Ibne Siraj :
Crimea has now become a part of Russia while actions against Moscow came as the new punitive measures imposed by Washington are expanding the European sanctions that have already began to have an impact across Russia and beyond. Reports said, Russian stocks were hit, electronic payments inside the country snarled and energy traders scrambled to assess whether they could still deal with a big Geneva-based trading firm. On the other hand, there is somewhat an evidence of public rush to boycott American or European goods and services. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared relatively calm and quipped that he would be opening an account at Bank Rossiya, the lone financial institution on the US sanctions list already issued. He also recommended halting the escalation of tensions, a day after Russia issued a tit-for-tat travel ban on nine US government officials in response to Washington’s original blacklist. In an interview, Austrian Ewald Stadler said that European countries had imposed sanctions against Moscow to save their political face in the world. “I think we as the Europeans have to pay the price and not the power who is behind the sanctions-that’s the United States of America,” he said. Stadler, who was also an election observer in Crimea recently, said that the decision to rejoin Russia was the result of the free will of the Crimean people.
A day after the US extended its sanctions blacklist to take in businesspeople and aides from Putin’s inner circle, the Russian president told his security council that he would not take retaliatory measures against the US sanctions nor against threats that Ukraine will implement a visa regime with Russia. Western powers signaled their intention to maintain the pressure, with France announcing a suspension of all military cooperation with the country and offering warplanes to the Baltic republics, which also have sizeable Russian minority populations and borders with it.
The US was reportedly organizing military exercises in Eastern Europe to include Poland and the Baltic trio of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. But Putin appeared insouciant in the face of the western maneuvers. In response to the US move to include Bank Rossiya on the blacklist because it is believed to be the “personal bank for senior officials of the Russian Federation”, Putin joked: “I personally didn’t have an account there, but I’ll definitely open an account there.”
As for the 20 influential officials added to the US sanctions list, a smiling Putin warned: “Stay away from them, they’ll compromise us”.
Russia’s Central Bank promised to support Bank Rossiya, apparently guaranteeing that it would not let the bank fail now that US sanctions had cut off its dealings with international credit card companies and other institutions.
However, with a historic sweep of his pen, Putin signed a treaty to annex Crimea and described the move as correcting past injustice and a necessary response to what he called Western encroachment upon Russia’s vital interests. In an emotional, 40-minute speech that was televised live from the Kremlin, Putin said that “in people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an integral part of Russia.”
He dismissed Western criticism of the Crimean referendum-in which people of the strategic Black Sea peninsula backed overwhelmingly breaking off from Ukraine and joining Russia-as a manifestation of the West’s double standards. At the same time, the Russian leader said his nation didn’t want to move into other regions of Ukraine, saying “we don’t want division of Ukraine.”
Thousands of Russian troops have been massed along Ukraine’s eastern border for the last few weeks-Russia says that was for military training, while the US and Europe view the troops as an intimidation tactic. Putin argued that months of protests in the Ukrainian capital that prompted President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia had been instigated by the West in order to weaken Russia. He cast the new Ukrainian government as illegitimate, driven by radical “nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites.”
In his speech at the Kremlin’s white and gold St. George hall, Putin said the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine had been abused by the new Ukrainian government. He insisted that Crimea’s vote to join Russia was in line with international law and reflected its right of self-determination.
To back his claim that Crimea’s vote was in line with international law, Putin pointed to Kosovo’s independence bid from Serbia-supported by the West and opposed by Russia-and said that Crimea’s secession from Ukraine repeats Ukraine’s own secession from the Soviet Union in 1991. He denied Western accusations that Russia invaded Crimea prior to the referendum, saying Russian troops were sent there in line with a treaty with Ukraine that allows Russia to have up to 25,000 troops at its Black Sea Fleet base in Crimea.
Putin had previously warned that he would be ready to use “all means” to protect Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine, and Russia has built up its forces along the border between the two countries, raising fears of an invasion. Crimea had been part of Russia since the 18th century until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine in 1954. Both Russians and Crimea’s majority ethnic Russian population see annexation as correcting a historic insult. In his speech, Putin made it clear that Russia wouldn’t be deterred by Western sanctions, and asked China and India for their support.
As long as Crimea belongs to Russia, the West may well find Ukraine as a buffer zone between Russia and the West.
This speaks of an otherwise and sentimental situation that Russia and Crimea are now one, but the time ahead may stand out as a fact that Ukraine should be a buffer state between Russia and the NATO-led West. With all developments-positive and negative-until now, only the United States is being largely blamed for the creation of artificial crisis, which resulted in downgrading relations between great world powers whereas their cooperation in other spheres is so needed. It has long been obvious that the expected cooperation between the world powers are not working the way the global people have been trying to make it work. It is largely the US’s fault that they try to extend NATO well beyond the NATO’s proprietary distance, and its ability to handle an alliance that was spread all the way to Kiev, to Tbilisi.
This is an absurd created by the vicarious acts of the West, who started this mess knowing well that Russia would react. Now Russia has reacted and it is the duty of the West how to handle this situation. Western experts may try to find an indication that the US and the EU have had no way to go and they say they don’t wish to engage Russia militarily but it’s not to say that they could prevail ultimately in a military confrontation with Russia, that’s not the point. The point is why do they want to do it over a prize which is perhaps not worth having if they are NATO or the EU or the US?
The Russian State Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, has unanimously passed a resolution condemning US sanctions targeting Russian officials including members of the chamber. The chamber challenged Obama to extend the sanctions to all the 353 deputies who voted for the resolution, suggesting that being targeted was a badge of honor.
Putin found support even in unusual places. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev hailed Crimea’s vote to join Russia as a “happy event.” In his remarks published in an online newspaper, Gorbachev said Crimea’s vote offered residents the freedom of choice and showed that “people really wanted to return to Russia.” Gorbachev added that the referendum set an example for people in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern region, who he said also should decide their fate. Many in Crimea’s ethnic Tatar minority were wary of the referendum, fearing that Crimea’s break-off from Ukraine would set off violence against them.
But Putin in his speech vowed to protect the rights of Crimean Tatars and keep their language as one of Crimea’s official tongues, along with Russian and Ukrainian. The very fact is that Crimea is now a part of Russia and the West is not in a position to perpetuate the crisis in the rest of Ukraine for year ahead. If they do so, that would be unwise for the US and European interests.
(Ibne Seraj is a journalist)
