Skip to main content

It is not yet over in Ukraine

The election of a new president in Ukraine is not the end of the crisis, but it does mark a point of change, and hopefully of improvement. The seizure of Crimea by Russia- in contravention of all international law and all promises given- has jolted the security position of NATO as almost nothing else could. Russia now insists that anywhere where the Russian or Soviet flag once flew may be a legitimate claim for Moscow. That in principle could mean Germany or Alaska. In practice it is still a threat to NATO, since the Kremlin claims thee right of intervention, whether or not any local Russian population survives, and regardless of that population supporting Russian intervention or not. Certainly it seems pretty clear that the Russian speaking population of the Donbass does not support the attempt by paramilitaries to transfer their home to Russian control. Nevertheless the Kremlin continues to seek a way to either control the Donbass directly or render it so unstable as to be beyond the control of the democratic government in Kyiv. 

Of course it is said that as Russian troops are withdrawn from the border, that they are seeking to deescalate the crisis. That, however remains to be seen, and the large number of mercenaries that are crossing the border to take up positions in Luhansk and Donetsk suggests simply a change of tactics, not a change of approach. The fact is that almost every public position taken by the Kremlin has ended up being denied by the facts. The credibility of Russia has been totally undermined by the simple lies told by their President.

In the end we have to note that Putin also cheated his way to the Presidency of his own country- with clear evidence of widespread voter fraud. He has led the "party of thieves and crooks" to vast ill gotten wealth- on a scale to make even Yanukovych blush. The regime does not even obey its own laws and the rights of individual citizens mean nothing compared to the rights of those connected to the regime. The rule of Vladimir Putin has ended free speech and on virtually every objective measure Russia can not be called a free country. The contempt for international law is simply another facet of the nature of the regime.

The point is that a democratic Ukraine is very clearly not in the interests of undemocratic Russia, and the seizure of Crimea and the attempted seizure of the Donbass is a pure play of Russian chauvinism. Some, especially those in London or Zurich who benefit from Russian funds flow or Paris, who benefit from Russian arms purchases will try either to downplay the actions of the Kremlin or to baldly state there is little that we can do. In fact such self interested twaddle is dangerous: the risks involved in not confronting the Russian threat until it is too late is much higher than recognizing and responding to the criminal regime in Moscow now. So unless the Russia takes actions to cool the situation in the Donbass immediately, then sanctions should not be abandoned in any way. In fact they should be increased. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have no notewo

Bournemouth absence

Although I had hoped to get down to the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth this year, simple pressure of work has now made that impossible. I must admit to great disappointment. The last conference before the General Election was always likely to show a few fireworks, and indeed the conference has attracted more headlines than any other over the past three years. Some of these headlines show a significant change of course in terms of economic policy. Scepticism about the size of government expenditure has given way to concern and now it is clear that reducing government expenditure will need to be the most urgent priority of the next government. So far it has been the Liberal Democrats that have made the running, and although the Conservatives are now belatedly recognising that cuts will be required they continue to fail to provide even the slightest detail as to what they think should guide their decisions in this area. This political cowardice means that we are expected to ch