bildt63_NurPhotoCorbis via Getty Images_russsia invasion ukraine

Los hombrecitos verdes del Kremlin

Apr 17, 2019 Carl Bildt

ESTOCOLMO – Hace cinco años este mes, una escuadrilla de “hombrecitos verdes” (soldados sin ninguna insignia nacional) tomó el control de una estación de policía en Sloviansk, una pequeña ciudad del óblast de Donetsk en el este de Ucrania. Así empezó la segunda etapa de la campaña de Rusia para desmembrar a Ucrania, después de su ilegal anexión de Crimea en marzo de aquel año. Como dejaron en claro las declaraciones mismas del Kremlin en aquel tiempo, el objetivo de Rusia era establecer un miniestado semiindependiente (“Novorossiya” o “Nueva Rusia”) en el sur de Ucrania y reducir el resto del país a una suerte de Gran Galitzia.

Los insurgentes pro-Kremlin eran una extraña mezcla de exaltados nacionalistas y “voluntarios” de las fuerzas especiales rusas. Aunque Rusia les suministró “ayuda humanitaria” y armamentos de avanzada, la expectativa era que movilizaran el apoyo popular al plan de creación de Novorossiya hasta hacerlo realidad.

Pero Ucrania no se rindió. Tras una elección presidencial en mayo de 2014, empezó a rechazar a los invasores y restaurar el orden. Para salvar al menos una parte de sus conquistas, el presidente ruso Vladimir Putin desplegó fuerzas regulares del ejército ruso en Ucrania. Y en septiembre, un acuerdo político negociado por la Organización para la Seguridad y la Cooperación en Europa (el Protocolo de Minsk) congeló básicamente la situación vigente, con el trazado de líneas entre brigadas de tanques enfrentadas.

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Carl Bildt

Writing for PS since 2009
103 Commentaries

Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to 2014 and prime minister from 1991 to 1994, when he negotiated Sweden’s EU accession. A renowned international diplomat, he served as EU Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, UN Special Envoy to the Balkans, and Co-Chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference. He is Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

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Harry Blässar Apr 23, 2019

It's all true what Carl Bild writes above. But a serious problem remains anyhow that some of those now in a war participating Eastern parts of Ukraine do have a notable Russian speaking and presumably rather Russian minded population. In the long run some kind of solution has to be found as to how this part of the Ukrainian population should be organized. An autonomous region and special arrangements? Decisions which can be streamlined with the Minsk Agreement, and an end to the military clashes.
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Paul Friesen Apr 22, 2019

The situation in Ukraine and other former Soviet territories is not a victory for NATO - it is a massive missed opportunity for peace. By expanding aggressively into these countries after the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO both humiliated and threatened Russia. That is now coming back to haunt us - at least those of us who desire world peace over the childish, chest-thumping, boasting ability to declare "victory" for "our" side. We really are ruled by small-minded children. Our "victory" represents thousands of ruined and extinguished lives.
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Peter McLoughlin Apr 22, 2019

To be dispassionate, the current worsening crisis between the West and Russia is leading towards war on the European continent; which of course will be a world war as well. Avoiding that is the challenge. The pattern of history suggests humanity will not rise to it.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
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Petey Bee Apr 20, 2019

Citizens of Ukraine who protested their government roughly 5 years ago (leaving out the "alt-right" vanguard) were promised the chance to be admitted to the EU. This would indeed have been a great deal. Thing is, it was completely misleading.

To this day, EU is not about to admit another 44 million eastern europeans. With the possibility of Brexit, and alienation of the Mediterranean population due to the combination of austerity and eurozone crisis since 2008, there is already concern that the "more reliable" core of the northern nations + France will no longer command enough votes under the double-majority rules under the treaty of Lisbon. But this was obvious in 2014 also.

This whole subject is not one that admits honest discussion, so I'll try to refrain from controversy by skipping the other historical details that were conveniently left out. But one thing this whole sordid episode was *not*, is a victory. Not for anyone, least of all in any part of Ukraine. Already impoverished by years of alternating west and east leaning oligarchs, it is simply another instance of the inexorable pattern of all the other similar interventions.

NATO at least got to have some "action". Collectively there is over a trillion $ defense budget and a million (more?) men at arms. The plausibility of a Russian invasion is massively hyped up, but the Chinese are too far to fight, and there is noone else. Countries bordering Ukraine and Russia, Turkey above all, enjoyed the attention.

