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West should respect Ukraine’s special ties with Russia

By Greg Cusack: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Shanghai Daily, March 7, 2014

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The turmoil in Ukraine in recent weeks, heightened by Russia’s dispatching of military forces to Crimea, has prompted predictable cries of outrage from right-wing American politicians accusing US President Obama of “weakness” for not responding more forcefully.

US President Barack Obama speaks about the situation in Ukraine on March 6, 2014. President Barack Obama warned Thursday a referendum in Crimea on joining Russia would violate Ukranian sovereignty and international law. [Photo/Xinhua]

My reaction is more mixed. While I think Russian President Putin’s decision to send forces into Crimea introduced unnecessary risks, I also share the Russian perspective that recent developments in the Ukraine appear to be outside the law.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Russia participated with other European representatives in brokering a layered agreement between representatives of protestors in Kiev and Ukraine’s president, Mr Yanukovich. (Russia had for some time been expressing its concern that many of the street protestors represented far-right nationalists who in no way represented the sentiments of the peoples of eastern and southern Ukraine.)

This agreement allowed Mr Yanukovich to remain in power, but also contained many reform measures, including holding an election for the presidency before 2014 ended. Only a few days later, however, this arrangement collapsed and the president fled the capital. It is important to remember that it was not Mr Yanukovich who reneged on the agreement.

Russian President Mr. Putin alleges that this was clearly an instance of “mob rule,” and that the subsequent deposition of Mr Yanukovich lacked legal standing. Concurrently, many citizens of the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine began calling for Russian assistance to counter this usurpation of power.

Unfortunately, rather than joining Mr Putin in calling for a return to the terms of the brokered agreement, Western nations welcomed the turn of events by acknowledging the legitimacy of the new government in Kiev and the deposition of Mr Yanukovich. I suspect that if it had been President Yanukovich who had broken the agreement, the West’s reaction would have been quite different.

This, coupled with America’s lecturing Russia about violating international law by invading another country — despite America’s invasions and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — had to have struck Mr Putin as the height of hypocrisy.

In international affairs, memories are long and perceived, unresolved slights can fester. One does not have to be a defender of Mr Putin to understand that — from Russia’s point of view — this incident is yet another instance where the United States and other Western powers have behaved as if Russia’s concerns were, at best, of secondary importance.

Following the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991, Russian leaders believe they received what they thought was a firm promise that NATO would not expand eastward to welcome as member states former members of the Soviet Union.

As recently as 2009, former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev angrily repeated the charge that the West had broken its promise. While Mr Medvedev’s recollection of events may not be correct in every detail, some of the key players involved at the time thought that, indeed, just such a promise had been made. (See “NATO’s Eastward Expansion: Did the West Break Its Promise to Moscow,” Der Spiegel, November 26, 2009.)

Furthermore, when the United States announced that it would station in Poland missiles capable of intercepting any warheads that might be launched from Iran, Russia objected that this system could also be used against Russia’s missile force. While the United States acknowledged this concern, it neither partnered with Russia for an alternative solution nor canceled its deployment plans.

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