Although almost everyone is aware of the disorders afflicting Ukraine in recent times, only a few people know what the real reasons behind these conflicts are. Western media claim the considerable corruption of Janukovyč’s pro-Russian government as the original cause of these conflicts. This corruption seemingly reached a level of unsustainability so high that it led people to take to the streets to protest in despair. However, are we sure that the situation is so simple? To better understand the Ukrainian situation, we must first remember that we are talking about a country that is in a strategic position between the European Union and the Russian Federation, a country with so many natural resources such as the famous Chernozem (the most productive agricultural land in the world) and natural gas fields, a country always split politically in half between the nationalist, anti-Russian west (and therefore today pro-West) and the Russian-speaking, pro-Russian east. To cut it short, truly a powder keg.
Among Ukrainian nationalists, but not only, one can often hear about Ukraine’s excessive dependence on Russia until last year and its rightful owners‘s (the Ukrainians) exclusion from governing. Surely the ideal to strive for greater independence from Putin’s Russia (which is far from an ideal state) with the aim of having a government made up of Ukrainians who care about the interests of their nation is in itself praiseworthy.
The nobility of this struggle for self-determination, however, vanishes when the goal is to get into anti-national supranational organizations such as NATO and the EU. It is therefore not a coincidence that the protests in December have started after Yanukovich’s decision not to sign the treaty of association with the EU. Thus, one doesn’t need to be particularly smart to understand that by exploiting popular discontent the US, and to a lesser extent the EU, encouraged the protests and mass disorders to make their puppet government rise to power, like they did quite recently with the so-called „Arab Springs“ in the Middle East. The situation becomes even clearer if one remembers about the arrival in Kiev of US politicans such as McCain and Kerry to support protesters on Maidan, and if one remembers that during an intercepted phone conversation the Estonian Foreign Minister Paet told the High Representative for Foreign Affairs of the EU Ashton that in February the protesters on Maidan were killed by snipers supportive of the “revolution” (news which was not denied by anyone and that the coup government that came to power did not even investigate).
But the most ridiculous story of this whole story is that despite this “revolution” has been largely carried out in the media for the self-determination of the Ukrainians, after the coup people came to power who do not have anything to do with the Ukrainian people, like the Jews Yatsenyuk, Turčynov, Tymoshenko and Avakov.
The fact that corruption has not yet been even partially liquidated makes one think that the riots have begun due to rivalries between various clans of corrupted individuals and that eventually the clan more convenient to the US won. While on the one hand the coup has reassured the western part of the country, on the other, however, it did cause the uprising of the eastern , pro-Russian part (which, I remind you, has found itself part of Ukraine due to Lenin and Khrushchev), which doesn’t want to enter NATO and the EU.
In Crimea, where 60% oft he population is ethnically Russian, the uprising against the new Kiev government culminates with the referendum in 16th March, in which a turnout of 84% and 97% of favourable votes sets forth secession from Ukraine and annexation to the Russian Federation. Forgetting about the international law principle of self-determination served a few years earlier to legitimize the secession of Kosovo from Serbia (which took place, by the way, without referendum), the US declare void the outcome of the referendum in Crimea because it is contrary to the constitution Ukraine (?).
In the past few months we are seeing a real and truly significant repression of the Russian-speaking population, with the Ukrainian army being instructed to fire on civilian protesters (who are often branded as terrorists) because they are „guilty“ to support the division of the country, when actually the majority of these people simply support the federalization of the country. This escalation of violence culminated with the incident in Odessa on May 2, in which fifty pro-Russian who had barricaded themselves in a building of the trade union died in the flames set with the intention of eliminating them.
In my opinion, the annexation of the Donetsk or Luhansk districts to Russia is not necessary to solve the Ukrainian problem: Ukraine could simply make a federal state.
Thinking of maintaining a unitary state when the west and the east of the country speak different languages, have different political orientations, have different geopolitical interests etc., is totally foolish.
But apparently the new government in Kiev is too busy to follow the dictates of NATO to realize this. My hope then is that the conflict at issue does not become uncontrollable escalation (since it involves two of the major military powers in the world) but will be resolved with an awareness on the part of Russians and Ukrainians in the fact that none of them is earning anything from this civil war.
Some references:
http://italian.ruvr.ru/news/2014_05_23/Putin-sanzioni-contro-Mosca-servono-agli-USA-per-vantaggi-nel-mercato-europeo-9186/#
http://italian.ruvr.ru/2014_05_03/Kramatorsk-e-in-corso-il-combattimento-6914/
http://www.corriere.it/esteri/14_maggio_11/ucraina-filorussi-votano-referendum-separatista-nuovi-scontri-f0209b4c-d8da-11e3-b8f7-5c1c0bbdabb2.shtml
http://www.libertaepersona.org/wordpress/2014/05/fra-i-litiganti-russia-e-ue-il-terzo-usa-gode/
argumentua.com/novosti/80-predsedatelei-sudov-vernulis-v-svoi-kresla-korruptsiya-nikuda-i-ne-ukhodila
