NFBW :8: wrote: They should not have to decide anything under the threat of genocidal annihilation by a fascist superpower that has the weaponry to annihilate them and the entire world.
Delving into the dialectic of Vladimir Putin and his gestures, it is clear that Ukraine is above all a vehicle to achieve a fundamental point of his legacy: to resurrect the role of Russia as a world power. Even if it is through showing his military muscle and with the spirit of fear in the background. The thesis of the Russian leader on the neighboring country, also a former Soviet republic, brings together another of the keys that has tormented him: that of fighting against the expansion of NATO, says analyst Tatyana Stanovaya.
Slavic heart of the empire
But for the head of the Kremlin, Ukraine is not only about geopolitics, but also about restoring the Slavic heart of the old empire. And it’s personal, strategic, and generational, say Eugene Rumer and Andrew S. Weiss in a commented article for the Carnegie Center. “No part of the Russian and Soviet empires has played a bigger and more important role in Russia’s strategy towards Europe than the jewel in the crown, Ukraine,” experts say. The country is essential to Russian security because of its size and population (44 million inhabitants), its position as a buffer between Russia and other major European powers, and its role as a centerpiece of the Russian and Soviet imperial economies.
And a fundamental point, about which Putin has written a lot and which is also pointed out by 13% of Russians, according to polls by the Moscow Levada Center: their cultural, religious and linguistic ties with Russia ―Nikolai Gogol, Leon Trotsky and many great figures they were Ukrainians, for example. And in particular, the history of Kiev as the cradle of the Russian state. Ukraine, says Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of International Relations at the New School, has always been important to all Kremlin chiefs. “For the leadership of Russia, almost always – with the exception of the Khrushchev government – Ukraine has been and continues to be Malorossiya, the little russia; and when something else is demanded in Ukraine, problems begin for the Kremlin, ”says Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, under whose mandate the Crimean peninsula – which had been part of the Use and before the Ottoman empire – was transferred to Ukraine.
Furthermore, no part of the Soviet Union played a more important role in its dissolution than Ukraine. Ukraine’s declaration of independence after the failed coup in August 1991 marked the end of the URRS, which could not continue without Ukraine, says Leontiy Sanduliak, co-author of that declaration. “Russia cannot live without Ukraine, it cannot be an empire without it. And that is why they claim that Ukraine does not exist by itself and they try to destroy it, ”says 84-year-old Sanduliak. In a hoarse but firm voice, over the phone from his home on the outskirts of Kiev, he insists that if there are Ukraine’s ties to Russia, the country’s ties to Europe are “unquestionable.”
plainsmenpost.com
The fact that other former Soviet republics have sought new allies, such as some from Central Asia with China, does not matter so much to them, Sanduliak remarks, “but as long as Putin is alive he will not give up the idea of ’going back’ Ukraine.” The neighboring country, which the Russian leader considers partly as the ‘little brother’, has disconnected from the Russian orbit; and not to turn to either side, but to the West. It is consolidating important reforms and has paved its democratic path with free elections
:8: Give Peace a Chance 22MAR12-POST #0085
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