that too is most certainly contingent on how Moscow feels on any given day before laconically withdrawing. The contingency is, of course, the firm reality of Kyiv delivering full legal autonomy as per demand to Donetsk and Luhansk, no ifs, ands, or hesitation.
Labels: Aggression, Appeasement, Europe, Russia, Secession, Ukraine
posted by Pieface | 7:12 PM
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