As for the EU, the benefits are nil. They were fortunate that there was not a full scale conflict with a refugee wave similar to the one from Syria.
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Jonathan Engel Apr 20, 2019

One feels uncomfortable reading that Mr. Bilt congratulates himself and the EU in just about every paragraph. While they may have been some result from the ludicrous sums the EU has poured into Ukraine's limitless corrupt drain (the Russians, or rather the Soviets, gave up after a while), the "democratic transition" into the hands of a TV comedian recalls less that positive outcomes elsewhere. Best of luck Mr. Bilt (another sufficient justification for Brexit)
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j. von Hettlingen Apr 19, 2019

Looking back at Russia’s annexaton of Crimea in 2014, Carl Bildt explains how the Eastern Partnership, a initiative that he and his Polish counterpart, Radek Sikorski, launched in 2009, has enabled Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine – Putin’s candidates for his Eurasian Economic Union – to cooperate with the EU. The EEU makes up of ex-Soviet members as well as the central Asian "stans".
The EEU came into being a year after Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. Tense relations with Russia had been exacerbated by Moscow’s support for Georgia’s separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Over the centuries, Georgia was the object of rivalry between Persia, Turkey and Russia, before being annexed by Russia in the 19th century. Since gaining independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia again became the arena of conflicting interests.
America’s economic and political influence in Georgia has long been a source of concern for neighbouring Russia, as have Georgia's aspirations to join NATO and the EU. The five-day conflict – fought over South Ossetia and Abkhazia – ended with Russia recognising the independence of the two separatist regions. The conflict also turned Georgia away from Russia and towards the EU, with whom it signed an association agreement in 2014. Its economy has grown robustly in recent years.
The author says, “the larger impetus behind the Eastern Partnership was that Russia’s neighbors in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus had expressed a desire for stronger ties with the EU.” And the initiative never meant to pose any “threat” to the partner countries’ existing arrangements with Russia. The six former Soviet republics, that had a free-trade agreement with Russia could have one with the EU, too.”
Critics maintain that Bildt and Sikorski were the EU's most anti-Russian and abrasive foreign ministers, pushing themselves forward as the main champions of their initiative, as Nato's hopes of getting Ukraine to join the ever-expanding Alliance were foundering. Russia was watching angrily when Ukraine sought to pivot to Brussels.
At a summit in Lithuania in 2013, Putin’s stooge in Kiev, President Viktor Yanukovych decided to shelve a political association agreement and a free-trade pact with the EU, accords that had been negotiated for six years, offering trade and financial benefits in return for democratic reforms while falling short of the economic appeal of EU membership. Yanukovych was under pressure from Russia, which wanted Ukraine to join its rival EEU.
Ukrainians took to the streets and started their Maidan protests in February 2014 that led to Yanukovych’s resignation. A few weeks later, “little green men” were deployed to Crimea and took control of the peninsula. They went on to invade eastern Ukraine in April, creating a “frozen” conflict that killed more than 13,000 people and displacing millions, taking a toll on Ukraine’s economy.
The author says the EU “deserves” some credit for standing by Ukraine, whose economy “has begun to turn a corner. And it has just held the first round of a presidential election that meets Europe’s high standards of freedom and fairness.”
Yet polls suggest that despite a complete lack of political experience, the 41-year-old comedian and actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy is due to score an overwhelming victory over the incumbent on Sunday. Petro Poroshenko won the presidency in 2014 shortly after the Maidan revolution. But many Ukrainians are disappointed by the lack of progress and have had enough of rampant corruption. They are ready to vote for Zelenskiy despite his lack of a programme, in the hope that he might shake up the system. Once again Putin will benefit from instability in Ukraine.
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jose oscategui Apr 19, 2019

Mr Bildt could be wrong in a big way. The results of in incoming elections in Ukraine will tell if he is right or wrong. The policies followed by Russians have an extremely close resemblance to those followed by the US against, for instance, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.
My guess is that Mr Bildt will be proved wrong.
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Godfree Roberts Apr 17, 2019

" the Kremlin has tried desperately to reassert its sphere of influence, even launching illegal incursions into Ukraine."

Nonsense. OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier said he saw no Russian troops in Ukraine. http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150213/1018221522.html

Ukraine Chief of Staff Admits No Russian Troops in Donetsk.  http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150129/1017514425.html

No Evidence of Russian Military Hardware Presence in Ukraine – French President Hollande.  http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150220/1018534477.html

NATO Unable to Provide Proof of Alleged Russian Troops in Ukraine. http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150212/1018168758.html

Markian Lubkivsky, the adviser to the head of the SBU (the Ukrainian version of the CIA) stated there are NO RUSSIAN TROOPS ON UKRANIAN SOIL. He said the SBU counted about 5000 Russian nationals, but not Russian soldiers in Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics. He further clarified that there were no organized Russian units in Donbass. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ukraine-2nd-Day-of-Heavy-F-by-George EliasonAtrocities_Congress_Genocide_Holocaust-141107-203.html

Former NATO General Kujat: I don't believe evidence of Russian invasion. https://youtu.be/l0_yaWyA-1s
- dua38415 Apr 23, 2019
  
  All yours "sources " are Sputnik news, a pro Russian propoganda outlet, nice try ....
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Los hombrecitos verdes del Kremlin

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