Nato indirectly provoked crisis
For most Ukrainians, Crimea is part of Ukraine, but historically Russia has a substantial claim to it, and the Tatar people have always had ambitions for independence, but their population was decimated by Stalin’s deportation to central Asia. Russians now make up 58% of Crimea, with 24% Ukrainians and only 12% Tartars. Crimea only became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev gave Crimea as a gift to Ukraine.
The Crimean peninsula is of vital strategic importance to Russia, due to its access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. It is likely that Russia could have lived with a pro-western government in Kiev developing closer economic ties with the West, but it was the spectre of Ukraine joining NATO, thereby sealing off Russian strategic access to the south that was always going to be unacceptable.
The party of Yulia Timoshenko have been pushing for NATO membership, and warnings recently issued by NATO Secretary General Rasmussen to Russia not to interfere in Ukraine, were at best counterproductive. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO, instead of being retired due to redundancy has been expanding eastwards. Twenty three EU member states are also full NATO members and the others are members of NATO’s so-called Partnership for Peace, so Russia views the European Union as being synonymous with NATO.
A peaceful solution to the East/West divide in Ukraine should have been to declare Ukraine to be a constitutionally neutral state, as Austria and Finland are. This would have allowed for economic cooperation with both Russia and the European Union, without threatening Russian strategic interests. This opportunity has now been lost.
Nothing was learned from the Georgian/ Russian war in 2008. On 1st April 2008, US President Bush said in Kiev that both Ukraine and Georgia should be allowed to join NATO despite objections from Russia. In August 2008, Russia annexed Abkhazia and South Ossetia provinces of Georgia.
If the Russian de facto annexation of Crimea leads to violent conflict with Ukraine, Russia may also seek to annex a slice of eastern Ukraine from Kharkiv to the Crimea.
Eamon Gilmore described the situation as the most serious European crisis since the end of the Cold War. He is correct, but the European Union has gone sleep-walking into this crisis, and NATO indirectly provoked it.
International Secretary
Irish Peace and Neutrality Alliance
Castletroy
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