Been reading up on it trying to get a better understanding.
Very, very dangerous for the world.
Deliberate antagonistic policy of embarrassing Putin in the midst of the Sochi Oympics - EU leaders not turning up for opening ceremony, Pussy Riot etc etc - and presidential overthrow occurring while Sochi going on.
At the end of the day, it is a brilliant coup. But clearly it's not over.
Reading newspaper comments etc, a lot of political commentators believe that the objective is to move Ukraine into the Western sphere of influence and into some sort of NATO umbrella with the ultimate aim of depriving Russia of the warm water port at Sevastopol in the Crimea.
Will Putin accept that? Can he stop it? I don't know.
Clearly the Russians weren't smart enough or capable enough to stop the presidential overthrow happening so they may not be able to stop that happening.
But Ukraine is nearly bust and there is talk that there may be a run on Ukrainian banks which could affect Western banks. So if Ukraine falls into Western orbit, we will need to bail them out and Ukraine freezes in winter so they will need gas and who knows what Putin will do now.
But lots of political pundits are saying that this could lead to a break up of the country. Our media has not been reporting on the Nazi type group that is leading the violence and has not interviewed peope from the East and south of Ukraine who support the President. The Nazi style Right Sector are virulently anti Russian but they are also anti EU because they want Ukrainian independence.
There is another far right party called Svoboda which has 10% of Parliamentary seats but they want closer EU links and their leader has met Western politicians. But it is the Right Sector who booed Klitschko and who did not accept the deal signed by the opposition with the President.
Apparently Russia have given Russian passports to lots of citizens in Crimea and people are saying if there are any attacks on Russians, then Russia might intervene like they did in Georgia and that may possibly lead to a breakup of the country.
Apparently it is the billionaire oligarchs who run Ukraine really. Akhmetov controls lots of MPs in the President's party and he is a Tatar from the Crimea. The oligarchs do not want a split country because it is bad for business. A lot of what happens depends on what the oligarchs decide.
Putin never quite trusted the President and didn't think he did enough to maintain law and order and that is why he did not hand over all of the money promised. The President was between a rock and a hard place with the EU and Russia, but sounds like he is corrupt and lots of the Russian speaking East, and the West of the country are anti him and his corruption and what they call his "Family" who have grown rich.
According to political pundits, the EU deal was not good enough and Putin offered a better deal, but that is all history now.
This is probably the most dangerous situation in Europe for a very long time, because Russia has lost some of its sphere of influence right on its doorstep and in the heart of where Russian Orthodoxy began.
Two very good articles in todays' Mail on Sunday - one by Peter Hitchens who speaks Russian and once used to be a correspondent in Moscow and the other by the really excellent Oxford historian Mark Almond. He is a brilliant historian, I remember him from years ago, and is probably our top Eastern European historian.
This is from Mark Almond
"Why the eruption in Kiev could set off a tsunami that will engulf us all: As Ukraine burns, a stark warning from our most authoritative historian of Eastern Europe
Television pictures of revolutions can make them seem like a spectator sport.
Having Vitali Klitschko, the world heavyweight boxing champion, playing a starring role in the events in Kiev reinforces that impression.
But the implosion of the Ukrainian state in the last 48 hours is a political earthquake.
Chaos in Kiev could set off a tsunami that will toss Western Europe from its moorings too
It is a mistake to think we are watching from a safe distance
...
"Given Ukraine’s desperate economic mess, meeting the EU’s requirements was not really an option.
Worse still, Kiev needed billions of dollars to service its huge debt to Western banks. But the West wasn’t willing, or able, to lend any more.
Putin’s huge oil and gas revenues seemed to give Russia the trump card. The Kremlin offered Ukraine a soft loan but on condition it stopped associating with the EU."
...
The capacity of Ukrainians to flout their Western well-wishers was shown when the protesters ignored that EU-sponsored deal to seize control of Kiev.
The radicals might ignore the West, but the West cannot ignore the consequences of letting them run riot into a conflict with local Russians or the Kremlin itself.
If political and economic chaos leads to civil war in the country lying between Nato and Russia, Yugoslavia’s break-up would seem like a vicarage tea party
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2565792/Why-eruption-Kiev-set-tsunami-engulf-As-Ukraine-burns-stark-warning-authoritative-historian-Eastern-Europe.html
and Hitchens says
"A month ago I warned that simple-minded Western intervention in Ukraine risked provoking civil war in that dangerous, unstable region.
Now I repeat the warning. Our encouragement of this post-modern putsch now threatens the worst civil violence in Europe since similar lobbies sponsored the break-up of Yugoslavia."
...
"Most Western politicians and commentators seem to assume that the Kiev mob are democrats. Are they? In what way?
They demanded the resignation of the Ukrainian government, because they said so. They wouldn’t go home until they got their way.
How is that democratic? President Yanukovych is certainly no saint. But he came to power legitimately."
...
And yet, on the BBC’s supposedly enlightened and thoughtful World Tonight radio programme, an academic was allowed to describe this government as a ‘regime’ without challenge, and a series of politicians from Eastern Europe were brought on to demand sanctions against Ukraine, while no voice was heard from the other side. Anyway, who are these demonstrators? There is no doubt that police have been injured by petrol bombs thrown from the crowd, and shot at with guns. Yet the reports seldom seem to ask who is doing the throwing and the shooting.
...
It is these people who have been receiving the support of the United States. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is famous for her ‘ the EU!’ statement in a bugged phone conversation in which she discusses naked intervention by the USA in Ukraine’s affairs.
But last December she trotted round the main square of Kiev with a little plastic bag, handing out biscuits and buns to demonstrators. Other outsiders who have sided with the anti-democratic mob have included German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, and the EU’s foreign policy chief, Baroness Ashton.
Didn’t these people realise what effect their endorsement might have? Do they know what ghosts they may raise? If they don’t, they are ignorant and rash. If they do, they should remember what happens to children who play with fire.
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2565762/PETER-HITCHENS-Beware-nation-steeped-blood-carpeted-graves.html