Yesterday the Ukraine parliament granted a certain degree of self-governanceto the rebels in the East. At the same time, A "special" EU-Ukraine association agreement was signed. You can read all the details in the BBC News website under the title "Ukraine crisis: Rebels granted self-rule and amnesty".
And the world breathe easy. And politicians congratulated themselves on avoiding yet another nightmare. And the people of Ukraine avoided a massive war. Win-win right?
Well… no.
Not a chance.
This is nothing short of a desperate, last second attempt from Ukraine politicians to save whatever is left before being overrun.
They hope that by so doing, they will force Putin in a place he does not want to be: under the spotlight. Furthermore and in order to add some teeth to the "deal", they "informally" joined the EU in the hope of getting some political support (although they are probably dreaming about military help too… fat chance).
Let's be clear: it is not going to work.
Sure, things will calm down for a little while but "tensions" will remain high. This is so because the whole conflict is about Russia restoring its empire has nothing to do with separatist movements in Ukraine. Ukraine people on either side have not yet evolved politically into a self-rule mindset. Anybody who actually believes that Putin, as a blunt instrument developed in the USSR will stop, raise your hand. Nobody? That's good class. We are pleased to see you have been paying attention.
What is going to happen is what communists have always done. Remember? The FSB uses the same tactics as the KGB. Why change if tried-and-true works? In terms of strategy they will continue to "destabilize" the area until one way or another Russia will end up either assimilating or controlling Ukraine. Puppet governments with iron fist "security services" are certainly acceptable.
We must never forget that the people currently in power in the Kremlin were trained during the USSR. As such they don't really care that much about negative propaganda. This conflict is not an ideological one, as it was with communism. This conflict is about power grabbing.
In this area, the de-stabilization has already commenced. The Ukraine-EU treaty has drawn stern comments from Russia claiming some sort of unfair advantage whereby Russia will be flooded by "cheap" EU goods through Ukraine (Ukraine also has a free treaty agreement with Russia). Now, how ridiculous is this comment? "Cheap" EU goods? Seriously? We doubt very much that anywhere in the planet manufacturing costs are higher than in EU. Cheap? Under normal circumstances we would be asking the key question: what were the apparatchiks in the Kremlin smoking when they came up with this one. Alas, we won't because they were not. All they needed was an excuse to de-stabilize the deal. Any excuse will do. And as such, the goal was reached. Russia and Ukraine imposed "severe" economic conditions on each other regardless of the "official" deals regarding imports that were signed.
Again, do you honestly believe that Putin will stick to the letter of the agreements? The economic agreements between Russia and Ukraine are dead and extinct as dodo birds.
The current situation is this: Ukraine is toast, although it is being toasted on a slow simmering fire. Ukraine can't export anything into EU other than raw materials mainly oil and gas since the manufacturing capacity in Ukraine is mostly non-existent… or at least on anything that the EU may be interested in. The problem is, there are no pipelines from Ukraine to EU. So, Ukraine can't export energetics and it does not manufacture anything worth mentioning. We are left with agricultural products only. However, EU subsidizes quite heavily its farmers, who won't be happy seeing the EU market flooded with Ukraine agricultural products. Dead end. Game over. Ukraine is toast. All Putin needs to do is to stay the course: destabilize and isolate economically. The first initiative is in motion (actually, it never stopped) and the second has been completed.
Yes, Ukraine will fall under Russian domination one way or another. It is just a matter of time and creativity for part of FSB operatives.
That's our point of view.
Then again, you may believe that the "World Community" and the UN and the EU and the USA will somehow stop Russian "aggression". Well… everybody is entitled to their own dreams regardless of how disconnected from reality they may be.
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
