Putin can take Kiev in two weeks. Every time I read about the people who are dying I dont want to even think about it. It makes me so angry - so sad, for the conscript soldiers, the refugees, the volunteers. But Putin cant win this thing. Russia cant win this thing. Because Ukrainians cant be confused with Russians now. Because Ukrainians cant ever confuse themselves again with Russians. Or be indifferent to corrupt authoritarian systems that kidnap and sniper shoot their own people. Last November no one in the US cared much whether Ukraine entered some remote, obscure agreement with the EU. Barely anyone in Ukraine cared. Putin had Ukraine. He had it. He was at the Olympics last winter and people believed him about the Ukrainians being fascists and anti-Semites and he called the Maidan a pogrom. That was the first challenge and maybe the most important. Telling the world about who Ukrainians really are. For 500 years Ukraine was a single state with Poland and Lithuania the Rzeczpospolita. Poland and Lithuania had some sympathy for Ukraine but who else did? Who really believed in it, if Ukrainians put up with Yanukovych and barely seemed to believe in it themselves. Ukraine is not even a nation, Putin said. And Yanukovych, Putins high-paid agent posing as Ukraines president, agreed. There was no question of joining NATO. There was no largesse flowing easy and fast out of the EU. Ukraine is a large impoverished breadbasket lying against the belly of Russia. Who was going to seriously interrupt that picnic, and cause indigestion? Putin took Crimea and the world barely rolled in its sleep. Then Putin turned into Qaddafi. Everything he did was suddenly a grotesque, self-defeating mistake. Why does he want Donbas (meaning the BASin of the River Donets, or the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk [Russian: Lugansk]?). He doesnt. He wants Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk (Russian: Dnepropetrovsk), Kharkiv (Russian: Kharkov) and Odesa (Russian: Odessa). And even if Ukraine could live without Donbas, it couldnt give it to Putin because hed just keep going. To Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Odesa. And two weeks later - who knows? - to Kiev. Putins idiots shot down the Malaysian plane with so many Dutch and other people aboard, tragically, infuriatingly, and unnecessarily. Then Ukraine became a Dutch problem. A problem of the stubborn and principled Dutch, the Dutch the conscience of Europe. Putin through puerile lies and terrifying tantrums made an enemy of the Dutch, Germans, and the UK. Who can trust him? Of course my favori chéri French and preferidos caballeros Spaniards - for all the same reasons I love them - are as wobbly as flan and flimsy as Italy on all this. Look where we are now. Ukrainians know who they are and what they want. They are fighting and dying for it. Its not a symbolic, vain sacrifice. Its for real. The US is doing exercises in 2 weeks in western Ukraine. US troops. And a new rapid response force has been created by the UK, Dutch, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Danes and Norwegians. For the first time once neutral Sweden and Finland have announced plans to cooperate with NATO. The Norwegians are offering to help Ukraine chart a course to NATO. Even Austria is taking a firmly anti-Russian tone. This is no longer a Ukrainian problem with Russia. Canada with 15% Ukrainians in certain regions has always been strong on Kiev but even Australia is involved now because of that plane. The West is standing up to Russia over Ukraine. The EU is going to bury Russia in the next round of sanctions and further rounds to come. With proper security guarantees Kiev might relinquish Donbas. But Putin is Qaddafi now and will respond only to a greater show of force than his own. I feel anguish about all the people who are dying and each person who dies punches an unstoppable gap in the universe. This is far from over yet. I think it would take Putin even less than two weeks to take Kiev. But Ukraine is real now. He can take it, but with the exception of Crimea and maybe Donbas, he cant hold it.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 02:29:16 +0000
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