Is the EU ready to get the country through the period of reforms on its own, or even with the US, if Russia is shut out of this process?

If I understood the treaty proposla correctly, it was for Ukraine to agree to be pillaged by the EU without any chance of joining or otherwise influence the EU. And yes, the EU appears ready to gut economies despite the inevitable blow-back, after all it is being done to the southern membercountries.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

However, if the actors were that rational, bringing Ukraine to the brink of civil war in the first place would not have happened. So, there is that.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/10/ukraine-and-west-hot-air-hypocrisy-crimea-russia

Less than a month ago, a violent insurrection in the streets of Kiev against the elected government was greeted in the west as an uprising of "the people of Ukraine" choosing the west against closer ties with Russia. Everyone knows, if they stop to think about it, that such a simplistic characterisation of "the people of Ukraine" is wilfully naive, but the breathless journalists and huffy politicians gushing their stuff never stop to think. Thinking is dangerous. It can lead you to see the other person's point of view.
The one thing we know for sure is that we don't know what's going on. The situation is volatile and murky. But that doesn't stop western politicians jumping in feet first. We don't know exactly what forces are at play, but we still desperately want to pin our naive "goodies" and "baddies" labels on to somebody.

What will happen next? I predict that nothing will happen. There will be a tremendous amount of huffing and puffing of hot air; well-oiled muscles will be flexed and machinery moved about. Some kleptocratic Russian and Ukrainian ladies will have to put on hold their next shopping trip to Harrods or Gucci. But for the bankers, oligarchs and oilmen, it will be business as usual. They will still own big chunks of London. And, fortunately, their offspring will still be able to enjoy their elite education in some of the world's finest private schools cut-price, thanks to the generosity of the British taxpayers who have deemed those institutions to be charities.

Let us hope I am right, because the alternative is civil war: people slaughtering each other in the streets over some fabricated notion of ethnicity. And even a bit of hot air and hypocrisy is preferable to that.

2) In 1997, amid the wreckage of the USSR, Russia & Ukraine signed a Partition Treaty determining the fate of the military bases and vessels in Crimea. The deal sparked widespread officer `defections' to Russia and was ratified by the Russian & Ukrainian parliaments in 1999. Russia received 81.7 percent of the fleet's ships after paying the Ukrainian government US$526.5 million.

3) The deal allowed the Russian Black Sea Fleet to stay in Crimea until 2017. This was extended by another 25 years to 2042 with a 5-year extension option in 2010.

4) Moscow annually writes off $97.75 million of Kiev's debt for the right to use Ukrainian waters and radio frequencies, and to compensate for the Black Sea Fleet's environmental impact.

5) The Russian navy is allowed up to

- 25,000 troops,

- 24 artillery systems with a caliber smaller than 100 mm,

- 132 armored vehicles, and

- 22 military planes, on Crimean territory.

Why is this agreement not explored in the media? It is also the reason why the Russian troops do not wear distinguishing marks, I was told.

I know the Crimea is relatively small, but could its defection be enough to tilt the balance of power in the remaining Ukraine marginally but decisively in the west leaning factions favour?

If so Russia could have gained Crimea at the cost of a near controlling influence in Ukraine. The fundamental economics of pipelines and interdependency don't change, but the EU's influence in Ukraine will grow - for good or ill.

The danger is that Russia will be provoked into further annexations in eastern Ukraine "in order to protect ethnic Russians..."  This could provoke a military response by Ukraine in a bid to protect its territorial integrity and all hell could break loose, include pogroms, ethnic cleansing, mass migrations of civilians, and a hot or cold war around some de facto border in Ukraine.

Will the west really come to Ukraine's aid in this scenario, beyond the usual guff about sanctions etc.? Where will the new Russia/West border really lie before the west intervenes militarily?

Both Russia and "the West" have a vested interest in avoiding such an outcome. The question is whether cool heads will ultimately prevail and further provocations are avoided.

My best guess is that Ukraine will lose Crimea but ultimately Russia will lose a controlling influence in Ukraine. Both sides had better get used to that new reality if disaster is to be avoided.

Index of Frank's Diaries

I strongly believe that giving Ukraine this either/or choice was a huge blunder by the EU (and the US, for that matter).

The point is that on matters of national security and foreign affairs the US only has a unified policy during Republican administrations. LBJ, IMO, made a massive strategic mistake in deciding, 'for the good of the country', not to call Nixon on the sabotage of the Vietnamese peace talks as that seems to have set a precedent. I have watched this unfold over my adult life and had assumed that this was what was happening, but have recently had it massively confirmed by reading Robert Parry's

America's Stolen Narrative: From Washington and Madison to Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes to Obama

Violent fascist radicals from the Right Sector are arriving in Ukranian areas with Russian affiliated populations likely to enforce their point of view. The sympathetic to them NYT account:

    With the city in play, street fighters from Independence Square in Kiev have arrived by bus in Odessa. Their eyes deep from the violence they had just seen, attired in body armor, they draw apprehensive stares, but their presence has also allowed supporters of the interim government to feel safe enough to stage several large rallies.

