Russia ‘Tourists’ Fighting in Ukraine | The Daily Beast
From Oleg Shynkarenko at The Daily Beast:
A journalist from Russia’s Moskva FM Radio broadcasting from Donetsk asked a local rebel commander, “Can you tell me your name?” He answered: “Of course, I am Paramonov Pavel Vladimirovytch.”
“Are you from Donetsk?”
“Of course not. I am from Yefremov, Tula region [Russia].”
“What are you doing in Donetsk?”
“I am helping brotherly people to defend their rights, do you have another questions?”
Read more at Russia Tells ‘Tourists’ How to Go Fight in Ukraine – The Daily Beast.
Vladimir Putin’s irrational behavior: Why the Russian president wins if we think he is crazy.
Scott Radnitz suggests that Vladimir Putin is not crazy — just deliberately acting that way.
….consider strategic theorist Thomas Schelling’s concept of the “rationality of irrationality.” This can be illustrated through the game of chicken, in which two drivers are heading for each other at full speed, and the first to swerve is the chicken. A driver who appears crazy enough to prefer dying over chickening out will always have the advantage. It is therefore rational for a player to convince his opponent that he is actually irrational.
Read more at Vladimir Putin’s irrational behavior: Why the Russian president wins if we think he is crazy..
Depleting Putin’s war chest
From Quartz:
The “First Law of Petropolitics,” coined by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman… states that when oil prices are high, the leaders of petro-states can become demanding and belligerent; when they are low, they are more prone to be pussycats.
Oil prices at elevated levels explain Russian belligerence. The graph below shows Brent Crude prices adjusted by the (US) consumer price index to reflect growth in real crude prices over the last decade. To bring crude prices down to pre-2005 levels will be no small feat.
Read more at How the US might persuade the Saudis to co-conspire in unleashing an oil weapon against Putin – Quartz.
George F. Kennan’s Prediction On NATO Expansion Was Right
Interesting argument against further expansion of NATO on Moon of Alabama:
George Kennan was the U.S. diplomat and Russia specialist who developed the cold war strategy of containment of the Soviet Union, though he later criticized its militaristic implementation. In 1998, when the Senate voted to extend NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Kennan was asked to comment. He responded:
“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,” said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. “I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever.”
…..”It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.”
Read a full report of the 1998 interview with George Kennan at NY Times: Foreign Affairs | Thomas L Friedman.
Russia’s shrinking influence
Lorena O’Neil suggests that the number of Russian language speakers will halve from 300 million in 1990 to 150 million by 2025.
….countries that were traditionally bound to Russia by language, culture, energy and ethnicity are starting to gain independence, and relationships with other countries like China are increasing……..[Paul] Goble suggests that Putin will continue to engage in bombast with his neighbors because he’s playing an extremely weak hand that is getting weaker. “In a sense, the thuggishness that Putin is using (on) his neighbors is a product of the weakening of Russia’s cultural influence.”
Read more at Forgetting How to Speak Russian | Fast forward | OZY.
Polish Foreign Minister Discusses Weak EU Position in Ukraine Crisis | SPIEGEL ONLINE
From a Der Spiegel interview with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski:
SPIEGEL: Why are the Poles so highly engaged in this conflict?
Sikorski: The Ukrainians are our neighbors. They are fighting for the same things we did back in 1989 – for a country that is more democratic, less corrupt and is European.
Read more at Polish Foreign Minister Discusses Weak EU Position in Ukraine Crisis – SPIEGEL ONLINE.
How Ukraine Can Move Forward | Cato Institute
Dalibor Rohac at the Cato Institute suggest the Ukraine should focus on getting its economy back on track:
….to really understand where Ukraine is headed, it’s important to understand the roots of the unrest that led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych.
First, the country’s oligarchic elite, which ruled the country for the past two decades, cared little about the prosperity of ordinary Ukrainians. The evidence is not just in the tacky mansions of President Yanukovych and his men, but also in the fact that the average income in Ukraine is roughly one third of that in Poland even though both countries started from around the same point in 1990.
Second, the change of government in Ukraine follows a miscalculation on the part of the Kremlin, which long considered Ukraine as its client state, dependent on imports of natural gas from Russia. Ukrainians simply lost patience after their government effectively followed instructions from Moscow and canceled the broadly popular association agreement with the EU. Now that the plan to bully Ukrainians into submission has backfired, Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to leverage the situation to push claims to parts of Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine — most prominently Crimea and the port of Sevastopol.
Regardless of whether such territorial concessions become a reality, with an interim cabinet in place and a new presidential election scheduled for late May, it is time for Ukraine to reckon with the massive governance failure of the past twenty years.
The best response to Putin’s land grab would be to turn Ukraine into an economic success story and example to its large neighbor to the East.
Read more at How Ukraine Can Move Forward | Cato Institute.
Sanctions nerves ripple through Moscow | FT.com
The Financial Times quotes Igor Yurgens, a former Kremlin adviser:
He added that capital flight was likely to soar. He said his bank had received “a huge number of calls” into his bank’s Swiss offices from Russian clients over the past two weeks and a number of wire transfers into Swiss bank accounts out of Russia. Clients, he said, would prefer to keep money outside the country despite the risk of asset freezes.
Read more at Sanctions nerves ripple through Moscow – FT.com.
China will never support Putin on Crimea
Offering the people of Crimea a referendum — on whether to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation — may appeal to Vladimir Putin but he should not expect support from China. For two very simple reasons: Hong Kong and Taiwan. China claims these two territories as part of China, but there are no prizes for guessing the outcome if a similar referendum (to secede) were held in either territory.