Skip to main content

Justification for military intervention in the Crimea a bit thin

From a Polish post on the situation in the Ukraine, an explanation on why there are so many Russian speakers in Crimea:

Stalin deportowaƂ większoƛć TatarĂłw Krymskich, dokonując w ten sposĂłb, czystki narodowoƛciowej o cechach ludobĂłjstwa. Następnie, osiedlaƂ na Krymie gƂównie rosyjskich komunistĂłw, tak jak Car swoich, tych najbardziej zasƂuĆŒonych – potrzebujących ciepƂego klimatu i wygĂłd ĆŒycia w po carskich kurortach.

ZSRR, podarowaƂa Krym Ukrainie (za Chruszczowa), po ƛmierci Stalina, nieoficjalnie w zamian za ludobĂłjstwo – jakiego się dopuƛciƂy wƂadze komunistyczne na narodzie UkraiƄskim (okres wielkiego gƂodu), a oficjalnie z wielkiej przyjaĆșni a tak naprawdę, dla konsolidacji obu narodĂłw w nowy twĂłr paƄstwowy, ktĂłrą to przyjaĆșƄ, na naszych oczach, teraz Rosja szybko marnotrawi.

Now the translation using Google Translate. Unfortunately, my Polish is not good enough for me to translate this properly myself.

Stalin deported the majority of Crimean Tatars, making in this way, the ethnic cleansing of the characteristics of genocide. Then, settled mainly in the Crimea Russian Communists, like their car, the most deserving - in need of a warm climate and the comforts of life in the tsarist resorts.

USSR gave Crimea, Ukraine (Khrushchev), after the death of Stalin, unofficially, in exchange for genocide - which is committed to the communist nation Ukrainian (famine period), and officially with great friendship and really, for the consolidation of the two nations in the new creation state, which is friendship, in our eyes, now Russia quickly wasted.

What I find interesting is that it is not that difficult to find out that Crimea was full of Tartars prior to the Soviet Union's double purge of the local population; first by starvation during the period 1917-33, and then mass deportation to remove the population completely in 1944. Yet, this very recent history of the region is not really mentioned in many of the numerous news reports that we are getting. Instead, the justification for Russia taking back Crimea seems to be because it contains a majority of Russian speakers, and that there is some sort of Russian naval base there.

Well, that line of reasoning is kinda dangerous, I think.

Not that I think that Muslim slave traders (albeit in the past) are the best sort of neighbours.

However, it will not end in Crimea. As this writer of the New Republic says, Russia is suffering from phantom limb syndrome, seeking to consciously or unconsciously recreate the old empire. Made easier by how the previous satellite states are comprised:

The internal issues of former Soviet republics, you see, are not truly internal issues of sovereign nations. This is because, by Stalin's very conscious design and very deliberate border drawing and population movement, most former Soviet republics are ethnic hodgepodges. So Ukraine has a sizable Russian population. Ditto Estonia, ditto Georgia, ditto Kazakhstan. And, according to Putin's unspoken doctrine, anywhere Russian citizens are determined to be at risk, Mother Moscow can intercede with force on their behalf.

In other, blunter words, Russian ethnicity and citizenship trump national sovereignty. At the very least, they provide a convenient pretext for territorial expansion, as they did in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where Russia was also ostensibly protecting Russian citizens—also newly minted for the occasion. Just this week, for instance, Russia introduced a law to make it easier for Ukrainians to get Russian citizenship—you know, to give Russia someone to protect.

Russia manufactured this crisis to create a pretext for a land-grab. There are now protests swinging Russian flags and hailing Russia's glory not just in Crimea but all over the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine. I was just in Donetsk, Yanukovich's hometown, on Monday. It was calm, calmer than calm. There were a couple dozen people guarding the Lenin statue in the center of the city from vandals, but that was it. A muckety-muck in the city's administration told me, "If they send new people in to replace us, we'll leave peacefully, we won't try to hang on." The same was the case in Simferopol, in Crimea. And then, out of nowhere, men with unmarked uniforms were taking over government buildings and airports, and huge demonstrations were pumping on town squares all over the regions. The Kremlin often refers to "a well-organized informational war" when their enemies broadcast something they don't like on repeat. And now, looking at the alarmist, blanket coverage on Russian television—now all loyal to the Kremlin—about fascists and radicals staging a coup in Kiev, it's hard to think of a better term. This was indeed a well-organized informational war.

Is all of this justified? I suppose it depends on which side you are on.

Comments

  1. There's a lot of rubbish being written Lucyna by a lot of people who don't have really a clue. And both your links are examples of this.

    Famines for example was experienced in many places in the USSR in the early thirties, not just Ukraine, Stalin was a Georgian and one of his right hand men Khrushchev a Ukrainian - so what to make of that n the 21st century, with 21st century political agendas - ignore it?

    I could have for example posted a sermon given by a uniate priest in Lviv, Lvov, Lwow, Lemberg, (take your pick according to your agenda) which would horrify you but why stir things any more .

    The reality is that Russia was never going to let Crimea go and anyone with half a brain, plus a tiny bit of historical knowledge should have realized this.

    But look at that video of John McCain I posted below and right at the beginning you will see a red and black flag waving in the crowd that the sanitizers, who are lying to you, missed.- in unsanitized pictures and video it is quite common

    Your own relatives would have been massacred by men marching under that banner a mere generation ago.

    Modern Ukraine is just lines on a map but if it ever is to become a Nation it will have to live within the rules of constitution and law and not succomb to foreign agitators encouraging the overthrow of the lawfully elected Government no matter how bad it might be and Ukraine has yet to get a good one.

    Anyway Ukraine is bankrupt, almost 100% dependent on Russia for its energy needs and is $4 billion dollars behind in the payments for its gas.

    And 80% of its exports go to the Russian federation - the very idea that it could be a member of the EU with its poor governance, debt, corruption in the near future is both laughable and absurd.

    And yet the USA. who are clueless, went out of its way to collapse the Government of Ukraine and unleashed ancient demons in the process

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv7qy7jot30

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hit pieces on Vladimir Putin are a dime a dozen these days, there is a severe outbreak of Russophobia at the moment, a disease that among other things that obliterates rational thought, induces selective blindness and creates a craving for historical revisionism


    If we are not careful we will be led over the cliff and our boys will become cannon fodder - whats new, it has ever
    been this way.


    Overly cynical remark removed by Author

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lucyna,
    The Obama administration has just made a colossal blunder, Poland and Germany tried to stop it but failed.


    We have entered a very dangerous time, with an incompetent in the White house who has opened a real can of worms and is now floundering -, way out of his depth

    ReplyDelete
  4. The West is not going to go to war over the Ukraine. As far as I'm concerned, Russia is welcome to it. We'll only go to war if Putin continues west, and I doubt he's that brazen.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The West is not going to go to war over the Ukraine


    Maybe not Lucyna but I can't help remembering that they said a similar thing 100 years ago about Serbia

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Please be respectful. Foul language and personal attacks may get your comment deleted without warning. Contact us if your comment doesn't appear - the spam filter may have grabbed it.