(Swans - March 10, 2014) President Obama termed the Crimean situation and the Russian reaction a "breach of international law." His secretary of state, John Kerry, talked about a "brazen act of aggression." Of course, if they are referring to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, they may well be correct though the treaty was widely ignored by NATO in its war against Yugoslavia. No one seems to ask what is it for Russia to annex Crimea, but more tug-of-war and saber-rattling with the West. Indeed, why would Russia want Crimea and Crimeans want to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation, and what has Mr. Putin to gain by following this strategy? Let's try to clean the mud disseminated by the Western media and a few leftist imbeciles with the help of Ockham's razor.
In the past medium term the West has ardently worked to bring Ukraine to the EU and NATO (Orange Revolution), with no success until a few weeks ago when the democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, was deposed through a coup d'etat by his opponents, and eventually fled to Crimea, then Russia. The U.S. and its allies promptly recognized the new transitional government, a regime change they had arduously worked for and financed. The Russian language is the second official language of Ukraine and Crimea has an autonomous status with its own parliament. The next day after the coup, the "new" government abrogated Russian as the second official Ukrainian language (apparently, they rescinded that decision but it has yet to be confirmed), and would review the status of Crimea. Furthermore, ethnic Russians were becoming molested in a hurry.
Red flags were raised all over Crimea and Russia. There are plenty of nationalists in Russia. They called upon the mother country to embrace that little sister. The Russian government was not prone to get engaged. The real prize was Sevastopol, where the Russian southern Navy ships are located and where the US Navy wishes to replace them. This is not going to happen. One needs to open a history book to get true a sense of the links between Kiev and Russia, back over 1,000 years. Russia is tired of being encircled by the U.S. and its allies. The big games keep playing.
Mr. Putin did not and does not want to annex Crimea.
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Gilles d'Aymery on Swans -- with bio. He is Swans' publisher and co-editor. (back)