By Soviets i mean, there is the clinging to a mindset about government that still exists in the world as if a religion.
This is the former, but first freely elected President of the Ukraine who had Viktor Yushchenko as Prime Minister. He was ruthless and cared little about the people, except, to pretend the nation was now free and no longer an authoritarian government. The very interesting thing about it is the people actually clung to the idea they were free. The two parties that exist in the Ukraine proves the divide between what the people believe and the power that still contains those beliefs.
Kuchma is interesting for understanding the Crimea. This is not the first time the Crimea has sought the same demands to rejoin Russia. But. One has to realize where the Crimea is geographically and why Russian influence has lasted there so long.
Kuchma faced the same exact paradox with the Crimea as the current Ukraine government does today. They wanted to be a part of the Russian borders and communism and not at all a part of the free world. Kuchma stopped the uprising. In the early days of the Ukraine's independence it decided that the Crimea was not up for grabs. It was a part of their sovereign nation, so this is a bit of deja vu for the people of that nation. It is why the strong reaction occurred after Yushchenko abandoned the country.
The idea the Ukraine can actually allow their country to be divided into pieces to be picked over as a Thanksgiving turkey for ingestion by The West and Russia is absurd. The Ukraine possesses a threat both to Europe and to Russia. All one has to realize is the enormous nuclear assets the Ukraine had at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union to understand it's POSITION on the map of the world. The Soviet Union placed those nuclear assets at the one place on the global map to intimidate The West and actually attack Europe if necessary, including Turkey. The Soviet Union could have a nuclear non-proliferation treaty with the USA, but, Europe and Turkey would still be within reach and could easily pull the USA into a nuclear exchange anyway.
I might point to the fact, the Russian spy ship came to Cuba for some R&R supposedly. This is big thing for Russia. Putin and the communists are scared to their skivvies.
The problem today in the Ukraine oppressing the Crimean uprising is that it cooperated with both The West and Russia to disarm and reduce it's military footprint and for that it was no longer a threat. The treaty that is in play right now was actually part of that understanding. The treaty was the reason why The West felt secure and decided it need not be deeply involved in the Ukraine, especially with the global financial collapse it faced. That, however, did not stop the Ukrainian people to continue to strive for the country they believed they were entitled to.
Oh, I might add, no Soviet Style Leader could ever bring about a good economy for the people of the Ukraine, but, in example of the Yushchenko palatial estate to the leadership it didn't really matter. The leaders had feed off the people enough to be comfortable and the complaints of the people didn't matter.
So, here we are now, with a violated treaty, a Crimea pretending to have returned to 1995 or something like that and Russia being stupid with the Ukraine primarily disarmed and unable to defend itself and suppress an uprising the government has faced before.
The only reasonable reaction by The West is to continue to play a role in stabilizing the circumstances. The treaty was important. It helped world peace. The people of the Ukraine have to be able to defend their sovereign right to exist and The West now has a vested interest in it's stability.
The real question is why won't Russia grow up? I don't know if we will ever have an answer to that, especially in my lifetime.
One other thing about the treaty. It was crafted under former President Clinton, the man who handed Slobodan Milosevic to the world courts. One might want to reflect on that.
By
Andrew Osborn, Moscow
4:33PM GMT 22 Mar 2011
Ukrainian prosecutors (click here) said they suspected that Mr Kuchma, now 72, was involved in the
high-profile killing of Georgy Gongadze in 2000, a claim that Mr Kuchma has
always strongly denied.
"A criminal case has been opened in relation to Kuchma," Renat
Kuzmin, the country's first deputy prosecutor general told reporters, adding
that Mr Kuchma was banned from leaving the country until the investigation
was over.
"He is suspected of illegal actions and the murder of Gongadze." The
murder of the 31-year-old journalist who specialised in uncovering
corruption remains one of the most horrific crimes to have been committed in
post-Soviet Ukraine. The young journalist was kidnapped on September 16 2000
after leaving a friend's flat in Kiev. Two months later, his headless and
badly disfigured corpse was found in a forest 40 miles from the Ukrainian
capital....
