Crimean flashpoint
6 March 2014 4:39 AM IST
If only ethics and intersubjective morality applied to international relations. Then we could have explained Russian military escalation in Crimean peninsula as an incontrovertible act of aggression. Unfortunately, that is not the case. True, Vladimir Putin is using military hyperbole to cow Ukraine to submission, primarily to safeguard its energy interests in the Crimean peninsula, but what gets obliterated in western accounts of the standoff is the presence of ethnic Russians in the region. Ukraine’s fledging leadership which ousted Viktor Yanukovych, the former president, needs to ensure that nobody is hurt in the vertiginous development and popular movement engulfing the nation.
Yanukovych, ostensibly a Putin puppet, who was stonewalling Kiev’s Eurozone aspirations to carry on the old love affair with Moscow, was of course deeply unpopular for reasons both economic and political. However, nothing really prepares us for the unlawful and extremely regressive act of using blunt force to shove down decisions from the top, even if they are symbiotic. What Russia cannot disregard is the will of the people of Ukraine, and any step taken without taking that into account is bound to be essentially counterproductive. It is only for this reason, and not any threat of reprisals, including sanctions and boycott from the Group of 8 issued by the West, that Moscow should backtrack and look for an amicable solution. Moreover, it must recognise the new premier and not brand Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster as an ‘unconstitutional coup.’
Yanukovych, ostensibly a Putin puppet, who was stonewalling Kiev’s Eurozone aspirations to carry on the old love affair with Moscow, was of course deeply unpopular for reasons both economic and political. However, nothing really prepares us for the unlawful and extremely regressive act of using blunt force to shove down decisions from the top, even if they are symbiotic. What Russia cannot disregard is the will of the people of Ukraine, and any step taken without taking that into account is bound to be essentially counterproductive. It is only for this reason, and not any threat of reprisals, including sanctions and boycott from the Group of 8 issued by the West, that Moscow should backtrack and look for an amicable solution. Moreover, it must recognise the new premier and not brand Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster as an ‘unconstitutional coup.’
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