By Eric Margolis
As violence and mayhem surge in Ukraine’s capitol, Kiev, fear is growing that Europe, the United States and Russia may be on a collision course.
Ukraine’s latest crisis began last November after Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an economic cooperation/integration pact with the European Union. Instead, near bankrupt Kiev accepted a Russian offer to supply heavily discounted natural gas and a pledge to buy billions worth of its shaky bonds.
Demonstrations erupted in Kiev and, later, Lvov. The Russian-backed Yanukovich government reacted with brutal police repression. Violence has mounted in recent days, with at least two demonstrators killed and scores injured on both sides. Moscow is making warnings.
This spreading crisis is of utmost geopolitical importance. It will determine the fate of 46 million Ukrainians, Russia’s future, and the stability of Eastern Europe.
Ukrainians are bitterly divided: western Ukraine, which mostly speaks Ukrainian, looks to the west and borders on Poland, a member of the EU. Predominantly Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine looks east to neighboring Russia. The Crimea was Russian until Nikita Khrushchev gave it in 1954 on a whim (some say fuelled by vodka) to Ukraine. Crimea’s large Muslim population was destroyed or exiled by Stalin.
Ukrainian and Russian speakers understand one another’s tongue. The problem is more about economic and mentality than language, ethnicity or religion.
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McCain better watch out or he may get what he is after: while Putin is boldly holding the Olympic games in the eye of terrorist threats, the U.S. is planning to reschedule a football game in case it snows.
ReplyDeleteThe Central banks are using their bought and paid for corrupt U.S, government to try and take over the Ukraine’s banking system; this is really what it is about. They have ruined the United States and every economy they have touched with their corrupt banking system; the Ukrainians need our support in rejecting the EU. The smartest thing Putin did was to throw them out of Russia and the people of the Ukraine understand this. The Banksters are now in South America corrupting their financial system and their fate will much the same as the U.S. as slaves to the banking system. Just as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, J.F. Kennedy warned the American people, throw the central bankers out, they are the worlds criminals.
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