An interpretation of events in Ukraine: it is well known that Putin wants to resurrect to Russian empire and deeply regrets that Ukraine was given independence. This whole thing is a put up job. Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was offered a deal by Putin: you help me get Crimea and eastern Ukraine and in return I will give you, say, a cool billion and a luxurious villa outside Moscow. Yanukovych is already a fabulously wealthy man, having denuded the Ukrainian treasury with his cronies, but no amount of money will satisfy his greed. The Ukrainian treasury is empty, and there is no more loot to be had. Here is an opportunity for more cash. He deliberately fires on the crowd in Kiev, thus ensuring chaos and the opportunity for Putin to send soldiers into Crimea and, later into eastern Ukraine. This leaves the western part of the country penniless and the EU with the disagreeable job bailing it out. Ukraine has now lost most of its industry, which is in the East and it can look forward to longterm political instability, which Putin can exploit to its fullest extent. A poke in the eye with a stick to Obama and the EU, and another piece of the Russian Imperial jigsaw is put back in place.
This illustrates what Epicurus preached – stay clear of the dirty business of politics!
(My history speciality used to be the Russian Empire and the revolution)
I almost always agree with Bob in his take on the world in his Epicurus blog, but his appraisal of what is transpiring in Ukraine (hanrott.com/blog/) seems more the product of disgust at the dirty business there than his usual objective commentary!
I bow to the wisdom and knowledge of someone who knows what he’s talking about!
But truth sometimes being more weird than fiction, I would still be surprised at nothing in that part of the world. At the same time you have to understand the paranoia of successive Russian autocrats. The basic, inescapable fact is that, unlike, say, UK or the UK, Russia has no natural frontiers. It has been invaded by Mongols, Vikings, Swedes, Poles, Frenchmen, Germans, and in the 1920s, even British, and many more in more ancient times. Hence the urgent need to extend the Empire and put a good distance between them and us. At least even the US media has accepted now that extending NATO to the doorstep of Russia was an idea that could only have been thought of by people with no history or geography. It was bound to cause resentment. To this extent Putin has the same preoccupations as the Tsars.
Is it fair to characterize Russia’s posture as “paranoia? when the next sentence speaks of seven invaders? The repeat attacks on Russia over two millennia would suggest that their outlook is better described as “realistic,” it seems to me.
I think you meant to insert “no” in the third from last sentence so that it read: “by people with ‘no’ history or geography,” right? So Putin’s “preoccupation” has to be the same not only as that of the Czars but as that of any leader of a powerful state: protect yourself from invasions.