Putin: "Thanks For Being So Cool About Everything" [The Onion]

boing
21

Yes, the BBC seems to do a comparatively good job of representing the different points of view on this issue. Nothing I’ve seen on German or US news quite matches that.

I fail to see the similarities with Kosovo.

Of course there are historical differences, but from a political point of view the similarities are striking.

The situation in Kosovo had a background of decades of violence and a clear rise in tensions over the years preceding the declaration of independence.

It’s decades plural now? This just gets absurd.

There is also no doubt that the move towards independence was clearly a matter of self-determination of the people living there.

I don’t see how that is not true for the people of Crimea. Also remember that after the independence of Kosovo, hundreds of thousands of Serbs left their homes there - I’m optimistic we won’t see anything like that in Crimea, though it certainly wouldn’t hurt Russia’s credibility to allow international observers as soon as possible.

Crimea, on the other hand, did not declare independence, but was incorporated into the territory of a superpower, which is quite a different matter.

It has some degree of independence in the Russian Federation, and when you consider that Kosovo is highly dependent on Albania in economic, political and cultural matters, this difference seems not terribly significant.

The Crimean government which organized the referendum and authorized the annexation was supposedly elected behind closed doors while under siege by armed pro-Russian (quite possibly, actual Russian military) troops, which makes it no more legitimate than the current Ukrainian government, which Putin dismisses completely.

I agree they both have quite similar problems with democratic legitimation. That didn’t stop the West from recognizing the Maidan government with no delay at all, and throwing loads of money at them. One thing they didn’t give them though was military aid, something that seemed not immediately apparent to Kiew, when you look how the tone of their statements over the last weeks.

The whole situation developed with unprecedented haste: it went from a complete non-issue (no talks about desire for independence or plans to join Russia) to a legitimized annexation in three weeks, which, at best, makes it highly suspicious. It does not indicate democratic self-determination, but rather backstage dealings planned in advance with popular support only generated though propaganda and manipulation.

It’s a fine line between “democratic self-determination” and “popular support generated though propaganda and manipulation”. In Kiew, they seem to have their fair share of the latter, too.

Two people have been killed, which is regrettable, but doesn’t even come close to what happened on Maidan. All in all, I fail to see that the current situation on Crimea would have been forced on the people there, or do them any injustice.

So all the West has short of admitting that it simply wanted to be the one calling the shots on Crimea is to complain about a breach of international law, which if we look at what they did in the last two, three decades is just ridiculous.

22

The funniest thing about the article was unintentional, and very revealing: describing the former government as “Kremlin aligned” on the understanding that readers would acknowledge that this in its own right made Yanukovich illegitimate. The article could have described Yanukovich as “duly elected”, in a result recognised as fair by the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Onion could have acknowledged that he topped all the exit polls etc…but no, when a coup is carried out against a Kremlin-aligned government, it has to be supported. No matter how many Nazis are involved.

23

Wow. What Putin Actually Said is a far greater satire than what appeared in the Onion.

As for the Onion article, they can’t all be jewels. Leave the Onion alone!

24

Wait, wasn’t that something the English did to the Irish? :wink:

25

Many have commented that the Russians are frequent practitioners of whataboutism…

26

Indeed, and many have also noted that they frequently do so while eating Tatar Tots with Tartar Sauce.

27

so, tell me. What did the English do to the Irish? And why was it wrong, in light of the fact that stalin would do the same thing, in a different historical context?

28

See also: Tibet, Palestine…

29

I don’t think there’s a soul alive that remembers those events. Yet the Tatars were deported in 1944.

30

It may already be the case - all residents of Crimea will automatically become citizens of Russia in a month or so (again with the hurry), which will make their Ukrainian citizenship obsolete because the constitution of Ukraine does not recognize dual citizenship. The only sure way to retain Ukrainian citizenship for Ukrainians living in Crimea is to leave their homes and move to mainland Ukraine before the deadline is over. Supposedly, there should also be a way to opt-out by submitting a request to the government, but some people have said it’s unclear how exactly to that and what their political status would be afterwards.

Of course, ethnic Russians are the majority in Crimea, but not by a large margin (58%). When the dust of propaganda and the fascism scare settles and the realities of living in Putin’s Russia kick in, some people may change their minds about this move. Setting up conditions that encourage the most troublesome parts of the population to leave “voluntarily” is probably a calculated move to entrench the Russian rule, just like the ethnic cleansing of Tatars under tsarist and soviet governments apparently gave Russia an eternal claim on the region.

One major difference between Kosovo and Crimea is that Crimean independence was never raised as an internal issue. In case of Kosovo, the talks for increased autonomy within Serbia had been going on for at least a year until the stalemate made apparent that Kosovo would not be able to bilaterally negotiate the rights it wanted and thus declared independence. Crimea however turned to Russia immediately, making it an international issue from the very start.

I could totally see a sequence of events that would lead to Crimea becoming a part of Russia in a way that is genuinely transparent and legitimate. First of all, Crimean government would voice its concerns about the policies of the new Ukrainian government to Kiev. If they saw the new government as illegitimate and without mandate on these matters, they would wait until the elections in May. There is no hurry - there are no violent protests in Crimea, only vague fears of possible anti-Russian actions.* If the fears of violence become reality before the elections, they could request international assistance for peacekeeping, and Russia could participate in its capacity as a member of UN and OSCE. In order to ensure fairness in the elections, Crimea could insist on supervision by international observers.

