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Posted on 02/24/2014 10:20:59 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
As the battle on Maidan ends with the defeat and humiliation of President Viktor Yanukovych, some observers have turned their attention to Ukraine's Crimea region with the following question: If Ukraine turns toward the European Union and the West, will President Vladimir Putin move to seize Crimea?
While Crimea is situated far from the drama of Kiev, it stands out as the only region in Ukraine where Russians are in the majority, constituting about 60 percent of Crimea's population. There is also a critical naval base at Sevastopol that the Russians lease from Ukraine. Sevastopol serves as the home of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, and it gives the Russian Navy direct access to the Mediterranean Sea. Russia has signed a lease agreement with Ukraine that allows its fleet to remain at Sevastopol until 2042.
For two centuries, Crimea was part of Russia, and to many Russians it is only through a strange quirk of Soviet history that Crimea is not part of Russia today. On Feb. 19, 1954, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, gifted Crimea to Ukraine as a gesture of goodwill to mark the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's merger with tsarist Russia. Not surprisingly, at the time, it did not occur to anyone that one day the Soviet Union might collapse and that Ukraine would again be an independent country.
Last week, one of Putin's leading advisers, Vladislav Surkov, visited Crimea and met Crimean leader Anatoly Mogilev, Crimean legislative Speaker Vladimir Konstantinov, and Sevastopol Governor Vladimir Yatsuboi. The talks were followed up by a meeting in Moscow on Feb. 20 between Konstantinov and Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the State Duma.
Underscoring Russia's interest in Crimea, an unidentified Russian government official told the Financial Times on Feb. 20 that Russia was willing to fight a war over Crimea if Ukraine started to disintegrate. "If Ukraine breaks apart, it will trigger a war," the official said. "They will lose Crimea first [because] we will go in and protect [it], just as we did in Georgia."
This viewpoint seems to reflect Kremlin thinking. At a 2008 meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush, Putin reportedly told Bush that Ukraine was an accident of history.
There is ample precedent, furthermore, to believe that if Putin and the Russian establishment believed that Ukraine was slipping permanently out of their grasp, then Russia would find a pretext to seize Crimea. Russia has made it amply clear that it considers the former Soviet Union to be a space where it sees itself having wide latitude for maneuver.
Russia has not hesitated to act militarily within the former Soviet Union, first in the self-proclaimed Transdnestr republic in 1992 and then in South Ossetia in 2008 during its brief war with Georgia. After the end of the war in Georgia, Russia became the only country in the world to officially recognize the independence of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. While Russia does not officially recognize Transdnestr, it has a consulate there, many of Transdnestr's citizens have Russian passports and the Russians provide a de-facto guarantee of Transdnestr remaining separate from Moldova.
If Ukraine turns decisively West, it may well find that it is forced to leave Crimea behind.
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Josh Cohen is a former U.S. State Department official who was involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union. He currently works for a satellite technology company in the Washington area.
You answered my question. If the majority population of Crimea is Russian, and they think they should be part of Russia, it’s going to be difficult for Ukraine to hang on to it if they turn away from Russia.
Not impossible. But I doubt Ukraine is going to go to war with Russia to keep it.
They separated due to quirks of history: Kievan Rus was destroyed by the Mongols and the Moscowites were under Mongol influence, the Belarusyni in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (where they were the administrative and lower class) and the Ukraine was initially no mans land and then added to the GDL and finally under Polish influence
the war would be one between states -- the centralist Moscowite state or the divided Ukrainian
That very Tsarich of Vlady do something like that
Hagle and Herr Obozo will downsize our army, weaken our Navy and may be do away with our Air Force.
Then, Herr Obozo and Kerry will defend the gays and Muslims in that area. After that, Herr Obozo and his pal Kerry will draw more red lines like they did in Syria and other places.
Putin will ignore the so called Red Lines. He will treat their naval base and port like we do Gitmo.
We will then probably see the Ukraine area divided into two camps, Muslim and other minorities in one area, and then the majority into a Russian state in the other area.
Russia is a democracy since 1990. It is a "Christian" nation. Conservative in values, pro marriage, pro life, anti homo sexual propaganda.
We need Russia now more than we did during the 2nd WW.
It's arguable that Putins' Russia is on track in protecting and promoting western culture to be dominate world wide. While Obamas' America actions are resulting in just the opposite.
To Obama's credit, he stopped building missile sites in Poland, yielded to Putin in Syria, and is now, so far, not taking sides in the Ukraine.
“The Tartars have been getting pretty noisy in Crimea too”
Well, those Tartars had better not get too saucy! ;)
Of course Putin will act to “protect” the naval base at Sevastopol/Crimea, under the pretext of preserving the treaty they have with the Ukraine.
Or, he may just march in like Hitler at Danzig and take it.
Who’se going to oppose him? Obama? Hagel? Kerry? -The “Three Apostles of Appeasement”?
Oh, maybe Obama will send in Hillary on her broom to wag her boney finger at Putin and say “Tisk, tisk”.
I won’t even speculate what kind of finger Putin will give back to Hillary but she won’t get a thrill out of it.
We’ll send in Pussy Riot.
Hillary Clinton can’t do anthing.
Her Secret Service code name: “Pussy Rot”.
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