Wednesday 5th March

So, Russia has taken over the Crimea completely.  This was expected after the partial attacks last week on the two airports.  But the great fear now is what next.  Amidst all the diplomacy the strongest message despite all the bluster from Kerry and Hague is to the new government in Kiev, and this is calling for restraint.  The fear is that if the Ukrainians retaliate then this will give the Russians the excuse they need to go further.  The mood is almost one, of – Okay, so the Crimea has gone, it was always a bit of an anomaly for it to be part of the Ukriane anyway, let the Russians take it back but please, please leave the rest of the Ukraine intact.

And the game isn’t over yet at all.  Putin has gambled that the West needs Russian trade and Russian Oil and Gas more than it wants a war.  Crimea was 58% Russian speaking anyway, it was an autonomous region that had always favoured Russia, Russia had its Black Sea fleet harboured there.  So the feeling is really that the Russians can have Crimea but no further.  But that belies the fact that about a third of Ukraine is Russian speaking, probably voted overwhelmingly for Yanukovitch, the ousted President, and there are now counter riots in those Eastern cities of Donetsk and Harkiv.  Also we mustn’t forget that is in the East of the Ukraine where the heavy industry, the gas fields and much of the wealth of the Ukraine lies.

I suspect that Putin will stop for now with the Crimea.  But there will be a standoff, maybe talks with the West, eventually a referendum in Crimea asking for full integration into Russia which of course they will win.  But events may well overtake even this.  If the new (il) legal government in Kiev decides to repress the counter-revolutionary riots in the East this might give Russia the excuse to take these over too.

Hitler in 1936 invaded part of Czechoslovakia on the pretext of defending German speaking people.  We let him and look what happened next.  I am in no way advocating war.  We must find a diplomatic and democratic way of allowing all the people of the Ukraine to decide their own future.  But the West must be very wary of helping ‘protestors’ to overthrow foreign governments.  Egypt, Syria and Libya should be warnings enough.  And the argument that you cannot invade another country in the twentieth century seems a bit strange coming from the country that invaded Iraq only eleven years ago.