Ukraine, Crimea and the War of the Worlds

Now this “Ukraine” has been undergoing crisis for quite some time. It is one of the few East European Soviet breakaway nations that are yet to stabilize, the other being lesser known Romania. Unrest in Kiev and sharp polarization between Ukrainian speaking people and Russian speaking people has been doing the rounds in the newsroom for quite some time. But even so Crimea’s sudden decision to secede seemed like a shot out of the blue. And suddenly the East West war is on again – at first glance it looked like time pass to me – like Men need to war over something sort of a thing. But the more I have been reading about it the more I realize how each side is seeing it as some sort of turning point in global power division.

Now apart from Russian interest and Western interest, looking at the Ukrainian interest, I have put in my 2 bit.

First, imprisoning Yulia Tymoshenko  on corruption charges seemed wrong to me 3 years back when it was done. Whenever I see a party putting its predecessors in jail, it seems like nepotism to me. If you ask me, a ruling party should have immunity for one term after they lose election to another party. Because corruption charges are something so easy to manipulate that you can frame virtually any politician in it. Although, looking at the present time, overthrowing Victor Yanukovich has in no measure been anything but unconstitutional.

Coming to the second part, Ukraine seems like a linguistically divided society with very sharp differences. Yet it is a centralized state which is obviously unable to meet the needs and aspirations of both sides. Either one or the other side is upset based on which side the Prime Minister comes from. Well, federal structure is the right solution for it. It is a time tested formula and why is there any opposition to that? Federalism with center state power sharing is a good way to stabilize divided societies and has worked in most countries. Ukraine should do that immediately.

Coming to Crimea itself, well the comparison with Kosovo is valid but I am not a big fan of this “Right to self determination” UN Charter. Look what it did to Yugoslavia. I think this charter came into force when the colonial rule was ending and in that context it was a very powerful mechanism. However, now I’m not sure what its significance is. Because generally, when one region secedes from a country it sort of triggers a dominoes effect and almost every other region wants to do the same. I’d repeat – look what it did to Yugoslavia. And Indonesia just about escaped a similar fate by the skin of its teeth. But again, the charter needs to be reconsidered at the overall level.

However, my main point is that Ukraine should save itself from becoming a pawn in the East-West game and chart its course for itself. Look where Poland is headed – Ukraine has a lot of catching up to do unless it only benchmarks itself to Romania. I have never seen anything good come out of any nation or region that becomes a boiling point issue for the Cold War style rivalry. But Yulia Tymoskenko has just managed to free herself and with so much dependence on the West to stabilize her, it might be hard for her to take any long term good decision.

I don’t know which global power will have the final say but I think Ukraine is in for a rough ride.