If, after negotiations between legitimate governments, Crimea still does not see a place for itself within Ukraine, a referendum for independence could be organized and, again, overseen by observers from international organization whose role is to ensure fairness in agitation and voting. If, after all this, it is obvious that Crimeans want to join Russia, they may proceed in doing so, and the international community, which observed and participated in every step of the way, would have no grounds to object. And then the situation would be comparable to Kosovo.

* yes, the Ukrainian parliament did vote to repeal the 2012 law that gave Russian a special status as a minority language, but the proposal was vetoed by the acting president. Even if the bill were passed, it would only mean the return of status quo prior to 2012, which I’ve never seen described as discriminatory.

Small countries rely on cooperation with their neighbors, that is natural and unavoidable. A global superpower gaining ownership of a strategically important territory is a different matter. Independence of Kosovo may have set a precedent for ethnic minority dominated regions to secede, which has limited applications elsewhere in the world (e.g. Spain finds it troublesome with regards to Catalonia and Basque country, but most of Europe is fine with it). The annexation of Crimea sets a precedent that major powers may intervene and annex land based on nationalist pretenses (“protecting Russian speakers”) - an empire-building excuse that should never have survived World War I and poses a direct threat to the balance of power in Europe.

I believe it is this threat to balance of power that pushed EU and US to hastily recognize the new Ukrainian government - I agree that, just like with the question of Crimean status, everyone should have waited for the elections in May which, hopefully, are going to end all doubts about legitimacy of government in Ukraine. The current situation in Ukraine is a mess, and I think that Russia deserves a lot of blame for making it worse by blatantly exploiting the instability for its own interests.

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31

If by ‘remember’ you mean ‘was there when it happened’, you’re missing the point. The whole idea is to create long-term control of an area by colonizing it with your supporters and displacing the existing status quo. The effects in Ireland are obvious to this day, and directly affect many people. I’m not criticising modern day Irish protestants here, but their very existence in that scale and their allegiance to the UK are not accidental.

32

gee. maybe the solution lies in the multiethnic state, rather than in nationalist projects that sideline a good portion of the population.

(as a kid I played “Empires of the Middle Ages”–subject peoples outside your language group were always harder to rule, but you could change things by engaging in centuries long colonization project. useful for simulating the Welsh campaigns for instance )

Putin’s justification is couched in nationalistic language-- so I’m quite skeptical of any reassurances he might give. It’s past time to give the nation-state the boot.

33

Aye, but there’s folks alive remember the stuff we did since.

34

Every now and then, The Onion puts in something that’s an obvious sop to conservatives. It’s usually painfully unfunny and missing the point.

35

When you look at Kosovo from the usual perspective of westerners, there maybe aren’t a lot of parallels. The intervention there was a matter of protecting a minority from genocide, and since intervention wasn’t going to happen under UN auspices, NATO stepped up and took over the role. The way Russia keeps mentioning it tells you they see it from a different perspective.

And to some extent that’s fair, because it’s important to remember NATO was at heart an alliance against Russia. For a long time, it defined the western sphere of influence, and the Warsaw pact defined the eastern. The collapse of the Soviet Union changed that and to some extent the organizations lost those roles.

Kosovo marked a new role for NATO; now it would police other nations and as we have seen can even cut them into new pieces. And honestly, you know the whole reason it was them instead of the UN is because then Russia wouldn’t be involved. This was because they were being difficult, true, but you can imagine how they might respond to being cut out of the process like that. Or if you can’t, they’ve made it clear.

Whether the interventions were justified or not plainly isn’t the point to them; things like that were decided through the UN. Kosovo was the western powers saying they didn’t need that kind of consultation, they would intervene however they saw fit; they didn’t need Russia to have a say.

In a sense this was reviving the western sphere; now in interventions like Ossetia and Crimea, Russia is saying they have the same right to settle things in the eastern sphere. Kosovo keeps getting mentioned not because the causes for intervention are comparable, but because to them, that was basically the reversion to the cold war power blocs.

1 Like
36

Isn’t that what Kelly’s Cartoon is for?

37

Except, of course, Russia didn’t help Crimea or Ossetia get independence, it annexed them. I can believe that the majority of Crimeans would rather be in Russia than Ukraine, but the speed and manner of how this has happened feels more like a land grab than anything else.

I’d believe Putin a whole lot more if the Crimea referendum had been carried out by a legitimate government without occupying soldiers on the ground. Which isn’t to say that I consider the government in Kiev to be any more legitimate. The whole thing is a shambles, and not helped by people like Klitschko and Tymoshenko seemingly holding out for Presidential runs rather than stepping into temporary interim roles.

I saw there were some reports of ‘concern’ about Russians in Estonia this week.

This place next?

38

Again, I don’t think the Russians bring up Kosovo as that kind of direct parallel. I think it’s them saying “Remember how you announced you didn’t need to listen to us, you could settle things your own way? Well fair is fair: here we are, settling things our own way.” Americans are worrying that Russia is starting a new cold war; I get the impression this is them saying America already did.

39

Without wishing to defend the actions of (in particular) the UK and the US, it seems mighty difficult to ever get the Russians to agree to anything they want to do.

Okay, I’m basing this on what I pick up from our media, but every time the UN Security Council tries to do something it seems to be US,UK and France on one side, and Russia and China on the other (which isn’t to say I think ‘our’ side is always right) - genuine question: when was the last time all five permanent members actually agreed on something substantial?

40

Not often. I’m not saying needing both America and Russia at the table wasn’t a huge difficulty for doing all sorts of things. I’m simply pointing out what the consequences of deciding we don’t need them at the table were - or rather, what the Russians are essentially telling us the consequences were when they bring up Kosovo again and again.