...A few days ago the coup government in Kiev had called for a mobilization of the military reserve. That failed. Obviously no one showed up. The coup government has now called to form a "National Guard" of volunteers. With all security and defense related top-jobs now in the hand of the fascists one can easily imagine who will be allowed to join. All Right Sector members have already gone through some (para-)military training as it is a condition for membership. They will revive memories about the 14th SS-Volunteer Division "Galician" which often used in anti-partisan action, i.e. to suppress local dissent:
...The U.S. puppets in Kiev called for military intervention by the "west":

    Parliament passed a resolution calling on the United States and Britain, co-signatories with Russia of that treaty to "fulfill their obligations ... and take all possible diplomatic, political, economic and military measures urgently to end the aggression and preserve the independence, sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine".

I do not yet believe that anyone is the "west" is willing to follow up on such an invitation.

Moscow will halt military steps in Ukraine - only after a US guarantee not to post missile shield there

... according to our US and Russian sources, Putin is after hard, practical strategic gains, principally, a demilitarized Crimea that would not threaten Russia from its western doorstep.
In fact, the Russian president has couched his demands for further negotiations under four headings:

1.  The Kiev government whichever form it takes must sign an obligation to abstain from any ties with NATO.
2.  Neither the US, NATO or any other power will deploy X-Band or BX-1 radar stations on Ukraine territory whether on land, sea or air. This guarantee would additionally cover elements of an anti-missile missile shield and ballistic missiles placing Russia in their sights.
3.  Restrictions will govern the types of weapons allowed the Ukrainian army.
4.  Local military bodies will be established to protect the Russian-speaking and ethnic Russian regions of Ukraine.

Putin emphasized in his conversation with Merkel that, until those four conditions are met, Russian forces would remain where they are in Crimea and if this was deemed necesssary, advance into other parts of Ukraine.

1. Ukraine should have the right to choose freely its economic and political associations, including with Europe.

2. Ukraine should not join NATO, a position I took seven years ago, when it last came up.

3. Ukraine should be free to create any government compatible with the expressed will of its people. Wise Ukrainian leaders would then opt for a policy of reconciliation between the various parts of their country. Internationally, they should pursue a posture comparable to that of Finland. That nation leaves no doubt about its fierce independence and cooperates with the West in most fields but carefully avoids institutional hostility toward Russia.

4. It is incompatible with the rules of the existing world order for Russia to annex Crimea. But it should be possible to put Crimea's relationship to Ukraine on a less fraught basis. To that end, Russia would recognize Ukraine's sovereignty over Crimea. Ukraine should reinforce Crimea's autonomy in elections held in the presence of international observers. The process would include removing any ambiguities about the status of the Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X3Khut1O0Kc
He is so right...USA/EU have to decide either referendum and right of people to decide where they want to live is legal or it's not.It doesn't look serious to simply cherry pick who have right and who doesn't depending on their interest.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind...Albert Einstein

"Yatsenyuk was saying that what the Greeks did to themselves we are going to do ourselves," said Signorelli. "He wants to follow the Greek economic model. Who the hell wants to follow that?"

Also today, Yatsenyuk promised to implement "very unpopular measures" to stabilize the country's finances. The government said it needs $35 billion to support the country over the next two years. His language in a news report broadcast by Bloomberg today indicates he is heading toward a potentially destabilizing austerity campaign.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/15/kiev-s-protestors-put-on-uniforms.html

Kiev's Independence Square is becoming a military recruitment center, with activists eagerly enlisting as volunteer soldiers. Anna Nemtsova reports from the scene.

Kiev's Independence Square - the Maidan so immensely important to the new government here -- is changing all the time. And while most of the world's attention has been focused on Crimea, some of the developments among the crowd in Kiev are decidedly ominous.
...But there are also men in black - precisely the kind of people Moscow gleefully brands as fascists to terrify the ethnic Russian populations of Crimea and in the east of the country. Members of the Right Sector nationalist paramilitary group  have occupied three buildings around the Maidan square over the last few days. New recruits for their forces lined up outside the former office of Kiev Star, a cell phone company and militia activists carried bags full of weapons into the guarded door. The Dnipro Hotel is with the Right Sector's men dressed like down-market storm troopers.

Specialists had to deal with a new wave of psychological traumas linked to the Crimea referendum and Russian threats: the conflict has came to almost every family in Ukraine, splitting relatives into pro-Russian and anti-Russian camps.

...Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state; Brzezinski Zbigniew, the former national security adviser on what the United States can and should do.

The other targets include two advisors to President Putin, Vladislav Surkov and Sergey Glazyev, Russian Upper Parliament head Valentina Matviyenko, MP Leonid Slutsky, who chairs the committee on Russian relations with ethnic Russians overseas, constitutional law professor Andrey Klishas, and MP Yelina Mizulina.

Mizulina is perhaps the craziest inclusion, as she not only had nothing to do with the Ukraine situation but isn't even a member of the ruling party. Her sole claim to fame is backing the anti-gay legislation in Russia ahead of the Winter Olympics and her inclusion was seemingly just the first chance the administration had to stick it to her for that.

Crimea needs water from Ukraine.

Badly.


'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty