Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Alexei Pankin says speculation around the possible Russian invasion of Ukraine is beneficial for the desperate Victor Yushchenko, not his Russian counterpart.

Imagine that you have to prove you’re not a camel. “I walk on two feet, not four, and have no humps. I have no tail, no wool on my body suitable for making rugs. I cook myself borsch in a cozy kitchen of a modern city flat rather than wander in a desert in search of thorny tumbleweed.”

By the end of this self-apology, a part of your audience will consider you a total idiot, while others will discover a likeness to camels – and this was exactly the purpose of those who made you have to justify yourself.

“Last August Russia attacked Georgia. Now it’s threatening Ukraine. If this is not so, then [President Dmitry] Medvedev or [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin have to clearly say so.” This is what I heard from my close friends, patriots of their country, with no anti-Russian complexes, last time I visited Kyiv. This was around the days when the August address of President Dmitry Medvedev to President Victor Yushchenko was heatedly discussed by the public.

It’s precisely because I don’t doubt the sincerity of my friends that I considered as serious the recent letter of about 30 prominent Ukrainians to governments, parliaments and people of the world, asking for protection of their country from Russian aggression. This followed the approval of our new law allowing use of military force abroad. One has to figure out these sorts of moods.

The first thesis -- that the Georgian war was just the beginning of restoration of the former glory of the Russian empire and that Ukraine will be the next victim -- was spread during last year’s conflict in South Ossetia. Then all Western media with few exceptions unequivocally lied: “Authoritarian and aggressive Russia invaded Georgia out of the blue to stomp out their shoots of democracy.”

This was not a discussion of concrete Russian actions in a given situation, but the creation of a picture that has no relation to reality.

“So far I cannot understand what is behind this. But this is radically different from everything I have come across in recent years,” wrote William Dunkerley, an American media expert, about the propaganda war against Russia unfolding in those days.

At the same time in Moscow, clever people repeated the mantra unleashed by one of the ideologists of the Vladimir Putin rule, Gleb Pavlovsky: “Losing has to be quick.”

The very fact of [Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili’s attack on South Ossetia put Russia in a lose/lose situation. By refusing to use force against force, it would lose face. By using force it assumed the image of an aggressor, ending up internationally isolated. It seemed that everybody understood that, except our romantic president and prime minister, who made the second choice.

Their speeches were full of honest bewilderment: How can this possibly be? We prevented an ethnic cleansing of the Ossetians, slapped the hands of the Caucasian Slobodan Milosevic and received a wave of hatred instead of gratitude.

A year on, we’re coming back to the same old camels in Ukraine. So, who can possibly profit from the war between Ukraine and Russia? Medvedev and Putin’s lives are going rather well. They have high support ratings. The economic crisis has not caused any serious social tensions in the country. The political system is under control. The kind of opposition they have, like the comical figures of Gary Kasparov and Eduard Limonov, could only make Yushchenko envious.

In other words, nothing threatens their power and they have no reason for military adventures with unpredictable outcomes. So, they divert their energy to writing laws how to use Russian military forces abroad, as if sending a signal: Dear neighbors, do not complicate our lives with provocations.

The Ukrainian president’s situation is rather different. He is unpopular, but he really wants to once again become the head of state. However, nothing can help him in this endeavor, except the anti-Russian card, especially if he gets some international support. What’s more, if there is some shooting in Crimea, this will be a real gift to the president, who can say “I told you so.”

What about NATO, a useless, but energetic bureaucracy? It does not like to carry out its direct obligations, i.e., wage war. But it likes to expand.

A military conflict between Ukraine and Russia would give it years of work to create “a collective security system based on common values” and other such nonsense.

Having lost to U.S. President Barack Obama, the American neo-conservatives have not left the stage and are dreaming of revenge. They maintain a powerful propagandist, political and economic resources, as well as clientele in the Central and Eastern Europe.

The Russian-Ukrainian squabble would be a punch in the guts for Obama. It would also rehabilitate ex-President George Bush Jr. in the eyes of history. Besides, there is an economic interest. Following the South Ossetia conflict, America allocated $1 billion to Georgia, a nonsensical sum considering the size of the country. Restoration of a state like Ukraine can boot up the American economy quite nicely.

And the story of Iraq demonstrated what sort of budgets are available for embezzling: A can of Coca-Cola supplied by U.S. government contractors to American soldiers cost the tax payers $40 under Bush, while the bill for washing a load of soldiers’ linen was $104.

So, dear Ukrainian brothers, keep writing letters to the West. Sooner or later they will hear you.


Alexei Pankin is the chief editor of the media magazine “Strategii I praktika izdatelskogo biznesa. IFRA Magazine.” It can be viewed at www.iframagazine.com/epaper_ru.