The Russian Bear is On The Move

Hey all. Well, it appears the Russians may be on the verge of a major regional and/or global power play. Reports right now are that armed gunmen (who are believed to possibly be Spetsnaz) have stormed the Parliament building in the Crimea and that the Russian flag has been raised over the building. This is an offshoot of the ongoing crisis in the Ukraine. The Crimea is of strategic importance to Russia because it is a northern peninsula in the Ukraine which provides port access to the Black Sea. The Russians have also placed fighter jets along their western borders on combat alert and have an intelligence gathering ship docked in Havana, Cuba. It is also believed that Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed president of the Ukraine is now being sheltered in the Kremlin.

The situation in the Ukraine is complex, but I am going to try to explain it in a brief nutshell here. This explanation is just going to hit the "high points" and not get bogged down in the minutiae and political intrigue too much.

Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president, was in negotiations with the European Union (known to some as the organization that would like to be the one world government) to strike a deal with them to create closer ties with the EU, create new trading opportunities and the like. Russia was not too keen on this idea and threatened the Ukraine with trade sanctions and higher natural gas fees if it pursued the deal. Also, the EU was demanding freedom for a political opponent of Yanukovych’s who is imprisoned for largely politically motivated reasons. So, around the end of November, Yanukovych cut off talks with the EU

At that point, the Ukrainian people launched into protest, demanding that Yanukovych sign the EU deal. Instead, Yanukovych flew to Moscow where Vladmir Putin announced that Russia would purchase a sizable amount of Ukrainian debt and lower gas prices for the Ukraine. This did nothing to quell the protests, so Yanukovych enacted an anti-protest law that, among other things, said that people could not gather in groups to demonstrate without police permission. At that point, protestors took over the city hall in Kiev. The anti-protest law was soon repealed, but by that point, the driving topic behind the  protests had morphed into constitutional reform. In short, they began demanding that the constitution be revised to put greater limits on the power of the president and more power in the hands of the Parliament.

Last Tuesday, the plan had been to introduce those measures in Parliament, but the Parliament speaker refused to allow it. This led to the latest bloody clashes. A truce was declared last Wednesday evening, which failed almost as soon as it was declared. Shortly after that, Yanukovych fled Kiev to Moscow.

The problem is, Russia is still not happy with the situation. The Sochi Olympics were a "restraining bolt" of sorts (for all you Star Wars fans out there), preventing the Russians from taking action while all the eyes of the world were focused on Russia as they hosted the Games. Now that the Olympics have come to an end, there is less reason for restraint on Putin's part. And, as noted in the first part of this post, action, it appears, is in progress.

We are now at something of a crossroads. Tension is extremely high on all sides, which contributes to an environment where everyone is kind of jumpy. This creates a situation that is ripe for miscalculation, which could send the whole thing spinning wildly out of control. The problem also is that we currently have a weak president. Probably the weakest in the history of our nation. He is not up to the task of brinksmanship that is required here. Not sure what is going to happen, but the next few days could be interesting indeed. Prep hard and Pray Harder.