Is it time for leaders in the West to cut talk of confrontation and accept the fact that Crimea is legitimately in Russia’s sphere, and that Ukraine must be seen as neither West nor East? For de Volkskrant, columnist Thomas von der Dunk looks at history and geopolitical reality in an effort to awaken Western policy makers from what he regards as a deluded, self-righteous slumber.
For de Volkskrant, Thomas von der Dunk launches into views rarely heard in U.S. mainstream media, but which are taken as obvious across much of the world:
Without Russia’s participation, there is no conceivable sustainable solution for Ukraine. If America and Europe have gotten that message, they aren’t admitting it publicly. Putin may be a total no-gooder, but crooked regimes can also have valid arguments within the global balance of power. In their time that was true even of Hitler and Stalin, with whom comparisons are already being drawn.
The core of the problem is that a substantial portion of the population, concentrated in Ukraine’s east and south, is Russian (speaking) and Russia-minded. That essential ethnic component means that comparisons with Hungary in 1956 don’t apply. One might rightly deplore that Ukrainian Russians prefer Putin over Barroso, but especially for a democracy, that’s a fact which cannot be ignored.
Difference with Qaddafi
Viktor Yanukovych may have emerged as an unprecedented kleptocrat, but he was legitimately elected. That’s the difference between him and, for instance, Qaddafi. Now Yanukovych has suddenly been pushed aside, which happens to ignore a compromise agreement signed by European foreign ministers. They are silent now.
We in the West might be morally contented with the current revolution, but that hasn’t changed the demographic constellation in the country. Whatever his geopolitical conceptions, Yanukovych represented a large portion of the electorate, a fact that has now become clear in places like Kharkov and Crimea. If in the hubris of the current euphoria Kiev ignores this, it will lead to a reaction that further escalates the conflict.
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