At last, Russia is experiencing its share of the austerity madness like in the EU, but in a different form: Ukraine’s possible civil war, an austerity in the form of curtailing people’s ‘freedom to choose their own future’–or is it?
There is even no sign of decency from foreign elements, as signs of the ties with war-hungry American statesmen, such as Vietnam War veteran and former US presidential candidate John McCane toured the carnage in Kiev, proclaimed “I am proud of what the people of Ukraine are doing, so they can restore democracy to their country.” It is not hard to imagine this disrespect: just imagine a Russian statesman visiting an Occupy Wall Street movement in New York and proclaiming the same blasphemy of democracy and you get the picture.
You could be forgiven into thinking these violent protesters are a target of support by renegade former American soldiers; but behold, when a certain American Secretary of State John Kerry meets with a certain opposition leader Vitaly Klitchko and declares “we are with the opposition, we give them our full support”, then you are certain a country like Ukraine will go asunder.
In the present trajectory of bad news coming out of this Ukraine fiasco, it seems America itself is more impatient with how the EU supports the Ukrainian opposition. American interventionism clearly defies not just enemy borders but also its allies as well. In a recent phone-tapped remark, German chancellor Angela Merkel described a remark by a senior US official who said “fuck the EU” as “totally unacceptable.” On the one hand, US mainstream media were quick to dismiss this comment, focusing instead on accusing Russia of the leaked comment, described as “a new low in Russian trade-craft.”
Ukraine’s Historical ties to Russia
What they fail to see is the historical ties of Ukraine to Russia; that a significant portion of Ukraine, especially from the East and South of the country, supports and is comfortable with their Russian neighbor. Even some well-informed commentators from the West are aware of this quandary.
The problem with this new chapter in Ukrainian history is deeply rooted in the expansionist policies Western powers embarked on since the retreat and dissolution of the Soviet Union. During the late 1980s, then-president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev gave assurances about his country’s deep cuts in arms (and with it influence) in the East, as long as the West guarantees non-intervention and expansion to former Soviet sphere of influence.
History has shown the West is nowhere near at honoring its commitments to the Nobel Peace prize-winning Soviet president: NATO bombing during the Kosovo war, the annexation of former Soviet states to the EU, and now more recently their support for violent elements in the Ukrainian opposition.
And what joining the EU is for the Ukrainian people? Certainly they are aware of the social spending cuts in the entire EU are they? Surely they are aware of the unprecedented inequality in the West? Are they aware that this bloody self-destruction will haunt them again the future once they experience the EU’s austerity medicine?
Perhaps other factors are at play here, the aim of which is to destabilize the government and replace it with a pro-EU government hostile to Moscow and wreck the economy by ‘opening up the market.’ Or is it perhaps to complete NATO’s militaristic expansion in Eastern Europe, but now along Russia’s very border?
Views From The East 