www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall What can be learnt from Ukraine's plight: An Article

Please go here [priestofthechurch.wordpress.com] for my latest post on Ukraine's situation. The blog link will take you through to the full article on RISU.

Feel free to comment here, on the blog, or on RISU if it is of any interest.

Thank you, I just shared with email and Facebook friends.

The lesson that all countries will learn, thanks to the fecklessness of the United States and Western Europe, is international guarantees are worthless. If you have nuclear weapons, hold onto them; if you don't have them, get them as quickly as you can, for only possession of nuclear weapons can protect a weaker state from its larger and aggressive neighbors.

Da, Stuart and Amin.

Although Ukraine without Crimea isn't the end of the world. The real crisis of the Crimean thing was how Russia demonstrated that it can still be as Stalinist as ever to get what it wants, including lying, invading and lying about that and breaking agreements that it signed with other countries. Russia really cannot be trusted with anything. Its "Orthodox Christianity" is something that is there to serve its imperialist agenda. Nothing new, same old, same old. The fact that Lenin continues to be a national fixture for Russian identity says it all.

But whatever happens in the near future, one thing is certain - Ukraine is not Russia and is not a part of Russia.

It will only be such by way of crushing, military force.

Time will tell how this all works out. The propaganda war between the two countries is in full swing already.

And the UGCC and the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches have never been higher in the estimation of Ukrainians. They stand with the people and truly have taken on "the smell of their sheep" as Pope Francis has said.

Just as Russia and Yanukovych are driving the people of Ukraine (Ukrainians, Belarusyans, Jews, Tatars, even many Russians) into the arms of Europe, so too the Moscow Patriarchate, as the spiritual support arm of Russia, may drive Ukrainian Orthodox into the arms of autocephaly ... and even the UGCC.

I've heard of many, many cases already.

Alex

I still say all of this sounds like Kosovo. Yet the shoe is on the other foot.

It's not Kosovo.

Putin's Crimes and the Kosovo Precendent [commentarymagazine.com]

It sounds like Sudetenland to me.

Putin and his "Russky Mir" ideologue buddies Dugin (?) and the Russian Patriarch should take note that there are no more ethnic Germans in Sudatenland and Prussia - to the extent that Germanic town names and street names are eradicated from memory - (Danzig is Gdansk and so on.)

What was really funny was how this whole thing had to do with protecting "Russian-speaking" people etc.

In fact, all Ukrainians in Ukraine speak Russian, in east and in the west.

Our Tatar friends in Crimea sought the protection of a linkage with Kyiv but now many will be emigrating north to Ukraine.

What got the Russians in Crimea riled, among other things, was that they would now have to belong to a country where they would not be the dominant class. But there was never any question that their cultural or other human rights would ever be threatened under a Ukrainian administration.

There are 97 different ethnic groups in Ukraine, and have been, for a few centuries. They all have their language, culture, church/religion. And they persist to this day.

Alex

I can concede that it is not exactly like Serbia. However, the media blackout on the violence in the eastern part of the Ukraine does not allow for people to see the similarities to the ethnic tensions that were found in the Balkans.

And with the circles you are in Stuart, I am sure you have seen the Intel.

Crimea= warm water port. I don't see any other outcome.

I keep hearing from Russopliles about about a supposed media blackout from eastern Ukraine. That is nonsense and provocative Kremlin classic agitprop. The BBC and CBS Evening News have been reporting nightly from Donetsk and elsewhere. They are not telling the party line story as is being made up by RT but the reports are there.

Being an Orthodox Christian requires discernment. I have found that to be lacking in many when it comes to the so-called "Russky Mir" ideas formulated by Alexander Dugin and how it relates the Russian Federation's geopolitical aspirations and security in Europe.

I have no doubt that there are provocateurs on both sides, many of Right Sectors supporters are not "nice people." But, the idea that Russia has the right to contravene borders to protect ethnic Russians so echos German policies and propaganda of the 1930's is chilling and frightening in terms of world peace.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukrainian-city-of-donetsk-epitomizes-countrys-crisis/

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/ukraines-donetsk-braces-for-russian-military-advance/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26618950

"I keep hearing from Russopliles about about a supposed media blackout from eastern Ukraine."

"I have no doubt that there are provocateurs on both sides,"

This is self defeating. I trust neither side in this conflict. And it makes it worse that these countries are considered "Orthodox."

I guess if we hadn’t told some bald faced lies and invaded another country within recent memory, we would have some firmer moral footing to stand on. It’s a lot harder to get people to stand by international law, or take you seriously about it, when you pretty much ignore it when it suits your own purposes. Putin of course can take all of this and play it to great effect. None of that is equivocation or justification for his actions; it’s simply a recognition that we’ve led ourselves to a place where we really don’t seem to be able to take our own arguments seriously, much less the rest of the world. The highly wrought emotional pontificating of our Secretary of State just sounds like the parental “do as I say, not as I do”. Exactly what sort of action are we threatening? It’s pretty clear, more or less none. Maybe we will send him a “strongly worded” letter. Maybe we will continue to demonize Putin and not to understand or deal with his motivations or those of Russia. If that’s our policy, it does not seem like much of a policy to me.

Otherwise, what I’ve learned is the ordinary people will pay. I don’t see many “good guys”. Not Svoboda, Right Sector, Tymoshenko, Yanukovych, Putin, Obama, etc. I see a lot of Realpolitik and everybody looking to forward their interests. I see the EU taking a troublesome situation and turning it in to a crisis, one in which they or the West as a whole was not prepared to deal with when it exploded. Putin was, and that should be a lesson for all involved.

It’s not clear to me where God’s favor is in any of this unlike the article. I don’t trust those who portray these events as a clash of good and evil. There is too much grey.

I agree but have to add, being American and neither of Ukrainian or Russian background - it does seem to me that the legitimate aspirations of the Ukrainian people - whatever they may be - should be respected and honored by all parties.

Distancing themselves from the Russian orbit - whether Russia likes it or not - is a choice they may make - whether that it, or is not from a geopolitical/Kissingerian 'Realpolitik' point of view the best option or not.

But if that is their national aspiration, if the west stands for anything and if the fundamental values of the Enlightenment have any residual worth, we need to support those aspirations - for better or worse.

I would not go to war over this or support western military intervention, but short of that it is difficult for me to accept Russia's point of view as it seems strictly to be one of promoting their own self-interests to the exclusion of those of the Ukrainian nation.

Completely agree. It should not be the battleground of Western vs. Russian interests, but that is what it seems to be.