More on Ukraine from

[David Morris]

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/07/vladimir-putin-abandons-his-erstwhile-allies

Julia Ioffe writes about the latest from Ukraine:
<http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118606/russia-blocks-ukrainian-rebels-crossing-border-russia>
<http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118606/russia-blocks-ukrainian-rebels-crossing-border-russia>Russia
Riled Up the Ukrainian Rebels, Now It's Shooting at Them As They Try to
Enter Russia

As the Ukrainian army chases separatists from the strongholds they've held
for months, Moscow has barely said anything—despite its springtime rants
about protecting Russians wherever they may be in the world....As I wrote
back in May, *now that he's sown chaos in Ukraine—but uneager to
participate in someone else's civil war—President Vladimir Putin has thrown
the rebels under the bus.* In June, rebel leader Igor Strelkov said that
"Putin betrayed us," and that betrayal has only deepened as Kiev launched
its all-out offensive last week. Moscow, having started all this, has
offered no help to the rebels.

The betrayal, it seems, may be even nastier than that. According to a
Ukrainian security council spokesman, the Russians have sealed their
border, shutting down three key crossings. Not only are they not letting
men and materiel into Ukraine from Russia, but they're also blocking men
and materiel from flowing in the opposite direction. *That is, the very men
that Moscow has riled up to the extent that they have taken up arms and are
ready to die in order to get the region out of Ukraine and into Russia are
not welcome to seek refuge in Russia.* (Not even, it seems, the ones
originally from Russia.) A group of 300 fleeing rebels reportedly even came
under fire by the Russians as they tried to escape into Russia.

That Putin. He's quite the guy, isn't he? It appears that he eventually
figured out that Ukraine wasn't going to fall neatly into his lap, and the
cost of fomenting an all-out war there was simply too great. It turned out
that Ukrainians themselves didn't support secession; Western powers were
clearly willing to ramp up sanctions if things got too nasty; and the
payoff for victory was too small even if he had succeeded. So now he's had
to swallow a new, more pro-Western Ukraine—the very thing that started this
whole affair—along with the prospect of renewed anti-Russian enmity from
practically every country on his border.

But he got Crimea out of the deal. Maybe that made it worth it.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20140710/46be73b4/attachment.html>