Crimea

This is a moment when the West has to upgrade its diplomacy to a much more sophisticated and flexible model than the gung ho shambles post 9/11. The world is no longer a place of goodies and baddies, nor is it one of independent interests. It is a spider’s web of interlocking and related interests, where issues have many threads leading in opposite directions, linking those in argument to share common purposes which override grandstanding and point scoring. Russia has been better at adapting its diplomacy to this new environment than the US and UK.

Khrushchev gave the Crimea to Ukraine, when it was a constituent part of the Soviet Union and not an independent country. Khrushchev was himself Ukrainian, yet boss of the Soviet Union. The Crimea sees itself as Russian and the majority of the population is Russian speaking. Russia has a major naval base at Sebastopol. Like the territories in Eastern Ukraine its main trade link is with Russia. Small wonder that its people become alarmed when the government in Kiev collapses, the President flees the country and a new government is appointed according to the demands of the mob, from which it sought actual approval.

The former president claims, like Morsi, that he is still the legal president and he is probably right, but he allowed or provoked the situation to move beyond legal niceties. The practical reality is that there is a new government in Kiev, it is already throwing its weight about and saying partisan things, but it is there until a democratically elected replacement can be organised. Meanwhile Russia cannot allow mayhem to engulf its naval base and the regions who regard themselves as ethnically and culturally Russian. It has ordered military exercises and deployed some form of specialist militia to keep order at critical points in the Crimea.

This is not a bad thing. The less bloodshed and chaos from now on, the easier to find a long term solution for a country which has so mismanaged its affairs as to face bankruptcy and disintegration at the same time. Russia is best placed to halt further disintegration, which always leads to suffering of the innocent, while the West is best placed to construct some kind of financial package to avoid financial collapse. It is important for both east and west to see this crisis through a modern perspective and not to apply cold war barriers to solving the problem. Then it was a case of squaring up and not blinking. Things are quite different now.

Meanwhile cries from Kiev that Ukraine has been ‘invaded’ are ridiculous. Somebody needs to remind this so called government that if it misjudges the reality on the scale of Georgia some years back, it will lose half its territory, as the Russian population demand to secede and probably will do so. The alternative would be a bloodbath and nobody wants that.

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