Every day the news out of the Ukraine gets worst and
everyone is holding their breaths as to what Vladimir Putin of Russia will do.
He has amassed a large military force on the border with the Ukraine and is
just waiting for a chance to invade under the pretext of protecting ethnic Russian
citizens being “tortured” by ethnic Ukrainians.
This is a similar tactic used by Adolf Hitler when he
invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938 (Sudetenland) under the pretext of saving ethnic
Germans from persecution; we all know what happened afterwards.
I have been talking with my friends in Poland who are concerned
about the escalation of tensions in the region; they fear their historical
enemy Russia as they very well should.
The Ukraine is an interesting country with an interesting
history; my wife is 50% Ukrainian which is interesting because Ukrainians and Poles
did not like each other much and battled constantly; I guess me and my wife
overcame our historical differences…I am 100% Polish.
I did business in the Ukraine and found the country to be
dangerous, very poor and very corrupt. Russia has dominated the country for a
long time even making Russian the official language. Stalin starved millions in
the Ukraine and moved ethnic Russians into the country making it a divided
country with Ukrainians/Poles in the west and Russians in the east; a civil war
is possible.
Russians have historically an image problem; they thought of
themselves as a great nation / power on par with any nation in the West but
reality showed them to be a poor, badly governed nation that struggles to
provide daily bread…Putin wants Russia to be a major power again and be reckoned
with as a major power and to get that he will flex his military muscle…but to
what end?
We can hurt Russia economically and Putin knows that but
Putin needs what the Chinese say “to save face” and come out looking like the
mighty dictator that he is; in essence, he needs to win this so called battle
or at least appear to have won.
He has CRIMEA so that is a partial victory. He wants the
Ukraine to be in his “sphere of influence” and that is going to be hard to
achieve since Ukrainians want to align themselves with the West while ethnic
Russians in the Ukraine want to remain close to Russia.
Partitioning the country is probably not an option but
allowing certain areas “local rule” may be an option. In any event, Putin needs
something from the Ukrainians he can hang his hat on…history in the making!
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